That of course would have implications for the “global carbon offset market” if Kyoto II ropes us in and finally begins chugging down the tracks, next stop “Oil for Food on Steroids”.

Today’s Open Europe press briefing includes the following item (in bold in original):

A press release from the European police force Europol states that the VAT fraud afflicting the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme in the past 18 months, has resulted in the loss of approximately €5 billion euros for several national tax revenues. It is estimated that in some countries, up to 90% of the whole market volume was caused by fraudulent activities. Europol

It seems so hard to believe that a scheme concocted by Ken Lay and the boys at Enron in the mid-1990s, adopted recently by derivatives-types as their next playground, pushed all along by Goldman Sachs and feverishly demanded by George Soros should have to suffer the indignity of such charges.

“The Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration, J. Russell George, recently told Congress that at least 19,000 filers hadn’t purchased a home when they claimed the credit. For another 74,000 filers, claiming a total of $500 million in credits, evidence suggests that they weren’t first-time buyers.

Among those claiming bogus credits, at least some of them were definitely first-timers. The credit has already been claimed by 500 people under the age of 18, including a four-year-old. This pre-K housing whiz likely bought because mom and dad make too much to qualify for the full credit, which starts to phase out at $150,000 of income for couples, $75,000 for singles.”

The whole Wall Street Journal article here.

Open thread. Play nice. Tip your waitress…

ACORN Fires More Officials for Helping ‘Pimp,’ ‘Prostitute’ in Washington Office

Two more ACORN officials were fired Friday after a second video surfaced showing staffers in the community organizers’ Washington office offering to help a man and woman posing as a pimp and prostitute acquire illegal home loans that would help them set up a brothel.

The firings came less than 24 hours after another pair of ACORN officials from the group’s Baltimore office were canned for instructing the “pimp” and “prostitute” how to falsify tax forms and seek illegal benefits for 13 “very young” girls from El Salvador that pair said they wanted to import to work as child prostitutes.

Both of the encounters were videotaped on a hidden camera wielded by 25-year-old independent filmmaker James O’Keefe, posing as the pimp — tapes that have ignited calls for investigations of ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

The group’s leaders said Friday they were “appalled and angry” at what their staffers had done, but insisted the videos were part of a political “smear” campaign and not representative of the institution as a whole.

“But that does not excuse the behavior of the employees,” wrote ACORN’s president Alton Bennet and executive director Mike Shea. “We have fired them and are initiating an internal review of practices and reminding all staff of their obligation to uphold the highest legal and ethical standards.”

Read the whole article here.

Hugh Hewitt: I think you’re right. It will come down to whether or not there are enough Democrats who will lemming-like go over the cliff for the benefit of President Obama’s vision for America. And that remains to be seen. Let me ask you about the ACORN story. Have you been following the story at www.biggovernment.com that Andrew Breitbart has loosed about…

Mark Steyn: Yeah.

HH: What do you make of this?

MS: Well, this is a story in which he’s got some amazing footage of ACORN officials telling a pimp and a prostitute how to lie to the IRS, and how to claim mythical, underage dependents in exotic lands as dependents for taxation purposes and various other things. It’s fascinating stuff, because it’s a glimpse of what community organization is in action. Community organization means bigging up your base. And if necessary, that means conscripting all kinds of peculiar figures, including pimps, prostitutes and their various fictional or real dependents in foreign lands, and claiming benefits for them. And it’s absolutely outrageous that actually more of this wasn’t exposed in the campaign, because Obama’s connection to ACORN, and his willingness to give ACORN a role in the United States Census, puts a huge question mark over the reliability of government data, and over U.S. elections, not so much in blue and red states, but in purple states, it puts a big question mark over the integrity of those elections.

HH: It was the second ACORN story this week. There was one in Florida about false registrations where indictments have come down, raising the specter perhaps of pattern and practice investigation by that U.S. attorney. But by itself, right now, we’ve got one corrupt ACORN official advising two young, undercover investigative journalists on how to import child prostitutes, and claim them on their tax form.

MS: Right.

HH: As it is, I don’t know that it moves farther. But if there are other shoes that dropped, does this become a major scandal?

MS: Yes, I think so, because what is odd to me, if you look for example at the way Republicans are always being called on to distance themselves from their so-called lunatic fringe, the pattern here is that on the other side of the aisle, there is a lunatic mainstream. ACORN should not be a respectable group, and should not be anywhere near the United States Census. But as we saw with the Van Jones story, no matter how radical you are, on the left, it’s very easy for the most extreme radical to get right up close to the levers of power in the United States. That is where, unfortunately, that is where Obama’s lived most of his adult life, and that is where most of his associations are.

Read the full transcript of the interview here.

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Representative Charles W. Boustany, Jr., (R-Southwest Louisiana), today called for a hearing to investigate the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) and their tax filing assistance programs following evidence of suggested tax fraud.

“In light of the apparent flagrant and willful attempts to suborn tax fraud, I ask you to schedule a hearing of the Oversight Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee as soon as practicable to investigate ACORN’s activities in providing tax advice and tax preparation services, as well as whether ACORN has conducted activities inconsistent with the requirements for retaining tax-exempt status under Code section 501(c)(3),” Boustany said. “These serious allegations involve the administration and enforcement of our Federal tax laws, which fall directly under the jurisdiction of the Subcommittee on Oversight.”

Boustany, Ranking Member of the Oversight Subcommittee for the House Ways and Means Committee, has jurisdiction over tax policy and the Internal Revenue Service.

The full letter follows:

September 11, 2009

The Honorable John Lewis
Chairman – Subcommittee on Oversight
Committee on Ways and Means
1102 Longworth House Office Building
Washington D.C., 20515

Dear Chairman Lewis:

I was deeply disturbed by a video that came to my attention yesterday in which an official for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) instructs individuals on how to violate Federal laws (including tax laws) in most disturbing and unsettling ways.  If you have not seen it, I urge you to review the video, which can be found at: http://biggovernment.breitbart.com/.

In light of the apparent flagrant and willful attempts to suborn tax fraud, I ask you to schedule a hearing of the Oversight Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee as soon as practicable to investigate ACORN’s activities in providing tax advice and tax preparation services, as well as whether ACORN has conducted activities inconsistent with the requirements for retaining tax-exempt status under Code section 501(c)(3).

As the video clearly shows, a male and a female posed as individuals seeking housing and tax assistance from ACORN, whose staff coached them on how to commit Federal tax fraud.  In addition to advising these individuals to underreport their income to the IRS, when the filmmaker and his colleague informed ACORN officials that they intended to transport underage girls from El Salvador into the United States for illicit purposes, an ACORN official advised them that they could claim up to three of these girls as dependents for the purpose of claiming refundable child tax credits.  Such conduct shocks the conscience on many levels, and given the implications for Federal tax administration, further investigation by this Subcommittee into ACORN’s activities is most certainly warranted.

Unfortunately, evidence has mounted that ACORN has exhibited a consistent pattern of blatantly disregarding Federal tax laws.  A July 23, 2009 minority staff report published by the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Oversight and Government Reform found that, “By intentionally blurring the legal distinctions between 361 tax-exempt and non-exempt entities, ACORN diverts taxpayer and tax-exempt monies into partisan political activities.”  After detailing significant evidence, the report concluded that, “ACORN appears to have violated the Internal Revenue Code.”

These serious allegations involve the administration and enforcement of our Federal tax laws, which fall directly under the jurisdiction of the Subcommittee on Oversight.  As such, I respectfully request that the Subcommittee schedule a hearing to investigate ACORN’s activities as they pertain to its tax-exempt status and to its tax advice and tax preparation services.

Sincerely,

/sic/

Charles Boustany Jr., M.D.
Subcommittee on Oversight
Ranking Member

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