Category Archives: Reform

The mainstream media is still not covering Acorn corruption, voter fraud, ties to Obama and recently is ignoring the shocking videos reported on Fox News. Extensive research was done on Acorn many years ago for the Catholic Bishops and real journalists such as Michelle Malkin and Larry Johnson pioneered revealing Obama’s ties to Acorn. The Citizen Wells blog reported the following on October 8, 2008.
Catholic Bishops report on community organizing, Acorn

“Introduction: This commentary is submitted to the Catholic Bishops of the United States with respect to their possible consideration of changes in the organization, funding, and structure of the Campaign for Human Development (CHD). It is essential to note, however, the limited purpose and scope of this commentary:”

“COMMUNITY ORGANIZING: During the funding period of 1992-1995, CHD gave significant grants to community organizing efforts that implement many of the organizational techniques recommended by Saul Alinsky.”

“The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) which is also patterned on Alinsky’s organizational recommendations, recruits individual members.”

“To be eligible to receive CHD funds, a program must be run by the poor, benefit the poor, and change social structures that harm the poor.” However, in light of the politically oriented thrust of ACORN’s activities, it is fair to ask whether the CHD subsidies to ACORN are advisable and commensurate with the purposes of CHD.”

“This commentary does not oppose CHD funding of genuine, grassroots community organizations, run and supported by individual members of a parish or diocese. There is potential value and virtue in the collective voice. However, when the CHD funds Alinsky-style, church-based community organizations as in the best interest of the poor and supports organizations which advance other agendas, it divests the poor of their right to an authentic voice. This process tends to treat the poor as exploited units of human capital, rather than as human beings created in the dignity of God’s image.”

“There are alternative, self-determined organizations of the poor, which are supportive of life. Those alternative, grassroots community organizations do not merely serve their constituency but rather they are their constituency. They do not use community organizing to further an additional agenda.”
“It would be reasonable for the bishops to consider:

The immediate cessation of all CHD funding to Alinsky-style, church-based community organizations.

To accomplish its goals, as outlined in the People’s Platform, ACORN has developed a political alliance with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). Together with others, ACORN and the DSA have formed a political party, the New Party.

National ACORN president, Maud Hurd, along with Dr. Cornel West (honorary chair of the Democratic Socialists of America) and a representative from the Reproductive Rights Coalition Fund, are listed as New Party supporters.”

Oct 8, 2008 Acorn, Catholic Bishops report, New Party, Democratic Socialists of America

From the Catholic News Service October 16, 2008:

“CCHD ends funding to ACORN over financial irregularities”
“The Catholic Campaign for Human Development suspended funding a nationwide community organizing group after it was disclosed June 2 that nearly $1 million had been embezzled.”

“”We’re not funding them at any level,” McCloud told Catholic News Service Oct. 15.

The suspension covers all 40 ACORN affiliates nationwide that had been approved for $1.13 million in grants for the funding cycle that started July 1, 2008.”

“Since revealing its financial troubles, the organization has come under intense scrutiny because of its voter registration practices. In several states voter registration forms have been found to include nonexistent or dead people. Some registrants have told elections officials they completed multiple cards at the urging of ACORN canvassers who claimed they would be fired if they did not meet a daily quota for signing up new voters.”

Read more:

http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0805268.htm
From Capital Research   in 2000

“As already noted, CCHD still funds several branches of ACORN, known for it’s radical protests against banks that fail to meet ACORN’s quotas for housing loans issued to low-income borrowers. ACORN demands that banks comply with it’s interpretation of fair lending practices and advocates for a higher minimum wage, federally subsidized housing, higher taxes and a repeal of the home mortgage interest tax deduction.”

Read more:

http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/Foundation%20Watch%20October%202000.pdf

US bishops cut off funding to ACORN

“November 12, 2008
Auxiliary Bishop Roger Morin of New Orleans, chairman of the US bishops’ Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) committee, announced yesterday that the campaign would no longer fund the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN).”

Bishop Roger Morin memorandum:

“Last June, CCHD cut off funding of grants to ACORN (Association of Community
Organizations for Reform Now) groups because of questions that had arisen about financial
management, fiscal transparency and organizational accountability of the national ACORN
structures.”
“Recent widespread reports of alleged ACORN involvement in voter registration
controversies and allegations of fraud raise additional serious concerns.”

“The current halt of ACORN funding means that no CCHD funds are
involved in any of these activities. Nonetheless, the suspension of all ACORN funding will not
be lifted until and unless it is clear that CCHD funds will not go to an organization that has
engaged in unlawful activities or voter registration fraud, even though this does not involve
CCHD funds.”….Bishop Roger Morin memorandum

The following report was prepared for the Catholic Bishops in 1997 and covers the period of time close to when Obama was a community organizer and involved directly with ACORN

“A Commentary on the Campaign for Human Development
Prepared for the Catholic Bishops of the United States
Prepared by the Wanderer Forum Foundation”

“This commentary is intended for the use of the Catholic Bishops of the United States in their consideration of the issues discussed. However, it will also be made available to other persons interested in these issues.”
“A. ACORN

1. ACORN received approximately 5% of the national CHD annual budget between 1992-1995. Between the years of 1992-1995, ACORN received $1,493,000 in national CHD grants.

2. ACORN’s People’s Platform was written in 1978 and ratified in 1979 at ACORN’s national convention in St. Louis. The document was revised and re-approved in 1990 at ACORN’s national 20th Anniversary Convention in Chicago and is in effect at present. Among other things, the ACORN People’s Platform specifies that ACORN demands that the United States :

· “create a national health-care system” in which “all medical costs are covered” and in which doctors are provided a medical “education subsidized by the federal government.” [section on Health Care, # I & II]

· “create more housing” by setting a “goal of a million new units of federally subsidized housing per year.” [section on Housing, #I]

· “charge government and big business with the final responsibility for full employment.” [section on Work and Workers’ Rights, #II]

· “guarantee a minimum annual family income…” [section on Work and Workers’ Rights, #III]

· develop schools that are “available for community needs, like adult education” and “job training that is linked to specific employment,” and which “can provide all support and services that a child cannot receive at home.” [section on Education, #II & IV]

3. To accomplish its goals, as outlined in the People’s Platform, ACORN has developed a political alliance with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). Together with others, ACORN and the DSA have formed a political party, the New Party.

a. National ACORN president, Maud Hurd, along with Dr. Cornel West (honorary chair of the Democratic Socialists of America) and a representative from the Reproductive Rights Coalition Fund, are listed as New Party supporters.

b. Bronx ACORN operates a New Party chapter out of its headquarters.

c. In a drive to identify political allies, the New Party held “extensive discussions” in 1994 with “high ranking officials in labor (teamsters, electrical workers, oil workers, bus drivers, etc.); grassroots environmentalists with Greenpeace, Citizens Clearinghouse on Hazardous Waste and Friends of the Earth; community organizations like ACORN and the Industrial Areas Foundation; DSA [Democratic Socialists of America] and Sane/Freeze, and scores of important local organizations.”

d. By 1996, New Party alliances with ACORN, the IAF, Sustainable America, and others, promoted “living wage” campaigns around the country. ACORN has also promoted the Income Equity Act of 1997 (H.R. 687, 105th Congress), which would place federal control over executive earnings by “denying tax deductions for executive compensation that exceeds 25 times the company’s lowest paid full-time employee.””
“During the 1990s, ACORN has been openly active in Congressional lobbying. Its leadership operates, “…from inside positions of power. ACORN’s work on the savings and loan bailout provided effective means of developing and applying power…ACORN members won appointment to the Resolution Trust Corporation to help determine the management of the billions of dollars of assets the government seized.”

   
“ACORN’s educational activism was described by Jennifer Anderson from the CHD-funded NY-ACORN at the 1995 25th CHD Anniversary Conference in Chicago. NY-ACORN is establishing alternative “New Visions Schools” within the New York public school system. During her workshop: “School Reform Sweeping the Nation,” Ms. Anderson identified the reform model which NY-ACORN schools are emulating as the Debbie Meier experimental public school model (the Networks for School Renewal).”

“Academically, the Debbie Meier educational model includes substantive restructuring. Standardized testing is eliminated: “For instance, to put the sort of intense emphasis on standardized testing…meant, in practice, the gearing of curricula specifically to prepare students to pass narrowly focused tests-with little attention to the broader array of skills and critical capacities essential in a real world environment…In contrast…an alternative began to emerge.” Parents and educators must be re-educated to accept this restructuring: “But for democratic school approaches [such as the Deborah Meier model] to work necessitated not only changes in the formal structure of education but also effective, skillful training and some clear public commitment to an alternative understanding of educational purposes themselves.” These “educational purposes” can facilitate the training of new community organizers. In ACORN’s New Visions School in New York, Local 1199 School for Social Change, “…students analyze public health issues, the organization of community groups, the development of public policy and the international labor movement. Students are involved in hands-on activities in order to relate classroom learning to community service. These activities range from participation in labor and community organization movements to service as interns at local health care facilities.””
“The Catholic Bishops of the United States ought to reconsider the structure, funding, and activities of the Campaign for Human Development.

This commentary does not oppose CHD funding of genuine, grassroots community organizations, run and supported by individual members of a parish or diocese. There is potential value and virtue in the collective voice. However, when the CHD funds Alinsky-style, church-based community organizations as in the best interest of the poor and supports organizations which advance other agendas, it divests the poor of their right to an authentic voice. This process tends to treat the poor as exploited units of human capital, rather than as human beings created in the dignity of God’s image.

Nor is there any basis for the CHD to imply by its actions that there are no alternative organizations that it can fund to promote valuable institutional change, uninfluenced by a politicized agenda. There is no necessity for CHD funds to go to organizations which contribute to or participate in any way in the political support of abortion. There is no necessity for CHD to fund Alinsky-style, church-based community organizations. There are alternative, self-determined organizations of the poor, which are supportive of life. Those alternative, grassroots community organizations do not merely serve their constituency but rather they are their constituency. They do not use community organizing to further an additional agenda.

It would be reasonable for the bishops to consider:

The immediate cessation of all CHD funding to Alinsky-style, church-based community organizations.

The immediate cessation of all CHD funding to any organization that directly or indirectly promotes an agenda contrary to the social justice teachings of the Church.”….Catholic Bishops report

Do you remember hearing about any of the above from the mainstream media?

Are your concerns about Obama speaking to school children unfounded?

With the availability of information about ACORN on the internet, with the kind hearted CHD cutting off funding to ACORN in 2008, there is no excuse for Congress taking so long.

I believe that Senator Shelby is requesting an investigation. Let’s make sure it is thorough and let the chips fall where they may.