http://spectator.org/archives/2009/12/10/enabling-acorns-comeback

Congress — and possibly Citigroup — may be gearing up to start funding the organized crime syndicate ACORN again. The current federal funding ban expires Dec. 18.

On Tuesday evening the House Appropriations Committee rejected on a party line vote of 9 to 5 an amendment offered by Rep. Tom Latham (R-Iowa) that would have blocked federal funding of the radical advocacy group.

The amendment was needed because the Obama administration thumbed its nose at a provision in spending legislation that banned ACORN funding until the end of next week.

In a ruling revealed late last month by the Justice Department the Obama administration invented a loophole allowing the government to continue funding the president’s friends at ACORN. Through the magic of legal interpretation, the language forbidding funding the group was transformed by Acting Assistant Attorney General David J. Barron into a requirement not “to refuse payment on binding contractual obligations that predate” the original funding ban.

Latham’s amendment would have closed the loophole by banning funding for ACORN, including any funding covering “a contract or other agreement entered into before the date of the enactment of this or any such other Act.”

The bottom line is that the ACORN funding prohibition language remains in the massive fiscal 2010 spending measure taken up by appropriators this week but ACORN ally Eric Holder’s Justice Department has rendered that language virtually meaningless.

The Obama administration’s bailout of ACORN may help keep the financially distressed group that had been considering filing bankruptcy before Christmas open for business.

The bailout should be music to the ears of Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), a huge fan of ACORN who has given thousands of dollars over the years to the ACORN network. Nadler urged ACORN’s lawyer to sue the government, arguing that a ban on funding constituted a “bill of attainder.” Within weeks, ACORN took his advice.

This wouldn’t be much of a problem except that Nadler is head of a congressional subcommittee that might have to investigate ACORN. So far he has resisted calls to launch an inquiry into ACORN’s wrongdoings.

If this isn’t grounds for a congressional ethics probe, I don’t what is.

I suspect Nadler might even be a member of ACORN. I asked his testy communications director Ilan Kayatsky this question a few days ago and all I got was a snarky, error-filled email that didn’t answer my question.

Citigroup may also be on the verge of funding ACORN again.

Before ACORN issued a sham report exonerating itself from allegations of wrongdoing, Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit said his company was awaiting the ACORN-sponsored inquiry into the group’s corruption that was prompted by the emergence this fall of several hidden-camera videos.

The videos show ACORN employees across America eager to help a couple posing as a pimp and prostitute use government funding to open a brothel staffed by child prostitutes smuggled illegally into the country.

While that evidence was initially enough to convince Congress to cut off funding for the criminal group, it wasn’t enough for Pandit. Asked if he could envision Citi permanently cutting financial ties to ACORN, he said it “completely depends” on the outcome of the report.

Yesterday Citi spokeswoman Andrea Hurst confirmed a decision hasn’t yet been made on re-funding ACORN. “We are reviewing all materials,” she told me in an email.

Citi is a Big Government lovers’ bank that has long been a slave to left-wing fads. In what should be a gentlemen-start-your-engines moment for class-action lawyers representing Citi shareholders, in October the bank won an award for being the “Most Innovative Bank in Climate Change.” Citi and a host of other huge corporations may be rich targets to hit when the unraveling in progress of Al Gore’s anthropogenic global warming swindle is complete.

Citigroup’s charitable foundation has given ACORN affiliates more than $1 million since 2003. It has funded ACORN Institute ($500,000 in 2007), ACORN Baltimore ($5,000 in 2003), ACORN Child Care Providers for Action ($4,000 in 2003), and American Institute for Social Justice ($500,000 in 2005).

The foundation has also funded other left-wing groups including Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, World Resources Institute, Aspen Institute, Rainforest Alliance, and the Council on Foreign Relations.

Meanwhile, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) is concerned that a proposed “Consumer Financial Protection Oversight Board” may give ACORN a voice in shaping financial regulations.

Provisions creating the oversight board are included in legislation that would establish a federal banking bureaucracy to be called the “Consumer Financial Protection Agency.”

Bachmann said yesterday that the vague wording of the legislation (HR 4173) would allow representatives from ACORN to sit on the board.

“Groups such as ACORN that have been indicted in more than a dozen states for voter registration fraud and other crimes have shown that they are incapable of adhering to even the most basic standards of ethics. They should neither play a role in overseeing our nation’s financial system nor be eligible for federal funding.”

ACORN was a pioneer in using the Community Reinvestment Act, enacted in 1977, to blackmail banks. Today it is pushing to expand the reach of the law, even though it played a role in the subprime mortgage meltdown.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/71407-bachmann-acorn-could-regulate-the-financial-sector

The embattled community group ACORN could help regulate the financial services industry under new financial regulatory reforms, said Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) on Wednesday.

Bachmann, a consistent opponent of ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), said that an amendment given in the House Financial Services Committee could allow the group to sit on an advisory panel that monitors the regulations.

“ACORN may have a seat at the table being on the oversight committee regulating the financial services industry of the United States,” Bachmann said at a press conference. “And that would be a cruel joke.”

Bachmann’s remarks come as House Financial Services Committee chairman Barney Frank’s (D-Mass.) regulatory reform bill is set to be brought to a floor vote this week.

The amendment offered by Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) created Consumer Financial Protection Oversight Board that would need to include five members from the “fields of consumer protection, fair lending and civil rights, representatives of depository institutions that primarily serve under-served communities or representatives of communities that have been significantly impacted by higher-priced mortgage loans.”

The panel does not have the power to create policy but can recommend policies to the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency.

Bachmann argued that this provision could allow ACORN to participate on the board. ACORN was temporarily stripped of its federal funding by Congress in September after two conservative activists posing as a pimp and prostitute filmed ACORN employees offering them financial advice.

The Minnesota congresswoman said she would offer an amendment negating the Waters language. She requested a provision be added to the omnibus appropriations bill that would extend the funding ban to Sept. 30, 2010.

Bachmann previously offered an amendment to the Financial Services Committee version that would bar ACORN-like groups from sitting on a separate advisory panel. Her amendment was approved by the panel. Waters’ amendment was also included in the final bill.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/71353-mark-penn-got-6-million-from-stimulus

Nearly $6 million in stimulus money was paid to two firms run by Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton’s pollster in 2008. Nearly $6 million in stimulus money was paid to two firms run by Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton’s pollster in 2008.

Federal records show that $5.97 million from the $787 billion stimulus helped preserve three jobs at Burson-Marsteller, the global public-relations and communications firm headed by Penn.

Burson-Marsteller won the contract to work on a public-relations campaign to advertise the national switch from analog to digital television. Nearly $2.8 million of the contract was issued to Penn’s polling firm, Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, according to federal records.

Federal records also show that a former adviser to President Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign received nearly $70,000 from that contract to help alert viewers in difficult-to-reach communities that their televisions would soon no longer receive broadcast signals.

The adviser, Alfredo J. Balsera, who heads a public-affairs firm based in Coral Gables, Fla., helped craft Obama’s Hispanic advertising message.

Republicans on Tuesday criticized the federal spending on the advertising project as a waste of taxpayer dollars. They noted that the advertising campaign took place on May 5, only 39 days before the digital television transition was scheduled (June 12)

GOP Sens. John McCain (Ariz.) and Tom Coburn (Okla.) held a news conference Tuesday to blast 100 “wasteful” projects funded by the $787 billion economic stimulus package Congress passed earlier this year, concluding that at least $7 billion of the $217 billion spent through November was wasteful and mismanaged

The GOP senators highlighted the direction of the stimulus funds on the same day Obama outlined a new series of proposals for creating jobs that Republicans view as another stimulus measure. The proposals include tax cuts for small businesses, tax incentives for employers to hire new workers and infrastructure spending.

The need for additional measures has raised questions over the efficacy of the stimulus package passed earlier this year.

White House officials have said the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated the stimulus helped to create 1.6 million jobs. White House aides also have noted that the national employment report for November showed dramatic improvement compared to early this year.

A White House spokeswoman on Tuesday responded to the GOP report by saying Coburn’s previous reports on stimulus spending have been filled with “false or misleading claims.”

“In the end, even if there are a few unwise projects, it is only a handful out of the over 50,000 projects that have been approved to date,” said Liz Oxhorn, a White House spokeswoman. “The real question here is whether Recovery Act critics will at long last acknowledge that well over 99 percent of the projects are sound, effective and working as promised.”

McCain and Coburn did not show any indication that they knew two Democratic political strategists received funding through the grant.

A review of federal records by The Hill revealed Penn and Balsera received money from the economic stimulus program.

Burson-Marsteller, which Penn heads as CEO worldwide, won the $5.97 million contract through Young & Rubicam. (Burson-Marsteller has been a part of Young & Rubicam Brands since 1979.)

A contract award summary posted on Recovery.gov, the government website that tracks stimulus spending, states Burson-Marsteller was awarded a competitive contract by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to help prepare “unready households for the DTV transition.”

The purpose of the campaign was to “bolster the reach, penetration and impact of the FCC’s DTV readiness messages in selected markets, specifically among the groups that had been determined to be the most at risk.”

Cassandra Andrade, a senior associate with Balsera Communications, said, “I can see where there’s concern, but the contract was strictly based on our merits. We’ve been working on multicultural outreach for many years.”

Andrade said her firm worked to contact Hispanic television viewers in Philadelphia, Chicago and Los Angeles.

Andrade noted that according to Nielsen, a media-research company, there was a sharp decline in the number of unready homes in the week leading up to the digital transition and that 97.5 percent of households were ready for the switch.

A spokesman for Penn, Schoen & Berland and a spokeswoman for Burson-Marsteller did not respond to a request for comment.

Penn received scrutiny during and after the 2008 presidential campaign for the role he played in Clinton’s unsuccessful White House bid. Some Clinton supporters questioned whether his service was worth the millions in fees he billed to the campaign.

Penn’s firm billed the campaign $5 million for polling and at least $8 million for sending out direct-mail pieces, according to Time magazine. Clinton’s campaign finally paid off the debt in July.

Senate Republican Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) said the three jobs saved at Burson-Marsteller represented a poor value for taxpayers.

“It illustrates a very poor way to create jobs,” Kyl said.

Kyl said the appropriateness of Democratic strategists receiving funds “depends on whether they exerted some influence.”

The digital television advertising campaign ranked as No. 3 on the list of 100 projects that GOP senators on Tuesday highlighted as “pure waste” in the billions of stimulus funds spent this year.

At the top of the GOP list is a $5 million grant from the Department of Energy to create a geothermal energy system for the Oak Ridge City Center shopping mall in Oak Ridge, Tenn. The main problem with the project, say Republicans, is the fact the mall has been losing tenants for years and is mostly empty.

GOP senators also blasted a $1.57 million grant to Penn State University to search for fossils in Argentina and a $100,000 award to a liberal-leaning theater in Minnesota for socially conscious puppet shows.

Two million dollars in stimulus money went to build a replica railroad as a tourist attraction in Carson City, Nev.

A dinner cruise company based in Chicago received nearly $1 million in funds to combat terrorism.

Half a million dollars went to Arizona State University to study the genetic makeup of ants to determine distinctive roles in ant colonies; $450,000 went to the University of Arizona to study the division of labor in ant colonies.

The State University of New York at Buffalo won $390,000 to study young adults who drink malt liquor and smoke marijuana. The National Institutes of Health got $219,000 in funds to study whether female college students are more likely to “hook up” after drinking alcohol.

The University of Hawaii collected $210,000 to study the learning patterns of honeybees, and $700,000 went to help crab fishermen in Oregon recover lost crab pots.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9CEQGF82&show_article=1

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) – President Hugo Chavez said Monday that Venezuela has received thousands of Russian-made missiles and rocket launchers as part of his government’s military preparations for a possible armed conflict with neighboring Colombia.

“They are preparing a war against us,” Chavez said during a televised address, repeating a charge he has been making for months. “Preparing is one of the best ways to neutralize it.”

Both Colombia and Washington deny having any plans to attack Venezuela, but Chavez argues they are plotting together a military offensive against Venezuela. Chavez says his government is acquiring more weapons as a precaution.

“Thousands of missiles are arriving,” Chavez said. The former paratrooper-turned-president did not specify what type of missiles, but said Venezuela’s growing arsenal includes Russian-made Igla-1S surface-to-air missiles and rocket-propelled grenades.

Chavez, who has been feuding with Colombia for months, claims an agreement between Bogota and Washington allowing the U.S. military to increase its presence at seven Colombian military bases poses a threat to his country. Colombia says the deal is only to help it fight the war on drugs and insurgents inside its territory.

Chavez also said Monday that Russian tanks, including T-72s, will be arriving “to strengthen our armored divisions.”

Venezuela has bought more than $4 billion worth of Russian arms since 2005, including 24 Sukhoi fighter jets, dozens of attack helicopters and 100,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles. In September, Russia opened a $2.2 billion line of credit for Venezuela to purchase more weapons.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9CCM4F80&show_article=1

DALLAS (AP) – The leader of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense says the U.S. Justice Department was right to drop a voter intimidation suit against his group because the case was weak.

New Black Panther Party National Chairman Malik Shabazz says recent attempts to question that ruling are nothing more than a “political witch hunt” Republicans are waging against Attorney General Eric Holder.

Shabazz says his group does not condone voter intimidation and suspended the member who stood outside a Philadelphia polling place with a nightstick during last year’s presidential election.

The Justice Department filed an injunction against that man.

Shabazz says he wants to set the record straight as the group’s three-day national summit begins in Dallas Friday.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/03/researcher-says-nasa-hiding-climate-data//print/

The fight over global warming science is about to cross the Atlantic with a U.S. researcher poised to sue NASA, demanding release of the same kind of climate data that has landed a leading British center in hot water over charges it skewed its data.

Chris Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said NASA has refused for two years to provide information under the Freedom of Information Act that would show how the agency has shaped its climate data and would explain why the agency has repeatedly had to correct its data going as far back as the 1930s.

“I assume that what is there is highly damaging,” Mr. Horner said. “These guys are quite clearly bound and determined not to reveal their internal discussions about this.”

The numbers matter. Under pressure in 2007, NASA recalculated its data and found that 1934, not 1998, was the hottest year in its records for the contiguous 48 states. NASA later changed that data again, and now 1998 and 2006 are tied for first, with 1934 slightly cooler.

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Mr. Horner, a noted global warming skeptic and author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism, wants a look at the data and the discussions that went into those changes. He said he’s given the agency until the end of the year to comply or else he’ll sue to compel the information’s release.

His fight mirrors one in Europe that has sprung up over the the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit in the UK after thousands of e-mails from the center were obtained and appear to show researchers shaving their data to make it conform to their expectation, and show efforts to try to drive global warming skeptics out of the conversation.

The center’s chief has stepped down pending an investigation into the e-mails.

The center has also had to acknowledge in response to a freedom of information request under British law that it tossed out much of the raw data that it used to draw up the temperature models that have underpinned much of the science behind global warming.

Mr. Horner suspects the same sort of data-shaving has happened at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), another leading global warming research center.

Mark Hess, public affairs director for the Goddard Space Flight Center which runs the GISS laboratory, said they are working on Mr. Horner’s request, though he couldn’t say why they have taken so long.

“We’re collecting the information and will respond with all the responsive relevant information to all of his requests,” Mr. Hess said. “It’s just a process you have to go through where you have to collect data that’s responsive.”

He said he was unfamiliar with the British controversy and couldn’t say whether NASA was susceptible to the same challenges to its data. The White House has dismissed the British e-mails as irrelevant.

“Several thousand scientists have come to the conclusion that climate change is happening. I don’t think that’s anything that is, quite frankly, among most people, in dispute anymore,” press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters this week.

But Republicans on Capitol Hill say the revelations deserve a congressional investigation. Republican leaders also sent a letter to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson Wednesday telling her she should withdraw a series of EPA rules until the global warming science can be better substantiated. For now, climate scientists are rallying around the British researchers.

Michael Mann, a scientist at Penn State University who is under fire for his involvement in the British e-mail exchanges, said the e-mails’ release was timed to skunk up next week’s U.N. global warming summit in Copenhagen. Mr. Obama is planning to attend.

“They’ve taken scientists’ words and phrases and quoted them out of context, completely misrepresenting what they were saying,” Mr. Mann told AccuWeather.com in an interview, calling it a “manufactured controversy.”

NASA’s GISS was forced to update its data in 2007 after questions were raised by Steve McIntyre, who runs ClimateAudit.com.

GISS had initially listed the warmest years as 1998, 1934, 2006, 1921 and 1931. After Mr. McIntyre’s questions GISS rejiggered the list and 1934 was warmest, followed by 1998, 1921, 2006 and then 1931. But since then, the list has been rewritten again so it now runs 1998, 2006, 1934, 1921, 1999.

The institute blamed a “minor data processing error” for the changes but says it doesn’t make much difference since the top three years remain in a “statistical tie” either way.

Mr. Horner said he’s seeking the data itself, but he also wants to see the chain of e-mails from scientists discussing the changes.

The Freedom of Information Act requires agencies to respond to requests within 20 days. Mr. Horner says he’s never received an official acknowledgement of his three separate FOIA requests, but has received e-mails showing the agency is aware of them.

He said he has provided NASA with a notice of intent to sue under FOIA, but said he also hopes members of Congress get involved and demand the information be released.

NASA and CRU data are considered the backbone of much of the science that suggests the earth is warming due to manmade greenhouse gas emissions. NASA argues its data suggests this decade has been the warmest on record.

On the other hand, data from the University of Alabama-Huntsville suggests temperatures have been relatively flat for most of this decade.

http://biggovernment.com/2009/11/30/eric-holder-wont-investigate-his-radical-friends-at-acorn/

Attorney General Eric Holder has made it abundantly clear he has absolutely no interest in investigating his radical friends at ACORN.

Holder’s Justice Department released a legal opinion last week that allows the Obama administration to ignore the will of Congress which has voted overwhelmingly to suspend federal funding of ACORN until at least Dec. 18. He’s also ignored the 88-page report on ACORN’s systemic corruption and flagrant racketeering activities that was issued this summer by Republican investigators on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Apparently, public outrage at the continuing antics of the corrupt radical advocacy group that used to employ President Obama and White House political director Patrick Gaspard counts for nothing.

But Americans really shouldn’t be surprised that Attorney General Holder is bending over backwards to help his radical friends at ACORN.

Holder, whom I’ve long argued is unfit to serve as the federal government’s chief law enforcement officer, supports ACORN’s goals.

ACORN wants to use the power of government to bring about a radical transformation of American society.

So does Holder.

He is unapologetic about his desire to force Big Government down the throats of Americans. Holder rarely misses an opportunity to advocate expanding the size and scope of the federal government. He told a 2004 gathering of the left-wing American Constitution Society, “Government has been the primary force for positive social change in our country’s history. It can be again.”

Like ACORN, he thinks electoral fraud is a myth manufactured by people who want to disenfranchise minorities and the poor. “I think there is a feeling among Republicans that there is a widespread amount of voter fraud out there. I don’t think the statistics actually would substantiate it,” he told Fox News in 2004.

When Darnell Nash, whom ACORN registered to vote nine times, was convicted of vote fraud –not just mere voter registration fraud— in Cleveland earlier this year, Holder couldn’t be bothered to comment. A spokesman for Cleveland prosecutor Bill Mason, a Democrat, told me last month that a local investigation of ACORN remains wide open.

Like ACORN, Holder supports the so-called Fairness Doctrine that would force conservative talk radio hosts off the air Hugo Chavez-style. He told the American Constitution Society:

The nation must be reminded that the word liberal is more than a conservative slur. The nation must be reminded that it was the progressive, liberal tradition that brought about the social and economic changes that were necessary many years ago. The nation must be convinced that it is a progressive future that holds the greatest promise for equality and the continuation of those policies that serve to support the greatest number of our people. In the short term this will not be an easy task. With the mainstream media somewhat cowered by conservative critics, and the conservative media disseminating the news in anything but a fair and balanced manner, and you know what I mean there, the means to reach the greatest number of people is not easily accessible.

Also like ACORN, Attorney General Holder hates conservatives. Viscerally.

His public utterances are weighted down with the same old tiresome liberal clichés about those on the right one might find on the ultra left-wing Daily Kos hate site.

Holder told the American Constitution Society gathering that “conservatives have been defenders of the status quo, afraid of the future, and content to allow to continue to exist all but the most blatant inequalities.” They have “made a mockery of the rule of law.” Conservatives try to “put the environment at risk for the sake of unproven economic theories, to play to the fears of our citizens, and not to their hopes, and to return the nation to a time that in fact never existed.”

Conservatives are “breathtaking” in their “arrogance,” Holder claimed. “From redistricting schemes, to attacks on abortion rights, to energy policies that are as shortsighted as they are ineffective, to tax cuts that disproportionately favor those who are well off and perpetuate many of the inequities in our nation, the conservative movement has been unafraid to push the limits in advancing this agenda.”

Holder denounced what he called “the conservative agenda of social division, mindless tax cutting, and a defense posture that does not really make us safer.”

ACORN’s chief organizer Bertha Lewis couldn’t have said it better.

Holder also has a long history of involvement in charities and nonprofits that seek to stick it to conservatives.

He has been a member of the board of directors of the American Constitution Society. The ACS believes in the myth of the “living” Constitution and views the limits that great charter places on government power as quaint anachronisms to be overcome through clever legal sophistry.

ACS is, of course, funded by the big players in left-wing political finance, including members of the billionaires’ club, the Democracy Alliance. Reliably liberal benefactors of ACS include George Soros’s Open Society Institute ($2,201,500 since 2002), Ford Foundation ($600,000 since 2003), Sandler Foundation ($200,000 in 2003), Tides Foundation ($25,000 since 2002), Barbra Streisand Foundation ($20,000 since 2002).

Meanwhile, it has been exhaustively documented that Holder has what could charitably be called a cavalier approach to a key civil right, you know, that inconvenient, archaic one described in the Second Amendment that the media wishes we would all forget about.

As the Independent Institute’s Stephen P. Halbrook, author of The Founder’s Second Amendment, told a Senate panel considering Holder’s nomination at the beginning of the year, “many Americans have reason to be uneasy about Mr. Holder’s nomination for attorney general. They deserve to have a person in this role who is committed to upholding all parts of the Constitution, including the Second Amendment. Unfortunately, Mr. Holder has proven himself not to be that person.”

As deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration, Holder pushed for federal licensing of handgun owners and federal registration of guns, waiting periods for gun purchases, and rationing of handgun sales. The former Janet Reno acolyte signed on to a pro-gun prohibition amicus curiae brief in District of Columbia v. Heller, last year’s groundbreaking Supreme Court case in which justices struck down the District’s oppressive handgun ban.

Like Holder, ACORN has long supported gun control. Content to leave poor people in the inner city defenseless at the hands of violent criminals, ACORN intervened in court to defend a Jersey City, N.J., gun control ordinance.

Source: New York Times

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has concluded that the Obama administration can lawfully pay the community group Acorn for services provided under contracts signed before Congress banned the government from providing money to the group.

The department’s conclusion, laid out in a recently disclosed five-page memorandum from David Barron, the acting assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel, adds a new wrinkle to a sharp political debate over the antipoverty group’s activities and recent efforts to distance the government from it.

Since 1994, Acorn, which stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has received about $53 million in federal aid, much of it grants from the Department of Housing and Urban Development for providing various services related to affordable housing.

But the group has become a prime target for conservative critics, and on Oct. 1, President Obama signed into law a spending bill that included a provision that said no taxpayer money — including money authorized by previous legislation — could be “provided to” the group or its affiliates.

A Housing and Urban Development Department lawyer asked the Justice Department whether the new law meant that pre-existing contracts with Acorn should be broken. And in a memorandum signed Oct. 23 and posted online this week, Mr. Barron said the government should continue to make payments to Acorn as required by such contracts.

The new law “should not be read as directing or authorizing HUD to breach a pre-existing binding contractual obligation to make payments to Acorn or its affiliates, subsidiaries or allied organizations where doing so would give rise to contractual liability,” Mr. Barron wrote.

The deputy director of national operations for Acorn, Brian Kettenring, praised Mr. Barron’s decision.

“We are pleased that commitments will be honored relative to Acorn’s work to help keep America’s working families facing foreclosure in their homes,” Mr. Kettenring said.

Mr. Barron said he had based his conclusion on the statute’s phrase “provided to.” This phrase, he said, has no clearly defined meaning in the realm of government spending — unlike words like “obligate” and “expend.”

Citing dictionary and thesaurus entries, he said “provided to” could be interpreted as meaning only instances in which an official was making “discretionary choices” about whether to give the group money, rather than instances in which the transfer of money to Acorn was required to satisfy contractual obligations.

Since there are two possible ways to construe the term “provided to,” Mr. Barron wrote, it makes sense to pick the interpretation that allows the government to avoid breaching contracts.

Moreover, he argued, requiring the government to cancel contracts with a specifically named entity — “including even in cases where performance has already been completed but payment has not been rendered” — would raise constitutional concerns best avoided by interpreting the law differently.

The Constitution prohibits “bills of attainder” — legislation intended to punish specific people or groups. Acorn has filed a lawsuit arguing that the statute banning the government from providing it money amounts to a bill of attainder.

Founded in Arkansas in 1970, Acorn describes itself as the nation’s largest grass-roots community organizing group. It provides financial services to poor and middle-income families, conducts voter registration drives, and advocates for higher minimum wages and more affordable housing.

Conservatives have long complained about Acorn’s voter drives in poor neighborhoods, citing instances in which workers fraudulently registered imaginary voters like Mickey Mouse. Acorn has argued that it is the real victim of such incidents, which its employees have often brought to the attention of the authorities.

Criticism of Acorn escalated in September, when two conservative activists released videos they had recorded using secret cameras of Acorn workers in several cities. The activists had posed as a pimp and a prostitute seeking financial advice. Instead of raising objections, the Acorn employees counseled the couple on how to hide their illicit activities and avoid paying taxes.

Conservatives seized on the videos to criticize the group further, highlighting that the Obama campaign had paid an Acorn affiliate for get-out-the-vote efforts. Congress then enacted the ban on providing money to it.

Acorn has fired several of the employees depicted in the videos.

http://www.kmox.com/Charges-filed-in-Carnahan-health-care-forum-fight/5760101

ST. LOUIS (KMOX Radio) — Three months after the punches were thrown, a prosecutor in St. Louis County has filed charges against six people in connection with fights outside a congressional forum on health care.

It happened outside a Russ Carnahan town hall meeting, on an August night when the national debate over health care reform was rising like a heat wave before a thunderstorm. Members of the Service Employees International Union clashed with members of the Tea Party.

Now, St. Louis County Counselor Patricia Redington has issued a total of ten charges spread out among six people.

Reached by phone after she left the office for the Thanksgiving holiday, Redington spoke from memory in general terms about the case.

Among those charged, two accused of assault in connection with the beating of Tea Party activist Kenneth Gladney. Gladney had claimed that two men wearing SEIU shirts attacked him as he sat at a table giving away tea party buttons.

Redington could not immediately provide the names of those charged, and she said she did not know whether those charged are members of SEIU.

The charges are all St. Louis County ordinance violations, which are lesser charges than a misdemeanor. If convicted, the six people face up to a year in jail and a thousand dollars fine on each count, Redington said.

Redington was asked if she was pressured after recent publicity about the lack of charges to wrap up the case. “Nobody called me and I don’t know why that was perceived to be long,” Redington said. “We have about 90 thousand charges a year. We try to get charges written up within six to eight weeks of getting a report.”

So why did this case take three months?

“Most of our charges don’t involve dozens of police officers, multiple defendants and quite a few videos to review,” she said.

Kenneth Gladney is reacting with disappointment to the charges against those accused of beating him.

His brother Keith, who has been acting as his spokesman, told KMOX the charges “should have been more serious.” Keith Gladney also claims investigators failed to contact his brother Kenneth or interview the witnesses to his alleged beating during the three month investigation.

Redington confirms that among those charged is St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Jake Wagman, accused of interfering with police. Wagman had been working the story and shooting video when a dispute arose with police over where a reporter could be allowed to stand.

Despite claims that Obama’s paternal grandmother was Christian, she has gone on Hajj.

http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Religion/?id=3.0.4036802442

Mecca, 25 Nov. (AKI) – The grandmother of US president Barack Obama has arrived in Saudi Arabia for the ‘Hajj’ or Islamic pilgrimage to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, a Saudi daily said on Wednesday. Sarah Obama, 87, is being accompanied by a nephew and Obama’s cousin, Omran.

On Wednesday Sarah Obama was in the valley of Mina with an African delegation, according to the Saudi daily Okaz.

Obama, the mother of the American president’s father, lives in a village in Kenya and is one of the many guests of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud.

About two million Muslims converge on Mecca each year for the Hajj pilgrimage but Saudi officials were expecting fewer pilgrims this year due to the threat of the H1N1 virus known as swine flu.

Crowds of pilgrims have been converging on the holy city of Mecca in recent days, and started the Hajj rites on Wednesday.

At the weekend, Saudi health authorities said that four people attending the Hajj had died from the H1N1 virus but sought to play down the risk.

The Hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam. It is an obligation for all able-bodied Muslims to attend at least once during their lives, provided they can afford it.

Source: Fox News

The federal government spent $3.5 trillion during President Obama’s first year in office. This far exceeds the spending for any other first-year president.

President Obama has shattered the budget record for first-year presidents — spending nearly double what his predecessor did when he came into office and far exceeding the first-year tabs for any other U.S. president in history.

In fiscal 2009 the federal government spent $3.52 trillion — $2.8 trillion in 2000 dollars, which sets a benchmark for comparison. That fiscal year covered the last three-and-a-half months of George W. Bush’s term and the first eight-and-a-half months of Obama’s.

That price tag came with a $1.4 trillion deficit, nearly $1 trillion more than last year. The overall budget was about a half-trillion more than Bush’s for 2008, his final full fiscal year in office.

That’s a big increase. But compared with other presidents’ first years in office, Obama is running circles around them.

Bush spent $1.8 trillion in 2001, according to government budget figures that have been adjusted for inflation based on 2000 dollars. Using the same formula, former President Bill Clinton spent $1.6 trillion in 1993.

The last president to clock in under $1 trillion was Gerald Ford, who logged a $982 billion budget in 1975. Post-war Dwight Eisenhower even brought Uncle Sam’s tab down to $556 billion in his first year, 1953.

Obama’s first-year budget, adjusted for inflation, is about five times that. His 2009 budget is also close to 21 percent of that for Clinton’s eight years in office — Clinton’s spending added up to $13.5 trillion over his two full terms. Bush spent $16.8 trillion from 2001-2008.

http://www.kmox.com/pages/5747837.php

ST. LOUIS (KMOX) — A man who says labor union activists punched and kicked him outside a Russ Carnahan town hall forum this summer is now accusing the St. Louis County Counselor of foot dragging on the case.

Three months after Kenneth Gladney says he was attacked by members of the Service Employees International Union, no one has been charged. His brother Keith, who is acting as his spokesman says no investigators have even contacted his brother.

“I think someone’s either slow dragging or they’re buying time for some reason.” “They’re giving him enough time for….basically for this whole case that slipped through the cracks” says Keith Gladney.

Last week county counselor Patricia Reddinington told KMOX that the case is not being swept under the rug, but that because of the half dozen possible crimes that night, it’s taking time.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/nov/23/ex-acorn-official-gets-probation-voter-registratio/

A former field director for the political advocacy organization ACORN was sentenced today in district court to up to three years of probation.

Christopher Edwards, who in August pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to commit a crime of compensation for registration of voters, a gross misdemeanor, received a suspended jail sentence and a $500 fine. He has agreed to testify against ACORN and one of its former regional directors, Amy Busefink.

The Nevada attorney general’s office has accused ACORN and Busefink of operating an illegal bonus system. Tying money to or setting quotas for collecting voter registration cards is illegal under Nevada law.

“I take responsibility for what I did,” Edwards told the court. “I’m sorry, I truly am.”

Busefink and ACORN pleaded not guilty on Oct. 27. A trial date is set for April 19.

If convicted, Busefink likely would face probation or less than one year in jail. ACORN could see a $5,000 fine.

The attorney general’s office said Edwards organized and operated a quota system called “blackjack” or “21+” through which the group paid canvassers based on the number of voter registration cards they collected each day. The canvassers were to gather at least 20 completed cards daily and anyone who turned in 21 or more would be given an extra $5.

Busefink, as a manager, is said to have approved the “blackjack” program. But ACORN officials have said Edwards acted alone in developing and carrying it out.

In handing down his sentence, Judge Donald Mosley said he wasn’t pleased with the negotiations but cited Edwards’ agreement to testify in giving him probation. Edwards is also required to complete community service.

Nevada Chief Deputy Attorney General Conrad Hafen is the lead prosecutor in the case. He wasn’t present in court today; David Rickert, a prosecutor in the attorney general’s office, declined comment after the hearing. Edwards and his attorney, Dan Silverstein, declined to speak with the media.

An election task force last year began to investigate ACORN over questionable voter registration tactics. The charges against Edwards, ACORN and Busefink stemmed from information obtained during that investigation.

http://newsmax.com/RonaldKessler/Mosques-preach-jihad/2009/11/10/id/336125

Imams preach jihad and extremism in 10 percent of the 2,000 mosques in the United States, the FBI estimates.

That sums up the problem facing us as we ponder the meaning of Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan’s slayings of 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas. Given his association with a pro-al-Qaida imam in northern Virginia and his preoccupation with radical Islamic Web sites, it’s clear that the radical element of Islam influenced Hasan.

On the other hand, those who condemn Muslims in general because of the actions of Hasan and others like him are engaging in prejudice that has no place in America. Indeed, such stereotyping sets back the war on terror, because we need moderate Muslims on our side.

The problem is not the Quran, which is no more incendiary than some passages in the Bible. (Deuteronomy, for example, prescribes stoning to death for those who “served other gods and worshipped them.”) The problem is the radical element that uses the Quran as an excuse to engage in terrorism and the failure of many moderate Muslims to condemn the extremists.

About a quarter of the Muslims in America ages 18 through 29 believe that suicide bombings can be justified, according to a Pew Research Center poll. Generating those attitudes are imams who preach jihad and hatred in American mosques and postings on the Internet, according to FBI counterterrorism officials interviewed for my book “The Terrorist Watch: Inside the Desperate Race to Stop the Next Attack.”

Saying he is being conservative, an FBI counterterrorism official told me in interviews for the book that 1 in 10 imams preach jihad. Before 9/11, the number of mosques where imams preached jihad was even greater than today.

“Those who actively support extremist causes, say America is evil and deserves what it gets, and celebrate the death of soldiers, know they may come to our attention,” an FBI official says. “So they don’t do it as openly now.”

Before 9/11, he says, “There was much more of that because all of it was considered by Justice Department guidelines to be purely protected speech. We do not have incitement laws in America, but once an imam facilitates someone else taking action, he has crossed the line into material support and becomes our business.”

An example was Ali al-Timimi, a spiritual leader at a mosque in Northern Virginia who preached jihad and provided contact information for those who went to Afghanistan for training in terrorist camps. Al-Timimi is serving a life prison term.

The FBI has outreach programs to try to develop sources in the Muslim community and solicit tips, but FBI agents have found little receptivity. They find that Muslims often are in denial about the fact that the terrorists who threaten the U.S. are Muslims.

“I had this discussion with the director of a very prominent Muslim organization here in D.C.,” a frustrated counterterrorism agent says. “And he said, ‘Why are you guys always looking at the Muslim community?’”

The agent began laughing.

“Okay, you know what I’ll do?” the agent said. “I’ll start an Irish squad, or how about a Japanese squad? You want me to waste my time and your taxpayers’ dollars going to look at the Irish? They’re not killing Americans. Right now, I’m going to put my money and my people in a place where the threat is.”

The agent tells them to take a look at the cells that the FBI has rolled up in the United States.

“I can name the home-grown cells, all of whom are Muslim, all of whom were seeking to murder Americans,” the agent says. “It’s not the Irish, it’s not the French, it’s not the Catholics, it’s not the Protestants, it’s the Muslims.”

In response, Muslim groups have told him he is rough around the edges.

“I’m not rough around the edges,” he tells them. “You’re just not used to straight talk.”

They respond by getting angry at him.

Although Muslims occasionally condemn al-Qaida, “Rarely do we have them coming to us and saying, ‘There are three guys in the community that we’re very concerned about,’” one agent says. “They want to fix it inside the community. They’re a closed group, a very, very closed group. It’s part of their culture that they want to settle the problem within their own communities. They’ve actually said that to us, which I then go crazy over.”

On the one hand, “They don’t want anyone to know they have extremists in their community,” the agent says. “Well, beautiful. Except do you read the newspapers? Everyone already knows it. That horse has left the barn. So there’s a lot of talk about engagement, but realistically, we’ve got a long, long way to go.”

At one meeting, a Muslim group suggested having a photo taken of its members with FBI Director Robert Mueller to show their community isn’t a bunch of terrorists and that they are partners in the war on terror.

An agent replied, “Let me make a suggestion: When you bring to my attention real extremists who are here to plan and do something, who are here supporting terrorism, and I work that based on your information, then I promise you, I will have the director stand up on the stage with you.”

To the agent’s amazement, the answer was: “That could never happen. We would lose our constituency. We could never admit to bringing someone to the FBI.”

“Well, we’ve just defined the problem, haven’t we?” the agent told them.

To be sure, some individual Muslims have brought leads to the FBI. That led to FBI cases in Lackawanna, N.Y.; Lodi, Calif.; and Atlanta. But the FBI has found that imams and other community leaders are reluctant to do that.

If the news media filmed imams preaching hated of America in mosques that are public, the number of imams publicly espousing jihad would dwindle to close to zero. Until that happens, Americans must learn to distinguish between the good guys and the bad guys.

“In recent years, U.S. soldiers have fought a common enemy on behalf of and often alongside Muslims in Bosnia, Kosovo, Kuwait, Somalia, and elsewhere,” the Wall Street Journal pointed out in an editorial. “The U.S. is fighting a sworn enemy today, just as in World War II American Germans, Italians and Japanese fought sworn U.S. enemies of the same race and religion. Many American Muslims will do the same if we stay focused on the real enemy, and show we have the will to do what’s necessary to find them and stop them.”