subversion inc: a new book reveals how obama’s acorn friends are still ripping off american...

7/31/2019 Subversion Inc: A new book reveals how Obamas ACORN friends are still ripping off American taxpayers, by Matthew Vadum (Townhall magazine, May 2011)

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60 TOWNHALLMay 2011

ACORN Still Lives

SUBVERSION,

INC.(AP

/KiichiroSato)


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kicker

May 2011 TOWNHALL 61

ACORN Still Lives

A new book reveals how Obamas ACORN friends are still

ripping off American taxpayers.by Matthew Vadum

Copyright 2011 by Matthew Vadum. From the forthcoming book

Subversion, Inc. by Matthew Vadum to be published by WND

Books. Printed by permission.

Radicals are most adept at breaking the necks of conservatives,

said the small-c communist tactician Saul Alinsky, who is nowworshipped by the Obama administration and the activist Left.

The thuggish, in-your-face activist group ACORN was the vehicle

that 1960s radicals created to bash Americans heads in to get them

to accept a radical transformation of American society. The antisocial

group also led the way in destigmatizing welfare by pushing people

to abandon their job searches and get on the public dole.

When Barack Obama was a little boy surrounded by parents

and grandparents and mentors sympathetic to communism, like-

minded people were building ACORNs parent organization, the

National Welfare Rights Organization. Armed with tax dollars,

left-wing extremists Richard Cloward, Frances Fox Piven, andAlinsky were at play in the 1960s, wreaking havoc on society in

an effort to induce revolutionary change. All three of these at the

time relatively obscure figures labored to create NWRO along with

a vast constellation of tax-supported groups determined to destroy

the American society they loathed. Changes in federal social policy

in the early 1960s helped to lay the groundwork for this artificial

activism and the welfare-related unrest it caused. President Lyndon

Johnsons unconditional war on poverty in America really should

have been called an unconditional war on American values.

For four decades, ACORN destroyed property, forcibly occupied

banks, assaulted employees of the companies they targeted,intimidated executives and government officials at their family

homes, and engineered home invasions in order to seize foreclosed

properties. ACORN took money from powerful special interests to

produce instant rent-a-mobs to harass their clients competitors.

But after various setbacks, including a million-dollar

embezzlement in 2008 and a series of damning undercover videos

in 2009 showing gross employee misconduct, the Democratic

National Committee branch office known as ACORN filed Chapter

7 bankruptcy on Election Day last year.

It was a carefully orchestrated public relations ruse. The now-

dissolving ACORN is not actually going anywhere.Americas most infamous radical advocacy group and organized

crime syndicate is preparing to rise up from the political grave and

bring Mickey Mouse and the dead to the polls in 2012. ACORN

organizers are quietly laboring to reconstitute a new version of

the group in time to help ACORNs former lawyer in next years

presidential election.

So it turns out that November 2010 reports of the death of

the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now,

President Obamas former client and favorite community organizing

group, have been greatly exaggerated. With the help of loyal key staff

members, ACORN has been playing possum, waiting in the shadows,

hoping Americans will forget about it. According to congressional

investigators, ACORN moved tens of millions of dollars out of its

bank accounts. No one outside of ACORNs accountants knows

where the money went. Yet no new investigations appear to be in

the offing on Capitol Hill.

ACORN has adopted a strategy to keep tax dollars and foundation

grants flowing into the coffers of the new groups that would thenuse them to rebuild the ACORN network as a yet-to-be-named

successor organization emerges.

It is an act of the sheerest audacity for a lawless group that has

long acted outside the legitimate political process. As I discovered

in my research, at least 54 employees and individuals connected to

ACORN have been convicted of election fraud and related offenses.

ACORN itself is now facing voter fraud conspiracy charges in Las

Vegas that are not affected by the groups bankruptcy proceeding.

If ACORN is convicted, it would cause an earthquake in leftist

organizing circles across the U.S. More prosecutors might be

emboldened to take on ACORN and similar groups. Until it wascharged by Nevada, ACORN had frequently boasted about how

itas opposed to its employeeshad been able to duck prosecution

for voter fraud-related offenses.

Amazingly, ACORNs 40 years of lawlessness have been heavily

subsidized by taxpayers. From the federal government alone,

the ACORN network has received at least $79 million in federal

taxpayer funding. No one knows how many millions of dollars

ACORN has taken in from states and localities. Yet as of November

2009, ACORN was a tax deadbeat, owing more than $2.3 million in

back taxes to all levels of government.

You dont have to take my word that ACORN will soon arise fromthe ashes.

Nathan Henderson-James, longtime director of the groups online

campaigns, confirmed in a leaked February 2010 e-mail that ACORN

plans to come back. Americas most notorious nonprofit felt it needed

to perform this trick because its employees were caught red-handed

repeatedly counseling a fake pimp and prostitute on the finer points

of establishing a brothel for pedophiles. ACORN calculated that

people would forget the transgressions of the taxpayer-subsidized

nonprofit best known for its voter fraud efforts.

In the e-mail that came five months after conservative activist-

journalists James OKeefe III and Hannah GilespunkedACORNwith their pimp and pro routine, Henderson-James explained the

groups ongoing hoax that consists of its state chapters separately

incorporating under new, innocuous-sounding names.

It is definitely true that over the next week or so we should see

a dozen or more organizations launched on the state level by staff

who used to work for ACORN and leaders who developed their

skills as ACORN members, he wrote. These are not just simple

name changes, but reimaginings of how best to organize low and

moderate income constituencies without any of the legal problems

and funding issues dogging ACORN, not to mention the brand

damage.


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62 TOWNHALLMay 2011

National Security

ACORN Still Lives

Stepping out of the

spotlight for a while is a

tactically smart reaction to

the global situation that helpsthe work of building power

for poor people to continue,

he wrote.

The secret operation was

already underway when

Henderson-James bragged

about the effort to his

radical and liberal friends on

Townhouse, an invitation-

only left-wingers online

discussion forum run by MattStoller, who was senior policy

adviser to colorful former

Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla.

In late 2009 and early

2010, ACORN staffers across

America created a plethora of

separate organizations aimed

at carrying on ACORNs cor-

rupt affairs. Among them

were Arkansas Community

Organizations, Alliance ofCalifornians for Community

Empowerment, New England

United for Justice, Missou-

rians Organizing for Reform

& Empowerment, New York

Communities for Change,

Pennsylvania Neighborhoods

for Social Justice, and Penn-

sylvania Communities Orga-

nizing for Change.

Almost all of the new groups operate out of old ACORN officesand are run by old ACORN hands. ACORNs housing bubble

generator, ACORN Housing, changed its name to Affordable

Housing Centers of America after the undercover video saga. The

organization has long served as the ACORN networks cash cow,

funneling millions of dollars to other affiliates in ACORNs far-flung

empire of activism.

ACORNs court historian John Atlas also confirmed that the

undead group plans to resurface under a new name after the 2010

elections.

A new entity tentatively called the Community Action Support

Center (CASC) will be created to provide a range of training,technical assistance, and oversight services to the new community

organizations, he wrote last year in his institutional hagiography

of ACORN, Seeds of Change. ACORNs Brian Kettenring will be

interim executive director. ACORN chief organizer Bertha Lewis

plans to create a Black Leadership Institute. Executive Director

Steve Kest quit ACORN but will work with the new community

groups in a consulting and voluntary capacity. Kest later became

a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund,

which is run by Clinton White House chief of staff John Podesta.

The emerging community organizations will retain ACORNs

commitment to building national power, and are beginning

discussions toward a process

to federate at some later

date, presumably after the

2010 elections or in 2011,Atlas writes. The new groups

focus will be on localities and

states. CASC will support the

continuation of organizing

around jobs and low-wage

work, bank lending and

foreclosures, immigration,

state fiscal crises, civic

engagement, and green jobs

and environmental justice.

ACORN leaders are workingon voter engagement

activities. They intend to

engage the surge voters of

2008 and turn them into

permanent voters in 2010 and

beyond.

ACORNs fraud-prone

Project Vote affiliate continues

to operate. It ran a nationwide

voter registration and get-

out-the-vote drive duringthe 2010 election cycle.

Despite its history of election

fraud, it continues to operate

undisturbed, doing business

as usual. Project Vote, which

used to employ President

Obama, even let disgraced

ACORN executive Amy Adele

Busefink run its 2010 voter

drive. Charges were pending against her the whole time she ran the

2010 voter registration and get-out-the-vote effort. Talk about anunderstanding employer!

Busefinks job performance in the 2008 election cycle didnt

seem to bother Project Vote. The New York Times reported that

Project Vote was forced to admit that 850,000 of the 1.3 million

registrations from allegedly new voters were not from new voters

at all. About 400,000 of the registrations were rejected by election

officials for a variety of reasons, including duplicate registrations,

incomplete forms and fraudulent submissions from low-paid

field workers. ACORN acknowledged it fired 829 of the 10,000

canvassers it hired during the election for job-related problems,

including falsifying registration forms.Busefink and her subordinate were implicated in a massive

conspiracy to commit voter registration fraud in Nevada. Her

underling took a plea bargain, and Busefink cut her own deal with

prosecutors in hopes of avoiding prison time. She entered an Alford

plea, which is similar to a no contest plea. In January 2011, she

received a two-year suspended sentence.

INFILTRATING THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION

It should come as no surprise that on the campaign trail, President

Obama refused to be interviewed about Saul Alinsky, the community

organizing guru who wrote Rules for Radicals, a how-to guide for


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May 2011 TOWNHALL 63

destroying American capitalism and democracy.

Presumably Obama, who taught courses on Alinskys brutal,

sometimes violent organizing techniques, declined to speak to

reporters about the late guru. He must have realized that suchan interview would throw an unwanted spotlight on Alinskys

radicalism, and by extension, his own. Such counterproductive

publicity would also have undermined the candidates efforts to

reinvent himself as a moderate.

Alinskys adherents now dominate the modern Democratic Party

establishment. Apart from President Obama himself, they include

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, White House senior advisor

Valerie Jarrett, Federal Communications Commission diversity chief

Mark Lloyd, Obamas ex-green jobs czar Van Jones, former DNC

trainer Heather Booth, Childrens Defense Fund founder Marian

Wright Edelman, former HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros, and LosAngeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to name just a few.

Who the hell isnt [an Alinskyite] in this administration? asks

conservative author David Horowitz.

And President Obama hasnt been the only longtime ACORN

operative working in the White House. Theres also the low-profile

Patrick Gaspard who, until recently, was White House political

affairs director, one of the titles Karl Rove held in President Bushs

White House.

In a move that ought to disturb anyone who cares about the

integrity of the democratic process, earlier this year Gaspard took

over the reins of the Democratic National Committee as its executivedirectorjust in time to begin initial preparations for President

Obamas 2012 reelection campaign.

Gaspard hails from the same world of radical left-wing community

organizing that made Barack Obama who he is today. Gaspard is

an expert in the harsh, street-smart organizing tactics taught by

Alinsky. Hes the hatchet man Obama sent to New York over a year

ago to strong-arm then-Gov. David Paterson into dropping his re-

election campaign. As executive director running the DNCs day-

to-day operations, Gaspard will oversee Organizing for America, a

project of the DNC supposedly modeled on Alinskyite organizing

principles.

Born in the Democratic Republic of Congo to Haitian parents,

not much is known about this Rasputin-like power behind the

throne. Gaspard studiously avoids publicity and is reluctant to talk

to journalists. Look him up on Nexis and you will find virtuallynothing about this influential radical leader.

But his colleagues hold him in high esteem. Patrick is the

best political mind of his generation in New York and maybe the

nation, according to Kevin Sheekey, a lieutenant of New York

Mayor Michael Bloomberg. I wouldnt dispute that, added David

Axelrod, at the time a senior advisor in the Obama White House.

Gaspard came to the White House from ACORNs favorite

labor organization, Service Employees International Union.

(SEIU Locals 100 and 880 were, until recently, official affiliates

of ACORN.) He had been executive vice president for political and

legislative affairs for SEIU Local 1199 United Healthcare WorkersEast, which claims to be the largest union local on the planet,

representing more than 300,000 members and retirees in New

York, Maryland, the District of Columbia and Massachusetts.

Evidence suggests that before he joined the Obama

administration, Gaspard was ACORN chief organizer Bertha

Lewis political director in New York. How do we actually know

Gaspard, who goes to extraordinary lengths to shun the public

spotlight and scarcely appears in Nexis searches, was Lewis right-

hand man?

Because Gaspards employment with ACORN was acknowledged

by no less an authority than ACORN founder Wade Rathkehimself.

Rathke wrote May 16, 2009, at his blog: Tell me that 1199s

former political director, Patrick Gaspard (who was ACORN New

Yorks political director before that) didnt reach out from the

White House and help make that happen, and Ill tel l you to take

some remedial classes in politics 101.

The before that time period Rathke is referring to is 2003,

when Gaspard was executive vice president for political and

legislative affairs for Service Employees International Union Local

1199 (United Healthcare Workers East).

Its also worth noting that of all the entries in Bertha Lewis

ACORN Still Lives

Left: Michael Shea, execuive direcor o Afordable Housing Ceners o America, ormerly known as ACORN Housing, poses nex o he organizaions new signin Chicago. Groups once a liaed wih ACORN naionwide are changing heir names in he wake o a video scandal ha exposed he corrupion o ACORN.(AP/M. Spencer Green)

Righ: An undercover sae invesigaor removes compuers rom he ACORN o ces in New Orleans. A warran was obained o seize compuers, hard drivesand oher documens ater ACORN aorneys said wo unidenified ormer employees ook compuers and oher iems when hey let he organizaion.(AP/Patrick Semansky)


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64 TOWNHALLMay 2011TOWNHALLMay 2011

ACORN Still Lives

rolodex, a copy of which this writer gained possession of in 2009,

the entry for Gaspard is the most extensive.

Gaspards ties to ACORN, SEIU, and Lewis go back at least

to 1989, when he volunteered for the David Dinkins mayoral

campaign in New York City. In 2003, he became acting field

director for Howard Deans presidential bid. He was national field

director in 2004 for America Coming Together, a now-defunct

get-out-the-vote operation that received a $775,000 fine for

campaign finance abuses. In 2006, Gaspard was acting political

director for SEIU International. In 2008, Gaspard worked as

national political director for the Obama campaign followedby a stint as associate personnel director for the Obama-Biden

transition team.

As the old Washington saying goes, politics is personnel. Who

knows how many administration officials were put in place

by Gaspard with direct input from ACORNs Bertha Lewis? It

boggles the mind.

Gaspard also worked for New Yorks Working Families Party,

an appendage of ACORN. Lewis is a co-founder of that party

which endorsed Obama in 2008and has close ties to Rep.

Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., who pointedly refused to have the House

Judiciary subcommittee he chaired in the previous Congressinvestigate ACORN.

As news of Gaspards involvement with ACORN spread, Rathke

changed his blog entry. Where he had written that Gaspard worked

for New York ACORN, he inserted two new sentences: This line

used to contain a reference to Patrick Gaspard working for NY

ACORN. This is untrue, he never worked for ACORN.

But Rathke wasnt able to shove all evidence tying Gaspard to

ACORN down the memor y hole. If Gaspard isnt tied to ACORN,

why did he sign a letter to the editor of the Nation magazine

(dated July 2, 2001) on behalf of the Working Families Party of

New York? (Lewis signed the letter on behalf of ACORN and the

Working Families Party.)

The party is part of ACORN,

according to ACORNs website, which in

2009 confirmed that in 1998, ACORNmembers spearhead[ed] formation of

the Working Families Party, the first

community-labor party with official

ballot s tatus in New York state in more

than 50 years.

Internal ACORN documents obtained

by this writer show Gaspard gave

ACORN $40,000 before he joined the

Obama administration. While Gaspard

worked as an executive vice president

of SEIU Local 1199, he gave ACORN$15,000 in 2007 and $25,000 in 2008.

Thats an awfully large tithe for someone

who made $111,894 in 2007 and who has

a wife and two children. The $111,894

figure comes from an SEIU 1199 tax

return. (If salary and deferred benefits

are combined, the total is $151,869.)

Given Gaspards longstanding links

to ACORN, its not at all surprising

that Scott Levenson, a lobbyist and

spokesman for ACORN, dropped by theWhite House to visit with his former co-worker. The purpose of

the meeting was not disclosed.

Another New Yorker in the Obama administration, Secretary of

Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan, has close ties

to ACORN. Before taking office, Donovan was New York Mayor

Michael Bloombergs housing development commissioner. He

worked closely with ACORN for five years on several projects.

Perhaps no administration official has had more interaction

with ACORN than Donovan, according to the New York Times.

Reinforcing the newspapers point, ACORN chief organizer Bertha

Lewis praised the HUD secretary. We grew to respect him, andhe grew to respect us, she said.

Roll Call, a Washington, D.C., newspaper that covers Capitol

Hill, reported Lewis admitted ACORN has friends in high

places for the first time in a long time. Lewis acknowledged

that she has particularly good relationships with Housing and

Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan and with Patrick

Gaspard, the White House political director.

This writer filed a Freedom of Information Act request with

HUD last year seeking all correspondence between Secretary

Donovan and ACORN. Instead of the maximum 45 days allowed,

HUD responded eight months later.The letter said no such records of correspondence between

ACORN and Donovan exist.

Thats hard to believe.

An award-winning investigative journalist, Matthew Vadum

is a senior editor at Capital Research Center, a conservative

think tank in Washington, D.C. Vadum is also author of

Subversion Inc.: How Obamas ACORN Red Shirts Are Still

Terrorizing And Ripping Off American Taxpayers (WND

Books), from which this piece is adapted.

Radical liberal and former ACORN and SEIU operative Patrick Gaspard, who has been at President Obamasside in the White House, has taken the reins of the Democratic National Committee as its executive director.(AP/Charles Dharapak)

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