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Darren Pope, Examiner.com

 

With the ACORN scandal growing everyday questions are beginning to arise about President Obama's connections to the group and the effect that may have had on the 2008 presidential election.

 

President Obama has remained silent on the ACORN scandal to this point, some see that as an attempt to keep distance between himself and the embattled group. Obama repeatedly minimized his association with the community activist organization during the 2008 presidential campaign, but his involvement with ACORN was extensive and dates back to at least 1990.

 

At the same time Obama was downplaying his connection to ACORN Americans were told over and over again about Obama's success as a community organizer and how he would use those skills to help bring "change" to America. What was Obama's role in ACORN?

 

The record shows Obama lead Project Vote for ACORN in 1992. In 1993 he also helped obtain funding for ACORN while working with the anti-poverty group the Woods Fund of Chicago. In 1994, Obama served as an attorney for ACORN in Buycks-Roberson v. Citibank Federal Savings Bank case, which many experts believe was the beginning of the mortgage crisis. In 1995, he sued the State of Illinois on behalf of ACORN.

 

During Obama's 2007 speech to ACORN he promised the group they would "have input into shaping the next presidency of the United States Of America." In August 2008, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported that the Obama campaign donated $832,598.29 to Citizens Services Inc., an ACORN "offshoot", for "get out the vote" projects. Those donations were completely legal.

 

However, as a 501(c)(3) organization ACORN was prevented by law from using the money to promote any specific candidates. It is widely known that ACORN branches across the country urged voters to support Obama. Reportedly there is also evidence that members of the Obama campaign were in direct contact with ACORN leaders during that time. Read article.

 

CIA Chief to Michigan Muslims, "The Nation Needs You."

IslamInAction08.Blogspot.com

 

Obama's crew just continues to bow down to the Islamic community, practically begging them to respect us. They are also masters of ignoring facts. The first being that Peter King has stated that Muslims do not cooperate. The second being that US Muslims have said that their Mosques and Koran are off limits. That certainly is not cooperating, but apparently we are going to have to learn the hard way. Just like Europe is.

 

JEFF KAROUB, DEARBORN, Mich.

— The director of the CIA beseeched Arab-American and Muslim leaders Wednesday to join efforts to reduce the threat of terrorism in the U.S.

 

Speaking in the heart of Michigan's large Middle Eastern Community, Leon Panetta said the country is safer than it was when it was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001, though al-Qaida still remains a threat.

 

"I need you. The nation needs you," Panetta said during a 25-minute speech to about 150 people at an iftar, the evening meal that breaks the fast during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

 

The address represented one of the Central Intelligence Agency's highest-profile recruiting efforts aimed at Arab-Americans and Muslims. Panetta said it was his first speech at a Ramadan breaking-the-fast dinner. Read article.

 

Mark Hemingway, NRO.com

 

It has been a bad decade for America’s foreign-policy and intelligence establishment. We’ve seen a devastating terrorist attack in America’s largest city, followed by two protracted wars fraught with strategic missteps. Meanwhile, in the face of threats to our security, the country’s intelligence-gathering methods have been the subject sharp political and moral disagreement.

 

If there is any hope of fixing America’s national-security apparatus, there’s a good chance that hope lies within a large, but discreet, brick townhouse in downtown Washington, D.C. From the street, the Institute of World Politics (IWP) may not look like much — and in fact, IWP tries to keep a relatively low profile — but the 18-year-old graduate school is fast becoming an influential force in the world of international affairs.

 

IWP takes an integrated approach to teaching all aspects of foreign policy — even relatively obscure subjects. “The culture here is guns and rockets and boxes of cash and the diplomacy concerning those matters,” explains John Lenczowski, IWP’s president and founder. “There are all of these other non-military arts that have been neglected.”

 

And there’s ample evidence that our current unsophisticated approach to foreign policy isn’t helping. “We heard Secretary of State Colin Powell talk about using all of the instruments of power, and yet for all of that talk, they were not used,” Lenczowski observes. “Even by the last year of the Bush administration, the president was saying we’re in a war of ideas. Tell me, Mr. President, which agency of yours hires warriors of ideas? Which one cultivates them in a career track? The answer is none of them.” Read article.

Larry Elder, JWR.com

 

Jimmy Carter strikes again!

 

The former President is not content having left office with high inflation, high interest rates and high unemployment. Nor is he content with having signed into law the Community Reinvestment Act — strengthened by President Bill Clinton — which played a major roll in the eventual housing market meltdown. Nor is he content with having cut the legs from under the Shah of Iran, which led to the establishment of the Islamic theocracy in Iran — a state that pursues a nuclear weapon, funds the terror groups Hamas and Hezbollah, and continues to undermine the fledgling democracy of Iraq. Nor is he content — as ex-President — with writing a book in which he likened the state of Israel and its treatment of the Palestinians to South Africa under apartheid.

 

Now the former President claims the opposition to President Obama in general — and his attempt at "health care reform" in particular — stems from … "racism"!

 

That same day, during a town hall meeting at his presidential center in Atlanta, Carter also called Rep. Joe Wilson's "you lie!" outburst — shouted at Obama during his health care address to Congress — racist. "I think it's based on racism," Carter said. "There is an inherent feeling among many in this country that an African-American should not be president."

 

Let's analyze this. Read article.

 

Ben Johnson, NewsRealBlog.com

 

As Jimmy Carter portrays conservatives as violent racists, it’s worth remembering Carter’s own history of racial demagoguery. Carter campaigned for governor of Georgia as a self-proclaimed “redneck,” in an era when that word had pronounced racial connotations. His campaign distributed a photo of his gubernatorial opponent Carl Sanders being embraced by black basketball players to a Ku Klux Klan rally. Carter pledged to invite Alabama’s infamous segregationist governor George Wallace to Georgia if elected. He once said he was “proud” to have the equally segregationist Lester Maddox as his lieutenant governor following the 1970 election, calling Governor Axe-handle “the essence of the Democratic Party” (which he was).

 

In 1972, Carter promised – then broke his promise – to the newly crippled Wallace to nominate or second him at the Democratic National Convention in Miami, jumping at the opportunity to give the nomination speech for Henry “Scoop” Jackson (and the national exposure that would bring).

 

According to his son, Jack Carter, the man from Plains had his surrogates lobby aggressively to become ultra-leftist George McGovern’s vice president. By 1976, he “Jimmy Who” had traded his “redneck” status for a pose as the “Born Again” exemplar of the New South. (His religiosity poll-tested well. He actually won more Southern Baptist votes than Ronald Reagan in 1980.) Read article.

 

One Cosmos.Blogspot.com

 

Could it be that the War on Poverty results in only more poverty? Or that government discrimination does not end discrimination? Or that military weakness is provocative to the enemies of liberty? Or that aid to Africa freezes it in a state of dysfunction? Or that pouring more money into a bad educational system makes it worse? Or that subsidizing college increases the cost of tuition?

 

This is why I don't agree with, say, Rush Limbaugh, who believes that Obama is following the tried-and-true Marxist strategy of intentionally making things worse in order to justify a more massive power grab. I don't see any real need to go there and to attack motivations, as does the left.

 

Again, it is enough to address their bad ideas, which Limbaugh already does so well. Then again, since so few people engage the ideas, one can well understand the strategy of personalizing the debate and demonizing the opponent. Who knows. Maybe all is fair in this kind of Cosmic War, since the future of civilization hangs in the balance. Read article.

John Perazzo, FrontpageMag.com

 

Two months ago, Georgetown University affiliate professor of public policy Mark Lloyd was appointed to be the Diversity Chief of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). At the time, Lloyd was also Vice President of Strategic Initiatives at the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR). A quick overview of this legislative advocacy group’s perspectives and agendas reveals a great deal about who Lloyd is and what he believes.

 

Most notably, LCCR condemns the American criminal-justice system as a thoroughly racist institution; it avidly supports President Obama’s quest for socialized medicine; it contends that racism permeates the housing market and the money-lending industry; it views the U.S. as a sexist nation that discriminates against women, particularly in terms of workplace compensation; it supports the League of United Latin American Citizens’ vision of immigration reform, where illegal aliens would be permitted, en masse, to pursue a pathway to citizenship; it favors voting rights for ex-felons; and it contends that the existence of poverty in America is due to “the gates of economic opportunity” being “mostly closed to minorities, women, and others by both governmental and private action.” In short, it views America as a cesspool of racism and discrimination. Lloyd himself embraces each of the foregoing positions.

 

During various periods of his career, Lloyd has served as a consultant to the Bill Clinton White House and to two of the major funders of far-left causes: the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and George Soros’s Open Society Institute. Lloyd was also a senior fellow at John Podesta’s Center for American Progress, which has served as perhaps the most influential think tank advising the Obama administration on matters of policy. As evidenced by these affiliations, Lloyd is clearly a creature of the political far left.

 

Since Lloyd took the reins of the FCC, conservative critics have accused him of planning to drive conservative talk radio from the airwaves. Some charge that he wishes to restore the Fairness Doctrine, a 1940s-era regulation that required radio and TV broadcasters to provide airtime to opposing viewpoints and was repealed in 1987. As the Heritage Foundation correctly observed years ago, the Fairness Doctrine, far from encouraging free expression of diverse views, actually inhibited such discourse: Read article.

 

Brian Faughnan, Red State.com

 

Millions of Americans are marching, blogging, calling Congress, E-mailing friends, and writing to newspapers to say that President Obama and Congress are expanding government too far, too fast. We need to do more, because it’s clear that they’re not getting the message. The latest example: the House of Representatives is preparing to put the Department of Education into the business of creating educational curriculum for American students.

 

This week the House is scheduled to approve H.R. 3221, an education lending bill that CBO reports will increase the deficit by $50 billion. The bill includes a little-known provision to give the Secretary of Education $500 million - to be provided to to any entity he deems “appropriate” - to develop and disseminate free and “freely available” online courses.

 

This is unprecedented.

 

Federal curriculum is contrary to longstanding government policy - and it’s unnecessary. For decades, Federal law has prohibited the U.S. Department of Education from exercising control over the “curriculum, program of instruction . . . or over the selection or content of library resources, text books, or other educational materials by any educational institution or school system.”

 

Now the Obama Administration and Congress are poised to provide the Secretary of the Education half a billion dollars, and give him the authority to enter into contracts with any entity he deems “appropriate” to “develop, evaluate and disseminate” “freely available” “education courses.”

 

Why? Read article.

 

Josh Gerstein, Politico.com

 

Promoting democracy takes a back seat in a new Obama administration intelligence strategy released Tuesday, while combating cyber-attacks and tracking threats across international borders become the new and more urgent priorities for America’s spies.

 

The National Intelligence Strategy, 18 pages in its unclassified version, also puts greater emphasis on what Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair called the “international environment” and emerging, long-term dangers to U.S. security.

 

“For long years after the Cold War ended, we were in a post-Cold War world. For years after 9/11 ended, we were in a post-9/11 world. It seemed like we were always looking backwards and being run by the past,” Blair said in a conference call with reporters Tuesday morning. “If you look at this document, I think for the first time we have a good understanding of the sort of world that we’re in—the complexity and the dynamic nature of the world.”

 

Blair said the blueprint is vital for focusing the efforts of 16 federal agencies that play a part in intelligence collection and analysis. “It’s a big deal for us in the intelligence community,” Blair said. “It’s a muscular intelligence response to the nation’s responsibilities so that we can provide good advice to the policymakers and in the field.” 

 

“It’s a big deal for us in the intelligence community,” Blair said. “It’s a muscular intelligence response to the nation’s responsibilities so that we can provide good advice to the policymakers and in the field.” Read article.

 

Governor Rick Perry, ToThePointNews.com

 

As the federal government continuously churns out ideas and policies that drive our nation deeper and deeper in debt, citizens and taxpayers are right to be worried.

 

From federal "stimulus" bills that force state governments to change laws, raise taxes and increase spending, to cap and trade proposals that will run our energy industry into the ground, to emerging plans for an unprecedented and unsustainable expansion of government health care, it is clear that the swollen river of our federal government has overflowed its banks.

 

Washington is increasingly out of step with folks out here in flyover country who do not share the inside-the-Beltway belief that a benevolent, all-knowing government can expand and encroach without limit, because individual Americans simply cannot be trusted to make right choices.

 

This mindset has driven the explosive growth of the size, spending and intrusiveness of the federal government. Our founding fathers would be appalled at the way their successors are ignoring individual liberties, contemplating more tax increases, and interfering further into private enterprise. Read article.

 

Rich Galen, Townhall.com

 

ACORN is an acronym for Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. It is one of those manufactured acronyms that come before the name is invented to fit the acronym. Does that explanation make any sense?

 

Whether it does or not, ACORN is an unreconstructed Liberal organization which was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by the Obama campaign to turn out the vote for … Obama.

 

According to Fox News

 

The organization has been accused by Republicans and conservative activists with fraud in voter registration drives around the country and has been under fire since last year for its support of President Obama and for its planned participation in next year's census.

 

But, because it was a Liberal group doing potentially illegal things and the Liberal group was being accused by Republicans … whatever ACORN was doing was ignored, if not actively applauded by much of the major media. Why would these evil Republicans be asking for an investigation? According to the LA Times, "some workers were accused of submitting false registration forms with names including Mickey Mouse." 

 

Why would these evil Republicans be asking for an investigation? According to the LA Times, "some workers were accused of submitting false registration forms with names including Mickey Mouse." Read article.