House GOP: ACORN caused housing crisis!

[SirNitram]

Link

(WASHINGTON) House Republican leader John Boehner on Wednesday urged President Bush to block all federal funds to a grass-roots community group that has been accused of voter registration fraud.

"It is evident that ACORN is incapable of using federal funds in a manner that is consistent with the law," Boehner, R-Ohio, wrote Bush, saying that funds should be blocked until all federal investigations into the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now are completed.

ACORN, a group that has led liberal causes since it was formed in 1970, this year hired more than 13,000 part-time workers to sign up voters in minority and poor neighborhoods in 21 states. Some of the 1.3 million registration cards submitted to local election officials, using the names of cartoon characters or pro football players, were obviously phony, spurring GOP charges of widespread misconduct.

ACORN has said it was its own quality-control workers who first noticed problem registration cards, flagged them and submitted them to local election officials in every state that is now investigating them.

To commit fraud, a person would have to show up on Election Day with identification bearing the fake name.

Local law enforcement agencies in about a dozen states are investigating fake registrations submitted by ACORN workers and the FBI is reviewing those cases.

Boehner said his office had determined that ACORN had received more than $31 million in direct federal funding since 1998. He said the group had likely received far more indirectly through federal block grants to states and localities. "Immediate action is necessary to ensure that no additional tax dollars are directed to ACORN while it is under investigation," he wrote Bush.

Boehner said he and other Republicans were also asking the Justice Department to investigate ACORN's connections to the home mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, saying ACORN "appears to have played a key role in the irresponsible schemes that led to the current financial meltdown."

Republican presidential candidate John McCain has asked if ACORN, which he accused of perpetuating voter registration fraud, was "destroying the fabric of democracy." ACORN and other advocacy groups have suggested that Republicans are exaggerating the issue to keep the underprivileged, who tend to vote Democratic, from casting ballots.

Yes, ladies and gents, registering voters and flagging the likely fraudulent registrations leads you to destroying democracy, and destroying the economy. Let this be a lesson to you.

[Gil Hamilton]

This just goes to show you that some times House Members are the village idiots that were elected by the locals so they'll spend their time being stupid in Washington rather than at home.

Its like his thought process "Well, we don't like ACORN... let's try an' slander 'em... I know! We are having an economic crisis! I'll accuse them of somehow being involved in it, even though it has absolutely nothing to do with what they do or even what people accuse them of doing wrong! Oh ho ho... I am a mastermind genius!"

[General Zod]

"It is evident that ACORN is incapable of using federal funds in a manner that is consistent with the law," Boehner, R-Ohio, wrote Bush, saying that funds should be blocked until all federal investigations into the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now are completed.

So when can we expect Diebold having all their funds blocked? Oh wait, I forgot that they're producing results in favor of the Republicans.

[sketerpot]

They're just a slip of the tongue away from claiming that SPECTRE stole their brains. At least then we would be attributing imaginary villainy to someone with an appropriately sinister name.

[Dave B.]

The article was really good until the part about ACORN causing the housing crisis. I guess a group of our elected officials will try to get blood out of a turnip if it works for their cause. Being that ACORN receives federal funds and pays it's employees based on the number of people they can sign up to vote... I would be so inclined to say that this isn't really voter fraud at all but rather fraud on the taxpayer for signing up voters multiple times, pets and fictional characters. Lame.

[Count Chocula]

This just in...now it wasn't the bankers who caused the housing crisis, and it wasn't ACORN, it was the credit rating agencies that caused the crisis! Hearings are being held in Congress today.

And when this latest round of "Pin The Blame" fails, it will all be....the property appraisers' fault!

[Dave B.]

This just in...now it wasn't the bankers who caused the housing crisis, and it wasn't ACORN, it was the credit rating agencies that caused the crisis! Hearings are being held in Congress today.

And when this latest round of "Pin The Blame" fails, it will all be....the property appraisers' fault!

I really do wish that these idiots will realize that no one person or group is responsible for this mess. Congress needs to pull their heads out of their asses and fucking do something for once instead of sitting around being more concerned about who to blame while their thumbs are firmly inserted in their assholes.

[SirNitram]

This just in...now it wasn't the bankers who caused the housing crisis, and it wasn't ACORN, it was the credit rating agencies that caused the crisis! Hearings are being held in Congress today.

And when this latest round of "Pin The Blame" fails, it will all be....the property appraisers' fault!

Actually, yes, if you certified the toxic shit that was being marketed as securitized as AAA when it was closer to F or perhaps Z, you do have a chunk of the blame. But that would confuse the simpletons.

[Glocksman]

You all are wrong.

It's all the Democrats fault.
At least according to Orson Scott Card

Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?
By Orson Scott Card

Editor's note: Orson Scott Card is a Democrat and a newspaper columnist, and in this opinion piece he takes on both while lamenting the current state of journalism.

An open letter to the local daily paper — almost every local daily paper in America:

I remember reading All the President's Men and thinking: That's journalism. You do what it takes to get the truth and you lay it before the public, because the public has a right to know.

This housing crisis didn't come out of nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration.

It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor people. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were authorized to approve risky loans.

What is a risky loan? It's a loan that the recipient is likely not to be able to repay.

The goal of this rule change was to help the poor — which especially would help members of minority groups. But how does it help these people to give them a loan that they can't repay? They get into a house, yes, but when they can't make the payments, they lose the house — along with their credit rating.

They end up worse off than before.

This was completely foreseeable and in fact many people did foresee it. One political party, in Congress and in the executive branch, tried repeatedly to tighten up the rules. The other party blocked every such attempt and tried to loosen them.

Furthermore, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were making political contributions to the very members of Congress who were allowing them to make irresponsible loans. (Though why quasi-federal agencies were allowed to do so baffles me. It's as if the Pentagon were allowed to contribute to the political campaigns of Congressmen who support increasing their budget.)

Isn't there a story here? Doesn't journalism require that you who produce our daily paper tell the truth about who brought us to a position where the only way to keep confidence in our economy was a $700 billion bailout? Aren't you supposed to follow the money and see which politicians were benefiting personally from the deregulation of mortgage lending?

I have no doubt that if these facts had pointed to the Republican Party or to John McCain as the guilty parties, you would be treating it as a vast scandal. "Housing-gate," no doubt. Or "Fannie-gate."

Instead, it was Senator Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, both Democrats, who denied that there were any problems, who refused Bush administration requests to set up a regulatory agency to watch over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and who were still pushing for these agencies to go even further in promoting sub-prime mortgage loans almost up to the minute they failed.

As Thomas Sowell points out in a TownHall.com essay entitled "Do Facts Matter?" ( http://snipurl.com/457townhall_com] ): "Alan Greenspan warned them four years ago. So did the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President. So did Bush's Secretary of the Treasury."

These are facts. This financial crisis was completely preventable. The party that blocked any attempt to prevent it was ... the Democratic Party. The party that tried to prevent it was ... the Republican Party.

Yet when Nancy Pelosi accused the Bush administration and Republican deregulation of causing the crisis, you in the press did not hold her to account for her lie. Instead, you criticized Republicans who took offense at this lie and refused to vote for the bailout!

What? It's not the liar, but the victims of the lie who are to blame?

Now let's follow the money ... right to the presidential candidate who is the number-two recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae.

And after Freddie Raines, the CEO of Fannie Mae who made $90 million while running it into the ground, was fired for his incompetence, one presidential candidate's campaign actually consulted him for advice on housing.

If that presidential candidate had been John McCain, you would have called it a major scandal and we would be getting stories in your paper every day about how incompetent and corrupt he was.

But instead, that candidate was Barack Obama, and so you have buried this story, and when the McCain campaign dared to call Raines an "adviser" to the Obama campaign — because that campaign had sought his advice — you actually let Obama's people get away with accusing McCain of lying, merely because Raines wasn't listed as an official adviser to the Obama campaign.

You would never tolerate such weasely nit-picking from a Republican.

If you who produce our local daily paper actually had any principles, you would be pounding this story, because the prosperity of all Americans was put at risk by the foolish, short-sighted, politically selfish, and possibly corrupt actions of leading Democrats, including Obama.

If you who produce our local daily paper had any personal honor, you would find it unbearable to let the American people believe that somehow Republicans were to blame for this crisis.

There are precedents. Even though President Bush and his administration never said that Iraq sponsored or was linked to 9/11, you could not stand the fact that Americans had that misapprehension — so you pounded us with the fact that there was no such link. (Along the way, you created the false impression that Bush had lied to them and said that there was a connection.)

If you had any principles, then surely right now, when the American people are set to blame President Bush and John McCain for a crisis they tried to prevent, and are actually shifting to approve of Barack Obama because of a crisis he helped cause, you would be laboring at least as hard to correct that false impression.

Your job, as journalists, is to tell the truth. That's what you claim you do, when you accept people's money to buy or subscribe to your paper.

But right now, you are consenting to or actively promoting a big fat lie — that the housing crisis should somehow be blamed on Bush, McCain, and the Republicans. You have trained the American people to blame everything bad — even bad weather — on Bush, and they are responding as you have taught them to.

If you had any personal honor, each reporter and editor would be insisting on telling the truth — even if it hurts the election chances of your favorite candidate.

Because that's what honorable people do. Honest people tell the truth even when they don't like the probable consequences. That's what honesty means . That's how trust is earned.

Barack Obama is just another politician, and not a very wise one. He has revealed his ignorance and naivete time after time — and you have swept it under the rug, treated it as nothing.

Meanwhile, you have participated in the borking of Sarah Palin, reporting savage attacks on her for the pregnancy of her unmarried daughter — while you ignored the story of John Edwards's own adultery for many months.

So I ask you now: Do you have any standards at all? Do you even know what honesty means?

Is getting people to vote for Barack Obama so important that you will throw away everything that journalism is supposed to stand for?

You might want to remember the way the National Organization of Women threw away their integrity by supporting Bill Clinton despite his well-known pattern of sexual exploitation of powerless women. Who listens to NOW anymore? We know they stand for nothing; they have no principles.

That's where you are right now.

It's not too late. You know that if the situation were reversed, and the truth would damage McCain and help Obama, you would be moving heaven and earth to get the true story out there.

If you want to redeem your honor, you will swallow hard and make a list of all the stories you would print if it were McCain who had been getting money from Fannie Mae, McCain whose campaign had consulted with its discredited former CEO, McCain who had voted against tightening its lending practices.

Then you will print them, even though every one of those true stories will point the finger of blame at the reckless Democratic Party, which put our nation's prosperity at risk so they could feel good about helping the poor, and lay a fair share of the blame at Obama's door.

You will also tell the truth about John McCain: that he tried, as a Senator, to do what it took to prevent this crisis. You will tell the truth about President Bush: that his administration tried more than once to get Congress to regulate lending in a responsible way.

This was a Congress-caused crisis, beginning during the Clinton administration, with Democrats leading the way into the crisis and blocking every effort to get out of it in a timely fashion.

If you at our local daily newspaper continue to let Americans believe — and vote as if — President Bush and the Republicans caused the crisis, then you are joining in that lie.

If you do not tell the truth about the Democrats — including Barack Obama — and do so with the same energy you would use if the miscreants were Republicans — then you are not journalists by any standard.

You're just the public relations machine of the Democratic Party, and it's time you were all fired and real journalists brought in, so that we can actually have a news paper in our city.

This article first appeared in The Rhinoceros Times of Greensboro, North Carolina, and is used here by permission.

Rush and Sean are so proud.

[RedImperator]

This just in...now it wasn't the bankers who caused the housing crisis, and it wasn't ACORN, it was the credit rating agencies that caused the crisis! Hearings are being held in Congress today.

And when this latest round of "Pin The Blame" fails, it will all be....the property appraisers' fault!

I really do wish that these idiots will realize that no one person or group is responsible for this mess. Congress needs to pull their heads out of their asses and fucking do something for once instead of sitting around being more concerned about who to blame while their thumbs are firmly inserted in their assholes.

Allocating two-hundred fifty gigabucks to nationalize the banks isn't doing something?

[Dave B.]

This just in...now it wasn't the bankers who caused the housing crisis, and it wasn't ACORN, it was the credit rating agencies that caused the crisis! Hearings are being held in Congress today.

And when this latest round of "Pin The Blame" fails, it will all be....the property appraisers' fault!

I really do wish that these idiots will realize that no one person or group is responsible for this mess. Congress needs to pull their heads out of their asses and fucking do something for once instead of sitting around being more concerned about who to blame while their thumbs are firmly inserted in their assholes.

Allocating two-hundred fifty gigabucks to nationalize the banks isn't doing something?

IMHO, no. They simply gave more money to some of the people that contributed to the problem. Since it's the tax payers who are shelling the cash out, the first people who need help first are those idiots who took out adjustable rate mortgages so that they can stay in their homes. From that, the banks will receive the funds to get out of the red. I really feel that in order to fix this problem, we have to start from the crisis started. The taxpayers as a whole are the ones being punished for the greed and irresponsibility of a nice handful of assholes. That being the case, lets help the little guys first so that the big guys can see some relief as well. Then we move on to Freddie and Fannie. Bailing out the banks first does nothing for the people who are losing their homes.

[Darth Wong]

The idiots who took out ARMs for their McMansions are responsible for this too.

[Mayabird]

Here's a little saying that I live by, one of many: "John Boehner is always wrong."

Seriously, I've never heard the guy ever speak out on something where he was on the right (and I don't mean wing) side. People say that a broken clock is right twice a day, but he's been a broken digital clock blinking "88:88" all day. If he started talking about how great puppies and kittens are, I'd suspect that all the puppies and kittens have been infected with some kind of alien parasite to destroy the world, or some generic nefarious plot like that. I regret that, during that internship I had in D.C., I was never in a situation where I could have gotten away with punching him in his smarmy little cigar-chomping face.

[aerius]

IMHO, no. They simply gave more money to some of the people that contributed to the problem. Since it's the tax payers who are shelling the cash out, the first people who need help first are those idiots who took out adjustable rate mortgages so that they can stay in their homes. From that, the banks will receive the funds to get out of the red. I really feel that in order to fix this problem, we have to start from the crisis started. The taxpayers as a whole are the ones being punished for the greed and irresponsibility of a nice handful of assholes. That being the case, lets help the little guys first so that the big guys can see some relief as well. Then we move on to Freddie and Fannie. Bailing out the banks first does nothing for the people who are losing their homes.

Housing losses is around $6 trillion as of September. Where exactly are you going to find $6 trillion to make those mortgages whole and stop the defaults? It's only twice the entire federal budget and nearly half the GDP. You can print the money or borrow it from Treasury and issue $6 trillion worth of bonds; in the former your money's now worth as much as used toilet paper and the latter causes the mother of all bond market dislocations. Instant Great Depression. Oh, and since you borrowed the money from Treasury it means YOU are paying for it via your tax dollars, with interest added.

[RedImperator]

I really do wish that these idiots will realize that no one person or group is responsible for this mess. Congress needs to pull their heads out of their asses and fucking do something for once instead of sitting around being more concerned about who to blame while their thumbs are firmly inserted in their assholes.

Allocating two-hundred fifty gigabucks to nationalize the banks isn't doing something?

IMHO, no. They simply gave more money to some of the people that contributed to the problem. Since it's the tax payers who are shelling the cash out, the first people who need help first are those idiots who took out adjustable rate mortgages so that they can stay in their homes. From that, the banks will receive the funds to get out of the red. I really feel that in order to fix this problem, we have to start from the crisis started. The taxpayers as a whole are the ones being punished for the greed and irresponsibility of a nice handful of assholes. That being the case, lets help the little guys first so that the big guys can see some relief as well. Then we move on to Freddie and Fannie. Bailing out the banks first does nothing for the people who are losing their homes.

Wait a minute--I thought your problem was that Congress was just sitting around blaming each other instead of doing something. Now your problem is that you don't like the solution they tried. Fair enough (and I'll let Aerius and others more knowledgeable than me handle that argument), but it's one or the other. You can't criticize them for doing nothing and doing something you don't like at the same time.