California Conservative

You aren’t gonna believe this video. Jamie Colby sat in for Greta van Susteren on Friday night’s On the Record. She interviewed Scott Levenson of ACORN. If you watch no other video all weekend, this is the one you’d better not miss. Check this out:

Here’s a partial transcript of the conversation:

JAMIE COLBY: There is more breaking news that affects all of us: your vote. For the past few days, we’ve been reporting about a group called ACORN. Their members hit the streets to register low income voters. The organization is currently under investigation for voter fraud or registration irregularities in at least 13 states.

There also questions that have arisen about Sen. Obama’s possible ties to this group. Well, joining us now on the record in exclusively in his first interview is Scott Levenson. Scott Levenson is the national spokesperson for ACORN & Scott, thank you very much for choosing us to talk to us about this.

First of all, tell me about these investigations into ACORN. Every day, we hear new information who can’t even remember how many times they were encouraged to register by ACORN representatives.

LEVENSON: Let’s talk about what the real story is because it’s actually a great story. ACORN, along with Project Vote, registered 1.3 million folks over the last year. We saw record numbers of people interested in and excited about this election in ways that we never saw before. There were poor people and young people participating in this election in ways they never participated in before. That’s our mission. Our mission is to enfranchise the disenfranchised and empower the disempowered.

CROSSTALK

COLBY: You have registered alot of voters. I’m not sure you can personally answer but if you can, how many of them are legal voters and have the right to vote? Why just the poor and the disenfranchised because perhaps that benefits one party or antoher or one candidate or another because there are alot of wealthy people who are apathetic and who might not vote? Why don’t you do a general get out the vote?

LEVENSON: In fact, we are nonpartisan. We don’t ask people about their income level. We don’t ask people who they’re voting for. We don’t ask people what party they belong to when we register them to vote. And we’ve entered a bit of the silly season in politics. You know, all these stories that have come out over the last week.

COLBY: About raids on your offices.

LEVENSON: But the real story here is because we, by law, are required to hold onto and turn over every single voter registration form that’s filled out.

COLBY: And your position is that the election boards and commissions should be responsible for checking out these out and that your job is just to…

LEVENSON: Let me jump in here because it’s really important for the public to understand what’s gone on here. We spot, proactively, by ourselves, any questionable voter registration forms and proactively notify the appropriate authorities at the time that we collect it. We have been turning over registration forms to the authorities in these states weekly.

CROSSTALK

COLBY: But to do your job properly…

LEVENSON: I’m sorry, just one more point. The timing of this is so curious when we’ve been turning over these forms and there’ve been investigations in state after state…

I knew this was a spin job right at the outset. When Mr. Levenson said that “the real story” was that ACORN had registered 1.3 million voters, I knew that the rest of what he said would be of questionable truthfulness. When Mr. Levenson said “We spot, proactively, by ourselves, any questionable voter registration forms and proactively notify the appropriate authorities at the time that we collect it”, I felt insulted. That’s the biggest pile of BS I’ve heard in ages.

It isn’t possible for ACORN to “spot, proactively, by ourselves” “questionable voter registration forms” and “proactively notify the appropriate authorities” if the bipartisan Lake County, Indiana Elections Board spotted 2,100 fraudulent registrations out of the 5,000 registrations ACORN turned into them.

That storyline doesn’t fit with the Nevada Secretary of State’s investigation into ACORN and their seizing of documents and computers from ACORN’s Las Vegas office. Judges aren’t in the habit of issuing warrants just on a ‘trust me’ assurance. They won’t issue a search warrant unless law enforcemnt gives them ample documentation.

This is the lamest spin I’ve heard in ages:

It is difficult for voter registration operations to fully protect themselves against fraud by some of their employees or volunteers, because of the nature of the work they do, Ms. Hayden said.

“We hire people directly from the communities we serve, and we at ACORN pay them $8 an hour and ask them to collect between 15 and 20 signed voter registration cards in five hours,” she said. The problem arises “when you have some lazy people who might choose to sit at a McDonald’s and fill out the forms themselves instead of hitting the pavement and collecting good registration signatures from people,” Ms. Hayden said.

Organizations have supervisory staff. How difficult is it for those supervisors to spot 2,100 voter registrations whose signatures appear to be identical?

Thanks to Mr. Levenson’s going On The Record and thanks to Jamie Colby’s interview skills, we now have video of ACORN’s spin. We should always be that fortunate.

Technorati Tags: ACORN, Voter Fraud, Scott Levenson, On The Record, Inerview, Investigations, Law Enforcement, Jamie Colby, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

Reform is one of the words that make up the acronym ACORN. That’s insulting to anyone who thinks things through. If I played a word association game on ACORN, the last word I’d think is reform. It’d be great if ACORN underwent a series of reforms but that isn’t likely to happen. CNN is reporting that ACORN is being investigated in Indiana:

More than 2,000 voter registration forms filed in northern Indiana’s Lake County by a liberal activist group this week have turned out to be bogus, election officials said Thursday.

The group, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, already faces allegations of filing fraudulent voter registrations in Nevada and faces investigations in other states.

And in Lake County, home to the long-depressed steel town of Gary, the bipartisan Elections Board has stopped processing a stack of about 5,000 applications delivered just before the October 6 registration deadline after the first 2,100 turned out to be phony. (more…)

If this report doesn’t stun thoughtful people everywhere, then it’s safe to say that outrage has died. Here’s what the Las Vegas Journal Review is reporting:

State Department of Corrections officials say the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (or ACORN) was using convicted criminals to conduct registration drives.

Corrections officials say they were work release inmates and was brought to their attention at the end of July. At that time corrections officials told organizers to immediately stop using the inmates.

What guarantee is there that these convicted criminals won’t attempt to vote using some of the phoney names that they ‘registered’? I certainly won’t trust them to do the right thing. Here’s the article’s closing paragraph:

State investigators are looking into whether names on ACORN’s voter rolls are fake. The group claimed to have signed up around 80,000 low income Nevada residents.

All summer and fall, we’ve heard that the registration numbers for Democrats have jumped dramatically. With convicted criminals working on voter registration drives, why shouldn’t we think that these registration numbers aren’t up dramatically in part because of ACORN’s activities? (more…)

Al Franken must feel like he’s got big red bullseyes painted on his back and chest. Just when he was hoping his troubles were over, the Minnesota Republican Party is asking for an explanation of his role in the Gloria Wise scandal:

At a State Capitol press conference today, Republican Party of Minnesota Chair Ron Carey called on Al Franken to provide more detailed answers to his role in the cover-up involving nearly $900,000 that was stolen from the Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club by Franken’s Air America company.

“Al Franken did nothing to help return nearly $900,000 to the New York Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club while his employer, Air America, continued to use the money to possibly pay Franken’s salary and benefits,” said Carey. “At a time when Franken’s temper tantrums and bad behavior could have been put to good use by publicly demanding and threatening to expose his employer’s role in this massive fraud, Franken remained silent. But, while he negotiated for a multi-million contract, he was well aware that his nearly bankrupt Air America employer had stolen money from the Boys and Girls Club and he did nothing and said nothing to get the money returned.”

I remember this scandal because it was so despicable in nature. I remember thinking that it was pretty repulsive that Franken would negotiate a big contract when Air America was financially strapped and likely appropriating funds from the Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club. I remember thinking that Mr. Franken didn’t have a shred of integrity.

To re-inforce Chairman Carey’s statement that “Al Franken did nothing to help return nearly $900,000 to the New York Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club while his employer, Air America, continued to use the money to possibly pay Franken’s salary and benefits”, I refer you to Brian Maloney’s initial post breaking this scandal. Of the many questions Brian Maloney asks in his article, this one stands out the most: (more…)

While it’s doubtful that Charlie Rangel has served his last day as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, it’s entirely possible that he’ll soon be the subject of an ethics investigation. Here’s why:

Representative Charles B. Rangel paid no interest for more than a decade on a mortgage extended to him to buy a villa at a beachfront resort in the Dominican Republic, according to Mr. Rangel’s lawyer and records from the resort.

The loan was given to him by the resort development company, in which Theodore Kheel, a prominent New York labor lawyer, was a principal investor. Mr. Kheel, who has given tens of thousands of dollars to Mr. Rangel’s campaigns over the past decade, had encouraged the congressman to be one of the initial investors in the project.

The loan, which was extended to Mr. Rangel in 1988, was originally to be paid back over seven years at a rate of 10.5 percent. But within two years, interest on the loan was waived for Mr. Rangel and six other early investors because the resort was generating less income than projected, according to a statement released on Friday by Jose Oliva, director of the resort.

(more…)

Captain Ed has a great post up skewering Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats for their declaring last 4th of July Energy Independence Day. As Captain Ed notes, the Democrats’ new direction is the wrong direction. Here’s a video showing Ms. Pelosi’s bold declarations:

During her criticism of the Bush administration’s inaction, Ms. Pelosi said that Democrats would send money to “the Midwest, not the Middle East.” While it’s true that more subsidies are heading to the Midwest, they’ve failed in their goal of energy independence. In fact, they’ve taken us in another wrong direction, forcing us to import more foreign oil than ever before.

Here’s something Ed said that’s worth noting:

What Pelosi failed to mention was that gas prices at the pump were $2.24 per gallon in January of that year, and that under Democratic leadership, prices went up over 30%.

Think about that. When Pelosi’s Democrats took over, people were paying $2.24 a gallon at the pump. Eighteen months later, it’s over $4 a gallon. The next question to ask is what’s changed since Pelosi took control. For starters, they’ve made the prospect of making more known oil reserves available for exploration and production. Knowing that energy supplies won’t be increased in any meaningful way, speculators wonder how high the price is going to go.

As I said here, there was a daily 9 million barrel cushion between America’s needs and available supply when oil sold for $10-15 per barrel. That cushion is now 1.5 million barrels per day. A bit of sabre-rattling from Ahmadinejad or Chavez, a hurricane in the gulf or any number of other things can cause oil production to lag, thereby erasing whatever cushion existed.

As I said here, this is a crisis created by the Democrats’ decisions. They’ve wanted this crisis so that more people would jump on the conservation/alternative bandwagon, which has happened. What’s been proven, though, is that their policy won’t supply America’s needs. (more…)

The message behind Kevin Rennie’s column is simple, concise and unmistakeable: Sen. Dodd, it’s time to come clean because we’re not going away. It’s a message taht Sen. Dodd doesn’t want to hear but it’s a message that we won’t let him ignore.

‘I would never take ‘trust me’ for an answer, not even in the best of times. Not even from a president on Mount Rushmore.” So declared Sen. Christopher J. Dodd last week on the floor of the U.S. Senate during a debate on government surveillance.

Dodd declared he will not trust our leaders unless he gets to see certain national security documents. Dodd insists, however, that we trust him when he says he didn’t know he received special treatment when he borrowed nearly $800,000 from Countrywide Financial Corp. in 2003.

This calls for an FOIA request. If Sen. Dodd won’t voluntarily comply with our request that he produce documentation on what was or wasn’t said in his negotiations with Angelo Mozilo, then we’ll demand his compliance. Sen. Dodd would be wise to remember that summers are when many scandals are exposed. That’s because there’s a lull in the news. If he wants someone digging into his financial affairs, I’m certain someone will be more than willing to do that.

One thing that’s obvious is that Dodd will play this as long as possible. Here’s what I’m basing that opinion on: (more…)

In 2006, Democrats talked at length about holding congressional oversight hearings into the Bush administration, which they faithfully held. Most of these hearings were fishing expleditions trying to dig up dirt on the Bush administration. None of the witch hunts turned up anything, which was predicted. Now that a real scandal has arisen, though, Democrats have forgotten about oversight hearings. Apparently, the only time Democrats hold oversight hearings is when (a) there isn’t any evidence of wrongdoing and (b) when it involves a Republican.

Apparently, oversight hearings aren’t meant for real scandals with real evidence involving Democrats.

Now that there’s evidence that Chris Dodd, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, got the V.I.P. treatment from Countrywide, the thought of holding oversight hearings is the furthest thing from the Democrats’ minds. The good news is that House Republicans, led by Jeb Hensarling and Minority Leader Boehner, are demanding that an investigation be launched into this scandal: (more…)

Yesterday afternoon, the military filed its appeal of Col. Steven Folsom’s ruling that charges be dropped against Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani. The specific charges being refiled against Col. Chessani are violation of a lawful general order and dereliction of duty. This morning, the Thomas More Law Center issued a statement critical of the military’s decision. Here’s what it says:

Late yesterday afternoon, military prosecutors filed an official notice that they are appealing the June 17th decision of Military Judge Colonel Steven Folsom, USMC, which dismissed all charges against Lt Colonel Jeffrey Chessani on the grounds of unlawful command influence. Prosecutors have 20 days in which to file their appeal brief to the Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals (NMCCA), which is located in Washington, D.C.

Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, reacted with outrage, “This case has turned into the persecution of one of the Marine’s finest combat commanders. LtCol Chessani devoted his life to the Corps and his Nation. He served three tours of duty in Iraq, away from his wife and children in defense of us all. In their attempt ‘to get’ Chessani, prosecutors granted immunity to seventeen Marines, including one they had charged with murder. Still they failed. Sadly, in the process they have destroyed the career of an outstanding officer. Enough is enough.” (more…)

I just got off the phone with the great people at the Thomas More Law Center, the organization that are defending the rights of the Haditha Marines. I don’t know how I missed their official statment yesterday on Col. Steven Folsom’s ruling but miss it I did. Here’s the heart of their statement:

The Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, represents LtCol Chessani alongside his detailed military attorneys. The two Law Center attorneys assigned to his case are former Marine officers themselves. Robert Muise served in the First Persian Gulf war as an infantry officer, and Brian Rooney was a Judge Advocate officer who served two tours of duty in Iraq. Lt Colonel John Shelburne, USMC, and Captain Jeff King, USMC, the detailed military defense counsel, make up the rest of Chessani’s defense team.

Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Law Center, commenting on the judge’s decision had this to say, “We are all grateful for the judge’s ruling today. He truly was the “last sentinel” to guard against unlawful command influence.”

“Tragically, our own government eliminated one of its most effective combat commanders. The insurgents are laughing in their caves,” said Thompson.

It’s maddening that the military threw Col. Chessani’s career under the proverbial bus. Nonetheless, that’s precisely what they did when they charged him with dereliction of duty. I suspect that they were pushed into this decision by some politicians looking for a political victory. (more…)