Why Did Bank of America Pay ACORN?
In 1994, ACORN sued Citibank under the Community Reinvestment Act alleging racism. Their lawyer? None other than our post-racial president. In 1998, St. Louis ACORN was able to extract concessions from Mercantile in advance of a merger. Most banks paid attention and soon understood that it was easier to partner with ACORN than to fight them.
A few did fight back. In 2004, after being accused of predatory lending by ACORN, Wells Fargo came out swinging. But three years later, they settled a class action lawsuit in California for $6.8 million. At some point the ACORN payments just became the cost of doing business.
Subprime lending put millions of unqualified homeowners into houses they couldn’t afford. This pushed up home prices for other purchasers. The housing bubble became an investment bubble once Fannie and Freddie and the investment banks joined the party. The twin bubbles popped, taking down the banks, the markets, and the economy.
It’s all easy to understand, unless you’re a progressive whose entire belief system depends upon not understanding it.
Subprime lending isn’t specifically illegal, but it creates plenty of opportunities for mortgage fraud. This “undocumented income,” as it is euphemistically called, creates a path to home ownership for people who aren’t otherwise qualified — including both criminals and illegal aliens.
All of the incentives were there for ACORN to commit this fraud, and if the investigations are ever completed, the results won’t surprise anyone. The Breitbart videos made it very clear that ACORN was ready to facilitate just about any financial transaction required.
The New York Times says they were a step behind the ACORN story, as they were with the Van Jones story. One would think they would have been more careful, given allegations in March that they spiked a story on Obama’s ties to ACORN. (Michelle Malkin, again.)
Perhaps at some point they will understand that this isn’t a story that has come and gone, allowing them to wring their hands over having missed it. It’s a story that’s here to stay, and there’s at least fifteen years of ACORN corruption to sift through — and that means fifteen years of business partners. At what point do they start reporting?
For example, in February 2008, ACORN partnered on a foreclosure prevention program with Countrywide, the same lender that gave the sweetheart deal to Chris Dodd and then lost the associated documentation. Countrywide is now a Bank of America company. We’ll have to ask CNN or the Times whether that’s newsworthy.
We can be thankful of one thing, at least — ACORN’s not in charge of teaching our children.
Well, unless they happen to attend the ACORN High School for Social Justice. Thanks, New York City Department of Education. (More here. Also, an excellent source on ACORN Housing’s business model at the Consumers Rights League report.)
OBAMA = ACORN, ACORN = OBAMA
Because diversity mongers have the Western world by teh balls due to white guilt. Fortune 500 companies can’t wait to lay claim to doing business with radical leftist ethno-centric organizations. They’re required to do so under federal law in order to meet ethnic quotas and it’s something they can brag about to civil rights organizations. This allows minority based activist groups and businesses to get away with murder since nobody dares to criticize them or to boycott them lest they be called racist. That’s why radical, corrupt and often bigoted organizations such as la raza and ACORN enjoy mainstream acceptance both in Washington and in the corporate world. If you’re helping minority organizations than all business and moral ethics go out the window apparently.
SIMON HOLMES!!! I’m bored i WANNA PALAYee DOMINOS:)
Criticizing ACORN is racist, like criticizing Obama.
One strange loan was called a NINJA loan. NINJA stood for No Income No Job Application which is completely insane as far as financial sense, but Fannie MAE and Freddie MAC encouraged such loans and purchased them, now these assets are called toxic assets. Would you invest in a mortgage for $150,000 from someone who has no job and no income? Well now you know how come this country and the worlds economy got to where they are. Thank Barney Franks and Chris Dodd, do so by voting them out of office and possibly prosecuted.
Ever notice the similarity between any program sponsored by the Democrats and pretty much any form of organized crime? Democrats tie in with the labor mafias. Democrats gave us the Social Security ponzi scheme. Creating shakedowns schemes to bilk the customers of large corporations (who do you think really pays those protection rackets) just fit right in.
“What exactly was Bank of America paying ACORN for?”
That’s an easy question to answer: it’s protection money! The Bank of American and the other corporate victims are paying out bribe money to these race hustlers. They then deduct this money on their IRS returns. Another more worthy group simply does not get any funds.
When will the media actually CARE that they missed the ACORN story? As far as they’re concerned it’s much ado about nothing.
BofA paid ACORN? That is my bank and I venture to guess a lot of PM readers too. This is unacceptable.
Sign up at http://www.handsoffamerica.net to let your displeasure be known. I’m doing it.
ACORN is institutionalized race baiting. if it is to help it would be ok but if it is to punish a color of people, they get what they deserve.
Good piece. ACORN has been subsidized for decades by government and now big business to organize and hold us all hostage. Thank goodness the story is being told and will continue being told. Cause as you so aptly point out, it’s not over, and not going away.
The RACE card no longer works. That’s why we’re getting a nice helping of more extreme radicalism like that of Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL); who is also throwing in the HOLOCAUST card in for good measure.
In short, Democrats are way out of line. And the MSM is lying; that’s right lying because concealing information is deceiving — and that is what lying is all about.
ACORN won’t be around in a few months. The concern now is that like a skunk ACORN will stink up the place by branching out under a myriad of different names. But the word is out that radicalism, socialism, extremism, afro-centrism, and left-wing arm twisting is OVER. Alternate information sources serve to provide the truth to tens of millions of voters.
You build up a pretty logical argument suggesting that payments to ACORN have become a routine cost of doing business, basically a form of “protection money,” but you do not offer any proof other than to cite cases in which banks settled cases against ACORN. Highly circumstantial and requiring further investigation, but hardly a reason for condemnation. Furthermore, we have no idea if the relationship between the two organizations were mutually beneficial. ACORN operates predominantly in low-income areas, but low-income recipients were hardly the sole beneficiaries of subprime and non-standard mortgages. ARMs had an equal detrimental effect on the economy and were not orchestrated by ACORN nor marketed to ACORN’s focus demographic.
Shame on Glenn Reynolds, a lawyer, for linking to an article that does not even present an opposition opinion or a shred of proof.
obama is acorn and acorn is obama.
this is the same extortion “shake-down” that other groups (fronted by big names) have been doing to businesses for years.
it is a criminal enterprise …WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO SHUT DOWN THESE RACKETS ??
WHERE IS THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT ??
A world-class protection racket, aided and abetted by the highest levels of government! Here is where Obama and his buddies excel.
Bank of America was founded with the idea of providing banking services to “the little people” of San Francisco, specifically the Italian community of the North Beach neighborhood. Famously, the founder himself set up a board and sawhorse open air bank on the street in SF right after the 1906 earthquake to get some needed cash for food to his customers.
They certainly out-grew those origins and became just another huge bank with rotten customer relations.
As most businessmen learn, what the government wants the government gets.
Many critics were writing about the ACORN involvement in the CRA driven housing bubble quite some time ago. It is sad that the public is just beginning to figure things out now.
Here is an article that laid out the picture in 2000:
http://www.city-journal.org/html/10_1_the_trillion_dollar.html
And just think, none of this comes to light were it not for a couple of youngsters in bad halloween quality costumes.
Vangel, you missed an even better article:
http://www.city-journal.org/2008/eon1030hh.html
…As economist Russell Roberts of George Mason University points out, Bank of America reported that nonperforming CRA-eligible loans were a significant drag on its third-quarter 2008 income. Its earnings report states: “We continue to see deterioration in our community reinvestment act portfolio which totals some 7 percent of the residential book. . . . The annualized loss rate from the CRA book was 1.26 percent and represented 29 percent of the residential mortgage net losses.” This is a far cry from the advocates’ standard line that CRA loans, while less lucrative than standard mortgages, are still profitable….
I beg to differ but Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton perfected it a long time before. ACORN
just piggybacked on their extortion schemes.
How much money in loans are we talking about here? There have been some studies cited by one of the Fed banks saying the CRA loans weren’t that much of the subprime mess.
@22. JohnW: – …CRA loans weren’t that much of the subprime mess.
In order to cause major damage, they didn’t need to be.
And of course not all of the moral hazard encouraged by CRA involved subprime lending, per se. The problem is that subprime, poorly secured and outright “NINJA” (No Income, No Job or Assets) loans polluted the credit market when they were indiscriminately bundled with other loans to form securities, thereby putting a huge question mark on the value of the securities themselves when the housing bubble burst and too many mortgages either went upside-down or simply into default.
Get a copy of Thomas Woods’ Meltdown. It’s a straightforward explanation of the dynamics behind this fiasco, which also explains why the current policies are making the problem worse (a phenomenon The Left Wing Media is studiously ignoring). Ultimately, BofA and other banks targeted by ACORN activism – which wasn’t limited just to litigation, but also included a lot of direct, “grass roots” harrassment – decided it was easier to increase the moral hazard dictated by CRA than to rely on the standards they’d used for decades.
Everything we ever came to know about the left, in any country, in any time, tells us that the left (liberals, socialists, commies, any degree of fascism) is a
MAFIA.
Their behaviors and their words are identical to the behaviors and the ways of speaking of Cosa Nostra.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment.
#14 George S.
As usual, you had already posted what I have typed in a hurry after reading the article.
Lawyer for a racket. Not bad.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment.
You can still walk in a bank and be refused a checking account, but be escorted down the hall to the mortgage department. Congress has done nothing to change that.
All this corruption in government and businesses could be stoped in a heart bit. All it takes is a political will of congress and senate. And this would not happen, until we will vote ALL THOSE CLOWNS out. All of them, and start anew. They all corrupt to the bone marrow. It is simple, JUST FOLLOW THE MONEY! Someone else said it. and I agree.
Robin Hood invented commnunity organizing long before it was given a name. He practiced P.R., marketing and franchising before the terms entered the dictionary. Just imagine what he could have done today with electronic media within his reach! Well, we don’t need to imagine so much anymore, we just need to watch as the ACORN onion is peeled one layer at a time, and cry, and learn.
General David Petraeus literally wrote the book on counterinsurgency before he was allowed to implement his doctrine in Iraq. Andrew Breibart, Glenn Beck, Michelle Malkin and other courageous and talented leaders are perfecting the counterACORNing doctrine as they practice it. We owe them a big one.
May the sparks continue to fly, and may we come to realize that corruption is not merely proportional the government’s girth, it is exponential to it. Our founders were wise enough to know this, and worked hard to limit the reach of Governement, which ultimately amounts to limiting the depth of corruption. We must fight to overcome the obesity of modern governance, or become unredeemable couch potatoes ourselves. It’s a matter of moral hygiene
When Sarah Palin’s book is #1 online more than 6 weeks before it comes off the presses, I think we can’t wait to hear the clarion call.
BofA is an anti-American institution.
BofA is taking great pains to metastacize the housing disaster once again. Giving home loans, err, ‘Home Affordable Modification Program’ loans. With 68,000 home loans in August 2009 and anticipate those numbers to double by October 2009.. http://bankofamerica.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=63&item=230
BofA also offers credit cards to illegal aliens. What a ‘great concept.’
This sounds like a RICO investigation to me. Perhaps our current Attorney General would be interested in joining the conversation in the interest of justice.
Nah. Probably not.
The damage “CRA loans” did is determined by the definition of “CRA loan”, and when the study was done. Do you count or not count CRA enabled shakedowns? Was the study done during the boom when you didn’t default on a loan, but sold for a profit, or after the bust when selling off a property you couldn’t afford the mortgage for wasn’t an option?
RE #5/Steve DeMarcus: [...] NINJA stood for No Income No Job Application which is completely insane as far as financial sense, but Fannie MAE and Freddie MAC encouraged such loans and purchased them [...] Would you invest in a mortgage for $150,000 from someone who has no job and no income? [...]
Saw it last year on PBS, David Brancaccio had a few segments praising this arrangement – they might have a clause for “promising to look for a job”, but in effect it was a completely No Questions Asked affair.
Well stated, goy.
JohnW, CRA “loans” are different than the CRA (Community Reinvestment Act of 1977) itself. CRA loans are just one of a myriad of subprime lending products that arose over the span of 1996-2006. Also, while a lot of people on the right focus heavily on the CRA, it was only half of the problem. The other half was Fannie/Freddie.
Leftist “community” groups like ACORN used the CRA to threaten banks into lending money to millions of people who didn’t meet traditional underwriting criteria for mortgage loans — hence, subprime borrowers. But threats-be-damned, no bank is going to make loans to people who are at serious risk of not being able to pay them back…unless they have a co-signer. That co-signer was the federal govt in the form of Fannie/Freddie.
At the same time that the Leftist “community organizers” were beginning to pressure banks into making these loans, Leftists in the govt – i.e. the Clinton administration – began the process of having Fannie/Freddie relax their underwriting standards so that they could buy riskier mortgage loans from the banks.
Here’s what you had in a nutshell: on the front-end, ACORN is saying to banks, “If you don’t start giving mortgage loans to poor people in the communities in which you operate, we’re going to sue you!”. But on the back-end, the Clinton administration is saying to the banks, “Psst! Don’t worry about it! Just make the loans…no matter how outrageous, no matter how outlandish (i.e. N.I.N.J.A loans)…Fannie/Freddie will take them off of your hands!”
If you’re a bank in that position, what would you do?
The next chapter in the meltdown came when Fannie/Freddie began bundling these loans into securities packages – i.e. mortgage-backed securities – and began offering them in the markets as investment vehicles.
Increased lending lead to increased buying…increased buying lead to increased home values and a building boom…increased home values lead to increased equity lending…and on and on. And everything was fine…as long as home values continued to rise. But when the first wave of mortgage defaults began to hit in 2006, the party was over. And the rest – as they say – is history.
And at the bottom of all of it is ACORN. And Barack Obama.
The big picture here is getting people to understand that it is THEIR money, through taxes or bank fees or whatever that pay for Acorn and all the bad loans and all the government bailouts. The banks are okay, because their shakedowns are a write-off, their bad loans, Government Bail Out money. Acorn is fine, their employees are probably quite highly paid from GOVERNMENT money or DONATIONS from Banks. But the US middle class is once again paying for all of it. The corruption in Government is staggering, but with more and more people employed by the Government or the Programs (Acorn et al) funded by the Government (soon to include “green jobs”, how do you make it go away? The government people run a lot of things and they are not going to cut off their gravy train.
25. Sherab Zangpo:
yes there have always been (I am talking for years) some people trying to get the story out that these “racial groups” have been blackmailing (appropriate term isn’t it) businesses and institutions (banks)
but the main stream media has always deminissed or refused to take up the challenge to do some investigations. they are compliant in aiding the socialist agenda. they have failed their own code as journalists.
going back as far as the rainbow coalition there is the threat of boycotts and protests which go away when there is a donation etc. …then even the justice department of Bill Clinton weighed in and gave assistance to these racketees and went on a crusade to get unqualified people into homes (homes they could not afford to pay for) ..and so began the freddy and fannie fiasco …those same freddy and fannie CEO’s and board members are now part of the current government administration.
I don’t expect resolution to these crimes any time soon.
these groups are like the hydra …cut off one head and a hundred grow to replace it.
it is a criminal organisation.PERIOD.
I think the sting operators answered that question.
“In this sordid tale, the unsympathetic banks are more victims than villains. The Community Reinvestment Act gives groups like ACORN considerable power over the institutions. It can accuse them of economic discrimination against minorities, forcing them to defend their business practices and reputations against de facto charges of racism. The penalties can be hefty fines and even blocked mergers.”
You are lying to yourself if you believe this to be the case. The reality is that the people running the baks are themselves very liberal in their politics. They give money to ACORN and do ACORN’s bidding for the same reason they do the bidding of the NAACP and La Raza and the envromentalists – because they agree with the agenda of the these radical leftist groups.
Wall Street gave considerably more money to Obama than to McCain last year.
While it is true that CRA was not even a majority of subprime, it is important to note that this style of lending (no doc/limited doc, reduced FICO scores, minimal downpayment) infected the entire mortgage industry. Just as the retail investors were the ultimate buyers of most dot-com IPOs, after the institutions flipped them, CRA loans were not held by the banks that issued them, but by the two dumb buyers of last resort: Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac. It is the Fan/Fred combination that has allowed these practices to continue, even in the face of mounting losses, capital erosion and wide-scale foreclosures. George Bush tried, albeit not hard enough, to get the Mediacrats to regulate Fannie & Freddie. They rebuffed him, just as Ted Kennedy rebuffed him on restructuring Social Security. If these people were board members of a company run as badly as the U.S. Congress, they would be in prison.
“And of course not all of the moral hazard encouraged by CRA involved subprime lending, per se. The problem is that subprime, poorly secured and outright “NINJA” (No Income, No Job or Assets) loans polluted the credit market when they were indiscriminately bundled with other loans to form securities, thereby putting a huge question mark on the value of the securities themselves when the housing bubble burst and too many mortgages either went upside-down or simply into default.”
Yes, this is true. But the CRA did not require NINJA loans, the banks and mortgage companies thought that one up on their own. And the Bush administration pushed hard for all of this as well.
As usual when you see a screwup of this magnitude, it’s a bipartisan screwup. The banks were not victims of the groups like ACORN, they were in cahoots with them. And the bulk of the GOP went along with the Democrats all these years.
ACORN has been corrupt from its founding.
All you people can’t see the forest for the trees.
Its purpose was and is solely sedition, treason to subvert America and convert it to Stalinism.
All those extortions and frauds and coersions and other crimes are merely tactics, tools and means to the end. Details. Its seeds are the weather underground and it has been corrupt from the beginning.
To trace it back only 15 years is to miss the point.
These people deserve the “Mussolini treatment” nothing less.
And when will the media truly understand how they missed the story of ACORN’s 15 years of massive corruption?
I’d say the “missing” was intentional, just as Charlie Gibson (he of “Bush doctrine” gotcha fame) hadn’t really, even, you know, heard about the ACORN story.
Bet me.
The Morally Superior Media (aka the Mentally Stagnant Media) simply tries to dismiss or ignore data that don’t fit with its agenda and its pro Left paradigm. (we could date that back to the days when a sitting President lying under oath was “just about” sex, what’s the big deal ? And other examples)
In similar fashion, the MSM ignored the fascinating story of John Edwards’ débacle. It was up to the National Enquirer to carry that water.
The MSM is exactly a reflection of the Leftoid brain, nothing gets in or gets attention (or gets out to the public) that they don’t conceive to be in their interests.
ACORN has set up a panel of reliably leftist people to “investigate” its ongoing problems. Among the people on this panel are such stalwarts of the left as John Podesta, Henry Cisneros, and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend.
Also on the panel – Eric Eve, Senior VP of Global Consumer Group, Community Relations, Citigroup.
But the CRA did not require NINJA loans, the banks and mortgage companies thought that one up on their own. And the Bush administration pushed hard for all of this as well.
(just happened to see this line)
The CRA was given teeth under Clinton, and pushing for NINJA loans ensued. I’ve read some about ACORN pushing (and pushing) financial institutions to make these kinds of loans.
There is testimony, on tape, of Congressional Republicans in 2004 warning of effects of disastrous lending policies to come and democrats in Congress (and others, like Franklin Raines) pooh-poohing all of that and vociferously condemning controls.
Pretty ironic when the Banking Queen said recently that those loans “should never have been made”.
If Acorn has become corrupt and it is proven it should be shut down and/or replaced with another organization worthy of what Acorn used to be. And of course those responsible will be fired without any benefit, retirement or other assistance, which again, is the right thing to do. Funny thing is though, when big oil, banks and big insurance companies are guilty… Politicians ensure we give them bailouts and billion of dollars in retirements “golden goodbyes”. Strange value system eh?..oh yeah, I forgot, thats “free enterprise.” So like with everything else its the old saying “free enterprise isn’t free” and Justice becomes “Just Us.”
“I’ve read some about ACORN pushing (and pushing) financial institutions to make these kinds of loans.”
ACORN and the banks are joined at the hip. I know you read Sailer so you should already be aware of this.
“There is testimony, on tape, of Congressional Republicans in 2004 warning of effects of disastrous lending policies to come”
Republicans had control of Congress in 2004. So they could have done much more than “warn” if they wished. But many Republicans, including Bush, were happy with the status quo. And they were happy with it because the banks and Chamber of Comerce were happy with it.
@40. Steve: – As usual when you see a screwup of this magnitude, it’s a bipartisan screwup.
Steve, based on the facts determined in retrospect – as opposed to the speculation amidst the chaos last fall that only served to heighten the hysteria and “justification” to DO SOMETHING (e.g., TARP) – you’re pretty much off base on everything but this one statement above. It was – and continues to be – a “bipartisan” screwup, and that’s the most important thing.
Recognizing that it’s the most important thing, however, is not enough. What we also have to recognize is that it’s only “bipartisan” in the sense that we have two ostensibly opposed political parties. In reality, they comprise a far-left party, in the form of the Democrats, and a center-left party, in the form of the post-Reagan GOP. Because the GOP has compromised with the moral adolescence of the far-left for decades, there is no longer any balance, and our federal government is now hardly different from most of their European counterparts.
BOTH of these political organizations have been simultaneously growing government AND supporting Keynesian monetary policies – through the Fed’s ham-handed, manipulation of interest rates – that are directly responsible for destroying the free market and creating the thrashing boom/bust cycle that is blamed on capitalism by The Left Wing Media and socialists completing their Long March through the rest of America’s institutions.
That these politicos have not learned from the enormous mistakes of the 30s and 70s here in America, or the 80s and 90s in Japan, goes without saying. It’s clear they are oblivious to those lessons and will continue the insanity of repeating those mistakes over and over, publicly pretending to expect a different result when in reality they are collectively pushing for – and achieving – the same neo-fascist goals the EU(SSR) currently pursues.
We can let this continue, and kiss good-bye what was once the last best hope of earth, or we can do a clean sweep of Congress, demand an audit of the Fed and put the federal government on notice that this process will continue until they read, understand and start obeying the Constitution. Those are our choices.
“.. worthy of what Acorn used to be”
What do you think ACORN “used to be”? Do even a little research and you’ll find it had corruption built into it right from the start.
We have a nominally capitalistic economic system, but it’s more accurately described as a parasitic one. As long as the politicians get theirs, and the government gets its bite, and the lawyers get theirs and the nonprofits get a taste, you can keep what you make.
The parasites, alas, are getting hungrier. Don’t look for a happy ending – the host usually dies because the parasites are too greedy to let it live.
“Steve, based on the facts determined in retrospect – as opposed to the speculation amidst the chaos last fall that only served to heighten the hysteria and “justification” to DO SOMETHING (e.g., TARP) – you’re pretty much off base on everything but this one statement above.”
Golly. No doubt you’ll enlighten me as to what the “everything” I’m wrong about is.
I don’t pretend to be an ex-spurt on this stuff, Steve, but your statements about Republicans/Bush being happy with the status quo isn’t borne out by much of what I formerly perused. And you’re not offering evidence for that claim.
What I referenced above is “the fannie & freddie testimony that will make you scream” which can be googled & seen on youtube.
From 2001 to 2008, the Bush administration tried more than 18 times to bring Fannie and Freddie under heel
@50. Steve: – No doubt you’ll enlighten me…
The exercise would be pointless, given what you’ve been posting.
Stick to pursuing the bipartisan angle of this. As I mentioned, it’s the most (only!) important aspect of this entire debacle. If we can put balance and Constitutional validity back in government, the opinion-based details of what caused what will be moot.
If millions of honest Americans, sick of the endless corruption of banks like BofA, were to withdraw their savings and investments from the zombie banks (Wells, Citi, BofA, etc) and place them with local credit unions, that would get their attention, fast.
“The exercise would be pointless, given what you’ve been posting.”
What I’ve been posting is that the cause of the financial meltdown was a joint effort between the banks and radical leftist groups, and between the Democrats and the Republicans.
What specifically do you disagree with?
And when will you numbnuts understand that this is a very, very minor story that right wingers have been doing their darnedest to try to make into a BFD because of Obama’s very brief, and very tenuous past association with ACORN. Relative to everything else that’s going on, it’s a C section, page 2 story at best. ACORN is an umbrella organization of community groups, many if not most of which hire people from the bad parts of town. While I’m sure most go about their jobs seriously and responsibly, given the demographics, you can expect some slip-ups in the hiring process. And it isn’t like any of this involves a lot of money….
To borrow a phrase….
It’s time to start draining the swamp.
I have to admit that I have been enjoying watching the slow, torturous downfall of Obama’s favorite mobsters aka ACORN. I await the novels that will be written about ACORN and how they and this administration fed off of each other.
“From 2001 to 2008, the Bush administration tried more than 18 times to bring Fannie and Freddie under heel”
Why did they “try” to bring it under heel? Why didn’t they just do it? Why did not Bush put, say, 0.01% as much effort into trying to straighten out this mess as he did into trying to ram through “comprehensive immigration reform”?
“you’re not offering evidence for that claim.”
The evidence is the GOP’s actions, or inactions to be more precise. And Bush’s repeated calls for increased home ownership by whatever means neccessary. The evidence is McCain notably NOT running against the Democrats on this issue.
.. because of Obama’s very brief, and very tenuous past association with ACORN
Obama in his own words:
“I’ve been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career. Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work.””
ACORN is an umbrella organization of community groups, many if not most of which hire people from the bad parts of town.
People like Barack Obama.
@54. Steve: – the cause of the financial meltdown was a joint effort between the banks and radical leftist groups, …
The facts declare otherwise. If banks had been working in concert with radical leftist groups, they would not have had to have been sued by people like BHO, and organizations like ACORN would not have been openly harassing their business operations in efforts to get them to provide “affordable mortgages” to minorities. Banks were coerced into working with and financing the likes of organizations like ACORN while at the same time the GSEs (meaning social engineering policies implemented by the federal government) provided them with a mechanism to minimize their own risk.
- …and between the Democrats and the Republicans.
And I suggest you stick with this line of research and forget about any (Pyrrhic) victory you think you’re going to achieve through blaming banks or specific political celebrities. If we address the cause of our declining Republic – federal breakdown due to a combination of outright corruption and socialist influence – the rest will be self-correcting.
If banks had been working in concert with radical leftist groups
They are working in concert with leftist groups. Look at the people on the “panel” ACORN has set up to investigate itself.
Banks were coerced into working with and financing the likes of organizations like ACORN.
Look into who it was that bankrolled politicians like Chris Dodd and Barney Frank. It’s clearly no good me telling you stuff, so look it up yourself.
@61. Steve: – It’s clearly no good me telling you stuff, so look it up yourself.
I have. And you’re right: it’s clearly of no use for you to keep spewing nonsense. You’re not convincing anyone. The relationships between ACORN and the banks didn’t just happen last week and they weren’t the result of some common purpose to screw depositors out of their money and give away homes to minorities – banks were coerced into supporting ACORN through litigation and operational harassment on the one hand and assured that their efforts would be rewarded and guaranteed against losses through GSEs like FM & FM. I’m sure in your altruistic world of unreal perfection the banks would have stood on principle and refused to cooperate. That’s not the world we live in though.
If you’re really interested in addressing the sins of the past, work to fix the federal government and reinstate an accountable, two-party system. Eliminate the banks’ collective ability to create money via the Fed. Absent that ability, and given a government beholden to the People instead of itself, these other issues resolve themselves.
What bank was offering $5000 limit cards to illegals?
63. Dred: – What bank was offering $5000 limit cards to illegals?
Stuff like this has been going on for some time now. It starts with stuff like “I.D. / Debit” Cards. Follow the links for additional references to banks coming “under intense pressure from community groups, some of which had accused the bank of a poor record of lending in the city of New Haven.”
Obviously, if banks were working WITH these community groups, then the intense pressure wouldn’t have been required, eh Steve?
To Steve: Sorry but you’re just echoing some disingenuous conflating typical of a common GOP/right wing tactics: take a quote completely out of context so nobody knows the circumstances of it, deliberately leave off some important details, and then falsely mix in unrelated issues to deliberately confuse people. Bush and his people did this with 9/11 and Hussein, and the right is doing the same with ACORN and Obama.
The key bit in the quote is the word “alongside* in the “I’ve been fighting alongside ACORN” bit. So what does “alongside” mean here? It means that Obama had been actually working for Project Vote. What does Project Vote has to do with ACORN? One of things that ACORN has been involved with for some time is voter registration drives, which is also obviously a big part of Project Vote, so they often combined their efforts.
The bottom line is that Obama’s connection to ACORN *is* tenuous, and trying to make ACORN into some sort of ENRON of poor people is both malicious and idiotic: ACORN is basically a large umbrella organization of community groups involved in all sorts of things mostly to do with people in poor and high crime areas. And as I keep trying to explain to slack-jawed incomprehension, they also tend to hire from those neighborhoods, which does ramp up the risk and probability for misbehavior, but you have to think first of the hard-working people grateful for the opportunity. It isn’t the equivalent of friggin’ rocket science to figure out what’s really going on here.
Not getting coverage.
The SEIU was/is shaking down B of A w/ lawsuits. Trying to blackmail them into unionizing tellers.
The LA Times (of all media) reported this about 6 weeks ago.
Ken Lewis was reportedly (CNBC I believe) more scared of SEIU than anything else.
Obama’s deep connection to ACORN, and ACORN’s deep connection to the sub-prime mortgage debacle and global financial meltdown will be the conduit for Obama’s impeachment conviction. If this all plays out property, the old MSM will be destroyed in the process for their evil connivance in the whole affair. What a beautiful thing it well be…
@65. BC: – It isn’t the equivalent of friggin’ rocket science to figure out what’s really going on here.
Heh. Heheh. No, it’s not.
At least out of your entire, nonsensical, blithering screed you managed to write one sentence that is actually true.
You can return to your slack-jawed incomprehension now, BC, since the facts are opaque to you: without ACORN to commit widespread vote fraud and fawning The Left Wing Media to jack BHO’s numbers up by 10-15%, you’d be whining about McCain’s ineptitude today.
To Goy: Your inflatable doll turn you down again?
BC: wow. more adolescent stuttering from you. who could have seen that coming!
Thanks for the comments – its part of why I love writing for this site.
A couple of clarifications:
- The story the NYT spiked on ACORN was in October 2008, right before the election. It was a discussion of the link between the Obama campaign and ACORN’s voter fraud. The story that they had spiked the story didn’t come out until March, and that was broken by Michelle Malkin I believe, which I linked.
- I mention millions of Bank of America bonuses – it’s billions of course, including 3.6B promised to Merrill Lynch that wasn’t disclosed to shareholders during the merger.
- ACORN has been around longer than fifteen years. I used that specific time frame because that’s about how long Obama has worked with ACORN.
- I forgot to include a link to the Mercantile Bank CRA action by ACORN. It’s educational, and ACORN says it was the first time that a community group like theirs had a big impact on a bank.
http://www.occ.treas.gov/interp/jul97/cd97-51.pdf
So no corrections, just a couple of missed opportunities in the article. I’m glad I wrote it – I was surprised myself to find out they were a subprime lender. I knew liberals usually preyed on the people they claimed to help, but didn’t think it was quite that blatant.
Looking forward to watching the rest of the Megyn Kelly Truth About Acorn special on Fox – saw the first 20 minutes but had to DVR the rest for tomorrow. And the Juan-Rove faceoff just ahead of that was outstanding.
The corrupted left American media knows all about the dirty little deals. They don’t report because corruption is a way of life for them.
News Flash: Pink Slips to the White House have now surged past 2 million.
Also not reported.