Acorn uses various affiliated groups to agitate for "a living wage," for "affordable housing," for "tax justice" and union and environmental goals, as well as against school choice and welfare reform. It was a major contributor to the subprime meltdown by pushing lenders to make home loans on easy terms, conducting "strikes" against banks so they'd lower credit standards.

But the organization's real genius is getting American taxpayers to foot the bill. According to a 2006 report from the Employment Policies Institute (EPI), Acorn has been on the federal take since 1977. For instance, Acorn's American Institute for Social Justice claimed $240,000 in tax money between fiscal years 2002 and 2003. Its American Environmental Justice Project received 100% of its revenue from government grants in the same years. EPI estimates the Acorn Housing Corporation alone received some $16 million in federal dollars from 1997-2007. Only recently, Democrats tried and failed to stuff an "affordable housing" provision into the $700 billion bank rescue package that would have let politicians give even more to Acorn.

All this money gives Acorn the ability to pursue its other great hobby: electing liberals. Acorn is spending $16 million this year to register new Democrats and is already boasting it has put 1.3 million new voters on the rolls. The big question is how many of these registrations are real.

The Michigan Secretary of State told the press in September that Acorn had submitted "a sizeable number of duplicate and fraudulent applications." Earlier this month, Nevada's Democratic Secretary of State Ross Miller requested a raid on Acorn's offices, following complaints of false names and fictional addresses (including the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys). Nevada's Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax said he saw rampant fraud in 2,000 to 3,000 applications Acorn submitted weekly.

Officials in Ohio are investigating voter fraud connected with Acorn, and Florida's Seminole County is withholding Acorn registrations that appear fraudulent. New Mexico, North Carolina and Missouri are looking into hundreds of dubious Acorn registrations. Wisconsin is investigating Acorn employees for, according to an election official, "making people up or registering people that were still in prison."

Then there's Lake County, Indiana, which has already found more than 2,100 bogus applications among the 5,000 Acorn dumped right before the deadline. "All the signatures looked exactly the same," said Ruthann Hoagland, of the county election board. Bridgeport, Connecticut estimates about 20% of Acorn's registrations were faulty. As of July, the city of Houston had rejected or put on hold about 40% of the 27,000 registration cards submitted by Acorn.

Read the whole story by clicking HERE.

And here's a report on Acorn from CNN:

Last week, the Press-Register printed an editorial that criticized all of the elected officials who opposed Mobile's annexation attempt.  Some people in Semmes were upset by the paper's editorial, and they sent samples of their anger to my email inbox. Here are some samples:

Uncle Henry,

This probably won't be printed, but maybe you will voice my opinion of the Mobile Press editorial in Thursday's edition. I sent this to the Press:

In your Thursday editorial, you state: "For county commissioners, legislators and even the sheriff to now fight against Mobile's efforts to grow is divisive and unproductive."

On the contrary, the gerrymandered lines drawn for Mobile to garner the commercial interests it sought and Mobile's cherry-picking voters it "allowed" to vote is what is DIVISIVE. If Mobile TRULY wanted to be "inclusive", it would have drawn the lines to include all residents impacted by its push for annexation. Mobile is the one being "divisive". The elected officials who spoke out against the gerrymandered lines were stating the truth and the obvious. It may be legal to draw the lines in such a way as to only include certain voters, but it goes against the "spirit of the law". The law was written for those areas in Alabama that don't have enough voters in the vicinity to vote for an annexation. Mayor Jones knows exactly why the law was written the way it was. He purposely used the law against the citizens of the Moffett Road area. What is legal isn't necessarily ethical, which is why the push for annexation was defeated in this area.

It is the Duty and Responsibility of our commissioners, legislators, sheriff and all elected officials to tell the truth. Nodine did that. It is irresponsible for the Mobile Press to smear those people who stood up and told it like it is. The Mobile Press saying Jones isn't "divisive" doesn't make it so. If your journalism were truly for the good of the people you SERVE, you would tell the truth as well.

Renee F

Semmes, Al

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The people of Semmes/Crawford area are appauled that the Press Register is denergrating our county commissioners in their Oct.9 paper. We elect officials to represent us and that is exactly what they did. Sam Jones and most of his council want big government, big bucks and taxation without representation. Steve Nodine and the others understood what Sam Jones was trying to do and if other elected officials in Washington did what they did for the people, then maybe our economy would not be in the situation it is in. I will boycott the Press Register and request others to do the same unless an apology is rendered to our county commissionrs.

Voice of Semmes

Charlene

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Uncle Henry,

By now, I'm sure you have heard about the editorial in the Press Register giving negative comments about the elected officials exposing the unfairness of the annexation proposal. I did not agree with the editorial, and I sent in a Letter to the Editor in response to it. I don't know if it will be printed or not, but I am going to print it below:

Quote

It was with great surprise and dismay that I read your editorial in Thursday's paper and my response is that the comment about the elected officials was unjust and uncalled for. For weeks, the citizens of Mobile county had been publicly expressing the unfairness and unethical handling of the annexation proposal by both the mayor of Mobile and the city council. The sneakiness of the annexation plan and the blatant disregard for the voting rights of the prople affected by the gerrymandered and lassoed commercial districts was and is unethical. The entire procedure was executed unfairly by the so-called leaders of the City of Mobile. All the elected officals did was make it public that the mayor and his co-conspiritors were defrauding the public of their right to vote on their future. The mayor and his people resent this, because it brought to light that the annexation was definitely *NOT* being done in a democratic way. If the mayor wanted the people in Mobile that supposedly said that they wanted to be a part of the city, then why didn't he help them move to a new house within the City of Mobile, instead of trying to annex the commercial properties around where they live. This would be *logical*, but all he wanted was the money, not the people. If the City of Mobile's government is actually experiencing a financial crisis, then why don't they increase the sales tax and property taxes for the residents of the City of Mobile? After all, the whole thing was about how great it was to vote yourself a tax increase if you joined the city - right? If the tax increase turns out to be unfavorable to the citizens of the City of Mobile, then it can't be such a great place to live in and the benefits arn't worth paying for - right?

UnQuote

I know that the tax increase idea is what Sam Jones is trying to avoid, because it passing would probably cause people to move out of the city into the county. This idea is much better and cheaper than trying to annex every potential money-maker in sight. No extra expense outside of the city and no problems with robbing the school system of its ability to survive. Another possible income idea (no doubt under consideration by Sam Jones) is to access a tax on people that live outside of the city but work inside of the city. This would definitely be voted down. Most of us spend our money inside of the city limits anyway, so this would be unfair and unjust.

An increase of 1 and 1/2 cents on sales tax and a similar increase in property taxes would be enough for the mayor to fix up the Cruise-ship terminal and the tourist

district downtown, and maybe leave a little over for the poorly maintained streets and neighborhoods within the city limits of Mobile. Personally, I do not think that the mayor and his people had much to do with getting the industrial companies to come to Mobile County. Those businesses were bribed and given freebies for moving to the area.

Thanks,

Richard M

Semmes

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Uncle Henry, I am writing this in response to the Press-Register’s editorial published Thursday, October 7.
 
Not only did our citizens step forward and voice their opinions on the unfairness of the City of Mobile’s “gerrymandering” of lines and “lasso-ing” of our commercialized Moffett Road area, also our elected officials stood up and publicly stated their objections to the City of Mobile unfairly denying so many the right to vote.  The right to vote is American and this was taken away from the majority of our community.
 
What the City of Mobile did was unethical and immoral to the citizens in the Semmes/Crawford and Tillmans Corner/Theodore areas.  The City of Mobile denied citizens the right to vote.  Our Legislators, Co unty Commissioners and our Sheriff would have reacted in the same fashion if the City of Mobile had treated “city” citizens with such disrespect.  I am appalled that the Press-Register would publish editorial comments condemning the integrity and character of our County Commisioner Stephen Nodine and other elected officials who voiced their opposition to the City of Mobile’s unethical actions.
 
Judy

Today's Wall Street Journal has this eye-opening assessment:

One of Barack Obama's most potent campaign claims is that he'll cut taxes for no less than 95% of "working families." He's even promising to cut taxes enough that the government's tax share of GDP will be no more than 18.2% -- which is lower than it is today.

For the Obama Democrats, a tax cut is no longer letting you keep more of what you earn. In their lexicon, a tax cut includes tens of billions of dollars in government handouts that are disguised by the phrase "tax credit." Mr. Obama is proposing to create or expand no fewer than seven such credits for individuals:

- A $500 tax credit ($1,000 a couple) to "make work pay" that phases out at income of $75,000 for individuals and $150,000 per couple.

- A $4,000 tax credit for college tuition.

- A 10% mortgage interest tax credit (on top of the existing mortgage interest deduction and other housing subsidies).

- A "savings" tax credit of 50% up to $1,000.

- An expansion of the earned-income tax credit that would allow single workers to receive as much as $555 a year, up from $175 now, and give these workers up to $1,110 if they are paying child support.

- A child care credit of 50% up to $6,000 of expenses a year.

- A "clean car" tax credit of up to $7,000 on the purchase of certain vehicles.

Here's the political catch. All but the clean car credit would be "refundable," which is Washington-speak for the fact that you can receive these checks even if you have no income-tax liability. In other words, they are an income transfer -- a federal check -- from taxpayers to nontaxpayers. Once upon a time we called this "welfare," or in George McGovern's 1972 campaign a "Demogrant." Mr. Obama's genius is to call it a tax cut.

The Tax Foundation estimates that under the Obama plan 63 million Americans, or 44% of all tax filers, would have no income tax liability and most of those would get a check from the IRS each year. The Heritage Foundation's Center for Data Analysis estimates that by 2011, under the Obama plan, an additional 10 million filers would pay zero taxes while cashing checks from the IRS.

The total annual expenditures on refundable "tax credits" would rise over the next 10 years by $647 billion to $1.054 trillion, according to the Tax Policy Center. This means that the tax-credit welfare state would soon cost four times actual cash welfare. By redefining such income payments as "tax credits," the Obama campaign also redefines them away as a tax share of GDP. Presto, the federal tax burden looks much smaller than it really is.

The political left defends "refundability" on grounds that these payments help to offset the payroll tax. And that was at least plausible when the only major refundable credit was the earned-income tax credit. Taken together, however, these tax credit payments would exceed payroll levies for most low-income workers.


Read the whole article by clicking HERE.

Two songs about Mobile's annexation...

First, the protest song, performed by Crockett and members of the Bayblasters:Click Here

And the answer to Crockett's song, performed by Phil Casady:Click Here