Tag Archives: Scandal

News

GREAT NEWS: Senate votes to de-fund ACORN 83-7!

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I am so happy that I am crying.

Story from Ed Morrissey of Hot Air.

Excerpt:

Senator Mike Johanns (R-NE) introduced an amendment to the HUD and Transportation appropriation bill to strip ACORN of all federal funding.  A week ago, Johanns wouldn’t have gotten the amendment to the floor.  Today, however, after three straight days of BigGovernment.com’s video exposés of ACORN offices in Washington DC, New York City, and Baltimore offering assistance to pimping, tax evasion, and trafficking in underage Salvadorean girls, Johanns not only got his vote — but he got an impressive bipartisan showing.  The Senate passed the Johanns amendment 83-7.

At the beginning of the vote, it appeared that Democrats might resist.  Initially, a half-dozen Democrats cast votes in opposition to the amendment.  A few more cast votes against it as the rest of the Senate voted, but the tide appeared to shift.  More and more Democrats signed onto the amendment, and votes started changing.  One male voice could be heard in the chamber saying, “I want to change my vote!”  Among those who changed their votes: Tom Udall (D-NM), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), and Herb Kohl (D-WI).

There’s so much good news lately… I am just so happy about it!

These are the Democrats in favor of taxpayer funding of consultations on child prostitution:

  • Dick Durbin (D-IL)
  • Roland Burris (D-IL)
  • Robert Casey (D-PA)
  • Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)
  • Patrick Leahy (D-VT)
  • Bernie Sanders (I-VT)
  • Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)

Michelle Malkin reports that ACORN has been dumped by the Census Bureau as well!

News

MUST-SEE: ACORN exposed on video telling “pimp” how to evade IRS

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Story from Fox News. (H/T Michelle Malkin)

Excerpt:

A second ACORN employee can be heard on the audiotape suggesting that the couple join the organization for an annual cost of $120 prior to attending one of its first-time homebuyer seminars, which are underwritten with taxpayer funds.

Later, when the “pimp” asks what would happen if the organization is somehow connected to the scheme, the ACORN staffer replies, “First of all, it’s not gonna damage us because we not gonna know. And with your girls, you tell them, ‘Be careful.’ Train them to keep their mouth shut.”

“These girls are like 14, how can we trust them?” the pimp asks.

“Just be very, very careful,” the ACORN staffer says. “Whatever you do, always keep your eyes in the back of your head.”

Reached by FOX News, O’Keefe said he was “shocked” at the level of assistance provided by ACORN staffers.

“I was prepared for them to call the police, throw me out of the office and be hostile,” he said. “Without hesitation, they helped me every way they could with evading taxes and setting me up with a brothel, with getting around federal tax laws — doing everything they could to help us. I was completely shocked.”

ECM sent me the videos of the sting.

These were linked at American Spectator.

Obama has strong connections with ACORN, but he is also connected to Planned Parenthood. Watch the video below and see how Planned Parenthood also breaks the law.

This is actually not unusual for Planned Parenthood, as Fox News reports.

Excerpt:

A pro-life group in Texas has enlisted a woman to pose as a pregnant teen in a campaign designed to catch abortion clinics that might break the law.

Life Dynamics said one of its activists has called more than 800 abortion clinics nationwide in recent months, pretending to be a 13-year-old girl impregnated by her 22-year-old boyfriend. What she learned is that more than 90 percent of the clinic employees handling the calls said they would conceal the information provided by the caller, according to Life Dynamics president Mark Crutcher.

Such an action would be a violation of the law in states that require the reporting of sexual abuse of a minor. A 22-year-old having sex with a 13-year-old is considered statutory rape in all 50 states.

And here is a new Hot Air piece exposing the internal workings of ACORN. (H/T Michelle Malkin)

Wow. People on the left who don’t believe in objective morality, breaking the law. Hard to believe. Not.

UPDATE: Oh my goodness! The undercover woman is Hannah Giles, the eldest daughter of Christian columnist Doug Giles!!!!

News

Obama restricts government contracts over 25M to unionized labor

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From Erick Erickson at Red State. (H/T IHateTheMedia via ECM)

Excerpt:

Barack Obama and his administration are about to significantly drive up the costs of federal building construction. This is an astonishing reach. The Office of Management and Budget has directed that any federal construction over $25 million benefit unions.

The order would make all federal construction projects 10-20% more expensive by requiring all contractors to either use union workers or apply inefficient union apprenticeship and work rules to their employees. Contractors would also be required to make contributions to union pension funds and other union programs that non-union workers will never benefit from.

This will hugely drive up the cost of construction of federal buildings and line the pockets of unions without even having union workers involved in the projects. The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that only 15.6% of private construction workers in America belong to unions. In other words, 8 out of 10 construction workers in America will be legally denied the right to work on federal building projects.

Now you say to me, “Wintery! What’s wrong with unions?”

And I refer you to this article from the extremely leftist NYT. (H/T Sweetness and Light via ECM)

Excerpt:

No one got the chance to say goodbye to Café des Artistes, the storied New York City restaurant that served up Old World fare under the gaze of the painted nubile nudes that perkily graced its walls.

The restaurant had closed on Aug. 9 for a month-long vacation and was to reopen Sept. 14. But on Friday, facing steady losses and a union lawsuit, its owners made what they described as a wrenching decision to close the landmark cafe on West 67th Street for good.

“It’s a very sad day for us,” said Jenifer Lang, whose husband, George Lang, has owned the restaurant since 1975. “It’s a death in the family.”

It was also the death of an intrinsic part of old New York. Countless couples got engaged in the glow of the restaurant’s dim, romantic lighting…

Mrs. Lang, 58, said that the restaurant’s business had been hurt by the economic crash but that its problems ran deeper. Café des Artistes was unionized, and she said the restaurant paid about $250,000 a year to cover its employees’ health and pension benefits, an amount she said the restaurant struggled to cover. Mrs. Lang also said the couple, whose home is half a block from the restaurant, put in $2 million of their own money to keep it running over the last 10 years.

“It makes it difficult to run a restaurant most of the time,” Mrs. Lang said of the union benefits. “When the economy is down, it makes it impossible.”

The final straw, Mrs. Lang said, was a lawsuit recently filed against the restaurant by the union demanding past benefit assessments.

Bill Granfield, president of Local 100 of Unite Here, the union representing the cafe’s 50-odd employees, said the restaurant had fallen behind on its payments for medical insurance and welfare funds, forcing the union to demand payment in court. He also said workers in 2003 took a pay cut and agreed to switch to a cheaper medical plan to ease the restaurant’s financial pressures…

Unions kill jobs by raising the price of labor with no compensating rise in worker productivity. When you raise the price of labor, businesses die. When businesses die, unemployment goes up. That’s the way the world works.