ACORN Redux: The ObamaCare Navigators Nightmare

My article in today's FrontPage Magazine:

ACORN slayer James O'Keefe with Matthew Vadum

ACORN Redux: The ObamaCare Navigators Nightmare

By Matthew Vadum

The undercover videographer who helped to kill ACORN is now turning his powerful lens on Obamacare “navigators,” showing how left-wing groups break the law and defraud taxpayers by pushing Obamacare exchanges.

The undercover investigators of Project Veritas, the nonprofit created by ACORN slayer James O’Keefe III, are going after the almost 50,000 Obamacare “navigators,” whom the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says are supposed to “serve as an in-person resource for Americans who want additional assistance in shopping for and enrolling in plans” on the Obamacare exchanges.

Left-wing activists have scooped up more than $67 million in grants nationwide to hire the navigators, a payoff to ACORN and other radical outfits that helped win Barack Obama the presidency.

Undercover investigators from Project Veritas captured taxpayer-paid Obamacare promoters on video telling health care insurance applicants to lie about preexisting medical conditions.

A new video shows an Obamacare navigator employed by the National Urban League in Texas counseling an investigator to be untruthful when completing documentation needed to apply for health care insurance on the Obamacare exchanges. The league took in $376,000 from the federal government for its navigator work.

“You lie because your premiums will be higher,” one navigator tells the undercover journalist, who advised the person that he occasionally smokes. “Don’t tell them that. Don’t tell ’em.”

When the investigator pretends to be a low-income university employee with unreported cash income that, if declared, could endanger his eligibility for federal premium subsidies, the navigators advises, “Don’t get yourself in trouble by declaring it now.”

“Yeah, it didn’t happen,” says another navigator. Another adds, “Never report it.”

The video also shows Project Veritas visiting Enroll America, a nationwide nonprofit group that is encouraging millions of Americans to sign up for health insurance coverage on Obamacare exchanges.

As John Fund notes in a National Review Online article, Daniel Clayton of Enroll America says the group is “purely nonprofit. It’s not partisan, non-political.” But when Brian Pendleton, also of Enroll America, was introduced at a speaking engagement, Enroll America was called “the official group for the DNC [Democratic National Committee].”

Disgraced ACORN founder Wade Rathke is urging Catholics to quit their church

President Obama isn't the only leftist to declare war on the Catholic church.

Disgraced ACORN founder Wade Rathke is urging Catholics to quit their church:

In the fall from grace of one institution after another, religious bodies have been on a steady decline for a generation.  No institution claims more members and fills less pews now that the Catholic Church on any given Sunday, nor has any outfit taken more of a licking in the public perception.  The inability to effectively manage the staff at the boundary lines between practice and principle has led to some dioceses declaring bankruptcy, multi-million dollar damage settlements, and a general uneasiness about how faith and flock have been stewarded by priests.  Couple all of that with a rigid hierarchy that seems committed to resisting change, pushing back the clock, some verifiable degree of misogyny, and a hardening attack on the victims of priestly misconduct and venerable institutions like the Catholic Campaign for Human Development and anything that still carries the torch of the Church’s long historic leadership in the fight for social justice.
What’s to be done?  Finally, it has become crystal clear.  It’s time to leave the church and follow the nuns! [emphasis added above]

That's rich. Wade is one of the worst managers in the history of nonprofit activism. His brother Dale embezzled nearly $1 million from ACORN in 2000 and Wade covered it up for eight years. Wade's actions laid the groundwork for the collapse of ACORN. All ACORN needed was a push -- and that push was provided by James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles the next year when they caught ACORN employees on undercover video offering helpful advice on setting up a brothel for pedophiles. The video sting caused Congress to cut off funding for ACORN and scared away remaining institutional funders. ACORN filed for bankruptcy on Election Day 2010.


And wow, does Wade really hate the Catholic church.

American Prospect's Gabriel Arana joins the ACORN 'Useful Idiot' Club

The list of ACORN's defenders in the media continues to grow.

Gabriel Arana is the latest useful idiot to join the club. Here's what this dishonest leftist wrote in a piece concerning Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.):

The entire story has all the trappings of a contrived scandal; one cannot but draw a parallel to the James O’Keefe ACORN hullabaloo, in which O’Keefe posed as a pimp seeking advice about his prostitution business and then edited the tape to smear the organization. To be sure, all journalism—on the right as well as the left—tends toward sensationalism, and no doubt part of the interest in Bachmann coincides with her presidential run.

There’s a crucial difference between the ACORN smear campaign and that against the Bachmann clinic, however. [emphasis added]

As anyone who followed the undercover ACORN video saga knows, the videos were not dishonestly edited. James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles were welcomed with open arms by almost everyone they dealt with at ACORN when they pitched their make-believe brothel for pedophiles proposal.

The Left is trying to rewrite the narrative on ACORN to make it seem like the organized crime syndicate was somehow victimized by O'Keefe, Giles, Internet news entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart, and God knows who else.

It's hogwash. ACORN is evil, corrupt, subversive, and criminal and it got what it deserved (besides, it's not quite dead, either).

ACORN still exists, as I have documented in my acclaimed new book, Subversion Inc.: How Obama's ACORN Red Shirts are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers, and ACORN sources have confirmed that it is gearing up to resurface under a new name in time to help re-elect President Obama, a former ACORN employee.

(Buy the book at Amazon. Visit the Subversion Inc. Facebook page. Follow me on Twitter.)

Terrorist-Linked ACORN Shill Brad Friedman Lies, Lies, and Lies Some More

Left-wing pseudojournalist Brad Friedman thinks everything reported about ACORN is overblown. It's all a scheme concocted by a vast right-wing conspiracy. Clearly he hasn't read my book, Subversion Inc.: How Obama's ACORN Red Shirts are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers.

Friedman, who routinely chokes on his own robust self-esteem, is often a substitute host on the "Mike Malloy Show." Malloy has serious, shall we say, psychiatric issues. He has called for the murder of former President George W. Bush, described Fox News as a "terrorist organization" that "wants to burn the country down," and characterized Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minnesota) as a "whore," "streetwalker," and a "crazy bitch."

Filling in for his straitjacket-worthy buddy Malloy a few days ago, Friedman, who is also a business partner of convicted "Speedway Bomber" Brett Kimberlin (see mugshot below), unloaded everything that has been bugging him about the alleged persecution of the ACORN crime syndicate. (The audio clip is available at Friedman's blog. Click on "HOUR 1.")

Friedman thinks the undercover "pimp and prostitute" videos are a hoax and that Andrew Breitbart should be in jail. He wants the videographers, James O'Keefe III and Hannah Giles, to "pay" for whatever it is they supposedly did to poor little ACORN. He accuses anyone who thinks voters should have to present ID in order to vote as engaging in "voter suppression."

Friedman also doesn't seem to understand the term voter fraud, making a fool of himself on Fox News with John Fund in 2008. The obnoxious Friedman jumps all over Fund, insisting that voter fraud and the voter registration fraud that Fund is apparently referencing are entirely separate things. "There's a big difference" between the two, Friedman says.

In fact, voter registration fraud is a variety of voter fraud. Voter fraud (also called electoral fraud or election fraud) is a blanket term encompassing a host of election-related improprieties including fraudulent voting, forgery, impersonation, identity theft, bribery, manipulating a voting machine, ballot box stuffing, false swearing, absentee ballot fraud, and many, many other crimes.

In other words, all voter registration fraud is voter fraud but not all voter fraud is voter registration fraud.

This is Friedman's shtick. He uses it routinely to downplay the exhaustively documented crimes of ACORN against the integrity of America's electoral system.

Said Friedman on the Malloy show:

Where is the ACORN voter fraud? It doesn't exist! It never existed! There is not one single vote, no evidence - no evidence of any single vote ever having been cast following an improper ACORN registration. Not one fraudulent vote! For all that you've heard and how they're stealing elections for Democrats...never happened, not once! It's completely phony, it's completely made up, and it's made up for one reason - so that the same Republicans who are lying about it can turn around, pass bills that keep you from being able to cast your legal vote because they can't win elections if everybody gets to vote. They've got to game the system! And that's what they do, that's what they did! Democrats and Obama should be ashamed of themselves to have signed on for defunding ACORN, but they did it.

Tedious stuff.

For a refutation of Friedman's nonsense, read Subversion Inc.: How Obama's ACORN Red Shirts are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers.

* * * * *

America needs to know that ACORN is restructuring in time to help re-elect President Obama in 2012. Obama used to work for ACORN and represented the group in court as its lawyer. These radical leftists who use the brutal, in-your-face, Machiavellian pressure tactics of Saul Alinsky want to destroy America as we know it and will use any means to do it.

Buy the book at Amazon. Visit the Subversion Inc. Facebook page. Follow me on Twitter.

More BS from Boss "Bowel Movement" Bertha

ACORN's terminal national chief organizer, the pathological liar Bertha Lewis, thinks people are stupid and can be fooled easily. This is the charming lady who referred to the Tea Party as a "bowel movement."

She's still claiming the 2009 videotapes showing ACORN employees encouraging undercover conservative activists to set up a brothel for pedophiles were "doctored."

Give it up, Bertha.

* * * * *

America needs to know that ACORN is restructuring in time to help re-elect President Obama in 2012. Obama used to work for ACORN and represented the group in court as its lawyer. These radical leftists who use the brutal, in-your-face, Machiavellian pressure tactics of Saul Alinsky want to destroy America as we know it and will use any means to do it.

Buy the book at Amazon. Visit the Subversion Inc. Facebook page. Follow me on Twitter.

ACORN Slayer James O'Keefe's Citizen Journalism Group Gets Tax-Exempt Status from IRS

The New York Times reports that James O'Keefe III has secured tax-exempt status for his nonprofit citizen journalism group Project Veritas.

With Hannah Giles, O'Keefe ran the undercover video sting that exposed the corruption of ACORN, President Obama's former employer and legal client. More recently he ran a video sting that showed NPR's willingness to accept donations from Islamofascists.

From the NYT report:

"It will help us expand as an organization and institution," Mr. O'Keefe said in an interview on Thursday.

He said the money saved with the status would help Project Veritas train and equip "an army" of citizen journalists to carry out its mission: "to investigate and expose corruption, dishonesty, self-dealing, waste, fraud and other misconduct in both public and private institutions in order to achieve a more ethical and transparent society."

I interviewed O'Keefe for my new book Subversion Inc.: How Obama's ACORN Red Shirts are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers. He offered his unique insights.

(Follow me on Twitter.)

Why Aren’t Community Organizers in Prison Where They Belong?: ‘Subversion Inc.’ Book Preview (Part 4 of 4)

A preview article from NewsReal blog. It reads:

ACORN’s anti-democratic, un-American activities are not legitimate political advocacy protected by the First Amendment. They cry out for prosecution under federal racketeering laws. [The push for a racketeering probe got a boost in April 2011 when ACORN was convicted in a massive voter fraud conspiracy in Nevada. The felony conviction came after the book had gone to press. -MV]

Former Chicago ACORN leader Madeline Talbott is a master of the bank shakedown. She bragged about “dragging banks kicking and screaming” into questionable loans. Talbott thought highly of Barack Obama’s organizing work in the Windy City and invited him to lecture her staffers. She also led a mob attack on the Chicago City Council during a “living wage” debate. ACORN demonstrators “pushed over the metal detector and table used to screen visitors, backed police against the doors to the council chamber, and blocked late-arriving aldermen and city staff from entering the session.” Six people, including a defiant Talbott, were led away in handcuffs.

Then-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich had a taste of ACORN’s stormtrooper tactics in 1995, when about 500 ACORN activists took over the Washington Hilton, forcing Gingrich to cancel a speech to 2,500 county commissioners. Demonstrators chanting “Nuke Newt!” grabbed the microphone and commandeered the head table, then cheered when the speech was cancelled.

“ACORN is part of the enforcement wing and the intimidation wing of the left,” Gingrich said in an interview.

Members of ACORN assaulted New York state Sen. James Alesi, a Republican, and his chief of staff, during a raucous 2009 protest. Alesi said an angry mob nearly knocked him to the floor of the chamber and spat in the face of his chief of staff. ACORN was protesting after two Democratic state senators switched parties giving Republicans control of the New York Senate. ACORN’s political party, the Working Families Party, had invested considerable resources in state senate elections in the Empire State. WFP took credit for ending “30 years of right-wing Republican rule” in 2008.

Politico article: Right seeks edge in 'oppo' wars

A new Politico article by Kenneth P. Vogel, Right seeks edge in 'oppo' wars, quotes me several times.

Here's one passage:

“A lot of conservatives think that you have to abide by Marquess of Queensberry rules even if you’re in a knock-down, drag-out bar fight,” said Matthew Vadum [...]. “And it’s good to be ethical, but sometimes maybe you need to explore new frontiers to reflect the changing nature of political combat in modern America.”

He added, “This doesn’t mean we have to go all Saul Alinsky on the left, but the right can be more aggressive in how it deals with the left and we’re starting to see that.”

Though Vadum cast the right’s effort to close the oppo gap as part of a normal cycle of political innovation and mimicry, he also pointed out that some conservatives have expressed discomfort with the alternately effective-and-disastrous undercover sting tactics of videographer James O’Keefe.

The right needs to overcome its skittishness and “start manufacturing more conservative journalists, and you have to wonder if that’s going to happen, because the people who tend to go into journalism for ideological motivations are on the left,” Vadum said. [...]

Chronicle of Philanthropy weighs in on James O'Keefe's NPR undercover video sting

The Chronicle of Philanthropy has a new article on the fallout from James O'Keefe's skillfully engineered undercover video takedown of NPR.

Here's the passage that quotes me:

But some conservatives see Mr. O’Keefe and his associates as “folk heroes” for helping to put Acorn out of business, says Matthew Vadum, senior editor at Capital Research Center, a right-leaning philanthropy watchdog. While Acorn helped some people over the years, he says, its leaders followed a leftist philosophy of “attack the system by any means necessary,” he says. (The group often staged confrontational protests against banks and other businesses.)

Mr. O’Keefe’s video stings are “politically motivated,” he adds, “but I would still consider them to be journalism.”

James O'Keefe plugs my book on CNN's Reliable Sources

ACORN slayer James O'Keefe gives my book, Subversion Inc., an unexpected plug on CNN's "Reliable Sources" show today: