There are shocking stories, and then there are shocking stories that are supported by the President of the United States verifying them on videotape.

Take the case of Eliseo Medina, Executive Vice President of the Service Employees International Union.

Medina, “Honorary Chair” of the Democratic Socialists of America, is who Obama gave a shout-out to when he was groveling for SEIU’s endorsement in the 2008 Democratic primaries.

But the question I do want SEIU to ask yourselves is not who’s talking about your agenda, but who can change our politics in Washington so we can actually make your agenda a reality…

Your agenda’s been my agenda in the United States Senate.  Before debating health care, I talked to Andy Stern and SEIU members.  Before immigration debates took place in Washington, I talked with Eliseo Medina and SEIU members…

He’s not any old socialist spouting nutty theories.  He brings with him the weight and authority of the SEIU, an aggressive union and one that admits to spending some $60 million to elect Obama president.  And that’s earned the socialist access to the White House few Americans could even dream of.  According to visitor records dumped around the holidays, Medina posted at least six visits in 2009.

Medina attended an event with the president, another with the vice president, as well as a couple 1-on-1 or 2-on-1 meetings in the west wing.

But there’s more that concerning, beyond the fact that a socialist leader is frequently visiting the White House and the president of the United States admits he talks with him about immigration reform.

Medina himself admits “SEIU is the largest union of immigrant workers in the country. A number of them are undocumented. …The whole world is represented among the undocumented and also in our membership.”

So this is the foundation that immigration reform is being built – a socialist agenda that doesn’t value America’s laws or borders.  And SEIU is leading the charge:

As we get to work in the critical months ahead, there is no question that creating quality jobs, restoring economic fairness and ensuring every American has access to affordable healthcare must be our top priorities. But as it becomes increasingly clear, none of these goals can be achieved over the long-term unless we get serious about fixing an outdated, unenforceable, and increasingly costly broken immigration system.

Simply put: we can’t build a strong economy on top of a broken immigration system.

So how will the debate turn out?  I don’t know, but it’s reasonable to conclude if socialists like Eliseo Medina have a seat at the decision-making table, it won’t turn out well for America’s sovereignty.

Boy, ACORN is good.  They’re so good the White House should give them a call and seek some political tips. Er…given the recently-unearthed video of the president yearning for ACORN’s endorsement, something tells me that’s not necessary.

The evolution of ACORN, summarized by Matthew Vadum, is not surprising but is impressive.  Even Al Capone wasn’t this successful at morphing his organization into a new beast.

But interestingly, that’s not exactly what’s happening.  ACORN is simply adding to and remodeling what it has already created.  The gang is splitting up to do the same work, likely with the same funders – radical foundations and individuals, oh, and the American taxpayers.

But rest assured, no lessons have been learned, nothing will really change.  The same people are involved. So no one expects there to be much difference.  New box, same crappy product.  The radical left is simply painting a little lipstick on the pig and hoping American will fall in love with it all over again.

What is particularly disturbing about what is happening is that ACORN is essentially adding new corporate identities to its massive roster, already pegged at somewhere around 300.  ACORN now appears to be decentralizing, making it a much harder target to scrutinize – which was likely the point.

No slimming down, no greater efficiency – just more confusing bureaucracy.  So of course, the natural question is: which came first, the chicken or the egg.  Did ACORN learn its model from leftists and the federal government or did the federal government learn its bureaucratic ways from ACORN, because that is all that seems to be being proposed in Washington these days?  It’s a question for the ages, and I’m digressing…

The fact of the matter is, ACORN is transforming itself to shed is soiled name and continue receiving tax dollars – our money.  And until there’s serious leadership in Washington, DC prepared to tackle the waste and fraud, they’ll be successful.

ACORN founder Wade Rathke has been gloating on his blog about the recent arrest of James O’Keefe in Rathke’s hometown of New Orleans. 

Andrew Breitbrat and his www.biggovernment.com site stopped pretending that James O’Keefe, bungler-in-charge, was not his boy, and realized that he needed to stop shouting and start ‘splaining.

Breitbrat?  Zing!  How adult of you, Wade.

Similarly, current ACORN chief organizer Bertha Lewis issued a statement upon the news:

The recent arrest of James O’Keefe, is further evidence of his disregard for the law in pursuit of his extremist agenda. From the day that O’Keefe’s undercover “sting” videos came out, ACORN leadership pledged accountability for its own staff while pointing out that the videos had been shot illegally and edited deceptively in order to undermine the work of an organization that has empowered working families for four decades.

It’s as if O’Keefe’s problem somehow is vindication for the corrupt web of organizations she oversees.

Bad news, Bertha: it’s not.

Regardless of what O’Keefe and his friends did or didn’t do, the facts remain: ACORN has been accused of voter registration fraud in multiple states, and its Nevada trial is set to begin this spring. The government’s star witness in that case is a former ACORN employee.

Several ACORN employees gave dubious tax and housing advice to a couple posing as a pimp and a prostitute, with much of it caught on camera.  Their actions were shameful and the case could be made, I believe, should the government want to pursue one (which it apparently decided not to), that ACORN staffers were providing tips to defraud the IRS and HUD.  They were also caught aiding people who supposedly were attempting to smuggle underage girls into the United States for nefarious purposes.

Meanwhile, several former ACORN employees and national board members have leveled serious accusations against the group, including being loose with its taxpayer-provided resources and allowing those resources  to be comingled with political funds.

Much more can be found in the report issued by Congressman Darryll Issa (R-CA), the ranking Republican member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. 

I suppose in ACORN’s world, where morals and ethics are all relative, Bertha might have a case.  But in the real world of average, law-abiding citizens, the organization is plainly corrupt.

And the reality is, ACORN was set on a course of corruption and sleight-of-hand tactics by Wade Rathke – the man that has the gall to criticize James O’Keefe.  It was Rathke that held virtually everything close to the vest and out of the reach of other ACORN leaders, including financial books and organizational charts.

If it wasn’t for Rathke and his – dare I say – poor organizational skills, there would not have been anything for James O’Keefe to expose in the first place.

To the people of Orlando: your long Florida nightmare may soon be over.  Congressman Alan Grayson is up for re-election this year.

But in the mean time, he’s continuing his gasbaggery.  He’s taking up President Obama’s mantle of intimidating the Supreme Court and has introduced several bills so political free speech can once again be squelched.

Grayson has introduced several pieces of legislation aimed at restricting political speech, according to the George Soros-funded Secretary of State Project.  But first, a bit about that group.

SOS was formed to elect Secretaries of State around the country that will be tolerant of ACORN-style voter registration and Election Day shenanigans.  The Minnesota recount debacle – and seating of Al Franken – came courtesy of Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, an SOS Project recruit.

So now the Soros-funded SOS Project is pushing Grayson’s package of bills. The interpretations of them come courtesy of SOS, not me:

1.  The Business Should Mind Its Own Business Act (H.R. 4431): Implements a 500% excise tax on corporate contributions to political committees, and on corporate expenditures on political advocacy campaigns.

2. The Public Company Responsibility Act (H.R. 4435): Prevents companies making political contributions and expenditures from trading their stock on national exchanges.

3.The End Political Kickbacks Act (H.R. 4434): Prevents for-profit corporations that receive money from the government from making political contributions, and limits the amount that employees of those companies can contribute.

4. The Corporate Propaganda Sunshine Act (H.R. 4432): Requires publicly-traded companies to disclose in SEC filings money used for the purpose of influencing public opinion, rather than to promoting their products and services.

5. The Ending Corporate Collusion Act (H.R. 4433): Applies antitrust law to industry PACs.

6. The End the Hijacking of Shareholder Funds Act (H.R. 4487): This bill requires the approval of a majority of a public company’s shareholders for any expenditure by that company to influence public opinion on matters not related to the company’s products or services.

SOS signs off by saying, “Our elected officials should be chosen by voters on election day, not by corporations at the auction block.”

Just curious, do labor unions, like the Obama-campaign bankrolling SEIU count?  Will the “Business Should Mind Its Own Business Act” also apply to compulsory dues squeezed out of union members and prevent those from being spent on political activities?

No, Congressman Grayson?  Didn’t think so.  So it’s free speech for Andy Stern and SEIU but not those “evil corporations.”  Or maybe they negotiated a carve-out, like they did for the tax on “Cadillac health plans.”

To see how you can help rid the Congress of this guy, visit www.mycongressmanisnuts.com.

Let me first say, if what is being reported in the media is accurate, a dumb prank was attempted in the New Orleans office of Sen. Mary Landrieu by James O’Keefe and his comrades. 

There should be zero tolerance for crime, regardless of who does it.  If O’Keefe is guilty of what the FBI is alleging, he should be held accountable.  The Left believes that now, but where were they six months ago?

It’s interesting to observe, and personally experience, the hypocritical way the Left is treating this situation. Consider two unsolicited e-mails I received Monday night from a few liberal wackos with too much time on their hands.  Here’s the first, which was accompanied by the subject line, “Republicans are As—-es!”:

Hey as—-e, why don’t you talk about the son of a bitch who broke into Senator Landrieu’s office in LA? Yeah, scumbags like you don’t care about the law.

The other, titled, “James O’Keefe is going to jail! YOU FAILED!”:

HAHAHAHA, apparently going to college meant nothing since you never heard of Watergate and the name Richard Nixon. I hope they throw all of you c—s [beyond crude term for a female body part] into prison where trash like you belongs.

The alleged crimes committed by ACORN employees in the O’Keefe and Giles videos were excused, and even rationalized, by the Left.  But they don’t apply the same level of patience and understanding for O’Keefe and Company.  Even worse, they’re jumping to conclusions about their guilt, and the nature of their alleged crime.

The liberal media is openly theorizing that O’Keefe and his friends were trying to bug telephones in the senator’s office. The Louisiana Democratic Party is already calling it the “Louisiana Watergate.”  As Andrew Breitbart said:

MSNBC and other “news organizations” are even billing this developing story as “Watergate”. What do Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow know? And when did they know it?

Surely James O’Keefe is not dumb enough to think he could actually bug the phones of a sitting U.S. Senator.  Only the “A-Team” could do that,  and they disbanded well over a decade ago.

The Left, despite video evidence, was silent about ACORN’s gross shenanigans.  But when scant details emerge from a stunt in New Orleans, it’s the next Watergate.  It shows what their real agenda is.  It’s not truth, it’s not justice and it’s certainly not the American way.  It’s maintaining power and access to taxpayer dollars by any means necessary.

Like a phoenix released to spread it wings, ACORN founder and former chief organizer Wade Rathke has been letting it all hang out on his lively, but troubling blog. 

He recently attacked no-nonsense Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, lamented the continuing questions regarding ACORN/SEIU involvement in the 2010 census, and even went after me on one occasion.

Now he’s attacking the concept of personal responsibility, something our society is sorely lacking. He’s encouraging homeowners who are falling behind on their mortgage payments to simply walk away from their homes, as if the money still owed is neither their problem nor their concern.

At least his message is consistent, because Rathke has always been the Johnny Appleseed of bad advice when it comes to housing.

ACORN, under his command, played a huge role in creating the mortgage crisis by pressuring the federal government and financial institutions to grant mortgages to people who clearly couldn’t afford them.

Then he pressed the Obama administration to bail out homeowners who, for too long, were living dangerously beyond their means. He wanted us to believe that mortgage companies somehow duped lower-income people into mortgages that were unaffordable. Why in the world would a company want to sell something it knew it would never be paid for?

In any case, Rathke has obviously arrived at the realization that the taxpayers are not coming to the rescue, so he’s offered a new solution – “Abandon ship!”

I’m now convinced the only way to protect citizen wealth for working families and force the issue to a real resolution, is for underwater homeowners to acknowledge the reality that they are only paying high rent with huge anxiety, and to walk away from these mortgages.  This is good for their family, and as bad as it is for the community, and this has been the hangup for me, it may finally force the government and banks to do the right thing. (emphasis added)

…

Walk away, brothers and sisters – it’s time to abandon this ship! If a family is worried about damage to credit, just rent for what you can afford and SAVE some money.

Where was your organization a few years ago, Wade, when so many people were foolishly buying homes they couldn’t afford?  Instead of spending your time shaking down the big, bad banks for ACORN contributions, perhaps you should have been offering sound, honest advice to families that were about to make really bad financial decisions.

Instead his 11^th hour solution is for the homeowners to walk away, avoid their financial responsibilities, and leave the taxpayers holding the bag. We can be sure the government will hold us financially responsible for those who refuse to be responsible for themselves.

Thanks, Wade. Take a vacation from the blog, will you?

The White House appears to have revealed more than it may have intended when it published an Excel spreadsheet of visitors to the presidential complex.  Claiming to release data for the first two weeks of September, dates on many of the visits fall outside that range, as first brought to light at BigGovernment.com.

And with the White House’s transparency comes its publication of its inner circle.

Two groups of entries caught our eye. Besides the fact that ACORN chief organizer Bertha Lewis visited the White House residence in early September, two other key groups appear in the logs.

Fresh off his swearing-in ceremony (30 minutes to be exact), the Who’s Who of liberal politics joined the new administration at a celebrative luncheon in the Old Executive Office Building.

In addition to the new administration’s staff (which aren’t listed in the logs), the heads of several special interest groups appear.  Of 19 luncheon visitors listed, the notables include:

SEIU President Andy Stern

SEIU Vice President Anna Burger

Steelworkers President Leo Gerard

AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka

Howard Dean

Center for American Progress President John Podesta

EMILY’s List President Ellen Malcolm

NARAL President Nancy Keenan

Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards

Abortion and Organized Labor sums up Obama’s inner circle.  Isn’t that swell.

On the health care reform front, a May 11 meeting in the Roosevelt Room took place with POTUS himself.  The key players in health care reform? 

SEIU President Andy Stern

SEIU Health care head Dennis Rivera

Karen Ignagni, President and CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plan (AHIP)

Greater New York Hospital Association President Kenneth Raske

American Medical Association President John Rohack

Pfizer CEO Jeffrey Kindler

PhRMA lobbyist Billy Tauzin

Besides SEIU, as it has been pushing ObamaCare since his candidacy, it’s interesting to note the AMA and Pfizer jumped on board to support the legislation.

This is just the first of our analysis conducted on the visitor records of the White House.  More will likely be on its way…

ACORN’s friends, with a fresh court ruling backing the organization, are finding new ways to send taxpayer dollars to it.  The Weekly Standard exposed an amendment offered by Sen. Rolland Burris (D-IL), President Obama’s replacement in the Senate, to the main piece of legislation enacting ObamaCare.

Specifically, Burris’ amendment would require an “Office of Minority Health” be established in several different agencies.

On page 241 of the amendment (yes, the amendment is over 241 pages):

In carrying out this subsection, the Secretary … shall award grants, contracts … with public and nonprofit private entities, agencies, as well as Departmental and Cabinet agencies and organizations, and with organizations that are indigenous human resource providers in communities of color. … Such measures shall evaluate community outreach activities, language services, workforce cultural competence, and other areas as determined by the Secretary.

Can you say ‘ACORN?’

Additionally, according to the Weekly Standard, the original bill itself contains language creating funding opportunities for “community and consumer-focused nonprofit groups” to “conduct public education activities to raise awareness of the availability of qualified health plans.”

And what if another judge overturned Judge Nina Gershon’s ruling declaring the congressional action to ‘defund’ ACORN?  They needn’t worry: funding provided by the health care legislation would go through exchanges, which aren’t covered by the ‘Defund ACORN’ bill.

Whew!  That was close, wasn’t it ACORN?!?

This all underscores the fact that like the stimulus bill, socialized medicine is just another giveaway to liberal groups.  That’s change we can believe in!

The socialist wing of the Democratic Party must have thought the brass ring was within its grasp when Barack Obama was elected president, a larger Democratic majority was returned to the House and a filibuster-proof majority was secured in the Senate.

But with the exception of massive new spending, little, if anything, has been delivered to satisfy the liberal base of the party.  Health care reform is a perfect example.  When the political stars began to align, leftists began moving swiftly to enact their agenda.  After all, a government takeover of health care has long been the ultimate goal for the socialist base of the party.

Despite polls that show solid majorities of Americans opposed to ObamaCare, Congressional Democrats trudge ahead.  Common sense would say they should pull the plug, in order to appease voters.

But special interest groups, such as the Service Employees International Union, have sent members of Congress out to battle and ordered them not to return without victory scalps.  Consider what SEIU president Andy Stern wrote in the November 10^th Washington Post:

They will be judged for what they deliver. If at the end of the day Americans can’t afford health care or if the standard of care declines, every single Democratic senator will pay the price. 

And Robert Creamer, arguably the architect of the political campaign to obtain socialized medicine, made a similar statement on a talk radio show March 18, 2008:

We need a national movement that says to these members of Congress, if they don’t deliver what we want, you’re not going back.

That national movement already exists, in the form of Healthcare for America Now, which is led by ACORN and SEIU. It’s been putting enormous pressure on Congress to support Obamacare,  complete with a robust “public option” and nothing less.

 But perhaps another statement by Stern in his Post column truly sums up the situation:

 Our elected leaders will be held accountable for the choices that they make.

He is exactly right. The problem is, Democrats in Congress and the White House are beholden to SEIU and other entrenched interest groups that put them in power in the first place. That leaves them dangerously out of step with the majority of American voters.

So Democrats are marching off the cliff for the benefit of Andy Stern and the socialist wing of the Democratic Party.

At some point along the way, Democrats in Congress and the White House must have come to the conclusion that they are likely going to get butchered in next year’s mid-term election.  Author and political analyst Dick Morris has already predicted that Republicans will re-take both the House and the Senate.  Like a criminal on the verge of his third strike, Democrats are acting as though they have nothing to lose.

They bow to Andy Stern, SEIU and the Democratic fringe at their own peril.

To me, one of the most disturbing – and starkly honest – one-liners that came out of the 2008 campaign was this: “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”  It was delivered by Sen. Barack Obama while rallying a crowd at the University of Missouri on October 30, 2008.

That definitely was not the standard message that Obama conveyed to the masses. “Change” is a much different concept than “transforming America.” We wonder how many voters would have thought twice if they knew they were voting for a revolutionary transformation of our nation’s economy and the government’s involvement in private affairs.

Like his off-the-cuff remark to Joe the Plumber about “spreading the wealth around,” Obama opened a little window into his soul with that statement.

His words have proven to be prophetic. We have seen the “fundamental transformation” begin to unfold in just 11 short months, with major shifts in traditional policy. We have auto and bank bailouts, federal ownership of major corporations, a massive $787 billion stimulus package, a dangerous cap-and-trade proposal, radical health care legislation, new EPA rules, and the continued threat of card check, just to name a few examples. And the president has three years left in his term.

But the frightening notion of “fundamentally transforming America” was first uttered about three months earlier.

ACORNcracked.com has obtained another recording of Robert Creamer, the convicted felon who wrote the blueprint for health care reform while in prison, explaining to a talk show host about his vision for the Obama administration and the huge Democratic majority about to be elected to Congress.

“If Barack Obama is elected president, then we have the opportunity to fundamentally transform American politics and the economy — progressives do – for the first time in really in my lifetime…”

So far, I have been unable to find a single other reference to the idea of “fundamentally transforming” our country.  But Creamer, Obama and their entire leftist crew were probably of the same mindset. Is it possible Obama got the mantra from Creamer?  After all, in a clip that will be coming tomorrow, the talk show host mentioned above mentioned says he was talking to the right source, because “Robert Creamer knows Barack Obama.”

Read about Creamer Audio Drop, Part 1, in which he discusses the strategy for “taking it to the enemy” (ie. health insurance companies) to win a government-takeover of health care.  Glenn Beck used this recording on his December 10th Fox News broadcast, as well as his December 11th radio show.