Remember ACORN? The group was charged or convicted of voter registration fraud in (by my count) 16 different states, most of them between 2004-2009 (here is a partial list) . In the DNC Chair’s own state, ACORN tried to register Mickey Mouse. With all that fraud going on, Congress passed a ban on federal funding for the corrupt group (Defund ACORN Act). But that didn’t stop FOA (Friend of ACORN) Barack Obama. Judicial Watch has obtained documents that show that a chunk of taxpayer money went to an affiliate serving as an Obamacare “navigator.”
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) violated the ACORN funding ban by awarding a Louisiana nonprofit called Southern United Neighborhoods (SUN) a $1.3 million Obamacare navigator grant to recruit customers for the president’s disastrous healthcare law and help them “navigate” the complicated insurance exchanges. Headquartered in New Orleans, SUN is dedicated to combating poverty, discrimination and community deterioration that keep low-income people from taking advantage of their rights and opportunities, according to its website.
The group shares its address — and government grants — with another like-minded nonprofit called United Labor Unions Council Local 100, established by Wade Rathke, the radical left-wing community organizer that also founded ACORN. It’s not clear in the documents obtained by JW how much of the $1.3 million HHS grant actually went to Rathke’s local, which is one of SUN’s four partner organizations, but the point remains that the group is an ACORN successor specifically prevented by federal law from receiving taxpayer dollars.
One good thing that Congress did with the recently passed Cromnibus bill was the part funding HHS and the Departments of Labor and Education, included language banning any money from going to ACORN.
None of the funds made available under this or any other Act, or any prior Appropriations Act, may be provided to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, allied organizations, or successors,” the bill says. This language is not included in the acts to fund any other government agency, though technically the law still forbids it.
ACORN didn’t die from the lack of federal funds; it just changed its name and split up into tiny parts. The rancid smell, however, remained. (Note: if you are interested in learning more about ACORN’s crooked history grab a copy of Matthew Vadum’s book “Subversion, Inc.”
A year later a separate JW probe found that the Obama administration gave an ACORN director named Joe McGavin nearly half a billion dollars to offer “struggling” Illinois homeowners mortgage assistance. The money was part of a $7.6 billion Treasury Department program to help the “unemployed or substantially underemployed” make their mortgage payments. McGavin was director of counseling for ACORN Housing in Chicago and operations manager for a Chicago ACORN offshoot called Affordable Housing Centers of America (AHCOA) shortly before getting the money.
It doesn’t matter that ACORN is a crooked enterprise and banned by congress from receiving. This president takes care of his cronies.
Cross-posted at The Lid
