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All this business about Patrick Gaspard, White House Political Director (the Karl Rove of the Obama White House), not having any affiliation with ACORN is absolutely absurd. Have this administration and its state-run media outlets actually convinced themselves that the American people are really that stupid and ignorant?
I won’t even spend a lot of time on this one, because I’ve already covered it in older posts…as have many others, and it’s simply not worth spending much time on it since others are also covering it. Just take the evidence and encourage the media to set the record straight. Start with Ben Smith at POLITICO, who apparently settled for the usual ACORN semantic antics.
Hint to media: just because it doesn’t say “This is ACORN” in giant letters on the front cover doesn’t mean it’s not ACORN. Go to the 527 registrations, IRS records, FEC records and financial reports. I know, it takes a little bit of extra time and work…maybe another 15 minutes extra…but that’s what journalists are supposed to be doing, isn’t it?
Before the White House, Gaspard was National Field Director for America Coming Together (ACT), one of 33 groups that made up the coalition of America Votes (ACT is now defunct due to FEC violations and the use of convicted felons as door-to-door voter registration canvassers for the organization…but you can still view their cached site using the handy WayBackMachine from Alexa).
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“America Coming Together”, one of 33 members of the America Votes coalition:
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America Votes coalition partner, ACORN:
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And then of course, Gaspard was also executive vice president of politics and legislation for Local 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East. I wrote about this in a prior post, where I discuss all of the internal SEIU connections inside the White House that are in effect lobbying for government run health care, which incidentally would benefit SEIU by expanding its membership pool of health care workers from 2 Million to an exponential number of millions! But that’s a whole other post altogether, and I’d recommend you give it a good read. Not only does it include Gaspard, but how about former SEIU Counsel and ACT/America Votes director John Sullivan, who Obama appointed to the Federal Election Commission? And National Labor Relations Board Appointee Craig Becker, another former SEIU Legal Counsel? Read the full post and look at the big picture – it’s bigger than just Patrick Gaspard. (I’m beginning to think the White House is Purple inside).
Anyway, back to Gaspard… If you also look at SEIU’s and Change to Win’s various filings with the Dept. of Labor and other agencies that detail their expenses, ACORN has been a recipient of payments in return for various organizing activities, including election related work. I hardly think that Gaspard would have no knowledge of such, given that he was running SEIU’s political unit during the same timeframes. SEIU, while an extension of ACORN, also utilizes ACORN as a vendor for GOTV and other political activity services, and Gaspard would have been top of that list as a client at the very least.
You may not find current references of SEIU on ACORN’s website and vice-versa, because they’ve scrubbed them due to negative press. But once again, a quick search using the WayBackMachine will refresh one’s memory.
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And then there’s also the Working Families Party, which is an ACORN political unit that endorses candidates that represent its values and those of its alliance partners. If you don’t quite make the connection, you’ll see they share the same offices and address, as well as the same staff.
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Also, as recently as 2007, Gaspard served on the advisory board of the Center for Working Families, the political and policy strategy umbrella of the Working Families Party / ACORN. In fact, Gaspard sits on the board with Jon Kest, director of national campaigns for ACORN (also known for his entanglement in the ACORN / New York Times / Forest City Ratner / Atlantic Yards scandal and brother of Steve Kest, ACORN National Executive Director).
Just to make sure you see it, here are their names together on the Center for Working Families letterhead, sharing the ACORN address in Brooklyn:
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There’s plenty more to help illustrate the connection between Patrick Gaspard and ACORN and SEIU (and America Votes and America Coming Together and the Working Families Party…) but is it really necessary to pull out every paper connection one can find? There’s enough out there to chew on. And if that’s still not enough, then simply ask anyone who worked for ACORN before Gaspard made the move to the White House. Those in his geographic circle especially – both in ACORN and in SEIU – will tell you he had plenty of connections with ACORN.
You can review some of the ACORN and SEIU financial trails on my “ACORN Money Trail” page. View federal grants to ACORN, government grants to the Tides Foundation that were then donated to ACORN, SEIU expenses on the 2008 Presidential election, campaign donations from ACORN, Working Families Party, and SEIU to middle-man 527 organizations to Barack Obama, and a library of ACORN legal documents and letters.
Liberty Chick 