Tag Archives: National Council of La Raza

Keeping Up With The Story

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In August 2014, I posted an article about the Department of Justice (DOJ) under the Obama Administration distributing funds from fines imposed on banks to political leftist groups. The article explains that the Bank of America was forced to pay fines that Countrywide Mortgage and Merrill Lynch had incurred before they were owned by Bank of America.

The article explains what happened to these fines:

The groups benefitting from the lawsuit, according to Investor’s Business Daily, are the National Council of La Raza, Operation Hope, National Community Reinvestment Coalition, and Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America. The money also went to “delinquent borrowers” in Chicago, Oakland, Detroit, Philadelphia and other major “Democrat strongholds.”

“This is a wealth redistribution scheme disguised as a lawsuit,” Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, told The Daily Caller. “And who benefits from the distribution? Interest groups the administration relies on, outside interest groups, allies and politicians in communities trying to benefit as well.”

…La Raza, Operation Hope, National Community Reinvestment Coalition, and Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America have all intimidated banks to give loans to minorities, even if they can’t afford to pay them back.

This was the government equivalent of a mob shakedown.

Yesterday The Daily Caller posted an article about this practice.

The article reports:

Emails written by Obama administration Department of Justice officials confirm reports the agency engaged in a systemic effort to funnel money to liberal advocacy organizations from settlements reached with big banks.

The documents, obtained by the House Judiciary Committee as part of an ongoing investigation, reveal the Obama Justice Department effectively skirted Congress’s budgetary authority by requiring that major financial institutions donate to a group of affordable housing nonprofits and legal advocacy organizations as part of settlement agreements resulting from predatory mortgage lending practices.

The internal DOJ documents represent the latest revelation in a two-year investigation spearheaded by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte.

The article at The Daily Caller reports that this practice has been stopped:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a memo banning the DOJ from entering into third party settlement agreements after substantial evidence emerged implicating the Obama DOJ in such practices.

“When the federal government settles a case against a corporate wrongdoer, any settlement funds should go first to the victims and then to the American people — not to bankroll third-party special interest groups or the political friends of whoever is in power,” Sessions said.

The more I learn about some of the actions of the Obama Administration, the more I wonder why Congress did not address some of the wrongdoings as they were going on.

Our Coming Election Is Beginning To Look Like A Soviet Election

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Hillary Clinton is not doing well in the polls. Donald Trump is gaining. The federal government from the top down has become totally politicized under President Obama, so it only makes sense that the full force of that federal government would be used to skew the results of the election in November. What am I talking about? Judicial Watch has the story.

Some of the hightlights:

Months after the Obama administration spent $19 million to register new immigrant voters that will likely support Democrats in November, it’s dedicating an additional $10 million in a final push as the presidential election approaches. The money is distributed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the Homeland Security agency that oversees lawful immigration, to organizations that help enhance pathways to naturalization by offering immigrants free citizenship instruction, English, U.S. history and civics courses. Officially, they’re known as “citizenship integration grants.”

Since 2009 USCIS has doled out $63 million in these grants to prepare more than 156,000 resident immigrants in dozens of states for U.S. citizenship, according to the agency’s figures. Besides the free classes, Uncle Sam also offers immigrants free “naturalization legal services,” the latest USCIS grant announcement states. “Recipient organizations serve both traditional immigrant destinations and new immigrant getaway cities in 21 states,” the USCIS document reads. The latest $10 million investment will prepare approximately 25,000 residents from more than 50 countries, according to the agency. More than a dozen states—including California, New York, Florida, Washington and Ohio—with large resident immigrant populations are being targeted as well as cities with huge immigrant populations such as Miami, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco and Washington D.C.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been aggressive in promoting its citizen integration grant program this year, offering large sums to recruit new groups that can offer immigrants the services they need to become citizens. Clearly, the ultimate goal is qualifying as many immigrants as possible to vote since they tend to cast ballots for Democrats. “We intend to award about $1 million to first-time recipients in the Citizenship and Integration Grant Program for fiscal year 2016,” the agency’s grant announcement states. “If you represent one of these organizations, or know of an interested organization, we strongly encourage that organization to consider applying. Additionally, another $9 million will fund programs that provide both citizenship instruction and instruction and naturalization application services.” Some might consider this a cash giveaway.

These new citizens have not been here long enough to understand voting in America. They are simply being programmed to vote Democrat. The dream of the Obama Administration is that they will overwhelm the votes of any Americans who vote for Trump.

The article continues:

This is part of a broader, government-wide initiative launched by the president to “strengthen federal immigrant and refugee integration infrastructure.” The mission is to facilitate life in the U.S. for immigrants and refugees by enhancing pathways to naturalization, building welcoming communities and providing “mobile immigration services in underserved communities.” To carry out this important mission Obama created a special Task Force on New Americans chaired by his Domestic Policy Director, Cecilia Muñoz, the former vice president of the powerful open borders group National Council of La Raza (NCLR). Millions of taxpayer dollars have funded the task force’s various enterprises, including multilingual media campaigns promoting immigrant rights. The goal is to “strengthen civic, economic and linguistic integration and to build strong and welcoming communities,” according to a report issued by the task force. In the end communities will be strengthened by welcoming all residents, the administration assures.

Practically every federal agency is participating in the effort by contributing resources and creating programs to help immigrants. For example the Department of Labor (DOL) is implementing “new workforce programs” for the “new Americans” and the Department of Education is promoting “funding opportunities” to assure that the immigrants “are provided the tools they need to succeed.” The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is collaborating with other agencies to release a career and credentialing toolkit on “immigrant-focused career-pathways programs.” The Department of Justice (DOJ) and USCIS are making sure the new Americans have worker rights and protections and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is launching a two-year pilot to assure that non English speakers have “meaningful access to housing programs” subsidized by American taxpayers.

If we do not get the current politicians out of Washington in November, we will officially become a banana republic. Americans will wonder where their freedoms and standards of living went. This is a serious threat to our republic.

Using The Justice Department To Redistribute Wealth

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The Daily Caller posted an article yesterday about the recent $16.6 billion settlement with Bank of America.

Investors.com reports:

Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) last week agreed to pay $16.65 billion to settle claims that SNL noted “primarily” emanated from the activities of Countrywide Financial and Merrill Lynch, which prosecutors said knowingly sold toxic mortgages in the years leading up to the financial crisis and recession of 2007-09, before BofA acquired Countrywide in July ’08 and Merrill in January ’09.

Bank of America paid a fine mainly due to the actions of Countrywide Financial and Merrill Lynch, which Bank of America acquired in July 2008 and January 2009. The fine was based on the actions of Countrywide and Merrill Lynch before they were owned by Bank of America. Bank of America acquired these companies under pressure from the government in order to help slow the damage in the financial crisis.

Investors.com notes:

But massive legal bills — with more than $128 billion paid in settlements and fines by the nation’s six largest lenders, according to SNL Financial — may not prevent another financial crisis and could make big banks less cooperative in rushing to the nation’s rescue should another financial crisis flare up, critics say.

So what happens to this money? Does it go to the people who were hurt by the two company’s business practices?

The Daily Caller reports:

The groups benefitting from the lawsuit, according to Investor’s Business Daily, are the National Council of La Raza, Operation Hope, National Community Reinvestment Coalition, and Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America. The money also went to “delinquent borrowers” in Chicago, Oakland, Detroit, Philadelphia and other major “Democrat strongholds.”

“This is a wealth redistribution scheme disguised as a lawsuit,” Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, told The Daily Caller. “And who benefits from the distribution? Interest groups the administration relies on, outside interest groups, allies and politicians in communities trying to benefit as well.”

…La Raza, Operation Hope, National Community Reinvestment Coalition, and Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America have all intimidated banks to give loans to minorities, even if they can’t afford to pay them back.

 Impeachment is not an option because it would be political suicide. However, it is what is needed. It is a shame that the Democrats in the Senate are more loyal to the President than they are to their country.

What The People Who Designed It Say About Common Core

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Yesterday Breitbart.com posted a story about Common Core. It seems that despite the talk about the need for rigorous academic standards that Common Core supposedly will provide, Common Core is not really about academic standards.

The article states:

In an interview with the Washington Post that summarizes how Bill Gates pulled off the very “swift Common Core revolution,” the Microsoft founder stated, “The country as a whole has a huge problem that low-income kids get less good education than suburban kids get… and that is a huge challenge.”

Gates’s statement underscores further the notion that the Common Core standards initiative is a social engineering project that places education standards ahead of parental and family influences as the major cause of poor student performance in low-income and minority communities.

Regardless of the push by various Gates-funded organizations to boast the Common Core standards’ “rigor,” the real motivation to correct what is viewed as societal injustices was underscored even by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan who said last November that it was “fascinating” that some of the opposition to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) is coming from “white suburban moms who – all of a sudden – their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were, and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they were.”

Anyone who has worked in public education knows that two major reasons for poor student achievement are parental involvement and culture. If a student belongs to an ethnic group where academic achievement is frowned upon, that student is not going to achieve. If the parents of a student do not value education, the student will not value education. If the peer group of the student does not value education, the student will not value education. Common Core does not either take either one of those factors into consideration.

The article further explains:

Despite the lack of validity of the Common Core standards, the Post reports that after Gene Wilhoit, director of the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and a former Kentucky education commissioner, and Common Core “architect” David Coleman met with Gates about funding the development of the standards, Gates’s foundation gave over $5 million to the University of North Carolina-affiliated Hunt Institute, led by former Gov. Jim Hunt (D). The Hunt Institute then coordinated more than a dozen organizations, including the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, National Council of La Raza, Achieve, Inc., the two national teachers’ unions, and the two groups that are the copyright owners of the Common Core standards – CCSSO and the National Governors Association (NGA).

Talking points about the standards were then developed by GMMB, a communications firm owned by Jim Margolis, a top Democrat strategist and veteran of both of Obama’s presidential campaigns.

Public relations firms, big corporations, and unions are not the answer to America‘s education problems. One of the differences in education in the past fifty years is the change in parental attitudes. Back in the age of dinosaurs when I was in school, if you got in trouble (or got bad grades) in school, you were also in trouble at home. Somehow in the past fifty years the equation has changed in many families–if you are in trouble at school, it’s the teacher’s fault. Teachers are afraid not to send children on to the next grade due to pressure from parents and often, pressure from school administrators.

The problem in our schools is not in the curriculum or standards–it is in requiring students to meet a standard.

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Fighting To Keep Our Elections Honest

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Two organizations that are working to keep American elections honest are Judicial Watch and True the Vote. Judicial Watch reached an agreement in January with the State of Ohio that Ohio Secretary of State John Husted agreed to take concrete steps to prevent voter registration fraud in the state. Judicial Watch has issued warnings to top election officials in Iowa, Colorado, and Washington, D.C., to comply with the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) or face a Judicial Watch lawsuit within 90 days.

Judicial Watch lists three complaints about the way the Obama Administration is handling elections:

  • Refusing to force states to clean their voter rolls of deceased and moved voters;
  • Fighting state efforts to require voters to show a photo ID at the polls;
  • Failing to enforce our federal laws against illegal immigration and effectively ending the deportation of illegal aliens, thereby swelling the population of potential illegal voters.

True the Vote posts some disturbing statistics on its website:

It’s time to ensure that every person’s vote counts. Please take the time to explore both of these websites to see what you can do to make sure your vote counts.

 

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Where Did The Money Go ?

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We all understand that federal spending has increased under President Obama. We also know that the economy is limping along rather than following the path of a traditional recovery. We have had stimulus packages and Quantitative easing (QE), and we are still struggling.

Yesterday the Washington Times posted an article about the money invested in green energy.

The article reports:

Only 38 percent of those who have completed training got jobs based on it, and only 16 percent kept jobs for at least six months — the key measure of success for the program.

“Outcomes for participants were far less than originally proposed,” the auditors said.

The government earmarked more than $400 million for green jobs training programs, and $328.5 million has been spent so far.

About half were already working in the energy sector and wanted retraining, and half were potential new energy workers.

Of those workers who already had energy-sector jobs, the auditors said they were retrained, even though they didn’t need it.

A 16 percent success rate is nothing to brag about. So what was the stimulus to green energy about?  The truth comes out in the last paragraph of the article:

Mr. Issa [Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.)]said in addition to poor performance records, the green jobs money “served as a slush fund” for the Obama administration to dole out payments to allies “like the National Council of La Raza, the Blue Green alliance and the U.S. Steelworkers Union.”

This is one example of many reasons taxes on working Americans can easily be cut.

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Governor Jan Brewer Speaks Out On Immigration

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Great Seal of the State of Arizona

Image via Wikipedia

The following statement was posted on Jan Brewer’s facebook page today:

The Obama administration cannot get its amnesty schemes through Congress, so now it has resorted to implementing its plans via executive fiat. There’s simply no other description for today’s announcement that the federal government will not pursue the deportation of individuals who are in the country illegally but meet certain criteria.

This plan amounts to backdoor amnesty for hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of illegal aliens. Especially disturbing is that it comes in the wake of the Obama administration sanctioning the sale of weapons to Mexican drug cartels – even as border states such as Arizona come under threat from those same illicit organizations. With this announcement, the President is encouraging more illegal immigration at the exact moment we need federal focus on border security.

Just last month in speaking to the National Council of La Raza, President Obama rejected the idea of bypassing Congress and imposing immigration reform. He said, “Now, I know some people want me to bypass Congress and change the laws on my own. And believe me, right now dealing with Congress, the idea of doing things on my own is very tempting … But that’s not how our system works. That’s not how our democracy functions. That’s not how our Constitution is written.”

President Obama got it right last month and got it really wrong today.

Over the next 15 months, I’m certain we’ll hear a lot of talk from the Obama administration about its concern for border security. Those of us who truly care about the rule of law will remember the President’s actions of today. We need to remind President Obama that we elected a president that serves beneath the law and did not anoint a king that is above the law.

Arizona has led the fight to secure America’s borders. In the age of terrorism, our national security requires that we keep tract of the people who are entering our country. The Border Patrol uses the expression OTM’s (Other Than Mexican) to describe the illegal immigrants coming across the Mexican border from countries with close ties to terrorism.

A website called examiner.com reported in March of this year:

On Wednesday, a Washington, DC-based public interest group announced it acquired disturbing documents from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection directorate detailing Fiscal Year (FY) 2010 apprehension statistics for illegal alien smugglers…

* U.S. Border Patrol agents apprehended 59,017 “Other Than Mexican” illegal aliens through October 7, 2010.

* Among the nations represented in apprehension statistics are the four countries currently on the State Department’s list of “State Sponsors of Terrorism,”  Cuba (712), Iran (14), Syria (5) and Sudan (5), as well as Somalia (9), Afghanistan (9), Pakistan (37), Saudi Arabia (5) and Yemen (11).
* Overall, U.S. Border Patrol agents apprehended 663 “Aliens from Special Interest Countries.”  These countries are deemed “special interest” because of their suspected ties to terrorism.
* The countries yielding the highest “Other Than Mexican” apprehensions include:  Guatemala (18,406), El Salvador (13,723), and Honduras (13,580).
Please follow the link above to read the rest of the Examiner article. Numbers don’t lie, and these numbers have not been easily available to the general public.
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