There's much more to the story of Obama's

amended campaign finance reports than what

Obama and the Obamedia will tell you.

I will fill you in on what's missing in a moment.

What we have here, essentially, is Obama using

a non-profit group called Citizens Services Inc.

as a front to funnel payments to ACORN for

campaign advance work. Obama officials say it's

no big deal. Nothing to see here. Move along. But

where there's left-wing laundering smoke,

there's fire. CSI has been the subject of a little-

noticed complaint to the FEC by a Democrat who

smelled something rotten going on between CSI,

ACORN, and a left-wing 527, Communities
Voting Together.

Obama to amend report on $800,000 in spending

U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's presidential

campaign paid more than $800,000 to an

* offshoot of the liberal Association of Community *

• *

Organizations for Reform Now for services the
Democrat's campaign says it mistakenly

misrepresented in federal reports.

An Obama spokesman said Federal Election Commission reports would be amended to show Citizens Services Inc. -- a subsidiary of ACORN -- worked in "get-out-the-vote" projects,
instead of

activities such as polling, advance work and staging major events as stated in FEC finance reports filed during the primary.

FEC spokeswoman Mary Brandenberger said it is not unusual for campaigns to amend reports, even regarding large sums of money.

But, said Blair Latoff, spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee:

" Barack Obama's failure to accurately report his campaign's financial records is an incredibly suspicious situation that appears to be an attempt to hide his campaign's interaction with a left-wing organization previously convicted of voter fraud.

* For a candidate who claims to be practicing 'new' politics, his FEC reports look an awful lot like the 'old-style' Chicago politics of yesterday." *

"It's rare that people don't file any amended reports. If he has a pattern of lots and lots of amended reports, that would be more noteworthy than an occasional one," Sloan said.

* Jim Terry, spokesman for a group that tracks ACORN, said Citizens Services Inc.'s involvement in the Obama campaign raises bigger questions. *

"All of this just seems like an awful lot of money and time spent on political campaigning for an organization that purports to exist to help low-income consumers," said Terry, chief public advocate for Consumers Rights League, a Washington, D.C., advocacy outfit with a libertarian outlook.

"ACORN has a long and sordid history of employing convoluted Enron-style accounting to illegally use taxpayer funds for their own political gain," Terry claimed. "Now it looks like ACORN is using the same type of convoluted accounting scheme for Obama's political gain."

Obama is the CSI's first national candidate, although the company has worked for several regional candidates in recent years, said Jeff Robinson, CSI's executive vice president.

ACORN describes itself as the nation's largest grass-roots community organization of low- and moderate-income people, operating in 110 cities across the country, including Pittsburgh.

Founded in Arkansas in 1970, ACORN long has been considered a political ally of the Democratic Party.

It has received praise from leading Democrats, such as Howard Dean and former President Bill Clinton, for its community activism, especially regarding efforts to increase housing for low-income people and restoration work after Hurricane Katrina.

* Early in his career, Obama worked as an organizer for Project Vote, an ACORN offshoot, and represented ACORN in legal actions, according to various published reports, including Associated Press articles. ACORN's political action committee endorsed Obama in the primary. *

The organization has sparked controversy.

Accusations of voter fraud have followed ACORN's canvassing projects in about a dozen states. ACORN has dismissed the charges as politically motivated allegations from conservative groups, yet cases are pending and, in other cases, ACORN workers have entered guilty pleas. For example, three ACORN workers pleaded guilty to submitting phony voter registration forms in Washington, and eight ACORN employees pleaded guilty to federal election fraud in Missouri.

ACORN is at the center of a scandal involving a $1 million embezzlement by Dale Rathke, brother of ACORN founder Wade Rathke. ACORN discovered the embezzlement in 2000 but did not alert law enforcement officials.

ACORN's management committee instead negotiated an agreement to have the Rathke family repay the stolen funds, according to a report in The New York Times. The Rathke brothers resigned from ACORN this summer after news reports disclosed the embezzlement. A donor agreed to repay the most of the money, the Times reported.

Sunday Alabi, an ACORN activist and spokesman in St. Paul, is one of CSI's three-person board of directors. Alabi described CSI as a nonprofit consulting firm related to ACORN.

"I do not know the day-to-day work of what they do. I'm on the board," Alabi said, referring other questions to Robinson, the executive vice president.

(Another I don't know answer, which is ridiculous)

Robinson said CSI is a "not-for-profit political and campaign management firm, much like any political consulting firm."CSI is not tax-exempt under any IRS code, he said. Without tax-exempt status, the organization isn't bound by IRS restrictions for nonprofits on political activities.

"We have a wide range of clients . We provide political campaign management. We provide field services," Robinson said. "Our clients are typically considered liberal. Our clients are labor unions, liberal to progressive candidates, nonprofit organizations on the liberal side of the political spectrum."

• *

Regarding CSI's nonprofit status, Robinson said: "We are organized specifically not to make money, but we make money . There are no profits. We have a staff of 60 people around the country, and that eats up our entire profit. We're not a for-profit corporation, but we are not a group like a United Way."

CSI is a "separate organization entirely" from ACORN, he said.

"ACORN is a client of ours," Robinson said. "ACORN has a lot of different partner organizations. We are a partner, but we are separate."

Robinson is listed on several Web sites as national deputy political director for campaigns and elections at ACORN. He is also listed as political director at the nonprofit Communities Voting Together and as a consultant at Project Vote. He did not return phone calls or an e-mail request for a follow-up interview.

Money flows back and forth between ACORN, Citizens Services Inc., Project Vote and Communities Voting Together. ACORN posts job ads for Citizens Services and Project Vote. Communities Voting Together contributed $60,000 to Citizens Services Inc., for example, in November 2005, according to a posting on CampaignMoney.com. Project Vote has hired ACORN and CSI as its highest paid contractors, paying ACORN $4,649,037 in 2006 and CSI $779,016 in 2006, according to Terry of the Consumers Rights League.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/election/s_584284.html

Now you know why this country is in this

shape, and why we have to give up MORE OF

OUR OWN MONEY.

What happened to us being able KEEP OUR MONEY to feed and clothe OUR OWN FAMILIES?