Amerikai Magyar Hírlap, 2009 (21. évfolyam, 1-50. szám)
2009-09-18 / 35. szám
U.S. Census Bureau Fires the Corrupt ACORN The crooks of ACORN have finally been fired by the U.S. Census Bureau. ACORN has been caught trying to set up sex shops for young sex slaves in Baltimore and Washington, DC. They have been caught teaching people how to cheat the IRS. This is a start - but when the RICO indictments come down for the leadership of ACORN, its funds frozen, and the organization disabled from its corrupt goals, only then will we begin to feel government is doing its job. By Stephen Frank Census Bureau Severs Ties With ACORN The Census Director has sent a letter to the National Headquarters of ACORN notifying the group that the Census Bureau is severing all ties' with the community organizing group for all work having to do with the 2010 census. “Over the last several months, through ongoing communication with our regional offices, it is clear that ACORN’s affiliation with the 2010 Census promotion has caused sufficient concern in the general public, has indeed become a distraction from our mission, and may even become a discouragement to public cooperation, negatively impacting 2010 Census efforts,” read a letter from Census Director Robert M. Groves to the president of ACORN. “Unfortunately, we no longer have confidence that our national partnership agreement is being effectively managed through your many local offices. For the reasons stated, we therefore have decided to terminate the partnership,” the letter said. The news follows the firing Friday of two more ACORN employees after new hidden-camera footage showed workers for the group advising a couple posing as a pimp and prostitute how to subvert the law. Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) reacted to the news Friday night, applauding the decision by the Census Bureau. “ACORN had no business working on the Census. ACORNs partisan election efforts and its involvement in criminal conduct rightly disqualified it from working on the non-partisan mission of the Census to accurately and honestly count the U.S. population,” Rep. Issa said. ACORN had previously been tapped to help with low level data gathering for the 2010 census. A copy of the director’s letter has been sent to Congress and relevant committees, as well as ACORN. Two more ACORN workers were fired Friday after a second video surfaced, this time showing.staff. members in the community organizers’ Washington office offering to help the undercover man and womari acquire illegal home loans that would help them set up a brothel. Those firings came less than 24 hours after another pair of ACORN officials, from the group’s Baltimore office, were canned for instructing the “pimp” and “prostitute” how to falsify tax forms and seek illegal benefits for 13 “very young” girls from El Salvador that pair said they wanted to import to work as child prostitutes. Both of the encounters were videotaped on a hidden camera wielded by 25-year-old independent filmmaker James O’Keefe, posing as the pimp tapes that have ignited calls for investigations of ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. The group’s leaders said Friday they were “appalled and angry” at what their staffers had done, but insisted the videos were part of a political “smear” campaign and not representative of the institution as a whole. “But that does not excuse the behavior of the employees,” wrote ACORN’s president Alton Bennet and executive director Mike Shea. “We have fired them and are initiating an internal review of practices and reminding all staff of their obligation to uphold the highest legal and ethical standards.” O’Keefe, the filmmaker who exposed ACORN’s employees, was accompanied by 20-year-old Hannah Giles, who posed as a prostitute. On a videotape of their visit to ACORN’s Washington’s office, they are seen receiving guidance to establish the woman as the sole proprietor of a bogus company to mask the nature of her business. “She’s not going to put on (the loan application) that she’s doing prostitution ... she doesn’t have to,” a now-fired ACORN staffer says. “You don’t have to sit back and tell people what you do.” Recommendation to Add Ambassador Balazs Bokor to Nov 6th Reagan Library Conference Good Morning, Ms. Giller: My name is Frank de Balogh. I am a Reagan Associate. I recently received the Foundation’s newsletter on upcoming events at the Library. I am contacting you regarding the November 6th conference commemorating the 20th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall, which you are planning. Given that the newsletter refers to the participation of East European officials in the Nov 6th conference, I would like to recommend that you include Ambassador Balazs Bokor, Consul General of the Republic of Hungary here in Los Angeles, in your program. He can describe the pivotal role that Hungary played in August 1989 when it opened its borders so that East German tourists could escape to freedom in Austria. This courageous act on the part of Hungary led to the destabilization of the East German regime and contributed to the fall of the Berlin Wall. FYI, Ambassador Bokor has coordinated a wide-ranging series of events this year throughout the Western United States commemorating this historically significant decision by Hungary. These events have included proclamations of “Hungary Day” by governors of 6 Western states (including California), appearance before the California State Legislature, presentations at various universities, and a proclamation by the County of Los Angeles, His excellent presentations on these occasions were supported by a large poster exhibit of historical photographs as well as the actual proclamations by governors from the various states. I will send to you by separate email a photo showing part of this large poster and myself in the lobby of the Los Angeles County Hall of Administration. I will also forward to you a number of emails from the Consulate that contain the press release describing Ambassador Bokor’s activities as well as the text of a December 2008 letter from Ambassador Bokor sent to Mr. Duke Blackwoood. In that letter the Ambassador inquired whether the Reagan Library would be interested in participating in commemorating the 20th anniversary of Hungary’s opening to the West. Regrettably, no answer was received from the Library regarding Ambassador Bokor’s inquiry. As for my background, I mentioned I am a Reagan Associate. President Reagan appointed me as Chairman, National Selective Service Appeal Boäfd. Currently, I am a Los Angeles County Commissioner chairing the County’s Public Social Services Commission. I can be contacted via email: debalogh@aol.com or at tel: (323) 256-8766. I have communicated with Ambassador Bokor about the Foundation’s Nov 6th conference and he would be very willing to participate. His contact information is: Ambassador Balazs Bokor, Consul General, Republic of Hungary 11766 Wilshire Blvd, #410, Los Angeles, CA 90025 (310) 473-9344 email: BBokor@kum.hu As a Reagan Associate familiar with the history of the Berlin Wall, I believe that Ambassador Bokor’s participation in the Nov 6th program would be an important addition to making the Foundation’s conference on the Fall of the Berlin Wall a success. Several associates and I look forward to attending the Nov 6th conference. We hope to see you there. Most Cordially, Frank de Balogh, PhD 8 Years Later: Mourners Gather at Ground Zero to Remember 911 Attacks NEW YORK — The selfless spirit that helped mend a stricken nation eight years ago was renewed. Volunteers marked 9/11 Friday by tilling gardens, writing letters to soldiers, setting out flags — and, at ground zero, by joining the somber ritual of reading the names of the lost. President Obama, who observed his first Sept. 11 as president by declaring it a national day of service, laid a wreath Friday at the Pentagon and, with wife Michelle, helped paint the living room of a Habitat for Humanity house in Washington. “We honor all those who gave their lives so that others might live, and all the survivors who battled burns and wounds and helped each other rebuild their lives,” Obama said. He said the day was meant also as a tribute to the “service of a new generation.” Memorials in New York, at the Pentagon and at the crash site of United Airlines Flight 93 in Pennsylvania all took place under gray skies. A chilly rain fell in lower Manhattan, and those reading names at the World Trade Center site spoke under tents. “We miss you. Life will never be the same without you,” said Vladimir Boyarsky, whose son, Gennady Boyarsky, was killed. “This is not the rain. This is the tears.” In the hours after the attack and for weeks afterward, volunteers responded to New York City’s needs, sending emergency workers to help with the recovery, cards to victims’ families, and boxes of supplies. “Each act was a link in a continuous chain that stopped us from falling into cynicism and despair,” said New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. More than 300 of those volunteers have since died as a result of contact with toxic chemicals at Ground Zero, according to the New York Daily News. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton received a standing ovation from Sept. 11 family members and volunteers at a tribute to the first National Day of Service and Remembrance at Manhattan’s Beacon Theatre on Friday night. “September 11 will always be a day that represents humanity at its worst and humanity at its best,” Clinton said as she thanked the audience for ushering in a new era of service. In an annual tradition, two bright blue beams of light rose from lower Manhattan in memory of the fallen towers on Friday night. At a plaza adjacent to the World Trade Center site, volunteers joined relatives of the lost to read the names of those killed in the twin towers. “I ask that you honor my son and all those who perished eight years ago ... by volunteering, by making some kind of act of kindness in their memory,” said one of the readers, Gloria Russin, who lost her son, Steven Harris Russin. Renewing what has become a poignant tradition, some relatives called out greetings and messages of remembrances when they reached the names of their own loved ones. “We love you, Dad, and we miss you,” said Philip Hayes Jr., Szeptember 18.2009 *9 AMERIKAI tfagyar Hírlap whose father, long retired from the Fire Depart-ment, rushed to the site that 2001 morning and ultimately gave his life. Theresa Mullan, who lost her firefighter son, Michael, wore a poncho and shivered in the rain as she waited for her son’s name to be called. She said she couldn’t dream of being anywhere else. “It’s a small inconvenience,”' she .said of the weather. “My son is the one who ran into a burning building.” Moments of silence were observed at 8:46, 9:03, 9:59 and 10:29 a.m. — the precise times that jetliners struck the north and south towers of the trade center and that each tower fell. At ground zero in lower Manhattan, relatives and friends of victims visited a partially built, street-level Sept. 11 memorial plaza that had not been there a year ago. The memorial, to be partially complete by the 10th anniversary in 2011, will ultimately include two square pools evoking the towers’ footprints, with victims’ names surrounding them and waterfalls cascading down the sides. On Friday, William Weaver placed a single red rose in a temporary reflecting pool at the plaza, a photograph of his son, policeman Walter -E. Weaver, pinned to his jacket. He said the memorial was taking too long and he did not like it. “It should have been a graveyard-type of thing,” Weaver said. In Shanksville, Pa., bells tolled for the 40 victims of the fourth hijacked jetliner that crashed there. Eight years after 2,976 perished in the attacks, Obama vowed at the Pentagon that the United States “will never falter” in pursuit of A1 Qaeda. “Let us renew our resolve against those who perpetrated this barbaric act and who plot against us still,” he said. AMERICAN Hungarian Journal
