A shadowy Democratic Party campaign masquerading as a nonpartisan grassroots effort has sprung up in states across the country to canvass neighborhoods, raise money and organize voter registrations on behalf of the reelection of President Obama.
The Diatribe has learned that the community activist group Fair Share Alliance has launched a massive summer recruiting drive on college campuses to enlist young people in fundraising, public education, petition drives and membership campaigns to promote the president's agenda.
The Alliance, registered as a tax-exempt, non-profit organization in Denver, Colorado, has opened offices in Texas, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, Washington, Nevada, New York, Illinois, New Mexico and dozens of other states. The alliance also has offices in the heart of Washington, D.C.
In an email obtained by the Diatribe, the Texas state coordinator for Fair Share prodded a San Antonio college professor send an announcement to students about "hiring" opportunities. The email described the group as a "non-profit advocacy organization" without mentioning political party affiliation.
An investigation of public documents uncovered a murky trail that suggests Fair Share is a vestige of ACORN, the defunct activist group disbanded in 2010 after it became embroiled in a scandal that ended with it being stripped of taxpayer funding. The group also pleaded guilty to voter registration fraud.
At its peak, ACORN claimed more than 500,000 members and 1,200 neighborhood chapters. President Obama once worked with the organization in Illinois as a "leadership trainer." In 1995, Obama and several Chicago attorneys won a voter suit on behalf of the community activist group.
ACORN, an acronym for Association of Community Organizations For Reform Now, was once affiliated with Progressive Future, another Democratic Party support group. Progressive Future later morphed into Fair Share Alliance with many of the same former players.
Fair Share's tentacles stretch all the way to the White House. The organization's program director Adam Lioz, formerly with Progressive Future and MoveOn PAC, visited the White House as recently as November of last year to meet with senior presidential speechwriter Sarah Hurwitz, according to records.
Most of the organization's top leaders are ex-Democratic Party operatives, including executive director Brad Martin, a former regional political leader with the Democratic National Committee who also served as the executive director for the party in Montana.
Yet the alliance claims non-partisan status in state registration documents, despite boasting on its own website that it helped "elect Barrack Obama in 2008" by hustling a "get out the vote" campaign for the president.
In words that could have been ripped from one of the president's speeches, the group describes its mission to "create a system in which every American gets a fair shot, everyone pays their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules."
Despite its obvious Democratic Party linkage, Fair Share was chartered in Colorado under Internal Revenue Service rules that allow the creation of "charitable" organizations to lobby for legislation and to participate in political campaigns.
Unfortunately, it is virtually impossible to trace the money trail for Fair Share. Democrats made certain of that in 2010 when a bill to require disclosure of donations to these type organizations was defeated in the party-controlled Senate after it was approved in the House of Representatives.
Fair Share Alliance is a poster child for what's wrong with the current election process.
Campaigns have become cesspools of shady political offshoots disguised as non-partisan altruists; IRS-sanctioned charitable status for political party siblings; and, no public accounting for millions of dollars funneled into quasi-party outfits.
What more evidence do Americans need of political chicanery before they demand changes in the current system?
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