Briefly Noted: April 2013

Organizing for Access? Critics from left to right say President Obama’s newly incorporated 501(c)(4) community organizing group, Organizing for Action, has been selling access to the president through the group, which accepts unlimited individual donations. The Daily Caller reports that access to the Obama White House can be purchased by donors for $500,000. At a press briefing, White House press secretary Jay Carney declined to deny the report. The group grew out of Organizing for America, an unincorporated project of the Democratic National Committee that whipped up popular support for Obama’s policies.

Finally! Weeks after left-wing activist Melowese Richardson boasted on television that she voted multiple times for president in November, authorities in Cincinnati, Ohio, charged her with voter fraud. The now-indicted 58-year-old veteran poll worker is facing eight counts of voter fraud in total, going all the way back to 2008. Richardson is a member of Communities United for Action, which is part of a larger Saul Alinsky-inspired organizing network called National People’s Action (NPA) that makes no bones about its desire to overthrow what remains of America’s free enterprise system.

Black conservative leaders warn that new gun control proposals threaten Americans’ most fundamental civil rights. Star Parker, founder and president of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education (CURE), recalled the racist pedigree of gun control laws and the grave dangers they create, not just for blacks, but for all Americans. “I believe that it is our duty to stand together and challenge the proposals currently on the table in the Senate, which invoke painful memories of Jim Crow laws and black codes,” said Parker. “Black history is rife with government demands for background checks in order to qualify for constitutional rights,” she said at a Washington, D.C. press conference. “All Americans should be concerned.”

The National Immigration Forum (NIF), a media-savvy political shop largely underwritten by George Soros, is attempting to dupe conservatives into supporting a massive immigration amnesty. A recent NIF leaflet distributed to conservatives attempted to link limited-immigration groups such as Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) to “the population-control movement—including pro-abortion and euthanasia advocates.”

Anti-American, anti-war group Code Pink threw a posh party at Washington’s fancy Hay-Adams Hotel to honor a convicted spy on his way to prison. The guest of honor, former CIA employee John Kiriakou, was fêted by Code Pink and wealthy supporter Naomi Pitcairn, also an ardent backer of Army Private Bradley Manning, who is accused of leaking military secrets.

President Obama intends to nominate longtime ACORN-SEIU operative Patrick Gaspard as U.S. ambassador to South Africa, Politico reports. Now executive director of the Democratic National Committee, Gaspard is a former political director for SEIU 1199 and ACORN New York.