Hat Tip: Field Negro
I found this on the sidebar at Field Negro and thought it was of interest, because it points out AGAIN how this administration is against The Little Guy, and keeps on using his Uncle Toms to do the dirty work.
Dear *[field negro]*,
I'm coming to you as a big time reader (and troll, I never comment).
There's an issue on my radar that has been overwhelmingly disregardedby the mainstream media. The Bush administration, helped by Uncle TomAlphonso Jackson, is eliminating downpayment assistance programs that have helped hundreds of thousands of people gain first time homeownership.
This is about modern civil rights, wealth creation and asset ownership. To me, breaking the chains of poverty means gettingthe downpayment assistance necessary help working families and adultsmove into their own homes.
Eliminating downpayment assistance is just another way to put Blacks into a modern day sharecropping systemon the apartment renting plantation. Unfortunately, fake liberal Dem Prez candidate Chris Dodd is siding with the Bush admin to close this program... here's a little mini blog post I wrote below.
If you could help promote this issue or at least mention it, that'd be great. Keep doing what you're doing, Field...Presidential hopeful Chris Dodd, Chairman of Banking, Housing & UrbanAffairs Committee, is making the remarkable move of closing down a Federal program that has historically helped hundreds of thousands of disadvantaged groups and the poor achieve first time homeownership.
Dodd is siding with Senate Republicans (like Senator Richard Shelby,R-AL no less) to give a slap in the face to Blacks and minorities across the country. Dodd is supporting Bush's HUD Secretary AlphonsoJackson in his move to eliminate downpayment assistance programs.According to the GAO, the move to get rid of downpayment assistance programs will bar approximately 40% of African-American homebuyers from utilizing Federal Housing Administration insured loans. Also affected are potentially 30% of Latinos.
What Senator Dodd is doing will screw the poor, minorities, and many single parent mothers from ever owning a home. True progressives Rep.Maxine Waters and Rep. Barney Frank have showed their leadership insecuring a bill in the House to protect this program. In the Senate,Senator Dodd holds the keys.
Sign this petition and call Senator Doddnow. For more information on this issue, see below.[for blogs, often you may post the long portion of your text in a'below' or 'read more' section]Here's the lowdown. Downpayment assistance programs allow nonprofits to assist home buyers in providing the minimum down payment requiredfor Federal Housing Authority (FHA) loans. Shutting down this program will effectively destroy the nonprofits seeking to help first time home buyers achieve their dreams of home ownership. From 2000 through 2006, more than 650,000 buyers got their down payments through nonprofits.
HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson believes with the recent foreclosures occurring because of subprime loans, an increased number of borrowers will seek downpayment assistance and place enormous fiscal stress on the FHA. However, Secretary Jackson is overlooking the fact that if downpayment assistance programs are shut out, even more borrowers will be FORCED into predatory loan agreements and subprime loans. The reality is, downpayment assistance programs are needed more than ever now, and to remove the program is to put families onto the street and to keep an entire segment of the population continually renting from landlords.
Write or Call Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee Chairman Chris Dodd to tell him:"Please do not shut down the downpayment assistance program. This program helps hundreds of thousands of disadvantaged families acrossthe country achieve the American dream of homeownership."Banking Committee Contact:534 Dirksen Senate Office Building Washington, D.C. 20510 P: (202) 224-7391 F: (202) 224-5137 U.S. Senator Chris Dodd Contact:448 Russell Building Washington D.C., 20510 Tel: (202) 224-2823 Fax: (202) 224-1083
Showing posts with label Alphonso Jackson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alphonso Jackson. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Grand Jury Investigating HUD Chief Alphonso Jackson
It looks like another top Bush official may be on his way out, one way or another. One of Bush's favorite puppets and top cheerleaders is in hot water over shady deals involving the New Orleans Housing Authority (post Katrina).
Jackson is being investigated by a Federal Grand Jury on possible corruption charges and for lying to Congress. Jackson is accused of providing a no bid contract to one of his buddies, William Hairston, and then paying him hundreds of thousands of dollars under the table... effectively siphoning money away from Katrina victims in New Orleans who need the money. He told Congress earlier this year that he was not involved in any contracts. But evidence is pointing the other way.
This (if true) is the worst kind of corruption.
If he's indicted and convicted... I fully expect George W. to pardon him. But then again, the Bush crew doesn't have much time left in office... This case may not be decided until after another figurehead gets elected (possibly a Democrat). But it wouldn't surprise me if Jackson got a pardon anyway under that scenario.
Following from The New York Times
The Justice Department is investigating ties between Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso R. Jackson and a friend of Mr. Jackson’s who was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by him for rebuilding work in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, federal officials said Thursday.
The investigation, they said, centers in part on whether Mr. Jackson was fully truthful in Congressional testimony and in interviews with federal investigators when he said he had not steered housing contracts to friends and administration supporters.
Mr. Jackson was the subject of a similar investigation by the inspector general of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The inspector general found last year that Mr. Jackson had urged his staff to consider contractors’ political leanings when awarding contracts, though there was no proof that staff members had complied.
The new inquiry was first reported by The National Journal magazine, which identified Mr. Jackson’s friend as William Hairston and said he had been paid more than $485,000 for his work in New Orleans on behalf of the housing department. The magazine said Mr. Jackson and Mr. Hairston were golfing partners in Hilton Head Island, S.C., where Mr. Hairston lives.
Mr. Jackson’s spokesmen at the housing department refused to answer detailed questions about the inquiry but released a statement from the secretary saying, “My commitment to helping the American people find decent, safe and affordable housing is unwavering, and I intend to fully cooperate with any possible investigation and to clear my name."
Mr. Hairston, who is identified in documents issued by the New Orleans Housing Authority as a consultant to the authority, did not return phone messages left at his home.
Mr. Jackson, former president of the Dallas housing authority, drew attention to the potential for political abuses in federal housing contracts with a speech in April 2006 in which he said he had canceled a federal contract for a company after its president had told him that he did not like President Bush. Mr. Jackson later said he had lied in the speech. “I deeply regret making up the story,” he said.
Complaints about the speech prompted the inspector general’s investigation. The inspector general’s report quoted former aides to Mr. Jackson as saying he had urged them to give special consideration to contractors who supported President Bush.
The former chief procurement officer of the housing agency was quoted as telling investigators that Mr. Jackson had told her that “it drives him nuts” when contractors made clear that they were critics of Mr. Bush but expected to be considered for government housing contracts.
Excerpt from the National Journal
See Full Report from the National Journal
_________________________________
However, Hairston denies the above National Journal statements in this Times-Picayune report. But there are still other details that cannot be explained away...
Jackson is being investigated by a Federal Grand Jury on possible corruption charges and for lying to Congress. Jackson is accused of providing a no bid contract to one of his buddies, William Hairston, and then paying him hundreds of thousands of dollars under the table... effectively siphoning money away from Katrina victims in New Orleans who need the money. He told Congress earlier this year that he was not involved in any contracts. But evidence is pointing the other way.
This (if true) is the worst kind of corruption.
If he's indicted and convicted... I fully expect George W. to pardon him. But then again, the Bush crew doesn't have much time left in office... This case may not be decided until after another figurehead gets elected (possibly a Democrat). But it wouldn't surprise me if Jackson got a pardon anyway under that scenario.
Following from The New York Times
The Justice Department is investigating ties between Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso R. Jackson and a friend of Mr. Jackson’s who was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by him for rebuilding work in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, federal officials said Thursday.
The investigation, they said, centers in part on whether Mr. Jackson was fully truthful in Congressional testimony and in interviews with federal investigators when he said he had not steered housing contracts to friends and administration supporters.
Mr. Jackson was the subject of a similar investigation by the inspector general of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The inspector general found last year that Mr. Jackson had urged his staff to consider contractors’ political leanings when awarding contracts, though there was no proof that staff members had complied.
The new inquiry was first reported by The National Journal magazine, which identified Mr. Jackson’s friend as William Hairston and said he had been paid more than $485,000 for his work in New Orleans on behalf of the housing department. The magazine said Mr. Jackson and Mr. Hairston were golfing partners in Hilton Head Island, S.C., where Mr. Hairston lives.
Mr. Jackson’s spokesmen at the housing department refused to answer detailed questions about the inquiry but released a statement from the secretary saying, “My commitment to helping the American people find decent, safe and affordable housing is unwavering, and I intend to fully cooperate with any possible investigation and to clear my name."
Mr. Hairston, who is identified in documents issued by the New Orleans Housing Authority as a consultant to the authority, did not return phone messages left at his home.
Mr. Jackson, former president of the Dallas housing authority, drew attention to the potential for political abuses in federal housing contracts with a speech in April 2006 in which he said he had canceled a federal contract for a company after its president had told him that he did not like President Bush. Mr. Jackson later said he had lied in the speech. “I deeply regret making up the story,” he said.
Complaints about the speech prompted the inspector general’s investigation. The inspector general’s report quoted former aides to Mr. Jackson as saying he had urged them to give special consideration to contractors who supported President Bush.
The former chief procurement officer of the housing agency was quoted as telling investigators that Mr. Jackson had told her that “it drives him nuts” when contractors made clear that they were critics of Mr. Bush but expected to be considered for government housing contracts.
Excerpt from the National Journal
Federal investigators are once again on Jackson's trail. And this time, the investigation seems more serious. Donohue's investigators are now working with the FBI, a federal grand jury in Washington, and prosecutors from the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section. The investigation appears to focus, in part, on whether Jackson misled Congress when he testified earlier this year that he had never intervened in awarding HUD contracts. "I don't touch contracts," the HUD boss told a Senate panel on May 3.
Investigators are exploring whether Jackson, despite that testimony, had actually lined up a contract at the HUD-controlled Housing Authority of New Orleans, or HANO, for a golfing buddy and social friend from Hilton Head Island, S.C. The friend, William Hairston, was paid more than $485,000 for working at HANO during an 18-month period, according to figures provided by HUD and a former HANO official. The work was not competitively bid.
See Full Report from the National Journal
_________________________________
However, Hairston denies the above National Journal statements in this Times-Picayune report. But there are still other details that cannot be explained away...
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