SIDLEY AUSTIN: What the Obamas, Bernadine Dohrn and ACORN have in common

World Net Daily

Michelle Obama's old law firm is representing ACORN's board in an internal embezzlement case that legal experts say could result in criminal charges.

During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama and his running-mate, Joe Biden, insisted they had nothing to do with ACORN after the inner-city advocacy group became engulfed in controversy over voter-registration fraud.

However, federal election records showed that the Obama campaign paid ACORN subsidiary Citizens Services Inc. $832,598 for get-out-the-vote activities, of which $80,000 went directly to ACORN. CSI and some 290 other ACORN subsidiaries operate out of the same building on Elysian Fields Avenue in New Orleans that serves as ACORN's national headquarters.

A sister organization sharing that New Orleans address – Citizens Consulting Inc. – is at the center of the embezzlement scandal, court records show.

Dale Rathke, brother of ACORN founder Wade Rathke, worked at CCI, where he kept the books for all of the ACORN-affiliated groups across the country. He is accused of embezzling almost $1 million in faulty credit card charges while working there. He allegedly spent some $40,000 a month on lavish travel and entertainment.

....Sidley Austin was founded by liberal activist Howard Trienens [friend of Thomas Ayers the father of Bill Ayers, both having served on the Board of Trustees at Northwestern University, which is coincidentally where Dohrn teaches and Jeremiah Wright is invited to speak].

Michelle Obama worked there as an associate lawyer from 1988 to 1991, overlapping briefly with the tenure of 1960s terrorist and ex-convict Bernardine Dohrn, once considered by the FBI to be "the most dangerous woman in America."

Dorhn, who was not licensed to practice law, got a job at the law firm thanks to her husband Bill Ayers' family connections to Trienens.

The Obamas met at Sidley Austin when Barack interned there after his first year at Harvard Law School. After law school, Barack represented ACORN in a voter registration case.

Matthew Vadum of the Capital Research Center in Washington, a think tank that studies the politics of philanthropy, says the government should investigate ACORN under federal racketeering laws.

He says the group has racked up more than $3 million in federal, state and local tax liens which appear to stem from its failure to pay employee payroll taxes.

He says ACORN's financial operations are tightly controlled from the top and largely hidden from public view....

And speaking of "hidden from public view," did you hear about the Kenyan government imposing a gag order on the Obama family in Kenya?

Am starting to doubt the wisdom of Shakespeare ("the truth will out" - Merchant of Venice), and rely more and more on that of the prophets, especially Isaiah ("truth has stumbled in the street").