A group calling itself the Consumers Rights League ran a full-page advertisement July 17 on page 5B of USA Today arguing against a bill before Congress it says will "pickpocket consumers" at the gas pump. A compelling topic these days, right? The ad implies the bill, H.R. 5546, called the Credit Card Fair Fee Act by its sponsors, is anti-consumer (the same public position taken, incidentally, by Visa International). The "Consumers Rights League" doesn't say on its Web site, however, that it was started by Terry L. Kibbe, a former chief fundraiser for the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Cato Institute. A March article in Forbes mentions the group's origins and Kibbe, but no details on her resume, while noting her criticism of Self-Help Credit Union, the North Carolina-based relative of the Center for Responsible Lending, which advocates against payday loans. The Consumers Rights League Web site also contains several examples of anti-consumer-group rhetoric, but discloses no information about the group's funding, the site's origins or who runs it. A June research report on the site appears to argue on behalf of the credit card industry: "Most importantly, credit cards can provide inexpensive access to credit for low-income Americans, many of whom take advantage of 0% and low-interest rates to pay down debt," is one example.
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Consumers Rights League - Jim Terry
The Consumers Rights League front is now part of a partisan attack on voter rights for low-income Americans. They are a "consumer advocate" group that don't seem to be registered in D.C. and only have a P.O. Box address.
CRL operates under the guise that they are a "consumer advocate" organization, protecting citizens against ACORN from voter fraud, but they're not. The current Elections voter registration system already protects us from bad registrations going through. The system already works. Duplicate, underage, and made up voter registrations do not get through the verification process. This is an attempt to block ACORN's low-income voter recruitment in an effort to suppress voters who would most likely vote Democrat.
I've been investigating ACORN for the past 2 days. Nearly all of the voter fraud allegations against ACORN have come from the Consumers Rights League.
The Consumers Rights League just popped up out of nowhere. I called them. There is only seems to be one person running this "non-profit, non-partisan, educational organization", Jim Terry.
A week ago, Terry submitted written false testimony TO CONGRESS against ACORN. You can see it on their website here: http://www.consumersrightsleague.org/uploadedfiles/JamesTerryACORN9-24.p...
Practically the whole document substantiates its findings with news articles, no actual court cases. My research is showing that many of these articles don't exist or refer to cases that were shown to have a low-level employee filling out voter registrations to show paid-time work, but Prosecutors of these cases point out that there was obviously NO INTENT TO CAST A VOTE with these.
Here's one of Terry's citations in his written testimony (that actually refers to a real article & court case):
10 Ervin, Keith. “Felony charges filed against 7 in state’s biggest case of voter-registration fraud.” Seattle Times. July 26, 2007.
Statement from the Prosecuting Attorney on the case: “…Indeed, a joint federal and state investigation has determined that this scheme was not intended to permit illegal voting." http://www.metrokc.gov/proatty/news/2007/Voter%20Registration%20Statemen...
Jim Terry is the one credited for "exposing ACORN" and his "findings" are the primary source of quotes against ACORN. He's been quoted throughout the news, FOX, & even interviewed on FOX News.
This is a Republican posing as a Consumer Advocate organization, setup to smear ACORN (and subsequently Obama), and who committed perjury to Congress on the subject.
Jim Terry, of the Consumers Rights League, was allowed to give written testimony to Congress's 09/24/2008 Joint Hearing on: Federal, State and Local Efforts to Prepare for the 2008 Election. Why is he qualified to give testimony? He has no experience.
Jim Terry's written testimony is completely made up of newspaper headlines. Some don't even seem to exist. Others have proved that there was no intent to cast an illegal vote and ACORN was not directly responsible. WHY WAS TERRY INVITED TO TESTIFY, BY WHOM, AND WHY WASN'T HIS WRITTEN TESTIMONY NOT FACT-CHECKED? Why did Senators use his testimony to shape their questioning?
If you watch the Subcommittee hearing, an hour into it you will hear Republican Senators try to question about ACORN allegations... yet the election professionals that were interviewed all denied that ACORN was causing any problem with voter fraud or election fraud. These professionals would know better than anyone. The Interviewees name other groups, but the Republican Senators wanted ACORN. HEARING: http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/hear_080924.html
I NEED HELP EXPOSING THIS!!! As I've researched this the past few days, an ACORN FBI raid occurred. Jim Terry is being touted as an expert on the subject within the media, including FOX News even though he has no qualifications and his claims are unsubstantiated. I'm seeing a scandal unfold of legitimate votes being blocked in effort to decrease Democratic votes.
Please help!
Concerned Homemaker in Toledo, Ohio