Originally posted by: RyanPaulShaffer
Originally posted by: spittledip
Originally posted by: RyanPaulShaffer
Hayabusa,
If this is a "neutral issue", then:
Why did 75 Democrats and 0 Republicans vote against the measures to defund ACORN?
Why did ACORN endorse Obama?
I don't care about what kind of "hypocritical statements" Republicans supposedly made in the past. I wasn't one of them, mostly because I hadn't made many posts on Anandtech at all until the last election, and the few posts I did make were all tech related.
This is a Democrat thing, because ACORN is an activist wing of the Democrat party, (previously) funded by the tax payer's dollar ($5 billion in the "stimulus bill", plus other monies in the past).
I just call 'em as I see 'em.
Um, they supported ACORN before these videos came to be. I am sure many dems are removing their support now.
So, you admit that this was a Democrat activist group, and when it became politically dangerous to support them, the Democrats threw ACORN under the bus?
Thanks for proving my point?:laugh:
Is this another "I voted for the war in Iraq before I voted against it!"? Democrats being for something until it is politically expedient to be against it?
Of course! That is how politicians on both sides act! Did I just reveal some great mystery to you? I thought that this was common knowledge...
I did not say what their motivation would be for backing away from supporting Acorn, I merely stated that Acorn would lose support with Dems.
Anyone who violated the law, be it ACORN executive or employee, should be held accountable according to the law. PERIOD. That extends to ANYONE. It also extends to every "individual" member of ANY of these organizations independent of political party. That means ANY oganization that runs these "drives" should NOT recieve ANY government handouts PERIOD!
More importantly, some of you people seem to be suggesting that you believe 400,000 people are involved in a wide-ranging and complicated criminal conspiracy to engage in election and voter registration fraud, housing and welfare fraud, setting up child prostitution rings, and advising people on the "how tos" of systematic tax evasion. This last accusation should more appropriately be pointed at corporate tax attorneys and accountants?
You probably think the nurses and janitors and bed pan emptiers and kids out of college and single moms who are field organizers for SEIU are also involved in a vast criminal conspiracy not to improve the lives of working class people but to turn your children into gay satanist communist zombies who know nothing more than how to pick your pocket, steal your hubcaps, whine about their lack of health care coverage and take from the "productive class".
Glenn Beck has told his audience that ACORN might assasinate him for exposing their sinister plot to rule the world. He frequently compares himself (by implication) to Martin Luther King Jr., asks for prayers of safety and has told his audience that even if "they" turn dogs on them or fire hoses (aka like police did to civil rights protesters) to keep speaking truth to power. Beck has also suggested that ACORN caused the levees to fail in New Orleans in order to hide its corruption.
In other words, Beck is fomenting a demented,upside down paranoid world view where his 9/12 followers view themselves as a persecuted minority; persecuted by actual minorities. "ACORN" plays the role in Beck's world view that Jews do in the New World Order conspiracy theory that so many of Beck's audience no doubt believe in. While I don't beleive that Beck even realizes it (he's too dumb), when he tells his audience, which has drawn in the Constitution, militia/white patriot types, that Saul Alinsky (Jewish) is behind a plot to destroy America via ACORN and Van Jones, he is very much playing into a powder keg of racial resentment.
We've all seen the Obama-as-Hitler posters, the photos of the President of the United States dressed as jungle medicine man. We've watched as nasty hecklers, including members of Congress, demean both the highest office in the land and the man who holds it. The list is field tested by the likes of Sarah Palin (e.g. community organizers, Bill Ayres, the terrorist, 'unreal' as opposed to 'real' Americans, death panels), Fox News et al.(e. g. Acorn, Jeremiah Wright, liberals, Saying "Happy Holidays" instead of Merry Christmas, Cindy Sheehan, The Koran), Limbaugh (e.g.liberals, socialism, feminatzies, gays, The New York Times, ecoterrorists), & Beck (e.g. any unhinged conspiracy theory from his opium dreams.)
Here's what I'd really like to see from the Beckanista's of America . . .
March down to your local SEIU union hall and stand on the sidewalk in front of the hall toting a sign that tells all the employed but underpaid janitors, and bed pan emptiers, and nurses aides, and laundry folks and all their organizing staff and stewards that they are leaches, crooks, criminals, and whatever variety of odious Stalin clones you like to paint them out to be - and see how far that gets you. Put your time and money where your mouth is. Just like they do. But I doubt that would ever happen because those marching orders will never be uttered from Beck or Limbaugh's mouths out of fear that the mighty candle toting vigilantes of the SEIU might show up in front of their little recording studios and expose them for the know-nothing frauds and snakeoil salesmen they really are.
The only reason ACORN got thrown under the bus is because Congress is full of cowards who don't want to be even remotely associated with ACORN after months, and months, and months, of the level 11 fact free hysteria catapulted on Fox about the minions of ACORN.
I mostly feel sorry for this country at this point. It really is getting embarrassing being a member of this dysfunctional "union".
There ya have it, Flame away....
More importantly, some of you people seem to be suggesting that you believe 400,000 people are involved in a wide-ranging and complicated criminal conspiracy to engage in election and voter registration fraud, housing and welfare fraud, setting up child prostitution rings, and advising people on the "how tos" of systematic tax evasion. This last accusation should more appropriately be pointed at corporate tax attorneys and accountants?
You probably think the nurses and janitors and bed pan emptiers and kids out of college and single moms who are field organizers for SEIU are also involved in a vast criminal conspiracy not to improve the lives of working class people but to turn your children into gay satanist communist zombies who know nothing more than how to pick your pocket, steal your hubcaps, whine about their lack of health care coverage and take from the "productive class".
Glenn Beck has told his audience that ACORN might assasinate him for exposing their sinister plot to rule the world. He frequently compares himself (by implication) to Martin Luther King Jr., asks for prayers of safety and has told his audience that even if "they" turn dogs on them or fire hoses (aka like police did to civil rights protesters) to keep speaking truth to power. Beck has also suggested that ACORN caused the levees to fail in New Orleans in order to hide its corruption.
In other words, Beck is fomenting a demented,upside down paranoid world view where his 9/12 followers view themselves as a persecuted minority; persecuted by actual minorities. "ACORN" plays the role in Beck's world view that Jews do in the New World Order conspiracy theory that so many of Beck's audience no doubt believe in. While I don't beleive that Beck even realizes it (he's too dumb), when he tells his audience, which has drawn in the Constitution, militia/white patriot types, that Saul Alinsky (Jewish) is behind a plot to destroy America via ACORN and Van Jones, he is very much playing into a powder keg of racial resentment.
We've all seen the Obama-as-Hitler posters, the photos of the President of the United States dressed as jungle medicine man. We've watched as nasty hecklers, including members of Congress, demean both the highest office in the land and the man who holds it. The list is field tested by the likes of Sarah Palin (e.g. community organizers, Bill Ayres, the terrorist, 'unreal' as opposed to 'real' Americans, death panels), Fox News et al.(e. g. Acorn, Jeremiah Wright, liberals, Saying "Happy Holidays" instead of Merry Christmas, Cindy Sheehan, The Koran), Limbaugh (e.g.liberals, socialism, feminatzies, gays, The New York Times, ecoterrorists), & Beck (e.g. any unhinged conspiracy theory from his opium dreams.)
Here's what I'd really like to see from the Beckanista's of America . . .
March down to your local SEIU union hall and stand on the sidewalk in front of the hall toting a sign that tells all the employed but underpaid janitors, and bed pan emptiers, and nurses aides, and laundry folks and all their organizing staff and stewards that they are leaches, crooks, criminals, and whatever variety of odious Stalin clones you like to paint them out to be - and see how far that gets you. Put your time and money where your mouth is. Just like they do. But I doubt that would ever happen because those marching orders will never be uttered from Beck or Limbaugh's mouths out of fear that the mighty candle toting vigilantes of the SEIU might show up in front of their little recording studios and expose them for the know-nothing frauds and snakeoil salesmen they really are.
The only reason ACORN got thrown under the bus is because Congress is full of cowards who don't want to be even remotely associated with ACORN after months, and months, and months, of the level 11 fact free hysteria catapulted on Fox about the minions of ACORN.
I mostly feel sorry for this country at this point. It really is getting embarrassing being a member of this dysfunctional "union".
There ya have it, Flame away....
Oh shit. Acorn is getting ready to get blown out even more. It's brilliant, they're letting their CEO hang herself, still calling the tapes "doctored"
umbrella39
Lifer
- Jun 11, 2004
- 13,816
- 1,126
- 126
Not nearly as important as the "fluffer" demographic, which is a lock to vote 100% GOP each erection!
PJABBER
Diamond Member
- Feb 8, 2001
- 4,822
- 0
- 0
One interesting, but not unexpected, aspect to this story has been the vociferous attacks on the two heroic kids that broke the story.
Hannah Giles is the daughter of Doug Giles, a minister and author of ten books on Christianity, masculinity and cultural insanity. If you can't laugh with this guy's perspective on modern life you have no sense of humor or are living in an alternate universe of your own making.
Here is his take on what his daughter did -
No, It Wasn?t My Idea for Hannah Giles to Dress Like a Hooker and Infiltrate ACORN
Doug Giles
Saturday, September 19, 2009
It?s been quite interesting watching and reading the statements coming from ACORN and various ?news? organizations about the ?facts? of the Giles/O?Keefe ACORN caper. Here?s a little sample of what they have been saying about the two evil citizen journalists, Hannah Giles and James O?Keefe, the ones who picked on poor, poor, poor, old ACORN.
Check it out, the truth according to nutty ACORN (and what really happened):
1. Giles? and O?Keefe?s timeframe for filming. Bertha Lewis and others have stated that Hannah and James spent many months visiting scores of ACORN centers to get these few videos. One wizard said Hannah and James had been doing this since 2005, which would have made Hannah, oh, let?s see, about 14 or 15. Hello! I?m a cool dad?but not that cool.
I guess Bertha could be right about the time Giles and O?Keefe invested in the ACORN sting op if she counts her days in dog years. If that?s how she rolls then she?s spot-on with the ?many months? statement. By the way, if that?s true, this November I?ll be 329 years old. Happy birthday to me! I think I?ll get another gun! I?m diggin? on the S&W .500 magnum. She?s purty.
The truth of the matter, from a timeline standpoint, is that they hatched their plan in May of ?09, fine-tuned it from May 20th ? July 23rd, and then launched July 24th, fully accomplishing their mission by the end of August. And that?s a fact to all those for whom facts still matter.
2. Giles? and O?Keefe?s mission failed in many locations. Bertha and her buddies say with vigor and Reverend Wright unction that Giles and O?Keefe tried this trick in hundreds of locations without success. Marc Lamont Hill was on O?Reilly?s show this past week parroting the same smack. I heard one lunatic say they visited thousands of centers nationwide (there are under 200. Oops). Hey, guys: Why stop at hundreds and thousands? Why not say gazillions or quadrillions of ACORN centers?! Go Dr. Evil with the numbers. The truth of the matter happens to be that Hannah and James visited just a few locations?I won?t say how many?and struck gold, or sewage, everywhere they went.
3. Giles and O?Keefe had FOX News bankroll this escapade. I believe that, according to the ACORN spinmeisters, they had the amount of drachmas FOX had given Hannah and James in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The oh-so-sexy reality regarding this little nugget is that it cost these two acorn-crackers $1,300 of their own money. It?s amazing what one can do with a little cash, grandma?s chinchilla coat, a miniskirt and a whole lot of vision, eh? The only cash they received from FOX was for their hotel stay and their airfare while they did Beck?s and Hannity?s shows. That?s the truth. Oh, and as far as me giving her any pesos, for this epoch her papasito gave her nada. Not a penny. No FOX funds. No crazy Christian dad dollars.
4. Giles? radical, ultra-conservative Christian dad put her up to it. I believe that?s how someone on one of those unwatched news shows has been bending it. Well, I can tell you as her dad that I did not. As much as me no likey the nefarious underpinnings and corrupt acts of ACORN, having my kid dress like a hooker and infiltrate such a place is not in my repertoire. That was Hannah?s baby from start to finish. I simply told her to be careful because we all know how dangerous sweet community organizers can be. Oh, FYI . . . if confessing I?m a sinner, believing orthodox Christian doctrine, saluting our flag and that for which it stands, loving the Constitution, hating terrorists, being fond of guns, hunting, country and rock music while adoring freedom makes me a crazy ultra-conservative Christian lunatic then I guess I am one of those. I will put that name right next to the other name Obama?s former green czar called such a person back in March (I believe he called us ?a**holes?).
5. Giles and O?Keefe doctored the tapes. This is silly. James is a talented post-production editor, but he didn?t put the words in the ACORN workers? mouths. He?s sharp . . . but not that sharp. Anyway, if he did you and I both would know it because it would have looked and sounded like one of those old Bruce Lee flicks. Unfortunately for Bertha, Andrew Breitbart has the vids and the transcripts in their entirety on his new site biggovernment.com for anyone to behold. Grab some popcorn and watch ?em. It?s a teachable moment. Oh, speaking of the tapes: You might wanna go back to the San Bernadino one and listen to the list of politicians the ACORN lady rattled off as elected officials who would possibly be ready and willing to assist with the House for Hookers program.
Well, my children, that?s the inside poop on how it happened. That?s reality. I, personally, am stunned by what my kid and her cohort did in ratting out tawdry corruption on the highest (or lowest) level. As far as I am concerned, Giles and O?Keefe are American heroes par excellence. They accomplished something in a few short weeks, on a wing and a prayer, that other agencies and people have been trying to expose for many, many moons.
Hannah Giles is the daughter of Doug Giles, a minister and author of ten books on Christianity, masculinity and cultural insanity. If you can't laugh with this guy's perspective on modern life you have no sense of humor or are living in an alternate universe of your own making.
Here is his take on what his daughter did -
No, It Wasn?t My Idea for Hannah Giles to Dress Like a Hooker and Infiltrate ACORN
Doug Giles
Saturday, September 19, 2009
It?s been quite interesting watching and reading the statements coming from ACORN and various ?news? organizations about the ?facts? of the Giles/O?Keefe ACORN caper. Here?s a little sample of what they have been saying about the two evil citizen journalists, Hannah Giles and James O?Keefe, the ones who picked on poor, poor, poor, old ACORN.
Check it out, the truth according to nutty ACORN (and what really happened):
1. Giles? and O?Keefe?s timeframe for filming. Bertha Lewis and others have stated that Hannah and James spent many months visiting scores of ACORN centers to get these few videos. One wizard said Hannah and James had been doing this since 2005, which would have made Hannah, oh, let?s see, about 14 or 15. Hello! I?m a cool dad?but not that cool.
I guess Bertha could be right about the time Giles and O?Keefe invested in the ACORN sting op if she counts her days in dog years. If that?s how she rolls then she?s spot-on with the ?many months? statement. By the way, if that?s true, this November I?ll be 329 years old. Happy birthday to me! I think I?ll get another gun! I?m diggin? on the S&W .500 magnum. She?s purty.
The truth of the matter, from a timeline standpoint, is that they hatched their plan in May of ?09, fine-tuned it from May 20th ? July 23rd, and then launched July 24th, fully accomplishing their mission by the end of August. And that?s a fact to all those for whom facts still matter.
2. Giles? and O?Keefe?s mission failed in many locations. Bertha and her buddies say with vigor and Reverend Wright unction that Giles and O?Keefe tried this trick in hundreds of locations without success. Marc Lamont Hill was on O?Reilly?s show this past week parroting the same smack. I heard one lunatic say they visited thousands of centers nationwide (there are under 200. Oops). Hey, guys: Why stop at hundreds and thousands? Why not say gazillions or quadrillions of ACORN centers?! Go Dr. Evil with the numbers. The truth of the matter happens to be that Hannah and James visited just a few locations?I won?t say how many?and struck gold, or sewage, everywhere they went.
3. Giles and O?Keefe had FOX News bankroll this escapade. I believe that, according to the ACORN spinmeisters, they had the amount of drachmas FOX had given Hannah and James in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The oh-so-sexy reality regarding this little nugget is that it cost these two acorn-crackers $1,300 of their own money. It?s amazing what one can do with a little cash, grandma?s chinchilla coat, a miniskirt and a whole lot of vision, eh? The only cash they received from FOX was for their hotel stay and their airfare while they did Beck?s and Hannity?s shows. That?s the truth. Oh, and as far as me giving her any pesos, for this epoch her papasito gave her nada. Not a penny. No FOX funds. No crazy Christian dad dollars.
4. Giles? radical, ultra-conservative Christian dad put her up to it. I believe that?s how someone on one of those unwatched news shows has been bending it. Well, I can tell you as her dad that I did not. As much as me no likey the nefarious underpinnings and corrupt acts of ACORN, having my kid dress like a hooker and infiltrate such a place is not in my repertoire. That was Hannah?s baby from start to finish. I simply told her to be careful because we all know how dangerous sweet community organizers can be. Oh, FYI . . . if confessing I?m a sinner, believing orthodox Christian doctrine, saluting our flag and that for which it stands, loving the Constitution, hating terrorists, being fond of guns, hunting, country and rock music while adoring freedom makes me a crazy ultra-conservative Christian lunatic then I guess I am one of those. I will put that name right next to the other name Obama?s former green czar called such a person back in March (I believe he called us ?a**holes?).
5. Giles and O?Keefe doctored the tapes. This is silly. James is a talented post-production editor, but he didn?t put the words in the ACORN workers? mouths. He?s sharp . . . but not that sharp. Anyway, if he did you and I both would know it because it would have looked and sounded like one of those old Bruce Lee flicks. Unfortunately for Bertha, Andrew Breitbart has the vids and the transcripts in their entirety on his new site biggovernment.com for anyone to behold. Grab some popcorn and watch ?em. It?s a teachable moment. Oh, speaking of the tapes: You might wanna go back to the San Bernadino one and listen to the list of politicians the ACORN lady rattled off as elected officials who would possibly be ready and willing to assist with the House for Hookers program.
Well, my children, that?s the inside poop on how it happened. That?s reality. I, personally, am stunned by what my kid and her cohort did in ratting out tawdry corruption on the highest (or lowest) level. As far as I am concerned, Giles and O?Keefe are American heroes par excellence. They accomplished something in a few short weeks, on a wing and a prayer, that other agencies and people have been trying to expose for many, many moons.
Welp, I guess that settles it. Her dad's oh-so folksy and conservative rebuttal proves it. Everything's on the up and up. Nothing to see here. Move along.
blackangst1
Lifer
- Feb 23, 2005
- 22,902
- 2,359
- 126
Ah youre right. If ACORN themselves funded it for monitoring purposes or for audits, the results would have been different. Got it.
blackangst1
Lifer
- Feb 23, 2005
- 22,902
- 2,359
- 126
I havent seen the vid from the San Diego office guy recommending a coyote to smuggle their underage hookers across the border...I guess MSNBC covered it also. HERE is a link to a few videos.
I also didnt know Arnold wants a full investigation into ACORN in Cali. Go get em!
I also didnt know Pelosi is playing stupid (or she really is clueless) about cutting off funding from them.
So much win.
I also didnt know Arnold wants a full investigation into ACORN in Cali. Go get em!
I also didnt know Pelosi is playing stupid (or she really is clueless) about cutting off funding from them.
So much win.
PJABBER
Diamond Member
- Feb 8, 2001
- 4,822
- 0
- 0
The New York Post ran an interesting history of ACORN over the weekend, interesting in how the pattern of ill behavior keeps popping up with this group.
Sowing the seeds of destruction
Sowing the seeds of destruction
By GINGER ADAMS OTIS and TIM PERONE
New York Post
Last Updated: 3:27 AM, September 20, 2009
Just how nutty is ACORN?
Very, say longtime watchers of the extreme leftwing group that sprouted out of a radical 60s anti-government movement.
For decades ACORN has presented itself as a grassroots network dedicated to improving the lives of the poor.
But there's more to ACORN than its do-gooder veneer.
Just ask the banks, corporations and politicians who've been the target of ACORN's shameless shenanigans over the past 40 years.
Here's how the tiny seed of 1960s radicalism blossomed into a well-funded, national organization with political connections reaching all the way to the White House:
THE BEGINNING
*ACORN is rooted in extreme far-left activism that wants to shut down the US government by overwhelming it with demands for welfare benefits and other forms of assistance.
"They don't like the American system of government, and would love for it to be overthrown," said ACORN expert Matthew Vadum, a senior editor at the conservative Capital Research Center in D.C.
"The whole goal is to transform America into a socialist country, or some form of socialist democracy. This group is dangerous."
*Founder Wade Rathke was a student at Williams College in 1969 and a member of the leftist Students for a New Democracy group when he dropped out to protest the Vietnam War full-time.
*Rathke began working for fiery activist George Wiley, a black radical who started the National Welfare Reform Organization in 1969. NWRO was created to help poor people sign up for more welfare benefits, with the goal of clogging and eventually grinding down US government systems.
*In 1970 Rathke was charged with inciting violence by Massachussetts police after a welfare rally he was leading turned into a riot. He was then sent to Arkansas to open up a new chapter of NWRO. But he began to hear rumors that Wiley was going to oust him from the organization. So he decided to start his own group ? the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN.
*In 1972 ACORN launched its first political initiative and backed two of its members who were running for the Little Rock School Board. Its efforts proved so successful that the group expanded beyond Arkansas and opened offices in Texas and South Dakota. Before long, it became a national group and started pushing its progressive political agenda.
*In 1999 Wade Rathke's brother Dale, also a major figure at ACORN, was caught embezzling nearly $1 million from the organization. His plundering was swept under the rug after the Rathke family promised to repay the debt. Both Wade and Dale Rathke remained on the payroll and the group didn't inform any of its board members about the theft, or contact authorities.
*In June 2008 two whistleblowers demanded a full accounting of Dale Rathke's embezzlement, and its subsequent cover-up. When news of it broke, Dale and Wade were forced to leave the organization, which employs hundreds worldwide. Wade remains in control of ACORN International and other subsidiaries of the main group. The two dissident board members were ejected from ACORN and labeled traitors.
HOUSING AND LIVING WAGE CAMPAIGNS
*In1986 the organization created the ACORN Housing Corporation to help poor people get into homes. The members started a campaign of targeting banks and businesses for sit-ins and large protests, alleging discriminatory lending practices. Critics of ACORN say the protests were little more than shakedowns to get grant money from the banks and force them to loan more freely to low-income families.
*1993: A vice-chair at the United Missouri Bancshares told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that ACORN tried to "blackmail" his company into lending $25 million to poor neighborhoods, and demanded payment for every mortgage their loan office helped set up.
"ACORN would invade a bank's office, yelling and screaming, and it was pretty difficult for a bank not to say, 'OK, we'll give you a grant, just leave us alone,'" said Hans Von Spakovsky, an analyst with the conservative Heritage Foundation.
"A lot of businesses felt they had to pay up just so ACORN would leave them alone. And ACORN hasn't come under scrutiny for it, which is unfortunate."
*In 1995 ACORN filed a lawsuit to try and claim an exemption from paying its workers minimum wage. The group had launched several successful campaigns to raise the minimum wage across the country and advocated heavily for fair pay and union wages from for-profit corporations. But it shouldn't have to pay its workers a living wage because it would mean hiring fewer staffers, and make employees less in tune with the needs of the poor, ACORN lawyers said.
*In 1999 angry ACORN demonstrators showed up at the campaign headquarters of Democratic Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, who at that time was running for mayor of Baltimore. The group chanted "What's the difference between slum landlords and the Aryan brotherhood?" It was a reference to campaign money they mistakenly thought O'Malley had taken from a notorious slumlord, and their belief that a white supremacist group had backed the Democrat.
*O'Malley dismissed ACORN as "professional protestors" when they targeted him again three years later. The rabble-rousers dumped garbage on the steps of Baltimore's City Hall and then rallied on his front lawn at home. "They unloaded a busload of people shouting pretty ugly things and scared the daylights out of my wife and kids. I thought it was a pretty cruddy thing to do," O'Malley told the Baltimore Sun in 2002.
*In 2004, ACORN abruptly flipped its position on banks ? criticizing financial institutions for being too quick to grant mortgages to poor and middle-income earners who couldn't pay back their loans. It filed a class-action lawsuit in California against Wells-Fargo Financials. In the suit, ACORN said the bank engaged in unfair and deceptive lending practices, including "bait and switch" sales tactics. The same day it filed the lawsuit, ACORN brought 2,000 of its members to downtown LA to march against Wells Fargo's "predatory lending" and "abusive loan practices." ACORN's housing director Maude Hurd said then that the group was determined that the bank would not "continue to swindle and steal from our communities."
VOTER REGISTRATION FRAUD
*In 1998 an ACORN employee was arrested for falsifying voter registration forms in Arkansas. The next year, authorities in Philadelphia confiscated hundreds of registration forms because one ACORN employee wrote them all. This was the first of many voter registration frauds that ACORN would be accused of in subsequent years.
*Since 2004, members of the activist group in as many as nine states have been charged with crimes related to voter registration fraud. To date about 50 people have been arrested, and approximately 30 have resulted in guilty pleas for ACORN-related voter fraud.
*At election offices around the country, ACORN workers are famous for waiting until registration deadline to dump thousands of new documents on overworked clerks ? making it harder for them to fully vet the registration forms.
"They have a long history of voter registration fraud, I don't think we are even close to knowing the extent of it," said John Samples, of the Cato Institute.
"A lot of it has been discovered by cursory checks or by accident. There's a lot more out there to be discovered."
In 2007, Washington authorities filed felony charges against seven people who committed voter registration fraud while working for ACORN ? the worst case of voter fraud in Washington's history. The organization had to pay officials $25,000 for investigative costs.
* During the 2008 presidential campaign "Mickey Mouse" and "Donald Duck" were just some of the crazy names put on bogus voter registration forms submitted by ACORN. The group claimed to have registered 1.3 million voters, but more than 400,000 of those forms were later deemed fraudulent or incomplete by election authorities. An ACORN manager said the group hired "lazy crackheads" who needed money to collect signatures in Nevada. Convicted felons living in transitional housing in Las Vegas were recruited by ACORN organizers and were promised bonuses ? which is illegal in Nevada ? if they got 20 or more new voter sign ups a day. The organization was slapped with two dozen felonies by the Nevada attorney general.
*"Every time you turn over an ACORN rock, something ugly crawls out," said Scott St. Clair, of the nonpartisan Evergreen Freedom Foundation based in Washington.
POLITICAL TIES
*ACORN claims to be non-partisan, but since the 1970s has backed mostly Democratic candidates in local, state and national elections. It has close connections with union groups around the country, most notably the Service Employees International Union, a powerful labor organization that has extensive ties to Capitol Hill.
"The Democratic Party has used them as foot soldiers, even if they claim not to be directly related to ACORN," said Von Spakovsky.
"ACORN transfers money between its subsidiaries ? and nobody knows for sure how many there are. A lot of these subsidiaries get paid by Democratic campaigns as consultants," he said.
*In 1992 President Obama headed the Project Vote campaign ? an organization affiliated with an ACORN subsidiary ? to register 150,000 voters in Chicago. ACORN backed Carol Moseley Braun, the country's first female African-American Senator.
*Barack Obama was one of the lawyers who represented ACORN in 1994 when it sued Citibank on behalf of "all persons who are African-American" and applied for a loan between 1992 and 1995. The group argued that Citibank wasn't giving mortgages in a "race-neutral way."
*A year later Obama again represented ACORN with a team of lawyers when the group sued Illinois, claiming the state was violating federal voting access law.
*In 2008, during the presidential primary, Obama worked with ACORN subsidiary Citizen Services Inc ? a consulting firm affiliated with ACORN ? to help with voter turnout. He paid the group $800,000.
THE FUTURE?
ACORN's altruistic façade came tumbling down ? possibly for good ? this month after a series of videos showed staffers giving an undercover pimp and hooker tips on defrauding the government, laundering money, cheating on taxes and obtaining a mortgage to open up a home-based brothel.
The damning display put ACORN on the defensive again and even rocked its once solid base of support among Democratic lawmakers.
Both the House and Senate have passed bipartisan bills calling for an immediate halt to federal funding to ACORN, which a Republican tally puts at $53 million since 1994.
Governor David Paterson on Friday placed a hold on all state contracts with the agency's local chapter, and the US Census Bureau kicked ACORN off its upcoming 2010 population count.
Yet ACORN needs more than just a slap on the wrist for encouraging people to commit mortgage and tax fraud, according to Von Spakovsky, a former Department of Justice investigator. The activist organization has yet to be held accountable for most of its actions ? past and present, he said.
"Nobody knows for sure how many subsidiaries ACORN has, but many investigations have shown they're mostly shell groups, used to transfer money around," said Von Spakovsky.
"We'll only know the true extent of their wrongdoing when the Department of Justice does a forensic audit, and we find out where those millions in federal funds have gone," he said.
***************************
An anti-ACORN web site has put together a map and listing of recent legal investigations and actions taken against ACORN -
ACORN FRAUD MAP
Sowing the seeds of destruction
Sowing the seeds of destruction
By GINGER ADAMS OTIS and TIM PERONE
New York Post
Last Updated: 3:27 AM, September 20, 2009
Just how nutty is ACORN?
Very, say longtime watchers of the extreme leftwing group that sprouted out of a radical 60s anti-government movement.
For decades ACORN has presented itself as a grassroots network dedicated to improving the lives of the poor.
But there's more to ACORN than its do-gooder veneer.
Just ask the banks, corporations and politicians who've been the target of ACORN's shameless shenanigans over the past 40 years.
Here's how the tiny seed of 1960s radicalism blossomed into a well-funded, national organization with political connections reaching all the way to the White House:
THE BEGINNING
*ACORN is rooted in extreme far-left activism that wants to shut down the US government by overwhelming it with demands for welfare benefits and other forms of assistance.
"They don't like the American system of government, and would love for it to be overthrown," said ACORN expert Matthew Vadum, a senior editor at the conservative Capital Research Center in D.C.
"The whole goal is to transform America into a socialist country, or some form of socialist democracy. This group is dangerous."
*Founder Wade Rathke was a student at Williams College in 1969 and a member of the leftist Students for a New Democracy group when he dropped out to protest the Vietnam War full-time.
*Rathke began working for fiery activist George Wiley, a black radical who started the National Welfare Reform Organization in 1969. NWRO was created to help poor people sign up for more welfare benefits, with the goal of clogging and eventually grinding down US government systems.
*In 1970 Rathke was charged with inciting violence by Massachussetts police after a welfare rally he was leading turned into a riot. He was then sent to Arkansas to open up a new chapter of NWRO. But he began to hear rumors that Wiley was going to oust him from the organization. So he decided to start his own group ? the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN.
*In 1972 ACORN launched its first political initiative and backed two of its members who were running for the Little Rock School Board. Its efforts proved so successful that the group expanded beyond Arkansas and opened offices in Texas and South Dakota. Before long, it became a national group and started pushing its progressive political agenda.
*In 1999 Wade Rathke's brother Dale, also a major figure at ACORN, was caught embezzling nearly $1 million from the organization. His plundering was swept under the rug after the Rathke family promised to repay the debt. Both Wade and Dale Rathke remained on the payroll and the group didn't inform any of its board members about the theft, or contact authorities.
*In June 2008 two whistleblowers demanded a full accounting of Dale Rathke's embezzlement, and its subsequent cover-up. When news of it broke, Dale and Wade were forced to leave the organization, which employs hundreds worldwide. Wade remains in control of ACORN International and other subsidiaries of the main group. The two dissident board members were ejected from ACORN and labeled traitors.
HOUSING AND LIVING WAGE CAMPAIGNS
*In1986 the organization created the ACORN Housing Corporation to help poor people get into homes. The members started a campaign of targeting banks and businesses for sit-ins and large protests, alleging discriminatory lending practices. Critics of ACORN say the protests were little more than shakedowns to get grant money from the banks and force them to loan more freely to low-income families.
*1993: A vice-chair at the United Missouri Bancshares told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that ACORN tried to "blackmail" his company into lending $25 million to poor neighborhoods, and demanded payment for every mortgage their loan office helped set up.
"ACORN would invade a bank's office, yelling and screaming, and it was pretty difficult for a bank not to say, 'OK, we'll give you a grant, just leave us alone,'" said Hans Von Spakovsky, an analyst with the conservative Heritage Foundation.
"A lot of businesses felt they had to pay up just so ACORN would leave them alone. And ACORN hasn't come under scrutiny for it, which is unfortunate."
*In 1995 ACORN filed a lawsuit to try and claim an exemption from paying its workers minimum wage. The group had launched several successful campaigns to raise the minimum wage across the country and advocated heavily for fair pay and union wages from for-profit corporations. But it shouldn't have to pay its workers a living wage because it would mean hiring fewer staffers, and make employees less in tune with the needs of the poor, ACORN lawyers said.
*In 1999 angry ACORN demonstrators showed up at the campaign headquarters of Democratic Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, who at that time was running for mayor of Baltimore. The group chanted "What's the difference between slum landlords and the Aryan brotherhood?" It was a reference to campaign money they mistakenly thought O'Malley had taken from a notorious slumlord, and their belief that a white supremacist group had backed the Democrat.
*O'Malley dismissed ACORN as "professional protestors" when they targeted him again three years later. The rabble-rousers dumped garbage on the steps of Baltimore's City Hall and then rallied on his front lawn at home. "They unloaded a busload of people shouting pretty ugly things and scared the daylights out of my wife and kids. I thought it was a pretty cruddy thing to do," O'Malley told the Baltimore Sun in 2002.
*In 2004, ACORN abruptly flipped its position on banks ? criticizing financial institutions for being too quick to grant mortgages to poor and middle-income earners who couldn't pay back their loans. It filed a class-action lawsuit in California against Wells-Fargo Financials. In the suit, ACORN said the bank engaged in unfair and deceptive lending practices, including "bait and switch" sales tactics. The same day it filed the lawsuit, ACORN brought 2,000 of its members to downtown LA to march against Wells Fargo's "predatory lending" and "abusive loan practices." ACORN's housing director Maude Hurd said then that the group was determined that the bank would not "continue to swindle and steal from our communities."
VOTER REGISTRATION FRAUD
*In 1998 an ACORN employee was arrested for falsifying voter registration forms in Arkansas. The next year, authorities in Philadelphia confiscated hundreds of registration forms because one ACORN employee wrote them all. This was the first of many voter registration frauds that ACORN would be accused of in subsequent years.
*Since 2004, members of the activist group in as many as nine states have been charged with crimes related to voter registration fraud. To date about 50 people have been arrested, and approximately 30 have resulted in guilty pleas for ACORN-related voter fraud.
*At election offices around the country, ACORN workers are famous for waiting until registration deadline to dump thousands of new documents on overworked clerks ? making it harder for them to fully vet the registration forms.
"They have a long history of voter registration fraud, I don't think we are even close to knowing the extent of it," said John Samples, of the Cato Institute.
"A lot of it has been discovered by cursory checks or by accident. There's a lot more out there to be discovered."
In 2007, Washington authorities filed felony charges against seven people who committed voter registration fraud while working for ACORN ? the worst case of voter fraud in Washington's history. The organization had to pay officials $25,000 for investigative costs.
* During the 2008 presidential campaign "Mickey Mouse" and "Donald Duck" were just some of the crazy names put on bogus voter registration forms submitted by ACORN. The group claimed to have registered 1.3 million voters, but more than 400,000 of those forms were later deemed fraudulent or incomplete by election authorities. An ACORN manager said the group hired "lazy crackheads" who needed money to collect signatures in Nevada. Convicted felons living in transitional housing in Las Vegas were recruited by ACORN organizers and were promised bonuses ? which is illegal in Nevada ? if they got 20 or more new voter sign ups a day. The organization was slapped with two dozen felonies by the Nevada attorney general.
*"Every time you turn over an ACORN rock, something ugly crawls out," said Scott St. Clair, of the nonpartisan Evergreen Freedom Foundation based in Washington.
POLITICAL TIES
*ACORN claims to be non-partisan, but since the 1970s has backed mostly Democratic candidates in local, state and national elections. It has close connections with union groups around the country, most notably the Service Employees International Union, a powerful labor organization that has extensive ties to Capitol Hill.
"The Democratic Party has used them as foot soldiers, even if they claim not to be directly related to ACORN," said Von Spakovsky.
"ACORN transfers money between its subsidiaries ? and nobody knows for sure how many there are. A lot of these subsidiaries get paid by Democratic campaigns as consultants," he said.
*In 1992 President Obama headed the Project Vote campaign ? an organization affiliated with an ACORN subsidiary ? to register 150,000 voters in Chicago. ACORN backed Carol Moseley Braun, the country's first female African-American Senator.
*Barack Obama was one of the lawyers who represented ACORN in 1994 when it sued Citibank on behalf of "all persons who are African-American" and applied for a loan between 1992 and 1995. The group argued that Citibank wasn't giving mortgages in a "race-neutral way."
*A year later Obama again represented ACORN with a team of lawyers when the group sued Illinois, claiming the state was violating federal voting access law.
*In 2008, during the presidential primary, Obama worked with ACORN subsidiary Citizen Services Inc ? a consulting firm affiliated with ACORN ? to help with voter turnout. He paid the group $800,000.
THE FUTURE?
ACORN's altruistic façade came tumbling down ? possibly for good ? this month after a series of videos showed staffers giving an undercover pimp and hooker tips on defrauding the government, laundering money, cheating on taxes and obtaining a mortgage to open up a home-based brothel.
The damning display put ACORN on the defensive again and even rocked its once solid base of support among Democratic lawmakers.
Both the House and Senate have passed bipartisan bills calling for an immediate halt to federal funding to ACORN, which a Republican tally puts at $53 million since 1994.
Governor David Paterson on Friday placed a hold on all state contracts with the agency's local chapter, and the US Census Bureau kicked ACORN off its upcoming 2010 population count.
Yet ACORN needs more than just a slap on the wrist for encouraging people to commit mortgage and tax fraud, according to Von Spakovsky, a former Department of Justice investigator. The activist organization has yet to be held accountable for most of its actions ? past and present, he said.
"Nobody knows for sure how many subsidiaries ACORN has, but many investigations have shown they're mostly shell groups, used to transfer money around," said Von Spakovsky.
"We'll only know the true extent of their wrongdoing when the Department of Justice does a forensic audit, and we find out where those millions in federal funds have gone," he said.
***************************
An anti-ACORN web site has put together a map and listing of recent legal investigations and actions taken against ACORN -
ACORN FRAUD MAP
Phokus
Lifer
- Nov 20, 1999
- 22,994
- 779
- 126
In light of the new revelations about the supposed 'video', this is my favorite thread ever.
So who wants to do a mea culpa? *crickets*
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2065644
So who wants to do a mea culpa? *crickets*
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2065644
Phokus
Lifer
- Nov 20, 1999
- 22,994
- 779
- 126
Phokus
Lifer
- Nov 20, 1999
- 22,994
- 779
- 126
Another day, another ACORN corruption video
NY Post Article
This third video is from the ACORN office in NYC.
Where are all the liberals at now that were trying to justify this as "one isolated incident" and/or "a stupid conspiracy by right-wingers such as Fox"?
:laugh:
I wonder what will be next...another video similar to these, or another case of ACORN being busted for voter fraud? :disgust:
Edit: Darn, Fear No Evil beat me to it.
No, the question is, where are the conservatives now? Are they still talking about ACORN? No? Gee, i wonder why not.
Phokus
Lifer
- Nov 20, 1999
- 22,994
- 779
- 126
In light of the truth about the videos, i'm going to label you a rightwing nutjob.
No wait, you were one even before your post
Phokus
Lifer
- Nov 20, 1999
- 22,994
- 779
- 126
Phokus
Lifer
- Nov 20, 1999
- 22,994
- 779
- 126
Phokus
Lifer
- Nov 20, 1999
- 22,994
- 779
- 126
HAHA! Straight from the horse's mouth: "Conservatives will conspire to make it look like you're committing a crime when in fact you're reporting a crime!"
Phokus
Lifer
- Nov 20, 1999
- 22,994
- 779
- 126
I love this one:
"Isn't it amazing that republicans are in bed with the least educated, least ambitious, least moral of citizenry of oour country? Fox News and others like it are simply organizations that cater to the bottom feeders of the USA. The fact that conservatives surrounds themselves with this type of groups speaks volumes about who they are.
Phokus
Lifer
- Nov 20, 1999
- 22,994
- 779
- 126
Phokus
Lifer
- Nov 20, 1999
- 22,994
- 779
- 126
Phokus
Lifer
- Nov 20, 1999
- 22,994
- 779
- 126
Gotta hand it to you spidey, you know how to pound this home, it cannot be ignored. If Fox news and the blogosphere right was caught splicing a film and committing journalistic fraud, it just shows how deep the rabbit hole goes.
Phokus
Lifer
- Nov 20, 1999
- 22,994
- 779
- 126
earthman
Golden Member
- Oct 16, 1999
- 1,653
- 0
- 71
What's really sad about all this is that it was all a setup and you all fell for it hook, line, and sinker. Just more manufactured news about something that was never a real issue to start with...just a stupid plan to bring down a helpful organization that happens to be aligned with a president that they hate.
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