You are posting a comment about...
ACORN: Finally exposed
COMMENT: ACORN finally did something so absurd that it cannot be ignored. The Senate denies funds after a videotape surfaced catching them red handed telling folks how to lie to the IRS. The Census Bureau severs ties with ACORN (this is REALLY great news). Shocked, Shocked I tell you -- the main stream media is ignoring this BIG story. Trial for illegally paying canvassers to register voters is going forward and ACORN that Obama knows explained.
It is a good day for America.
U.S. Senate vote to deny funds was 83 to 7. Both Senator Alexander and Corker voted for this important bill.
1. U.S. Senate denies funds for poverty group.
2. ACORN Officials Videotaped Telling 'Pimp,' 'Prostitute' How to Lie to IRS
3. Census Bureau Severs Ties With ACORN in 2010 Count
4. ACORN Story Grows But Mainstream Media Refuse to Cover it [Imagine that!!!]
5. Ex-ACORN Vegas director to testify against group
5. The ACORN Obama Knows
1. U.S. Senate denies funds for poverty group
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A poverty-rights group that has drawn the ire of conservatives suffered another setback in Washington on Monday when the U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly to deny it access to federal housing funds.
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which helps poor people fight foreclosures and fix tax problems, has received more than $53 million in U.S. funds since 1994, but conservatives' charges of widespread fraud have begun to impact its reputation in the capital.
Last week, the U.S. Census Bureau told the group it did not want its help boosting participation in next year's census.
The Senate measure, which passed 83 to 7 in the Democratic-led chamber, was included in a must-pass spending bill that funds housing and transportation programs for the fiscal year that starts October 1.
"This is an opportunity for the United States Senate to stand up and say 'Enough is enough' just as the Census Bureau did," said Republican Senator Mike Johanns, the measure's sponsor. Read more here.
2. ACORN Officials Videotaped Telling 'Pimp,' 'Prostitute' How to Lie to IRS
Officials with the controversial community organizing group ACORN were secretly videotaped offering to assist two individuals posing as a pimp and a prostitute, encouraging them to lie to the Internal Revenue Service and providing guidance on how to claim underage girls from South America as dependents.
The videotape was made public Thursday on BigGovernment.com, a political blog launched by Andrew Breitbart as a companion site to his BigHollywood.breitbart.com blog.
In the videotape, made on July 24, James O'Keefe, a 25-year-old independent filmmaker, posed as a pimp with a 20-year-old woman named "Kenya" who posed as a prostitute while visiting ACORN's
office in Baltimore. The couple told ACORN staffers they wanted to secure housing where the woman could continue to maintain a prostitution business.
ACORN — the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now — bills itself as the nation's largest community of low- and moderate-income families "working together for social justice and stronger communities," according to its Web site. The organization has been accused by Republicans and conservative activists with fraud in voter registration drives around the country and has been under fire since last year for its support of President Obama and for its planned participation in next year's census. Read more here.
3. Census Bureau Severs Ties With ACORN In 2010 Count
Citing Negative Publicity, Census Bureau Severs Partnership With ACORN In 2010 Head Count
The Census Bureau on Friday severed its ties with ACORN, a community organization that has been hit with Republican accusations of voter-registration fraud. "We do not come to this decision lightly," Census director Robert Groves wrote in a letter to ACORN, which was obtained by The Associated Press.
In splitting with ACORN, Groves sought to tamp down GOP concerns and negative publicity that the partnership will taint the 2010 head count.
"It is clear that ACORN's affiliation with the 2010 census promotion has caused sufficient concern in the general public, has indeed become a distraction from our mission, and may even become a discouragement to public cooperation, negatively impacting 2010 census efforts," Groves wrote.
Stephen Buckner, a census spokesman, confirmed the letter, but declined additional comment.
ACORN spokesman Scott Levenson did not immediately return a request for comment.
In recent months, Republicans have become increasingly critical of the census' ties with ACORN, which stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. The group, which advocates for poor people, conducted a massive voter registration effort last year and became a target of conservatives when some employees were accused of submitting false registration forms with names such as "Mickey Mouse."
ACORN has said only a handful of employees submitted false registration forms and did so in a bid to boost their pay.
Partly citing ACORN's role, Sens. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., and David Vitter, R-La., earlier this year blocked a full confirmation vote of Groves for several weeks. Rep. Michelle Bachman, R-Minn., also has been calling for a census boycott because of her concerns about whether the group would tamper with the high-stakes population count. Read more here.
4. ACORN Story Grows But Mainstream Media Refuse to Cover It
This story has everything you could ever want – corruption, sleazy actions at tax-funded organizations, firings, government ties, sex, hookers. It is a network news director’s dream. Imagine the ratings. But almost no one is covering it
Bruce Springsteen once wrote: “From Small Things (Big Things One Day Come).” I doubt he expected that story of love gone wrong would become ideal political commentary for the group known as ACORN.
The small scandal showing an embarrassing video of Baltimore ACORN staffers looking like they were giving tax advice on how to set up a brothel, is now national news. -- This story has everything you could ever want – corruption, sleazy actions at tax-funded organizations, firings, government ties, sex, hookers. It is a network news director’s dream. Imagine the ratings!
Only almost no one is covering it.
This is the news media in the era of Van Jones and President Obama. The major outlets cover what they want and create the themes they want. When they find something inconvenient, they let it pass. They didn’t like the Van Jones story, so they ignored it. The network news media liked the financial entity known as Fannie Mae, so they ignored that scandalous organization for years. ACORN is getting the same treatment.
But it isn’t working any more. The ACORN fiasco has now impacted three offices – Baltimore, Washington and New York – with laugh-out-loud videos reminiscent of the hookers and pimps from the 1970s “Starsky and Hutch” show. Huggy Bear returns! Four employees have been fired, with more likely to come. And the controversy was so laughably bad that the Census Bureau cut off all ties to the group known formally as the "Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now." -- They called it the “tipping point” to shed themselves of ACORN. More nuts for someone else, I guess. Read more here.
5. Ex-ACORN Vegas director to testify against group
By OSKAR GARCIA (AP) – Aug 19, 2009
LAS VEGAS — A former Las Vegas director for a political advocacy group accused of illegally paying canvassers to register voters during last year's presidential campaign has pleaded guilty to a reduced charge and agreed to testify against the group and another employee.
Christopher Edwards pleaded guilty this week to two gross misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit the crime of compensation for registration of voters. He agreed to testify against the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, known as ACORN, and Amy Busefink, a former regional voter registration director.
The case threatens the group's ability to operate in Nevada, with the possibility that the group could have its status as a nonprofit corporation revoked, said Conrad Hafen, chief deputy attorney general for Nevada.
Hafen's said Edwards' testimony strengthens the state's case against ACORN and Busefink.
"It adds to the evidence that we already have," Hafen said Wednesday. "It makes a strong case that much stronger."
Busefink's lawyer, Kevin Stolworthy, said she plans to fight the charges. A lawyer for ACORN did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment from The Associated Press.
Prosecutors said in court documents that Edwards, Busefink and ACORN created a bonus incentive program that paid canvassers an extra $5 per shift if they turned in at least 21 voter registration cards at the end of the day. Prosecutors said violates state laws that prevent a system that pays workers based on the number of registrations they turn in. Read more here.
6. The ACORN Obama Knows
By Michelle Malkin
If you don't know what ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) is all about, you better bone up. This left-wing group takes in 40 percent of its revenues from American taxpayers -- you and me -- and has leveraged nearly four decades of government subsidies to fund affiliates that promote the welfare state and undermine capitalism and self-reliance, some of which have been implicated in perpetuating illegal immigration and encouraging voter fraud. A new whistleblower report from the Consumer Rights League claims that Chicago-based ACORN has commingled public tax dollars with political projects.
Who in Washington will fight to ensure that your money isn't being spent on these radical activities?
Don't bother asking Barack Obama. He cut his ideological teeth working with ACORN as a "community organizer" and legal representative. Naturally, ACORN's political action committee has warmly endorsed his presidential candidacy. ACORN head Maude Hurd gushes that Obama is the candidate who "best understands and can affect change on the issues ACORN cares about" -- like ensuring their massive pipeline to your hard-earned money. Let's take a closer look at the ACORN Obama knows.
Last July, ACORN settled the largest case of voter fraud in the history of Washington State. Seven ACORN workers had submitted nearly 2,000 bogus voter registration forms. According to case records, they flipped through phone books for names to use on the forms, including "Leon Spinks," "Frekkie Magoal" and "Fruto Boy Crispila." Three ACORN election hoaxers pleaded guilty in October. A King County prosecutor called ACORN's criminal sabotage "an act of vandalism upon the voter rolls."
The group's vandalism on electoral integrity is systemic. ACORN has been implicated in similar voter fraud schemes in Missouri, Ohio and at least 12 other states. The Wall Street Journal noted: "In Ohio in 2004, a worker for one affiliate was given crack cocaine in exchange for fraudulent registrations that included underage voters, dead voters and pillars of the community named Mary Poppins, Dick Tracy and Jive Turkey. During a congressional hearing in Ohio in the aftermath of the 2004 election, officials from several counties in the state explained ACORN's practice of dumping thousands of registration forms in their lap on the submission deadline, even though the forms had been collected months earlier." In March, Philadelphia elections officials accused the nonprofit advocacy group of filing fraudulent voter registrations in advance of the April 22nd Pennsylvania primary. The charges have been forwarded to the city district attorney's office.
Under the guise of "consumer advocacy," ACORN has received money from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. HUD funds hundreds, if not thousands, of left-wing "anti-poverty" groups across the country led by ACORN. Last October, HUD announced more than $44 million in new housing counseling grants to over 400 state and local efforts. The White House has increased funding for housing counseling by 150 percent since taking office in 2001, despite the role most of these recipients play as activist satellites of the Democratic Party. The AARP scored nearly $400,000 for training; the National Council of La Raza ("The Race") scooped up more than $1.3 million; the National Urban League raked in nearly $1 million; and the ACORN Housing Corporation received more than $1.6 million. Read more here
