ACORN

[Kaliayev]

Look, its very simple. When Movement Conservative organizations aim at a "permament Republican majority", then thats well within the bounds of democratic society.

When ACORN aims at the same for Democrats, then its an evil, Illuminati-esque organization, a cancer eating away at the heart of the republic. Like ANSWER, only more worrying, since it has something to do with Scary Black People.

Also, ACORN did 9/11. Via community organizing.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

Last I checked, that wasn't illegal? (Not saying they haven't done other illegal things, I'm just not particularly impressed that a private political organization had a plan to participate in the democratic process.)

Ahhh but it is based upon their tax status. It is also contrary to what their prior claims have been. Claiming to "get out the vote" and help the poor.... Bullshit. They have been and are using those who they purport to help only to advance their own political influence, which makes them rich and powerful.

All I'm saying is call it what it is and tax them accordingly.

Also, for them to now have and wield as much power and influence as they have while under the guise they have put forth is wrong. How much control or influence do they now have over the politicians they got elected?

Lastly, this is the organization that is going to have a major input on collecting the census data. How skewed is that data going to be?

[classicman]

Here is the lie from their website

ACORN has just completed the largest, most successful nonpartisan voter registration drive in US history. We helped 1.3 million low-income, minority and young voters across the country register to vote.

Based upon the memo, ACORN is clearly partisan. This would also disallow them from their nonexempt status and they should not be involved in census data collection.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by classicman

Ahhh but it is based upon their tax status. It is also contrary to what their prior claims have been. Claiming to "get out the vote" and help the poor.... Bullshit. They have been and are using those who they purport to help only to advance their own political influence, which makes them rich and powerful.

All I'm saying is call it what it is and tax them accordingly.

Also, for them to now have and wield as much power and influence as they have while under the guise they have put forth is wrong. How much control or influence do they now have over the politicians they got elected?

Lastly, this is the organization that is going to have a major input on collecting the census data. How skewed is that data going to be?

Good points. I just hope we can keep digging deeper into this organization and expose it's underbelly.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Kaliayev

Look, its very simple. When Movement Conservative organizations aim at a "permament Republican majority", then thats well within the bounds of democratic society.

Oh, well that certainly makes all right then.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by classicman

Lastly, this is the organization that is going to have a major input on collecting the census data. How skewed is that data going to be?

Guess I'm not the only one concerned...

Outspoken Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann says she's so worried that information from next year's national census will be abused that she will refuse to fill out anything more than the number of people in her household.

Mrs. Bachmann said she's worried about the involvement of ACORN, the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now, in next year's census.

"They will be in charge of going door to door and collecting data from the American public," she said. "This is very concerning."

ACORN has applied to help recruit workers to help conduct the census. Republican lawmakers and some public interest groups have expressed concern over their involvement.

ACORN staffers have been indicted in several states (19)on charges of voter registration fraud stemming from the organization's efforts to register voters last year.

Mrs. Bachmann, who is in her second term in the House, has become a lightning rod for criticism from Democrats and liberal talk show hosts for her unapologetic conservative views.

She said she considers that "a badge of honor."

"It's clear when a person speaks out against those policies they become a target, and that should be concerning to everyone," she said.

[classicman]

The indictment of Darnell Nash -- who address was unknown -- was the first by the Cuyahoga County prosecutor's office from a seven-month investigation of voter registration practices. Assistant prosecutor Rick Bell said detectives with the Cuyahoga County Sheriff's Office continue to investigate.

The inquiry started when workers at the Board of Elections flagged dozens of registration cards turned in by ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which tries to get low- and moderate-income people to register.

Meanwhile the Associated Press reported that four former Pittsburgh-area ACORN workers this week were ordered to stand trial on charges they forged or otherwise illegally solicited voter registration cards before the election, a St. Louis ACORN worker awaits sentencing after pleading guilty to mail fraud for submitting false voter registrations, and the Nevada attorney general has charged ACORN and two of its supervisors with requiring illegal quotas of 20 cards per shift and firing workers who didn't meet them.

He was charged with 19 counts.

Minnesota Republican, Michele Bachmann, has introduced the Taxpayer Protection and Anti-Fraud Act, which would bar any organization that has been indicted for violating federal or state election laws, or employs someone indicted for violating those laws, from receiving taxpayer funds.

That would cut off federal funds for ACORN, which has been accused of paying its voter registration recruiters based on the number of people they sign up.

"The act is based on some very common sense principles that I think resonate with a lot of Americans right now," Bachmann said.

"What we're trying to do is raise the bar a little bit higher for accessing taxpayer funds than to be indicted for voter fraud. My opinion is that receiving taxpayer funds is a privilege. It's not a right.

"They've been indicted and in some cases convicted in over a dozen states. It certainly seems at this point that the taxpayers can do a little bit better with this money."

Bachmann’s bill faces bleak prospects in the House where more than 200 House members voted recently or are on record for supporting a measure introduced by Barney Frank(D) to assure ACORN’s ability to keep getting federal tax dollars.

Gee really?

Moncrief said she also did a three-tape interview with CNN in November 2008. It never aired.

She has worked with the press to get her story out and has faced opposition from several mainstream media outlets.

Meanwhile, ACORN has reportedly filed a lawsuit against Moncrief.

While calls for an investigation of ACORN have been met with opposition in Congress, Moncrief told Fox News' Megan Kelly that more must be done to purge the organization of its corrupt leaders.

"ACORN needs to be investigated and almost everyone at the top level needs to be removed," she said. "The ACORN local offices do a lot of good work, but ACORN national has become corrupt and almost like a cancer on American society."

Bingo!

[Happy Monkey]

Meanwhile a Republican voter registration company owner pleads guilty to, and plea bargains out of, many of the things ACORN is accused of.

So many of the Republican-pushed scandals turn out to be projection.

[Shawnee123]

No kidding. Pots calling kettles stuff...

It's so annoying to hear it dredged up all the time like this kind of behavior is something new and particular to anyone with liberal leanings.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

a Republican voter registration company owner pleads guilty to, and plea bargains out of, many of the things ACORN is accused of.

So many of the Republican-pushed scandals turn out to be projection.

Excellent - Glad he got nailed! The problem is that he only got probation. Thats far too light a sentence to me.

How much stimulus (read spending) money was his firm going to receive, again?

I said it before and I'll say it again - If you are too lazy to register to vote then you don't deserve to do so. None of these "companies" should get one cent of taxpayer money - ZERO!


By the way - did you find many other republican voter registration issues from this past election? I was doing a little searching awhile back and was rather unsuccessful.

[classicman]

well well well...

A district judge who held another ACORN worker for trial Monday on election law violations urged prosecutors to go after the real culprit, the organization that employed him.

"Somebody has to go after ACORN," Senior District Judge Richard H. Zoller said about the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

"It's happening all over the country. All you have to do is turn on the television," he said, referring to voter registration fraud charges brought recently against ACORN and its workers in Nevada.

"We will," Allegheny County Detective Robert F. Keenan promised as he wrapped up his testimony.

A spokesman for District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. said following the hearing that the county's investigation into members of ACORN and their activities during the 2008 campaign "remains open and active."

"(T)here is quite a bit of activity aimed at determining if anyone else should be charged," Zappala's spokesman Mike Manko said.

Eric E. Jordan, 20, of North Braddock became the sixth person ordered to face trial in Allegheny County. He is charged with soliciting a voter registration and interfering with county voter registration officials by submitted applications for himself in order to meet his quota for registrations. A seventh defendant faces a preliminary hearing next month.

Zappala claims the ACORN canvassers engaged in voter registration fraud and a quota system for registrations, which is barred by state law.

Jordan was told he had to bring in a set number of registrations each day or he would be fired.

ACORN officials repeatedly have denied the organization imposed a quota system on workers, although they have acknowledged they had "standards" canvassers were expected to maintain. They did not respond yesterday to requests for comment.

[ZenGum]

You guys still amaze me.

Down here, voter registration is compulsory, and completely free of political shennanigans. The bureaucratic side of the gubmint has occasional advertising drives to remind the kiddies they must sign up when they are 18, often done through schols. Political organisations don't get involved. There is no need.

Meanwhile, the census is conducted by the bureau of statistics. I've worked on it twice, all politically neutral, just straightforward paper pushing and number adding. Your bit of subcontracting census work out to politically active organisations sounds nutso to me.

Meh, your country, your decisions, but I still think you're wierd.

Carry on.

[TheMercenary]

Thank you.

[TheMercenary]

I just heard about this. Seems it was a bit buried by the new media. It amazes me that we have opened up an avenue for such graft by such a partisan political organization with quite questionable legal footing.

Barney Frank Lies About ACORN
By Matthew Vadum on 5.21.09 @ 6:07AM

House Financial Services Committee chairman Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts) lied to Lou Dobbs on national television the other night but no one seems to have noticed.

On the May 18 edition on CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minnesota) said she was worried about the fact that ACORN and other organizations would "have access potentially to $8.5 billion" in federal funds.

ACORN, which Bachmann noted has received about $53 million in federal money since the early 1990s, has "a pattern of indictment for voter fraud," she said. "It's very concerning. No organization has a right to federal taxpayer money."

During the heated discussion that followed, longtime ACORN ally Frank said, "the notion that they're eligible for $8 billion is nonsense." A moment later Frank, who appeared last year in one of the group's promotional videos on YouTube called "ACORN Grassroots Democracy Campaign," repeated his mantra.

"But it's not $8 billion," he said.

Bachmann, whose provision blocking ACORN from receiving funding in a recent mortgage reform bill was stripped out at the urging of Frank, has previously said that ACORN and other left-wing advocacy groups could have a shot at pocketing up to $8.5 billion this year.

She's correct. I am the researcher who came up with the $8.5 billion figure.

Let's break the $8.5 billion down.

The relevant fiscal provisions are buried deep in the $800 billion-plus stimulus package now known formally as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 or Public Law 111-5 and in the $47.5 billion proposed fiscal 2010 budget for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The stimulus legislation originally set aside $5.2 billion that could flow directly or indirectly into the coffers of ACORN and its liberal friends. The $5.2 billion was chopped down to $3 billion in the version of the bill that President Obama signed into law on February 17. The $3 billion consists of $2 billion in funds set aside for the redevelopment of abandoned and foreclosed homes and $1 billion in Community Development Block Grants (CDBG).

CDBG is good old-fashioned graft. Local politicians of both parties adore CDBG because it is flexible. The program gives them wide latitude when spending grant money and allows local leaders to use federal dollars on local projects that they wouldn't dream of asking local taxpayers to fund. In the words of Heritage Foundation analyst Brian Riedl, CDBG "serves as little more than a congressional slush fund for favored interests...it funds local projects that local governments would not spend their own tax dollars on."

ACORN loves CDBG because it is especially adept at extracting CDBG funds from local governments.

In addition to the $3 billion available in the stimulus package, the proposed HUD budget for the fiscal year that begins October 1 provides $1 billion for the affordable housing trust fund and $4.5 billion in CDBG funds that could in theory find their way to ACORN and other liberal groups.

ACORN acknowledged at page 47 of its 2006 year-end report that it expected to be able to receive funds from "a housing trust fund" that would "make funding available for our development program." The housing trust fund ACORN was hoping for was not enacted until 2008 as part of the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac rescue bill.

But the funding formula in the legislation enacted called for Fannie and Freddie to contribute to the housing trust fund out of profits, and it doesn't look like the two government-sponsored enterprises will be able to pay into the fund anytime soon. Adding new money to the fund through the HUD budget is an excellent way to roll out the goodies for loyal supporters in left-of-center political advocacy groups such as ACORN.

Moreover, as the Competitive Enterprise Institute's John Berlau wrote on these cyber pages last June 17, there is no guarantee that the trust fund monies will find their way to their intended recipient. The housing trust fund "is almost set up from the beginning to be diverted to purposes other than affordable housing," he wrote.

The legislation contains few safeguards to ensure the money is spent on affordable housing and has so many holes in it that "would allow the money to be easily siphoned off to liberal activist groups such as Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) for lobbying and political campaigning."

Federal lawmakers have known about ACORN's unorthodox financial practices, including its use of government resources to promote legislation and its commingling of funds within its network of affiliates.

A congressional report noted that there was "apparent cross-over funding between

ACORN, a political advocacy group and ACORN Housing Corp. (AHC), a non profit, AmeriCorp [sic] grantee" that is a major affiliate of ACORN.

The government-funded AmeriCorps, which promotes public service, suspended AHC's funding "after it was learned that AHC and ACORN shared office space and equipment and failed to assure that activities and funds were wholly separate."

The report noted that, "AmeriCorps members of AHC raised funds for ACORN, performed voter registration activities, and gave partisan speeches. In one instance, an AmeriCorps member was directed by ACORN staff to assist the [Clinton] White House in preparing a press conference in support of legislation." ("Report on the Activities of the Committee on Economic and Educational Opportunities During the 104th Congress," Report 104-875, January 2, 1997)

It's impossible to figure out where all of ACORN's money goes. As the Employment Policies Institute noted in a report: "Because it operates a virtual self-contained economy, ACORN entities exchange millions of dollars every year for goods and services. The scant financial documents available for public inspection paint a picture of a spider web of ACORN-run organizations that trade loans, leases, payments, and grants."

Congresswoman Bachmann is right to be worried about ACORN getting its hands on federal tax dollars.

Given its long history of electoral fraud and unorthodox accounting practices it shouldn't get even a penny of federal money.

Matthew Vadum is a senior editor at Capital Research Center, a Washington, D.C. think tank that studies the politics of philanthropy.

http://spectator.org/archives/2009/0...ut-acorn/print

Lou Dobbs and Michelle Bachman....two purveyors of truth!

And of course, none of the sources in the above article are cited....typical.

The fact is that ACORN (never been convicted of a crime), like all non-profits that are eligible for federal funding, separate their advocacy work from their publicly-funded community development work by having both 501 c(3) and 501 c(4) organizations under the broader umbrella.

No federal audit (required of every grant recipient) of ACORN has ever resulted in a charge of misusing grant funds.

You might even be surprised, if you took the time to read other sources, of the work that ACORN has done to enhance the viability and livability of inner city communities.

However, the biggest myth of all is the one perpetrated by Bachmann that ACORN will receive federal grants to help administer the 2010 census.

There is NO such grant program....never has been.

The Dept of Commerce/Census Dept has a program of census "partners"...more than 1,000 organizations that receive no money, to both help promote the census and the part-time job opportunities that will be available.

Let me repeat....ACORN has not and will not receive federal funds to conduct the census. The government does not contract out the census to private organizations.

But I dont expect the tactic of portraying ACORN as the boogeyman will cease. It plays right to the heart of the wing nuts.