ACORN

TheMercenary;492231 wrote:

1 VOTER, 72 REGISTRATIONS
'ACORN PAID ME IN CASH & CIGS'

TheMercenary;492345 wrote:

I think when you sign up the same guy 72 times and use different names and pay him to sign up, that might be a problem. I could be wrong but.....

Shawnee123;492422 wrote:

Good point, tw.

tw wrote:

How does ACORN register anyone. All they can do is provide a voter registration card and maybe deliver the completed card to the voter registration board. Only the citizen and voter registration board can register that citizen. Or does it work differently in some states?

You fill out the form, sign it, and mail it (or have it delivered) to the voter registration board. That board either registers you to vote or rejects you. How does ACORN get involved other than give you a blank form and beg you to fill it out?

tw wrote:

If you sign up the same guy 72 times, the same voter registration board registers him to vote only once. Where is the problem? Apparently the guy is making money off Acorn by sending in the same form 72 times. No problem. In November, he can still only vote once.

tw;492420 wrote:

If you sign up the same guy 72 times, the same voter registration board registers him to vote only once. Where is the problem? Apparently the guy is making money off Acorn by sending in the same form 72 times. No problem. In November, he can still only vote once.

richlevy;492464 wrote:

a part of me wonders if the anti-fraud campaign is a method for lowering legitimate turnout and pushing up wait times at the polls to discourage voting.

Happy Monkey;492769 wrote:

They're legally required to submit all forms that are filled out, even if one person fills out multiple forms. Even if it's an obvious fake, like Mickey Mouse. Filtering out names they don't like would be much worse than submitting extra names (who obviously won't be actually voting).

On the scale of voting problems, extra registrations are a nuisance, extra voting is a problem, and preventing legitimate votes is nefarious. Only the first and third are in any way common. If people were actually voting 72 times, the registration story would be background info for that story.

TheMercenary;492835 wrote:

More total Bull Shit. Flooding a election office with 6000 fake votes is an obvious attempt to overwhelm the system and suspect of voter fraud. I doubt there is a single registered republickin in the batch.

State Republican leaders are accusing a community-based group it claims has links to Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, of deliberately filing fraudulent voter registration forms across the state.
Voter registration officials in Harrisburg, Philadelphia and Allegheny County have reported problems with registrations filed on behalf of voters by The Association of Community Organizations, or ACORN. ...
A York man employed by ACORN part-time was arrested Saturday and charged with submitting more than 100 bogus registrations during an eight-day period in June. ...

Shawnee123;493043 wrote:

What, didja sit on a gerbil (again) classic?

:lol:

classicman;493502 wrote:

All I can tell is that they are all a bunch of liars thieves and cheats taking as much as thy can from people who actually work for a living.

glatt;493539 wrote:

We're talking about ACORN, right? How is ACORN stealing from me? By creating a little extra work for poll workers? And my taxes pay for the poll workers? Is that what you are trying to say? I honestly don't see any other way you could argue ACORN is stealing from me.

Multiple registrants tell Cuyahoga County Elections Board ACORN workers begged for signatures
Pair signed multiple vote cards for ACORN

Johnson and another prolific registrant were subpoenaed to testify at a meeting Monday as the Elections Board continued its look at possible fraud by ACORN, a national organization that tries to get low- and moderate-income people to register. ACORN's methods have drawn interest in a number of states this presidential election year.

Johnson, 19, said he mostly was trying to help ACORN workers who begged him to sign up because they needed to keep their jobs.

"They'd come up with a sob story why they needed the signature," said Johnson, of Garfield Heights.

ACORN leaders have acknowledged that workers paid by the hour were given quotas to fill.

Board member Sandy McNair said ACORN did not do a competent job carrying out its business plan. Members, in fact, said little about ACORN. And they turned their investigation over to the county sheriff and prosecutor.

A second person to testify, Christopher Barkley, 33, said ACORN workers pestered him while they tried to gather signatures.

Barkley, of Cleveland, said he was homeless and reading a book on Public Square when he signed some of the 13 cards that contain his name. He filled out cards - with his mother's house or workplace as the address - to help workers stay employed.

Board member Rob Frost, also the county GOP chairman, said he is not convinced Barkley and Johnson would have tried to vote more than once. He said it's clear ACORN workers disregarded registration laws.

"I wouldn't want there to be widespread fear that what ACORN has caused will lead to widespread [voter] fraud," Frost said after the meeting.

Board workers said ACORN had turned in nearly 72,000 cards since January. Of those, more than 5,000 were missing information and so could not be used. The board could not verify the address on 3,500 others. Those people will have to vote provisionally if they turn out at the polls.

classicman;493562 wrote:

Sorry,no - there was some thread drift there. I was referring to my taxes paying for the promises of the candidates.

Acorn -- the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now -- has been around since 1970 and boasts 350,000 members. We've written about them for years, but Acorn is now getting more attention as John McCain's campaign makes an issue of the fraud reports and Acorn's ties to Mr. Obama. It's about time someone exposed this shady outfit that uses government dollars to lobby for larger government.

Acorn uses various affiliated groups to agitate for "a living wage," for "affordable housing," for "tax justice" and union and environmental goals, as well as against school choice and welfare reform. It was a major contributor to the subprime meltdown by pushing lenders to make home loans on easy terms, conducting "strikes" against banks so they'd lower credit standards.

But the organization's real genius is getting American taxpayers to foot the bill. According to a 2006 report from the Employment Policies Institute (EPI), Acorn has been on the federal take since 1977. For instance, Acorn's American Institute for Social Justice claimed $240,000 in tax money between fiscal years 2002 and 2003. Its American Environmental Justice Project received 100% of its revenue from government grants in the same years. EPI estimates the Acorn Housing Corporation alone received some $16 million in federal dollars from 1997-2007. Only recently, Democrats tried and failed to stuff an "affordable housing" provision into the $700 billion bank rescue package that would have let politicians give even more to Acorn.

The Michigan Secretary of State told the press in September that Acorn had submitted "a sizeable number of duplicate and fraudulent applications." Earlier this month, Nevada's Democratic Secretary of State Ross Miller requested a raid on Acorn's offices, following complaints of false names and fictional addresses (including the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys). Nevada's Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax said he saw rampant fraud in 2,000 to 3,000 applications Acorn submitted weekly.

Officials in Ohio are investigating voter fraud connected with Acorn, and Florida's Seminole County is withholding Acorn registrations that appear fraudulent. New Mexico, North Carolina and Missouri are looking into hundreds of dubious Acorn registrations. Wisconsin is investigating Acorn employees for, according to an election official, "making people up or registering people that were still in prison."

Then there's Lake County, Indiana, which has already found more than 2,100 bogus applications among the 5,000 Acorn dumped right before the deadline. "All the signatures looked exactly the same," said Ruthann Hoagland, of the county election board. Bridgeport, Connecticut estimates about 20% of Acorn's registrations were faulty. As of July, the city of Houston had rejected or put on hold about 40% of the 27,000 registration cards submitted by Acorn.

That's just this year. In 2004, four Acorn employees were indicted in Ohio for submitting false voter registrations. In 2005, two Colorado Acorn workers were found to have submitted false registrations. Four Acorn Missouri employees were indicted in 2006; five were found guilty in Washington state in 2007 for filling out registration forms with names from a phone book.

Which brings us to Mr. Obama, who got his start as a Chicago "community organizer" at Acorn's side. In 1992 he led voter registration efforts as the director of Project Vote, which included Acorn. This past November, he lauded Acorn's leaders for being "smack dab in the middle" of that effort. Mr. Obama also served as a lawyer for Acorn in 1995, in a case against Illinois to increase access to the polls.

During his tenure on the board of Chicago's Woods Fund, that body funneled more than $200,000 to Acorn. More recently, the Obama campaign paid $832,000 to an Acorn affiliate. The campaign initially told the Federal Election Commission this money was for "staging, sound, lighting." It later admitted the cash was to get out the vote.

Which brings us to Mr. Obama, who got his start as a Chicago "community organizer" at Acorn's side.

In 1992 he led voter registration efforts as the director of Project Vote, which included Acorn.

This past November, he lauded Acorn's leaders for being "smack dab in the middle" of that effort.

Mr. Obama also served as a lawyer for Acorn in 1995, in a case against Illinois to increase access to the polls.

Cicero;494251 wrote:

I'm sorry, I was still editing when you guys commented. Heh. Sorry. The post is a little more "detailed" now. You may put your thumbs down if you wish. lol! Value added cussing happened because Cicero got tired of hearing about the third party utilized in a political scandal because it is the first thing people do. Pick on the the third party contractor doing the work as they are usually a little squemish non-profit. That just happened during the last job, then trickled down to me and I have a knee jerk when I see it happen to someone else. I got played. And so is ACORN. They are not contracted to verify the information because that is against the law. And the job of your voting offices and whatever lazy ass is hating the fact that they have to do their job right now.

TheMercenary;494269 wrote:

I can't blame the people working for ACORN for scaming the system. Looks like they have either been encouraged to do it or are motivated by the income. No one should be faulted for that...

glatt;494299 wrote:

Oh, c'mon. Doesn't that deserve a guffaw? Only a "sheesh?" :sniff:

Ok someone else answer these questions. I'm too bent to keep this up. Let's think things through. All the way through

Shawnee123;494302 wrote:

I wasn't sheeshing at you, glatt. I was sheeshing at the amazing events I keep witnessing over and over: the "prove it prove it prove it" "where did you hear that?" then when presented with actual articles other than WHAT THEY read ON THE CELLAR the quintessential moderate ignores it...then starts "prove it prove it prove it" "where did you hear that" shit all over again.

It's gotten to the point it makes me sick to my stomach to read anymore.

Don't ask for information you either won't process, can't process, or will ultimately ignore.:headshake

I thought I was the Queen of Denial. I got nuttin' on The Moderate.



I fucking tried.

Cicero;494300 wrote:

All registrations are verified. Every single one. Obscuring the numbers or flooding the numbers would mean that you don't even know your own outcome, but you have upset a process. What good does it do to obfuscate the facts that you, yourself, NEED dearly?

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because Justice Department regulations forbid discussing ongoing investigations particularly so close to an election.

Pico and ME;494315 wrote:

This will all be forgotten once Nov. 4 comes around.

glatt;494297 wrote:

So are you saying that 85% of ACORN's problems are directly traceable to top management?

Cicero;494320 wrote:

I am on stfu mode. If you can not find a motivation for such a ridiculous allegation *#$^%^&%^%T%&&r77rE!!! BAAAH!!

This is the sound of utter frustration (the sound I am making). AAAYaah aaa! oh! d'oh. jes..f..chris..dju! gah! ah! fu..dam..dam..kuuuhh!

sigh. alright I feel better. a little..

TheMercenary;494314 wrote:

The way I understand it is they are flooding the system needlessly and knowingly. Motivation? Only they can answer that. As I said before, I believe they are motivated by the income. Why elese would you knowingly register the same dude 72 times? Why in the world would you register the homeless guy living under a bridge with a mental illness? (figuratively). Most of these people don't know who is running for office, other than one is a young black guy and the other an old white guy. I guess if we start to see ACORN driving the homeless dude from under the bridge to actually vote we may have an answer. I don't know. But something is obviously afoot.

Shawnee123;494341 wrote:

For the 57th time, how can they be motivated by money when they dont' get more money for registering more applicants.

I give up.
Jesus H Christ.

I'm gonna go whine somewhere about how no one is telling me for whom to vote.

Cicero;494350 wrote:

Merc just likes it when I have the angry look.

Agreed Merc. You do not know. There's compromise for you, lowering my high standards just to meet yours.

:D Thank you I feel better.

Shawnee123;494341 wrote:

For the 57th time, how can they be motivated by money when they dont' get more money for registering more applicants.

I give up.
Jesus H Christ.

I'm gonna go whine somewhere about how no one is telling me for whom to vote.

Shawnee123;494302 wrote:

I wasn't sheeshing at you, glatt. I was sheeshing at the amazing events I keep witnessing over and over: the "prove it prove it prove it" "where did you hear that?" then when presented with actual articles other than WHAT THEY read ON THE CELLAR the quintessential moderate ignores it...then starts "prove it prove it prove it" "where did you hear that" shit all over again.
It's gotten to the point it makes me sick to my stomach to read anymore.
Don't ask for information you either won't process, can't process, or will ultimately ignore.:headshake
I thought I was the Queen of Denial. I got nuttin' on The Moderate.
I fucking tried.

Shawnee123;494395 wrote:

Oooh, I see there's a post there...is there whining involved, because I hit ignore a long time ago.

Friday, October 17, 2008

KIM CHANDLER

MONTGOMERY - Six Alabama counties have more people on their voting rolls than they do people of voting age, according to voter registration numbers and U.S. Census Bureau estimates.

The curious statistic could be the result of a surge in new registrations added to voter rolls that have not been purged of people who moved, said local election officials. But the state’s top elections chief said Thursday she’s concerned that bloated rolls could leave opportunity for Election Day fraud.

“I can’t say it’s impossible that 100 percent of adults in five or six counties are registered to vote. But it is improbable,” Secretary of State Beth Chapman said.

Chapman said she has asked her staff to take a closer look at the county registrations.

The counties that have more people on the voting rolls than they do voting-age residents, according to a News analysis, were Conecuh, Greene, Lowndes, Perry, Washington and Wilcox.

The highest percentages were in Greene and Perry counties. Both had more people on the voting rolls than voting-age residents, even when only the active voter list was taken into account, and not the inactive list. Under state law, people who don’t vote for four years are moved to an inactive voter list. Inactive voters are removed from the rolls if they don’t vote in two consecutive federal elections and don’t respond to attempts to contact them by mail.

Greene County had 7,540 voters on its rolls in September, according to registration figures from Chapman’s office. But the county has only 6,834 adults 18 and older, according to 2007 estimates from the Census Bureau.

Perry County had 8,517 voters on its rolls in September. The county has 7,635 adults 18 and older, according to 2007 estimates from the Census Bureau.

Perry County Board of Registrars Chairwoman Lucy Kynard said she wasn’t sure why registration would outpace the population estimate. Kynard said the rolls are updated regularly, such as removing voters who have died or registered elsewhere.

The county has had a surge in registrations for both the presidential race and a hotly contested mayoral race. Earlier this year, the district attorney in Perry County asked the FBI to investigate an unusually high turnout and absentee voting in the June primary…

The counties with 100 percent registration are some of Alabama’s least populous, so an error in the population estimate or a few extra voters on the rolls would have a bigger impact statistically than in larger counties.

Chapman said even a small problem on the rolls is still a problem. Some elections in the state have been decided by fewer than half a dozen votes, she pointed out.

Counties across Alabama have been seeing unusually high voter registration in recent months, testimony to the interest in the Nov. 4 presidential election. The last day to register to vote in the election is Oct. 24.

Coincidentally, the self-same Kim Chandler filed this article with the Birmingham News only yesterday:

ACORN not active in Alabama
Insufficient staff cited
Thursday, October 16, 2008
KIM CHANDLER

MONTGOMERY - Controversial voter registration group ACORN has not been active in Alabama this election season, a spokesman said.

The Birmingham office of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, ACORN, is closed. Alabama has not been one of the two dozen states where the group pushed to sign up voters in advance of the 2008 election, ACORN Communications Director Charles D. Jackson said.

“We don’t have the staff in Alabama to do that,” Jackson said…

Mind you, this is according to an ACORN spokesman. However, it would appear that the phones at the Alabama ACORN offices have been disconnected.

But ACORN may have closed their offices after they felt that their work there was done.

In any case, isn’t it curious that a reporter would first check to see if ACORN is active in their state before reporting a story about suspect voter registration?

Ontario police arrest man in voter fraud case
Mark Jacoby, who owns a firm hired by the California Republican Party, violated state laws with his own registration, authorities say.
By Evan Halper, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 20, 2008
SACRAMENTO -- The owner of a firm that the California Republican Party hired to register tens of thousands of voters this year was arrested in Ontario over the weekend on suspicion of voter registration fraud.

State and local investigators allege that Mark Jacoby fraudulently registered himself to vote at a childhood California address where he no longer lives so he would appear to meet the legal requirement that all signature gatherers be eligible to vote in California. His firm, Young Political Majors, or YPM, collects petition signatures and registers voters in California and other states.

Jacoby's arrest by state investigators and the Ontario Police Department late Saturday came after dozens of voters said they were duped into registering as Republicans by people employed by YPM. The voters said YPM workers tricked them by saying they were signing a petition to toughen penalties against child molesters.

The firm was paid $7 to $12 for every Californian it registered as a member of the GOP.

GOTHAM-TO-OHIO VOTE SCAM EYED
NYERS' HOME AWAY FROM HOME PROBED AS A FRAUD OUTPOST

October 20, 2008

Four well-heeled New York Democrats are under investigation by an Ohio prosecutor for setting up a temporary home in the swing state - where two have already cast their ballots - just so that their votes will be counted there, The Post has learned.

The targets of the probe - including the daughter and son-in-law of a New York City real-estate titan, a former New York Sun reporter and a Bank of New York Mellon executive - are connected to Vote From Home, a Manhattan-based political action committee set up to get voters to the polls in Ohio, where residents are allowed to cast ballots 29 days before Election Day, investigators said.

The New Yorkers and nine other members from across the country are accused of packing themselves into a modest three-bedroom house in Columbus, waiting 30 days - and then registering, even though the Buckeye State is not their permanent residence.

Under Ohio law, a person who comes to the state for "temporary purposes only," without the intention of making it the "permanent place of abode" is not considered a resident. New permanent residents must live in Ohio 30 days before registering.

Four group members, including two of the New Yorkers, have already cast ballots, and six others requested absentee ballots from the county elections board.

Franklin County, Ohio, prosecutor Ron O'Brien launched the investigation after student reporters at palestra.net, a Fox News affiliate, discovered the mass registration effort at the home in a working-class neighborhood on Brownlee Avenue.

"Our board of elections referred 13 suspicious registrations to us, all from people with out-of-state addresses, all of whom claim to be living in a three-bedroom house in Columbus," O'Brien said Friday.

Vote From Home is registered to the East 82nd Street brownstone of Heather Halstead, daughter of Halstead Properties founder Clark Halstead Jr. She and her husband, NYU grad Marc Gustafson, are among those under scrutiny.

A subsequent Post review of election-board and other records found the New Yorkers involved are:

Cicero;495637 wrote:

There aren't too many undecideds left. That movie "W" probably cleaned up the rest.

Cicero;495650 wrote:

I just watched a documentary that included how to hack a memory card for electronic voting. It seemed just too easy.

tw;495665 wrote:

If you can write to the existing card - change any number - then the card has no security. Diebold voting machines will always be flawed if using standard memory cards. No kludge will solve that problem.

Cicero;495673 wrote:

Telling me stuff I know already again....kthx.

tw;495792 wrote:

The post was for the benefit of 39+ other poeple who did not know a software patch can never fix defective hardware.

Undertoad;495954 wrote:

It's certainly not asking too much, and it's reprehensible that they have given us these weak excuses for voting machines.

xoxoxoBruce;496213 wrote:

Cheney's fault.:(

glatt;495645 wrote:

Has anyone here seen "W" or know anyone who has seen "W"? It's a movie that I don't understand. Not the plot (I haven't seen it) but simply the fact that it was made in the first place.

I'm a Bush hater, and I have no desire to see this movie. From the ads, it appears to make Bush seem like a moron, so I'd guess that Bush lovers (if there are still any left) wouldn't be interested in seeing it either. There are a few moderate swing voters here, do any of you have interest in seeing "W"?

I'm just am amazed that they made this movie. I would be surprised if anyone goes to see it. I predict it will lose a lot of money.

A strong turnout by liberals, meanwhile, put "W.," the biography of President Bush, in fourth place, with $10.6 million in sales. Studio polls showed 55% of the audience called themselves liberals and 31% identified themselves as moderates. Only 14% of the audience said they were conservative.

While drawing more liberals than conservatives, the film was released across the country in diverse markets. "Attendance was strong in both red and blue states," said Steve Rothenberg, president of domestic distribution for the film's distributor, Lionsgate.

[SIZE=2]Currently, just under 10 percent of the 250 million W-2 forms sent to SSA by employers fail to match the information in the SSA database. At least three fourths of these mismatches are unrelated to immigration status. They occur for many reasons, including name changes, incorrect use of titles, and transposition errors. All of these problems are much more likely to occur with "foreign" names, due to the likelihood of transcription errors and differing customs for treating titles and family names. [/SIZE]

The new ruling in Cuyahoga County mandates that provisional ballots in yellow packets must be “Rejected” if there is no “date of birth” on the packet. The Free Press obtained copies of the original “Provisional Verification Procedure” from Cuyahoga County which stated “Date of birth is not mandatory and should not reject a provisional ballot.” The original procedure required the voter’s name, address and a signature that matched the signature in the county’s database.

richlevy;496492 wrote:

[SIZE=2]In Pennsylvania, could my vote be challenged if my name does not exactly[/SIZE] match the name on my social security card - "James K. Smith" versus "James Keith Smith" or "Jim Smith"?

What if there was a mistake and the election commission had the wrong social security number?

And if I allowed them to force me to fill out a provisional ballot, how would I know if it was counted?

Undertoad;496496 wrote:

[SIZE=2][FONT=Garamond][SIZE=3]The election commission doesn't collect social security numbers, nor do they require them in any way on election day.[/SIZE][/FONT][/SIZE][SIZE=2]
[/SIZE]

The only time the system was not conducting verification checks with the Social Security Administration was when the administration shut down its process for a two-day maintenance period. This did not prohibit counties from entering data, and when the system came back online the applications were processed and verified accordingly.

The suit was one of two that had sought verification of some 200,000 new registrations that had prompted complaints by Democrats that the GOP was trying to disenfranchise voters, report the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Associated Press. The other suit, filed by the Republican Party, failed last week when the U.S. Supreme Court vacated a temporary restraining order on the ground the party likely lacked standing to pursue the case.

Undertoad;496233 wrote:

No, they really don't.

If they tried attaching federal highway money or some such to election regulations, it would be ruled unconstitutional before the ink dried on the Federal Register with the number of the House Bill.

TheMercenary;496242 wrote:

"It's Bush's fault!"

richlevy;496501 wrote:

From here

xoxoxoBruce;496523 wrote:

That's not influence, that's law, and would be challenged immediately. Influence isn't on paper, pork helps buy influence, but the influence is used outside the public record.

Undertoad;496646 wrote:

Furthermore, in PA it's the counties who decide which machine to have, so now you've got to influence 67 different county-level commissioners.

The Commission on Federal Election Reform's 2005 report wrote:

[FONT=Arial]"The Help America Vote Act of 2002 authorized up to $650 million in federal funds to replace antiquated voting machines throughout the country. States are using these funds and their own resources to upgrade voting technology, generally to replace punch card and lever voting machines with new optical scan and electronic voting systems...[/FONT]

What happens if no presidential candidate gets 270 electoral votes? If no candidate receives a majority of electoral votes, the House of Representatives elects the President from the 3 Presidential candidates who received the most electoral votes. Each State delegation has one vote. The Senate would elect the Vice President from the 2 Vice Presidential candidates with the most electoral votes. Each Senator would cast one vote for Vice President. If the House of Representatives fails to elect a President by Inauguration Day, the Vice-President Elect serves as acting President until the deadlock is resolved in the House.

Undertoad;496869 wrote:

Currently all electronic voting machines are HAVA-compliant, including those of Diebold/Premier Election Systems.

2.2.9 Ballot Counter
For all voting systems, each device that tabulates ballots shall provide a counter that:
a. Can be set to zero before any ballots are submitted for tally;
b. Records the number of ballots cast during a particular test cycle or election;
c. Increases the count only by the input of a ballot;
d. Prevents or disables the resetting of the counter by any person other than authorized persons at authorized points; and
e. Is visible to designated election officials.

3.2.6.2.3 Memory Stability
Error-free retention may be achieved by the use of redundant memory elements, provided that the capability for conflict resolution or correction among elements is included.

3.2.2.4 Electrical Supply
c. All systems shall also be capable of operating for a period of at least 2 hours on backup power, such that no voting data is lost or corrupted, nor normal operations interrupted. When backup power is exhausted the system shall retain the contents of all memories intact.

Members of the activist group, Acorn, gathered at the Main Line mansion of Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie, to demand he pay eight million dollars in fees to the city of Philadelphia. The eight-year-old payment dispute has received new attention because of the city budget crisis.

The issue has complexities but Acorn went for the easy target. Jeffrey Lurie is building an indoor tennis court and bowling alley on his Lower Merion estate, while the city where the Eagles make their money is cutting services.

Lurie did not make an appearance but an Eagles spokeswoman says the amount the team owes is in dispute and they're waiting for a judge to rule on exactly how much the Eagles should pay the city. Acorn members denounced what they called "delaying tactics".

As Caterino reports, ACORN sprang into action once they found out about the gathering:

A.C.O.R.N. sent members over to Chiefs, to ask them to cancel the Pre-Tea party. Chiefs manager and owner told them he would not because as far as he knows this is still a free country. The ACORN members then went into the bathrooms at Chief’s and started to tear down flyers about the tea party that were hanging on the walls. Some members went as far as to smear ‘human feces” on the walls before they left that establishment.

ACORN is on a mission to infiltrate the tea parties all across the land to start fights and make the others who attend all look disorganized and troublesome. To go at great lengths to see to it,

classicman;556707 wrote:

ACORN engages in destructive activity against tea parties!

Redux;556716 wrote:

LOL.....the ACORN bogeymen are everywhere.

They are responsible for massive voter fraud, the housing finance crisis, illegal immigration...and now acts of terror against patriot, God-fearing teabaggers expressing their first amendment right of assembly....and of course, we all know that ACORN is getting $millions in ARRA funds to carry out their nefarious plans!

The wing nuts tell us so every chance they get.

added:

Classic...where is the evidence that the alleged acts reported by a conservative rag were perpetrated by ACORN....were the perps wearing their ACORN hats and shirts or singing the ACORN theme song or perhaps using the secret ACORN signals during the acts?

Happy Monkey;556821 wrote:

Oh, no! `human feces"! It's like poo, but in mismatched scare quotes!

TGRR;556714 wrote:

I love your source there, Classicman. :3eye:

TGRR;556719 wrote:

ACORN WAS THE MAN ON THE GRASSY KNOLL!

classicman;556890 wrote:

Well it sure ads hell isn't gonna be found on Huffpo or dailykoshit.

Happy Monkey;557033 wrote:

Or anywhere else with a modicum of integrity.

classicman;556890 wrote:

Well it sure ads hell isn't gonna be found on Huffpo or dailykoshit.

North Carolina — State Board of Elections officials have found at least 100 voter registration forms with the same names over and over again. The forms were turned in by ACORN. Officials sent about 30 applications to the state Board of Elections for possible fraud investigation.

Ohio — The New York Post reported that a Cleveland man said he was given cash and cigarettes by aggressive ACORN activists in exchange for registering an astonishing 72 times. The complaints have sparked an investigation by election officials into the organization, whose political wing has supported Barack Obama. Witnesses have already been subpoenaed to testify against the organization.

Nevada — Authorities raided the headquarters of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now on Tuesday October 7, 2008, after a month-long investigation. The fraudulent voter registrations included the Dallas Cowboys starting line-up.

Indiana — More than 2,000 voter registration forms filed in northern Indiana’s Lake County filled out by ACORN employees turned out to be bogus. Officials also stopped processing a stack of about 5,000 applications delivered just before the October 6 registration deadline after the first 2,100 turned out to be phony.

Connecticut — Officials are looking into a complaint alleging ACORN submitted fraudulent voter registration cards in Bridgeport. In one instance, an official said a card was filled out for a 7-year-old girl, whose age was listed as 27. 8,000 cards were submitted in Bridgeport.

Missouri — The Kansas City election board is reporting 100 duplicate applications and 280 with fake information. Acorn officials agreed that at least 4% of their registrations were bogus. Governor Matt Blunt condemned the attempts by ACORN to commit voter fraud.

Pennsylvania — Officials are investigating suspicious or incomplete registration forms submitted by ACORN. 252,595 voter registrations were submitted in Philadelphia. Remarkably, 57,435 were rejected — most of them submitted by ACORN.

Wisconsin — In Milwaukee ACORN improperly used felons as registration workers. Additionally, its workers are among 49 cases of bad registrations sent to authorities for possible charges, as first reported by the Journal Sentinel.

Texas — Of the 30,000 registration cards ACORN turned in, Harris County tax assessor Paul Bettencourt says just more than 20,000 are valid. And just look at some of the places ACORN was finding those voters. A church just next door is the address for around 150 people. More than 250 people claim a homeless outreach center as their home address. Some listed a county mental health facility as their home and one person even wrote down the Harris County jail at the sheriff’s office.

Michigan — ACORN in Detroit is being investigated after several municipal clerks reported fraudulent and duplicate voter registration applications coming through. The clerk interviewed said the fraud appears to be widespread.

New Mexico – The Bernalillo County clerk has notified prosecutors that some 1,100 fraudulent voter registration cards were turned in by ACORN.

classicman;557098 wrote:

Where there is that much smoke...

To maintain that ACORN is a) completely unbiased and b) totally innocent is ridiculous.

classicman;557839 wrote:

Sure it is TGRR it sure is, It is perfectly capable of being the opposite.

classicman;557979 wrote:

Personally nothing you would dig up would mean shit to me, but thats just my opinion.

Urbane Guerrilla;560208 wrote:

And the left is still the abode of dullards.

Urbane Guerrilla;560208 wrote:

And classicman won.

classicman;557979 wrote:

Personally nothing you would dig up would mean shit to me, but thats just my opinion.

TheMercenary;560347 wrote:

:lol:

classicman;560386 wrote:

No appeal to anyone - Just my opinion.

classicman;560397 wrote:

What does that, or UG have to do with anything I have EVER said?
Redux, just because one asshole makes a comment about something I posted and then another chooses to jump in with even more worthless dribble simply to try and stir shit cuz thats all he knows how to do.....
You're better than that.

classicman;560397 wrote:

What does that, or UG have to do with anything I have EVER said?
Redux, just because one asshole makes a comment about something I posted and then another chooses to jump in with even more worthless dribble simply to try and stir shit cuz thats all he knows how to do.....
You're better than that.

classicman;557979 wrote:

Personally nothing you would dig up would mean shit to me, but thats just my opinion.

TGRR;557843 wrote:

So if I dig up 50 unsubstantiated claims that Bush raped orphan children while using Dick Cheney's colostomy bag as a condom, it's suddenly true or even a possibility by virtue of the amount of said claims?

classicman;560465 wrote:

Yeh thats a post worthy of any type of response other than the one you got - - - -not.

TGRR;560521 wrote:

But it's okay when YOU use that logic.

Gotcha. Good thing you have some intellectual honesty.

TGRR;560436 wrote:

Bearing in mind, however, that "stirring shit" = "posting something Classicman can't answer".

And Redux never said that you were to blame for your cheerleading squad. I think we all realize that you didn't hire Merc and UG to slobber all over your ass cheeks, they just do it.

TGRR;560521 wrote:

But it's okay when YOU use logic.

Gotcha. Good thing you have some intellectual honesty.

classicman;560599 wrote:

Bout time you realized it. Now that we have that settled. Where is the friggin concrete? At this rate, you'll be held responsible for the flu epidemic that is (isn't) happening..

tw;560447 wrote:

Stir the pot: post one line cheap shots. No supporting facts.

classicman;560701 wrote:

Well then - don't send any more invoices, we aren't paying any more till the trucks are running! :headshake

classicman;560761 wrote:

No problem. The Cardi family has been waiting for them. They are still pissed about that whole trucking issue from back in '02 anyway. At least it'll give them something to do and burn off some of the pasta they've been eating for the last month.
You do realize that this will reduce the "protection" of your people when/if they ever get around to doing any work. BTW, Vinnie is pissed that he has already put out a lot of cash for nothing. yaknowwhaddamean?

depmats;560732 wrote:

They seem to be about as effective as your 1,500 line cheap shots without supporting facts.

WASHINGTON — Nevada's attorney general on Monday filed criminal charges accusing liberal community activist group ACORN and two of its employees of facilitating voter registration fraud in November's election by requiring canvassers to submit 20 applications each day or face termination.

The group stressed that it instigated the inquiry by turning over to the Clark County, Nev. , registrar the names of 44 workers who were fired for submitting bogus registration forms and that it ordered an employee to stop offering bonuses to workers who turned in more than the daily goal of 20 forms. "There was no firm quota," spokesman Scott Levenson said.

[QUOTE]Clark County Registrar Larry Lomax said that ACORN canvassers submitted 91,002 registration forms last year, resulting in 62,905 new registrations after the elimination of duplicates and questionable applications.

The Nevada complaint alleges 26 counts of "Compensation for Registration of Voters," which it called a felony under state law.

"By structuring employment and compensation around a quota system, ACORN facilitated voter registration fraud in this state," Attorney General Masto said. She alleged that the group's training manuals "clearly detail, condone and, indeed, require illegal acts."

"If somebody got 17 (applications) every day, their job was pretty secure," he said. "What we were obviously concerned about is making sure people actually worked. If a canvasser came in every day with two registration forms . . . that was a problem."

Michael Slater , executive director of Project Vote, a national registration group that's funded ACORN's canvassing, said he was "shocked" that ACORN now faces a criminal case while no charges were brought against the 44 ex-workers to whom the group alerted authorities.

classicman;562852 wrote:

And we already know that you are a liberal apologist... so what?

classicman;562858 wrote:

Justice takes time and the decision is not mine.

classicman;562866 wrote:

nope, no more than you have.

classicman;562875 wrote:

I have my beliefs - I have not judged...

classicman;562880 wrote:

Don't worry your head over it - they'll get out of it again. They have friends in high places. It'll all amount to nothing.
Whats the penalty anyway, if they were found guilty?

"[...W]e believe the evidence we uncovered showed that Iglesias was removed because of complaints to the Department of Justice and the White House by New Mexico Republican members of Congress and party activists about Iglesias's handling of voter fraud and public corruption cases in the state."

As detailed above, many Republicans in New Mexico believed that fraudulent registrations by Democratic Party voters was a widespread problem in New Mexico, an evenly divided state politically that has had very close national elections. Beginning in the summer of 2004, New Mexico Republican Party activists talked to Iglesias about the “party’s . . . efforts” on the voter fraud issue, and sought to involve him in those efforts....

In sum, we believe the evidence shows that the complaints about Iglesias from New Mexico Republican politicians and party activists, both to the Department and to the White House, caused Sampson to place Iglesias on the removal list.

http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/special/s0809a/chapter6.htm#IVB

A voter registration drive last year illegally required canvassers to meet quotas to keep their jobs and resulted in thousands of “garbage” registrations gumming up Clark County voter rolls, officials said Monday as they released a criminal complaint against the drive’s organizers.

The complaint names the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, as well as Chris Edwards, the group’s former Las Vegas field director, and Amy Busefink, who was regional director for voter registration.

In all, there are 26 charges of compensation for registration of voters and 13 charges of being a “principal” in the incident. An initial hearing has been set for 7:30 a.m. June 3 in Las Vegas Justice Court.

“In Nevada, it is unlawful for a person to provide compensation for registering voters that is based on the total number of voters a person registers,” said state Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto.

ACORN’s canvassers, she said, had to gather at least 20 voter registrations a day to keep their jobs. There was also a bonus program, known as “blackjack” or “21 plus,” which rewarded employees with $5 extra per shift if they brought in 21 or more completed registrations.

Canvassers under pressure to keep their jobs turned in registrations with fake names and phony addresses — even, in one case, the starting lineup for the Dallas Cowboys.

“These practices are clearly a violation of Nevada law,” Cortez Masto said. “By structuring employment and compensation around a quota system, ACORN facilitated voter registration fraud in this state.”

The organization is being targeted, she added, because it shouldn’t “hide behind or place blame on its employees” when the group’s policies required “illegal acts in performing the job.”

Scott Levenson, an ACORN spokesman, said the group cooperated in the investigation and that charging the organization is “frightfully absurd.”

“We’re a bit appalled at the political grandstanding on the part of the attorney general’s office,” he said. “This individual case is truly a situation where, the organization that was most harmed is the organization that is being charged.”

Both he and state officials said that the bonus system was instituted by Edwards, who did not respond to a request for comment Monday. That system was “in violation of ACORN’s national policies,” Levenson said.

“Incentives, bonus systems, are against any training that we do with our employees,” he said. Canvassers also don’t have to meet a strict quota to keep their jobs, he said.

“You expect someone to work,” he said. “If someone walks in every day with 17, their job’s secure. If we have a goal for an employee of 20 registrations, and they keep coming in day after day with two, there’s going to be an issue.”

In an affidavit supporting the charges, an investigator said that both ACORN employees and training materials set out a hard target of 20 registration forms per day for employees to keep their jobs.

“It was the policy of ACORN to terminate from employment canvassers who failed to obtain 20 (voter registration forms) per day,” stated Colin Haynes, an investigator with the Secretary of State’s office.

“However,” he added, “this was not uniformly enforced and it was left to each individual political organizer to deal with any of their canvassers who failed to meet this quota.”

Lisa Rasmussen, a local attorney representing ACORN, called the allegations against the group “patently false.”

“Even the state concedes in its charging documents that there was no 'quota’ system that was enforced by ACORN,” she said in an e-mailed statement. “Furthermore, the suggestion that a business cannot implement standards of quality control, performance goals and individual job performance tools is contrary to the First Amendment.”

She also said Busefink would not be available for comment.

The charges are Class E felonies, the penalty for which can be probation or one to four years in prison and a fine of up to $5,000.

At Monday’s announcement, state and local officials strenuously emphasized that the false voter registrations didn’t translate to people being able to vote fraudulently.

“This is a case of voter registration fraud,” said Secretary of State Ross Miller. “There is absolutely no evidence that there was any voter fraud in the last election.”

Larry Lomax, the Clark County registrar of voters, said his office reviewed the 91,002 voter registration forms turned in by ACORN, verifying that information on the form matched information attached to the voter’s driver’s license number or Social Security number.

If it didn’t, those registrations were tagged as requiring identification at the polling place.

There were 28,097 forms that were duplicates or changes of name, party or address, leaving 62,905 new voters.

Of those, 23,186 actually voted in the 2008 general election, according to a report prepared by Lomax’s office.

That means almost 40,000 of the new voters registered by ACORN didn’t vote, and of those, almost 19,000 had information on file that didn’t match what was turned in on the forms.

“That’s 48 percent of those forms that I believe are clearly fraudulent,” Lomax said.

“This is individuals ripping off their bosses because they have a quota to make.”

This voter registration work is not easy, Lomax noted. Canvassers are working in the summer heat and reaching out to people in poorer neighborhoods, all the while making $8 or $9 an hour.

“There’s a huge temptation to take the easy way out,” he said.

ACORN, founded in 1970, is an international community activist group that works on a broad range of issues. Locally, those issues include foreclosure prevention, immigration reform, and concerns in West Las Vegas, a predominantly minority area in central Las Vegas, about the closure of F Street near downtown.

Criticisms of ACORN’s voter registration drives are not new. In previous elections cycles, officials in several states have looked into whether the organization was turning in fake voter registrations, and conservative groups have long criticized the nominally nonpartisan organization as a front for liberal interest groups.

Lomax said he raised concerns about ACORN’s voter registration drive in 2006. “I’ve been trying to get someone to do something about this for a while,” he said.

Bonnie Greathouse, the head organizer at the Las Vegas office, said she wasn’t worried about fallout from the charges.

“We’ve had bad publicity before, and all it does is inform the community that we’re here working for the community,” she said. “People always come forward to our defense.

“We’re just community organizers, just like the president used to be.”

Redux;562857 wrote:

Yep...I am a liberal..and even an apologist at times.

But I still believe in innocent until proven guilty....you know, the basic foundation of law.

MCCRAY: Well, what I would say about that, Glenn, is that really what you need to look at in terms of ACORN is governance. I mean, what we have is an organization, a venerable organization that had a very beautiful mission and a lot of committed supporters. What's happened over time, though, is that there are certain leaders and senior staff members that have kind of, for the most part, hijacked the organization and they're using it for their own personal games.

MCCRAY: Wade Rathke is the founder of the organization, and he is an incredible organizer. And it was his vision that allowed ACORN to progress to kind of where it is today. Unfortunately, with, you know, absolute power comes some corruption, and the board members found out about eight or nine months ago that there had been $1 million embezzlement by his brother.

Now, what the board did at that point of time was that, once the full board found out about it, they immediately moved to terminate Wade and Dale, then they tried to put in place the young ladies that you interviewed on Friday — Karen and Marcel — in order to try to set the record straight and get to the bottom of what happened to the money.

MCCRAY: And don't you find it very interesting that even when after word that $1 million embezzlement came out and the fact that board members and executive committee members covered up the embezzlement, that the only people that had been punished were the people that were trying to get to the bottom of where the money go?

MCCRAY: Essentially, CCI — Citizens Consulting, Inc. — is basically the financial nerve center for ACORN and all its entities. So, if you really want to try to follow the money, that's why we requested a forensic examination and financial audit of CCI.

BECK: OK. CCI — can you put that back up on the screen, please? CCI shows one — what a surprise, it's in New Orleans. There's no corruption down there. It shows one address. This is the address that has — that all of the other ACORN entities, they all list this as their address.

So, if you are — correct me if I'm wrong here, Michael — but if you're in one of these organizations and you apply for federal dollars or any kind of dollars, the money goes there?

MCCRAY: I mean, that's the main problem. As a matter of fact, the money goes there first.

So, even if you are at a local chapter of ACORN that wanted to, say, you know, some good philanthropist wanted to write a local grant, the local ACORN chapter can't get the grant. Everything winds up being funneled through national and all of the monies come are dispersed from CCI.

Now, CCI says that they pay a small administrative fee. But the problem is, is without an audit, you know, we don't know if CCI gets 1 percent, 50 percent, 90 percent — we don't know. And that's what Karen Inman and Marcel Reid were trying to get their hands on.

Earlier this month, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., sponsored an amendment to the $140 million Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act. The Frank measure allowed organizations being investigated by state or federal authorities on corruption charges to receive federal funds as long as they avoid conviction.

Frank argued that his amendment, which was approved by the House, protected the presumption of innocence in federal spending. But federal ethics rules have long stipulated that either an actual or apparent conflict of interest can put a government employee at risk of prosecution for ethics violations.

So, if the Frank amendment becomes law, the federal government will have a double standard, ignoring the presumption of innocence for its employees with apparent conflicts of interest, but extending the presumption to its funding recipients.

ACORN claims to be nonpartisan, but it and its many affiliates have ardently supported Democratic incumbents and candidates at all levels of government.

For example, the Obama campaign in 2008 paid more than $880,000 to Citizen Services Incorporated, an ACORN affiliate that helps organize get-out-the-vote efforts that always seem to focus on heavily Democratic precincts. Seen in this light, the Frank amendment has the look of a payback from grateful Democrats, especially since, as The Examiner has previously reported, ACORN is eligible for billions of dollars under the Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

By JOHN FUND
Democrats are split on how to deal with Acorn, the liberal "community organizing" group that deployed thousands of get-out-the-vote workers last election. State and city Democratic officials -- who've been contending with its many scandals -- are moving against it. Washington Democrats are still sweeping Acorn abuses under a rug.

On Monday, Nevada officials charged Acorn, its regional director and its Las Vegas field director with submitting thousands of fraudulent voter registration forms last year. Larry Lomax, the registrar of voters in Las Vegas, says he believes 48% of Acorn's forms "are clearly fraudulent." On Thursday, prosecutors in Pittsburgh, Pa., also charged seven Acorn employees with filing hundreds of fraudulent voter registrations before last year's general election.

Acorn spokesman Scott Levenson calls the Nevada criminal complaint "political grandstanding" and says that any problems were the actions of an unnamed "bad employee." But Catherine Cortez Masto, Nevada's Democratic Attorney General, told the Las Vegas Sun that Acorn itself is named in the criminal complaint. She says that Acorn's training manuals "clearly detail, condone and . . . require illegal acts," such as requiring its workers to meet strict voter-registration targets to keep their jobs.

Other Democrats on the ground have complaints. Fred Voight, deputy election commissioner in Philadelphia, protested after Acorn (according to the registrar of voters and his own investigation) submitted at least 1,500 fraudulent registrations last fall. "This has been going on for a number of years," he told CNN in October. St. Louis Democrat Matthew Potter, the city's deputy elections director, had similar complaints.

Elsewhere, Washington state prosecutors fined Acorn $25,000 after several employees were convicted of voter registration fraud in 2007. The group signed a consent decree with King County (Seattle), requiring it to beef up its oversight or face criminal prosecution. In the 2008 election, Acorn's practices led to investigations, some ongoing, in 14 other states.

The stink is bad enough that some congressional Democrats have taken notice. At a March 19 hearing on election problems, Michigan Rep. John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, pressed New York Rep. Gerald Nadler, chairman of the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, to hold a hearing on Acorn. He called the charges against it "serious." Mr. Nadler agreed to consider the request.

Mr. Nadler's office now says there will be no hearing on Acorn because Mr. Conyers has changed his mind. Mr. Conyers's office released a statement on Monday saying that after reviewing "the complaints against Acorn, I have concluded that a hearing on this matter appears unwarranted at this time." A Democratic staffer told me he believes the House leadership put pressure on Mr. Conyers to back down. Mr. Conyers's office says it is "unaware" of any contacts with House leaders.

Then there's Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. Last month, he voted for a committee amendment (to the Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act) by Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R., Minn.) to block groups indicted for voter fraud from receiving federal housing or legal assistance grants. Identical language was passed into law in the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008. Mr. Frank now says he "had not read [the amendment] carefully" before backing it. He gutted the amendment on Thursday, claiming that the language Congress passed just last year is "a violation of the basic principles of due process."

A lot of money is at stake. In the stimulus bill passed by Congress, Acorn is eligible -- along with other activist groups -- to apply for $2 billion in funds to redevelop abandoned and foreclosed homes. Meanwhile, public records show that last spring the IRS filed three tax liens totaling almost $1 million against Acorn, most of which concerned employee withholding.

All of this infuriates Marcel Reid, who, along with seven other national Acorn board members, was removed last year after demanding an audit of the group's books. "Acorn has been hijacked by a power-hungry clique that has its own political and personal agendas," she told me. "We are fighting to take back the group."

Bertha Lewis, the head of Acorn, told me last year before their ouster that the "Acorn Eight" were "obsessed" and "confused." But Anita MonCrief, an Acorn whistleblower, says the problems run deep. Ms. MonCrief worked at Project Vote, an Acorn affiliate, in late 2007. She says its development director, Karen Gillette, told her she had direct contact with the Obama campaign and also told her to call Obama donors who had maxed out on donations to the candidate but who could contribute to Acorn. Project Vote calls her charges "absolutely false." (Ms. Gillette has declined comment.)

Acorn's relationship to the Obama campaign is a matter of public record. Last year, Citizens Consulting Inc., the umbrella group controlling Acorn, was paid $832,000 by the Obama campaign for get-out-the-vote efforts in key primary states. In filings with the Federal Election Commission, the campaign listed the payments as "staging, sound, lighting," only correcting them after reporters from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review revealed their true nature.

Mr. Obama distanced himself from the group's scandals last year, saying "We don't need Acorn's help." Nevertheless, he got his start as a community organizer at Acorn's side. In 1992, he headed a registration effort for Project Vote, an Acorn partner at the time. In 1995, he represented Acorn in a key case upholding the new Motor Voter Act -- the very law whose mandated postcard registration system Acorn workers use to flood election offices with bogus registrations.

But Acorn's registration tricks may soon be unnecessary. Congressional Democrats are backing a bill to mandate a nationwide data base to automatically register driver's license holders or recipients of government benefits.

This "would create an engraved invitation for voter fraud," says Hans von Spakovsky, a former Federal Election Commission member, who points out that these lists are filled with felons and noncitizens who are ineligible to vote. Ironically, in light of its troubles with the law, Acorn was selected in March to assist the U.S. Census in reaching out to minority communities and recruiting census enumerators for the count next year.

As for the Nevada indictment, Acorn isn't worried. "We've had bad publicity before, and all it does is inform the community that we're here working for the community," Bonnie Greathouse, Acorn's head organizer in Nevada, assured the Las Vegas Review-Journal this week. "People always come forward to our defense. We're just community organizers, just like the president used to be."

Mr. Fund is a columnist for WSJ.com .

classicman;565724 wrote:

So how long did it take you to realize you were playin with UG?

6. Swing Congressional and State Legislative Districts Project

This is a long-term, multi-faceted project with the following goals:
1. Impact the post-2010 Congressional redistricting process by building progressive electoral majorities in swing state legislative districts in states where partisan control of legislative bodies is potentially in play.
2. Organize in 10 – 20 selected Congressional Districts where recent close elections and/or demographic shifts make them likely swing districts.

The strategy here is to build the long-term, targeted organizing and electoral capacity needed if we are to have a Congress with a progressive majority. The redistricting process is key, since it is unlikely that there are enough competitive House districts to end right-wing control of the House of Representatives before 2012. But we need to start now.

The first step is to review the literature analyzing the redistricting process state-by-state, determine which states’ re-districting processes are in the hands of state legislatures (most), which state legislative bodies have a close enough Democrat-Republican ratio to be in play, and which state house and state senate districts in those states are competitive. With this information, one can then target appropriate legislative districts.

We have identified an organizer with previous experience with 21st Century Democrats and the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee who we would like to hire to develop this targeting plan.

The program in a district has three parts:
1. ACORN community organizing: ACORN needs to build on-going, permanent, issue-based neighborhood organizations in the low-to-moderate income communities of the selected districts.

2. Canvass: We need to run a door-to-door canvass, with a fundraising component, in working, middle and upper-middle income communities that identifies voters who support progressive issues and builds an on-going membership and voter file of those people.

3. Political Campaign Capacity: We need to put a political operative into the district (or a cluster of 2 or more districts) who will work with local organizations and local affiliates of national organizations to build the electoral capacity (field, message, lists, candidate recruitment, etc.) that sets us up to run successful state legislative and Congressional campaigns.

The way to prevent what Tom DeLay did in Texas in 2003 is to make sure that right-wing forces don’t have control of both houses of the state legislature and the Governor’s office in states where the legislature determines re-districting. That way, even if it isn’t possible to adopt a re-districting map that favors progressives, one can prevent a right-wing gerrymandering by throwing the process into the courts, helping to ensure at least a “neutral” map.

Clodfobble;569751 wrote:

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.)

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.

classicman;569776 wrote:

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?

Kaliayev;569755 wrote:

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

classicman;569776 wrote:

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?

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.

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.

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.

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."

Happy Monkey;575923 wrote:

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.

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.

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.

Redux;583872 wrote:

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

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.

Redux;583878 wrote:

Please cite any source document that provides evidence of ACORN wrongdoing or misuse of federal grant funds.

Just one please!

TheMercenary;583876 wrote:

It puts you in the same light.

previous federal grants to Acorn have been highly controversial. In 1994 the Acorn Housing Corporation was given a $1.1 million grant by AmeriCorps, the federal volunteer agency. An inspector-general found the nonprofit had improperly used AmeriCorps recruits for political purposes; the grant was terminated.

Redux;583884 wrote:

I dont know I even try to engage you.



And you are in the same light as that nutty Michelle Bachmann and the even nuttier Lou Dobbs who is currently promoting the "birther" movement questioning Obama's citizenship.

TheMercenary;583885 wrote:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110009214

TheMercenary;583888 wrote:

The bottom line is that ACORN is under investigation in more than a dozen states for its activities to register people to vote. They may also violated federal law for its association with the supposedly nonpartisan Project Vote. If there was nothing there no one would be looking at them so closely. It pains me to see the Demoncrats continue to support such a criminal enterprise.

Redux;583890 wrote:

It pains me that wingnuts are so afraid of ACORN's influence in the minority communities as a result of their posivitve contributions to those communities that such wing nuts will go to any length to discredit the organization because they know it carries over to the voting booth and they lose.

TheMercenary;583889 wrote:

Questions about ACORN. US House of Rep.

http://republicans.oversight.house.gov/News/PRArticle.aspx?NewsID=616

Full Report PDF.

http://republicans.oversight.house.gov/media/pdfs/20090723ACORNReport.pdf

Redux;583892 wrote:

Repeat....ACORN has never been convicted of a crime or found to have misused federal grant funds.

Redux;583894 wrote:

Carry on with your crusade for truth, justice and the American way.

I'll stick with innocent until PROVEN guilty.

TheMercenary;583893 wrote:

Repeat... they are still being investigated in many states. There are enough red flags they should be cut off.

Redux;583904 wrote:

Not really.

Most of those "investigations" are not actual investigations by state law enforcement agencies, but rather are simply so called "investigations" or witch hunts by Republican legislatures.

And mostly in swing states.

Redux;583910 wrote:

Sure...ACORN is stained in the hearts and minds of the right.

TheMercenary;583911 wrote:

Really, where does it say they are stained only in "the minds of the right"? Most mainstream news organizations have been reporting on ACORN's questionable practices for quite a few years.

Catholic Church drops ACORN funding
Posted: 10:25 PM ET
ACORN, the community organizing group rocked by voter registration fraud allegations, is being rocked again by the loss of a major donor.


catholic letter to acorn
And the group’s sloppy voter registration drive in the 2008 presidential election campaign is at least partly to blame.

Citing voter fraud allegations along with embezzlement and accounting issues at ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), the Catholic church announced it will sever all ties with the group. The announcement to stop all funding to various ACORN projects came at the U.S. conference of Catholic bishops in Baltimore.

Bishop Roger Morin, who chairs the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) told his fellow bishops, “We simply had too many questions and concerns to permit further CCHD funding of ACORN groups.”

Bishop Morin froze all Catholic funds to ACORN in June when ACORN revealed the brother of the group’s founders had embezzled nearly a million dollars from the group. The embezzlement took place years ago, but was only recently revealed to ACORN board members and donor groups.

In a letter to All Bishops, Bishop Morin said the Catholic Church would conduct its own review. That review was completed earlier this month and the church apparently was not convinced ACORN meets the standards of further funding.

“No funds were given this year, none for next year and now the stance at present is there will be no funding relationship with ACORN groups in the future,” said Bishop Morin.

The Catholic Church has a long history of giving grant money to ACORN and its affiliates. Over the past decade, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development has given more than $7.3 million dollars to ACORN related projects.

TheMercenary;583917 wrote:

Another supporter of ACORN dropped out because of questionable legally practices...

continues:

http://siu.blogs.cnn.com/2008/11/12/catholic-church-drops-acorn-funding/

TheMercenary;583900 wrote:

Eh, it's not about the census for me. It is about them getting any federal funds of any kind.

Redux;583920 wrote:

The Catholic Church in America has enough scandals of its own to worry about.

I still cant get past the fact that you equate a partisan investigation in some Republican controlled state legislatures with a criminal investigation.

TheMercenary;583926 wrote:

Which is why I stated that it is no different from any Congressional investigation. And many investigations are not coming out of Washington but from numerous states, regardless of who is in office.

suspect organization who continue to be accused of many illegal wrong doings

Shawnee123;583948 wrote:

You mean, like, Republicans? :eek:

;)

TheMercenary;583941 wrote:

Bottom line is they are suspect organization who continue to be accused of many illegal wrong doings and they are not worthy of further funding from public funds.

Shawnee123;583951 wrote:

Yabbut, my point is being "accused" of something means nothing. Look at all the stuff your boy Bush was "accused" of...the other party will always accuse, hoping something sticks.

allegations of fraud have tainted Acorn voter drives across the country. Acorn workers have been convicted in Wisconsin and Colorado, and investigations are still under way in Ohio, Tennessee and Pennsylvania.

The good news for anyone who cares about voter integrity is that the Justice Department finally seems poised to connect these dots instead of dismissing such revelations as the work of a few yahoos. After the federal indictments were handed up in Kansas City this week, the U.S. Attorney's office said in a statement that "This national investigation is very much ongoing."

May 5, 2009
Acorn Charged in Voter Registration Fraud Case in Nevada
By STEVE FRIESS
LAS VEGAS — A prominent antipoverty organization that drew criticism from Republicans during last year’s presidential race was charged by Nevada officials Monday with engaging in voter registration fraud.

Two former leaders of the group’s Nevada branch were also charged in connection with the submission of thousands of bogus voter registration forms.

The organization, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or Acorn, is accused of paying canvassers only if they registered at least 20 voters per shift and providing bonuses of $5 for registering more than 21.

Under Nevada law, it is illegal to attach incentives to such work, in part because it encourages canvassers to submit fraudulent forms, Secretary of State Ross Miller said.

Acorn submitted 91,002 completed forms in Clark County, which includes Las Vegas, of which 23,186 turned out to be valid new voters who voted in November, according to data provided by Mr. Miller’s office.

Mr. Miller investigated Acorn at the behest of the Clark County registrar of voters, Larry Lomax, who noted a high number of forms turned in featuring the names of famous football players and cartoon characters.

“This is not a case of voter fraud, it’s a case of voter registration fraud,” Mr. Miller said. “I’m very confident that none of these fraudulent voter forms found their way into the voter registration rolls or to cast votes.”

The indictment includes 13 counts each against Acorn and its former Las Vegas field director, Christopher Edwards, who is accused of creating an incentive program called “blackjack” because $5 was paid for signing more than 21 prospective voters.

Also indicted was Acorn’s former deputy regional director, Amy Busefink, on 13 counts of principle to the crime of compensation for registration of voters. Each charge carries a potential one- to four-year prison term and a $5,000 fine.

Acorn’s national spokesman, Scott Levenson, called the indictments “political grandstanding” by Mr. Miller and Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto, both Democrats.

Mr. Levenson said Acorn had fired both employees and has cooperated with investigators.

“This is in complete violation of Acorn national policy, and to indict us is a clear case of blaming the victim,” Mr. Levenson said. “We had an errant employee who violated our policy and he was ordered to stop.”

ACORN Ohio Probe Underway, Illegal Voting Indictment Available
June 5th, 2009 by Matthew Vadum
I reported yesterday that ACORN is under investigation by authorities in Cuyahoga County, Ohio.

The probe continues after Darnell Nash, who was registered to vote by ACORN, was indicted by a grand jury yesterday. The indictment is available here.

Ryan Miday, spokesman for Cuyahoga County, Ohio Prosecutor Bill Mason, a Democrat, spoke with me last night. Miday said an “investigation is continuing into activities by ACORN. Darnell Nash is the first we’ve charged in this ongoing investigation.”

“ACORN workers approached him to fill out voter registration cards and he did so on nine different occasions using different names and addresses, then he actually registered and voted on Sept. 30 and voted with a different address and the address was an address here in the Cleveland area in a suburb called Shaker Heights.”

Miday said that the Shaker Heights address is important because the person who actually lives there alerted the authorities after multiple registration acknowledgement documents came in the mail. Nash’s vote was then flagged and Nash came to the attention of the board of elections. It held an administrative board hearing and summoned Nash to appear but he failed to show up for the hearing.

“After the election ACORN had to turn over all its voter registration cards and those amounted to about 70,000,” Miday said. “The sheriff’s office in Cuyahoga County has been going through mounds of paperwork.”

“The activities by ACORN are being looked at. Through the investigation a number of employees of ACORN have been interviewed,” said Miday.

TheMercenary;583974 wrote:

But there is no doubt that plenty of people have questionable ideas about how ACORN functions...

Shawnee123;583951 wrote:

Yabbut, my point is being "accused" of something means nothing. Look at all the stuff your boy Bush was "accused" of...the other party will always accuse, hoping something sticks.

Redux;583954 wrote:

Bottom line is that is not how the system works....nor should it IMO.

We dont deny opportunities for federal funding to persons and/or organizations based on undocumented or unsubstantiated allegations and suspicions, even more so when for the most part, those allegations and suspicions are partisan in nature.

It would set a very dangerous precedent that could be used against organizations across the political spectrum in the future.

. . .the wing nuts

Urbane Guerrilla;584814 wrote:

is a term that falls too easily from Redux's lips.

A former Las Vegas director for the political advocacy group ACORN has pleaded guilty to a reduced charge and agreed to testify against the group and another employee.

Chief Deputy Nevada Attorney General Conrad Hafen said Wednesday that Christopher Edwards' plea deal strengthens a felony case against the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now and Amy Busefink, a former regional voter registration director.

They're accused of illegally paying canvassers to register voters during last year's presidential campaign. Edwards pleaded guilty this week to two counts of conspiracy to commit the crime of compensation for registration of voters.

He is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 17. Hafen says the group had a local policy of paying bonuses to canvassers who signed up 21 or more new voters per shift.

When ACORN hired volunteers to fan out with clipboards and then flooded elections officials with registration forms as Election Day approached, Mr. Potter said he worried it would result in the election system being overwhelmed. That, he said, could have led to the vast use of provisional ballots, or to scenarios where elections officials simply allowed people to vote without having had time to verify that they were officially registered.

Worse still, he said, was that it was later determined that only about one-third of the late registration forms submitted were from legitimate, new voters.

"I want to be clear, I do not have a vendetta against ACORN," Mr. Potter said. His beef, he said, is with a registration process that feels like something "left over from the horse and buggy days."

ACORN quick to collect from feds, but slow to pay taxes
By: David Freddoso
Commentary Staff Writer
09/01/09 9:34 AM EDT
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) is perhaps best known for its volunteers' habit of signing up fake voters. This has resulted in numerous state investigations and convictions of ACORN members for voter fraud activities.

But the group is also a tax scofflaw to the tune of more than $1 million, according to documents unearthed by another Louisiana-based non-profit, the Pelican Institute.

Pelican researcher Steve Beatty has come across dozens of outstanding and released tax liens against ACORN and ACORN affiliates, headquartered at two addresses in New Orleans. Although some of the liens have been paid, Beatty found that several are still outstanding, including a $547,000 lien by the federal government against ACORN itself.

ACORN, a non-profit, must pay federal Social Security and Medicare taxes for its employees, as well as state unemployment taxes.

Even as it keeps Uncle Sam waiting for tax payments, ACORN's cup runneth over with federal money. The group and its subsidiaries have received at least $53 million from Uncle Sam since 1989 through a variety of programs.

The Examiner has reported previously that ACORN received more than $5.4 million between 2002 and 2006 from just one federal department, Housing and Urban Development. According to reporting by our own Kevin Mooney, President Obama's $787 billion stimulus package contains an additional pool of $2 billion in housing redevelopment funds and $1 billion more in Community Block Grants for which ACORN and its related organizations can compete by applying to the federal and state governments.

MIAMI — Armed with a tip from the grassroots group ACORN about its own workers, authorities on Wednesday began arresting 11 people suspected of falsifying hundreds of voter applications during a registration drive last year.

ACORN, which stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has long been accused by Republican and conservative activists — fed by talk-radio hosts — of fraudulently registering voters. But Miami-Dade prosecutors gave credit to the group for coming forward and ACORN officials said they felt vindicated.

"It shows that we take the integrity of our voter registration work with the utmost seriousness," said ACORN spokesman Brian Kettenring. "We turn in people who try to game the system."

Although ACORN is nonpartisan, its registration efforts focus on low-income and minority populations who tend to vote for Democrats; critics contend those efforts frequently bend or break registration rules. At times during the 2008 presidential campaign, people attending rallies for Republican nominee John McCain broke into chants of "No More ACORN!"

Last year, ACORN's national drive produced some 1.3 million voter applications.

ACORN first detected problems in Miami-Dade County in June 2008, according to a letter the group wrote to prosecutors. Investigators eventually determined that 11 canvassers, who were paid between $8 and $10 an hour, were turning in fake registration cards, mostly from the Homestead area.

"This is really about money. These are people who decided not to work," said Ed Griffith, spokesman for Miami-Dade State Attorney Katharine Fernandez Rundle.

The 11 workers each face multiple counts of two felony charges: false swearing in connection with voting and submission of false voter registration information. Each count is punishable by up to five years in prison.

The suspects collectively turned in about 1,400 registration cards, of which 888 were later found to be faked. Some contained names of celebrities such as actor Paul Newman, while in other cases the same real voter's name was used on multiple applications. There was no evidence anyone voted who should not have.

The FBI and Florida Department of Law Enforcement had made five arrests by midday and were looking for the remaining suspects. ACORN officials said the group regularly reports suspected fraud to authorities nationwide but the Miami prosecution marks one of the few times the complaints were taken seriously.

ACORN itself last year was the subject of fraudulent registration complaints in Missouri, Wisconsin, New Mexico, Ohio, Michigan and North Carolina, among others.

One of the defining hallmarks of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, is its propensity for using front organizations to advance its goals. The New Orleans-based nonprofit organization has fully 360 subsidiary and adjunct groups. Lately, one of its affiliates, a misleadingly-named nonprofit entity called New York Agency for Community Affairs, Inc. (NYACA), has been at the center of attention. A recent probe by a consortium of New York City newspapers shows NYACA thus far in this year alone has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from New York state and local taxpayers for political campaign services. In many cases, the lawmakers who earmarked the funds had been locked in close re-election campaigns that used NYACA volunteers. It's no small wonder that NYACA and ACORN overlap to the point of being nearly indistinguishable.

The New York Agency for Community Affairs has received more than small change. A recent investigation by Manhattan Media, a consortium of New York City neighborhood-based newspapers, reveals that NYACA and its ACORN alter ego have made out well. Examining tax forms, lobbying records, campaign finance reports, and contracts, researchers found that in 2009, NYACA has received $175,000 from eight state senators, $240,500 from 10 state assemblymen, and $85,000 from four New York City Council members. For 2006, NYACA reported a little over $1.3 million in revenues, almost all from government. That same year, the group paid out nearly $1.2 million for "contractual services" to ACORN and another $67,000 in direct grants. And in 2007, NYACA received more than $730,000 in government support, sending $711,152 of that to ACORN.

How closely are the two groups linked? For one thing, there's the Internet. Clicking on www.nyaca.org routes the viewer to the website of ACORN Housing Corp., www.acornhousing.org. Even more curiously, the New York Agency for Community Affairs isn't based in New York at all, but at 2609 Canal Street, New Orleans, LA 70119, the same address as ACORN's local affiliate there. What's more, NYACA's chief organizer is Jon Kest, younger brother of ACORN National Executive Director Steven Kest. Jon Kest also serves as chief organizer for the local ACORN chapter in New Orleans. As ACORN has its national headquarters in New Orleans (1024 Elysian Fields Avenue), it doesn't take a huge leap of imagination to realize NYACA is an ACORN front. But NYACA isn't entirely devoid of a New York connection: One of its employees is Bertha Lewis, head of ACORN's New York City affiliate. And the Kests until a decade ago ran the New York City operation.

classicman;594118 wrote:

<crickets chirping> no comments from the gallery... disappointing but expected.

Lemme try - Must just be ANOTHER rogue employee - the organization would never train or support anything like that. . .

Redux;594120 wrote:

What I find most amusing:
I was at a party recently where the topic of ACORN came up and a comment was made from someone who works with ACORN that they are not all that concerned with the uproar.

Redux;594120 wrote:

While they would prefer it go away and they know they need better internal oversight of part-time workers, every time a Beck or Limbaugh rants about ACORN, the organization gain more acceptance in the minority community where Beck/Limbaugh/Republicans, not ACORN are perceived as the enemy

Redux;594120 wrote:

Bottom line for me is that ACORN has been sloppy in its voter registration drives and needs much better management.

classicman;594127 wrote:

This is what I've been harping about all along - it took a sarcastic <crickets> to get you to admit it??? Sheesh - you must be worn out today. Did you take your vitamins? :P

Redux;594120 wrote:

The Fox News report with a snip of a video and no context? Not worthy of a comment.

Undertoad;594135 wrote:

Well you posted that 5 minutes after I posted 4 videos all longer than 5 minutes.

Support of underage illegal immigrant sex slavery? Enh! A pittance, must be staged.

And again we see how partisan thinking is not critical thinking.

"Spread the facts on the floor like a fan
throw away the ones that make you feel bad"
- Ben Folds, "Bastard"

Undertoad;594139 wrote:

Well this one was not posted by any partisan source, this one was posted by me, and you know me.

Undertoad;594141 wrote:

WTF. The facts are on the videos. It's 99% raw video. Watch them and tell me how it could possibly be a setup. If you can watch them and explain one possible way it could be a setup, knowing that they're in ACORN offices talking to ACORN employees, two of which have now been fired by ACORN. The videos are raw news, the 1% spin in them is brief but accurate. Everything you need to know about this is right there. Nobody's extra spin or take on this is going to change anything.

classicman;594143 wrote:

And based upon those video's, the authorities should already be there... are they?

Redux;594134 wrote:

I would like to see more than a Fox News report and a video by a conservative partisan with an agenda.

Undertoad;594149 wrote:

The women from the first event have been fired, so ACORN agrees that was their employees in their office.

In the second event, the camera points to the ACORN logo on the outside-facing office window.

Was it a crime? I don't think it's a crime to advise people how to cover up the criminal activity they are planning or that they allege. Is criminality the most important aspect, where people are ready to explain in detail how to hide a brothel of underage illegal immigrant sex slaves?

Undertoad;594158 wrote:

Go home and watch the videos man. You don't want to defend this kind of shit.

ACORN spokesman Brian Kettenring says the group is "deeply troubled" by the actions of the "two ex-employees" caught on tape, but says eight other ACORN offices turned the faux pimp away.

Undertoad;594436 wrote:

You're trying to figure out a narrative for why it would be OK, in a macro sense, for two offices of a national organization to have their employees carefully detail how a dozen underage illegal immigrant sex slaves can be hidden from the federal government.

Why do you think it's OK? Because it only happened twice. If Jimmy only shot two out of ten toes off, does he get to keep playing with the gun?

Undertoad;594436 wrote:

Because it wasn't policy. But that's kind of lame in an Abu Ghraib sort of sense, right? If it's just a few bad apples, then it's not evidence of a system-wide problem, so it's irrelevant? I don't think it matters.

Undertoad;594436 wrote:

I hadn't earlier, but if I'm now to extrapolate what these events should mean for ACORN as a whole? Well! If ACORN were to hire ghetto and excuse their actions, if ACORN were to only consider organizational policy in what is acceptable behavior, if ACORN were to say anything is fair game as long as it's not illegal...

... But if they admitted none of that was relevant, say by firing the employees, and not offering a defense of their behavior...

Undertoad;594436 wrote:

..I'd say they can register voters, but they still don't get to be involved with the Census.

Redux;594446 wrote:

The census issue is another political issue where ACORN's role has been dramatically overblown by the right.

pss....I am a Census Partner (not me personally, but the public interest organization where I work)....those conspiratorial types better keep an eye on me ;)

TheMercenary;594469 wrote:

BS. They are a criminal organization that deserves not a single dime of taxpayer money, which the Demoncrats are more than happy enough to give to them.

DanaC;594491 wrote:

Excellent post Toad.

I think, even if there's little or nothing to it, once an organisation has gathered enough dirt (fairly or unfairly) it is discredited in the public eye and cannot really be expected to participate in something like the Census. Once trust is lost, it's lost. Again, I say, fairly or unfairly. This is just the nature of life in the public eye.

DanaC;594495 wrote:

Oh I realise that Redux. From time to time when the gallery gets rowdy, one has to throw someone to the beasts.

Redux;594489 wrote:

Hahaha.......most of ACORN's federal funding came from the Bush Dept of HUD.

While, at the same time, the Bush White House and DoJ, were "allegedly" conspiring to politicize the DoJ around voter fraud cases, and at least in one case, the firing of the US Attorney (David Iglesias), after a Republican Senator and Republican Congresswoman from NM and the Republican Party of NM complained that Iglesias was not being aggressive enough in pursuing election fraud charges against ACORN, despite an FBI investigation not finding sufficient evidence to pursue further investigation or criminal charges.

I say "allegedly" because the White House officials (Rove, Miers) and the Republican Senator and Congresswoman from NM refused to cooperate with the DoJ internal investigation. At the very least, the politically motivated character assassination of Iglesias by the White House and DoJ was unconscionable.

Acorn, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, signed up in February with the bureau to be a "2010 Census Partner," which includes, among other things, identifying job candidates, encouraging its members to participate in the count and distributing literature explaining the importance of the census.

Stephen Buckner, a Census Bureau spokesman, said the partners program is voluntary and unpaid, and that Acorn employees won't be paid to knock on doors and enumerate as part of that organization, although it is impossible to know if the federal government would ultimately hire someone associated Acorn.

TheMercenary;594498 wrote:

Provide an un-biased link and I would be glad to read it. Although I note you state "allegedly" so that may make your comments nothing more than hearsay.

Redux;594500 wrote:

Read the Bush administration's DoJ IG report on the firing of the US Attorneys....start at page 182.

The character assassination of Iglesias...The White House stating publicly that he was fired for poor performance, despite having the highest internal review ratings, and for being absent too often, which was the result of his being in the National Guard and called to duty.

TheMercenary;594502 wrote:

Tell me again what this has to do with ACORN?

With respect to the allegation that an ACORN worker was responsible for a significant number of false voter registrations, the FBI identified and interviewed the worker in question. As a result of the investigation, the USAO and the Public Integrity Section jointly concluded that there was insufficient evidence of criminal intent on the subject&#8217;s part to justify prosecution. Iglesias told us that he viewed this case as the strongest one to come out of the Task Force, but that the evidence nevertheless did not justify going forward with a criminal prosecution.

Iglesias also told us that when the Task Force began, he sincerely believed it would develop cases worth prosecuting. Contemporaneous e-mail records show that Iglesias encouraged his staff to pursue the Task Force cases, and that he believed the USAO needed to send a zero-tolerance message about voter fraud. Iglesias told us that in the final analysis, however, he concluded that there was insufficient evidence in any of the cases the Task Force reviewed to support criminal prosecution by the USAO or state authorities.

...Iglesias said that sometime in 2005, while many of the Task Force investigations were still pending, he heard from a friend who had connections in the New Mexico Republican Party that the party was unhappy with his handling of voter fraud cases. Iglesias said he felt unable to respond directly to such reports and knew he could not provide information about ongoing investigations. However, he said he wanted to get the message out to his fellow Republicans that he would prosecute &#8220;provable&#8221; voter fraud cases but would not bring a case unless it could be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. His friend agreed to pass the message along, but Iglesias later heard that many people in the Republican Party were still upset with him.

DanaC;594507 wrote:

Yehbut, most people now look on FOX as a corrupt organisation and mouth piece for the Right disguised as a news outlet.

They are completely partisan. Doesn't stop people who share their outlook adhering to their reports as the truth.

Most organisations which have anything to do with the political landscape are partisan. From the news media to the third party organisations who try to outreach communities with messages of engagement.

TheMercenary;594508 wrote:

An interesting note of history. Obviously that is no longer the case.

Redux;594512 wrote:

I would suspect that for Igleasias it was more than "an interesting note of history" - not that character assassination in the manner it was done to Iglesias comes close to putting an innocent man to death...but still unconscionable, IMO

TheMercenary;594514 wrote:

Another strawman deflection of the subject. We are not talking about Capital Punishment, that is another thread.

Redux;594516 wrote:

I would suspect that for Iglesias it was more than "an interesting note of history" - character assassination of a public servant by the highest elected and appointed officials in the country in the manner it was done to Iglesias is still unconscionable, IMO.

Better?

he concluded that there was insufficient evidence in any of the cases the Task Force reviewed to support criminal prosecution by the USAO or state authorities.

TheMercenary;594518 wrote:

Not important:

Tell me again what this has to do with the accusations against ACORN today?

Redux;594520 wrote:

Tell me why a discussion of ACORN should occur in a vacuum and not include compelling evidence of the political nature of the attacks against ACORN.

Redux;594520 wrote:

That lack of empathy rears its head again.

Redux;594524 wrote:

My interest is "truth, justice and the American way!"

TheMercenary;594511 wrote:

Really? "corrupt organization"? Disguised as a news outlet? Last time I checked they were a news outlet. Shall we look at the studies which unbiasedly looked at what side of the issues most major news outlets in the US support?

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/Media-Bias-Is-Real-Finds-UCLA-6664.aspx

Redux;594528 wrote:

Super!

I didnt know I created the concept of innocent until proven guilty before calling an organization criminal, but I'll take credit for it.

We're done here.

ACORN spokesman Brian Kettenring says the group is "deeply troubled" by the actions of the "two ex-employees" caught on tape, but says eight other ACORN offices turned the faux pimp away.

This recent scam, which was attempted in San Diego, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia to name a few places, had failed for months before the results we&#8217;ve all recently seen.
-Bertha Lewis, Chief Organizer, ACORN

Redux;594544 wrote:

Straw man. (just following your logic)

What does a study in 2005 have to do with the way FOX News has covered politics since the last election.

Now I'm done.

Undertoad;594932 wrote:

Most media outlets have ignored the story. The AP wrote a very confusing story on it on the first day. My Cellar summaries have been clearer and more on point.

Undertoad;594932 wrote:

The Senate voted to de-fund ACORN's federal housing money.

Most media outlets have ignored the story. The AP wrote a very confusing story on it on the first day. My Cellar summaries have been clearer and more on point.

ACORN's explanation of the video:

"It is clear that the videos doctored, edited and in no way the result of the fabricated story being portrayed by the conservative activist filmmaker O'Keefe and his partner in crime. And in fact, a crime it was — our lawyers believe a felony. And we will be taking legal action against FOX and their co-conspirators."

Such rhetoric in the past has deflected scrutiny of Acorn tactics, such as street demonstrations and boycotts against banks to force lower credit standards for home loans, which a congressional report found contributed to the subprime loan mess.

"MSM ignored the Van Jones story, so it now seems the same is happening with the latest ACORN situation, a story being carried only by FOX,
"If something is on FOX first, does that automatically make it anathema for the MSM lest they be thought to [be] anti-Obama?"

"A search of transcripts through Monday at NBC, CBS and MSNBC revealed no national TV coverage of the growing ACORN scandal."

These videos showed the demeanor the organization portrayed in assisting the 'young professionals'',showcasing eager and willing individuals offering them nonchalant assistance.
The videos were released from three separate locations, all with the same advice; one in Baltimore, the next in DC, and the third in Brooklyn.
Now, another video has been released.
Make that four different cities. The video, not surprisingly, contains the same exact guidance. The location this time is San Bernardino,CA . Except this time a lady admitted to shooting and killing her husband, on video.

Lastly, I am amazed at the lack of shock or surprise shown by all the ACORN workers. They didn't even flinch when the couple told them about the prostitution ring nor bringing in children to use as sex slaves...

Christina Spach, the office supervisor at the ACORN office in San Bernardino, told the San Bernardino Sun that the woman on the tape knew the pair were joking but went along with it in part because she was alone in the office and was concerned for her safety. "Just to be clear, ACORN in not in the prostitution business," Spach told the Sun. "She was in an office all by herself. She felt unsafe in their company.

Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue said the state will not renew a contract with the controversial Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), after 70 ACORN employees were convicted of crimes committed in the course of their work.

ACORN has investigations, indictments and prosecutions currently pending against it and its staff throughout the nation. The U.S. Census Bureau ended its relationship with ACORN on Sept. 11 and the U.S. Senate voted 83-7 to cut off federal funding from ACORN on Sept. 14.

ACORN has a contract with the Georgia Department of Human Services that expires at the end of September.

Perdue also issued an order preventing executive branch offices from doing business with the group and puts under review any existing ACORN contracts.

“In July, I directed my office to review all consulting contracts the state has with outside vendors to look for budget savings; that review did not identify the ACORN contract, because it does not involve state funds,” Perdue said. “The state of Georgia will not renew the contract, which expires in 13 days. Further, I have issued an executive order that prevents executive branch agencies from doing business with ACORN in the future and calls for a review of any existing contracts with ACORN.”

CEO Bertha Lewis told Fox News' Chris Wallace on Sunday that her group "absolutely pays its taxes." Not true: The IRS and Louisiana's taxmen have imposed nearly $2 million in liens against ACORN for failing to fork over taxes at its New Orleans national headquarters.
The IRS recently filed a $548,000 lien against the group, and Louisiana state tax officials have slapped $334,000 in liens on ACORN since last October.
But the tax mess shows that the lawlessness starts at its headquarters. (ACORN actually has three national HQs -- in the Big Easy, Washington, DC, and New York City.)
Another New Orleans group, the free-market Pelican Institute for Public Policy, uncovered official records that confirm ACORN's deadbeat tax status.

At the Orleans Parish Clerk of Courts Office, Pelican researcher Steve Beatty found a Sept. 3 IRS filing showing that "Elysian Fields Corp., Inc., Alter Ego of ACORN" skipped five quarterly withholding-tax payments -- covering income, Social Security and Medicare levies -- in 2005-08, and made no federal unemployment-tax payments for the fourth quarters of 2007 and 2008.

"We have made a demand for payment of this liability, but it remains unpaid," reads IRS form 668(Y). So the federal taxmen have placed liens on ACORN's New Orleans offices at 2609 Canal St. and 2610 Iberville St.

This follows a $1 million invoice that the IRS already had handed ACORN, as Pelican reported last August. The group's in trouble with the state, too.

"We have a full-scale investigation into ACORN and all of its subsidiaries," Tammi Arender, spokeswoman for Louisiana Attorney General Bobby Caldwell, said recently. "No stone will be left unturned. We're still looking into their recent activities."

ACORN spokesman Scott Levenson did not reply to repeated requests for comment.

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--Two top House Democrats requested Tuesday that the Congressional Research Service conduct an analysis into whether recent legislation to strip federal funds from community-organizing group Acorn is unconstitutional.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman
John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., and House Financial Services Committee Chairman
Barney Frank, D-Mass., want details on how proposed House and Senate legislation could be deeming Acorn guilty of illegal activity and punishing it without the benefit of a trial or being proven guilty.

The legislation stems from a series of secretly recorded videos showing Acorn employees offering advice on evading taxes, setting up brothels and smuggling illegal immigrants. In the past, Acorn employees have admitted to filling out false voter-registration forms.

NATIONAL CITY, Calif. &#8212; Police say a worker with the activist group ACORN who was caught on video giving advice about human smuggling to a couple posing as a pimp and a prostitute had reported the incident to authorities.
National City police said Monday that Juan Carlos Vera contacted his cousin, a police detective, to get advice on what to with information on possible human smuggling.

Vera was secretly filmed on Aug. 18 as part of a young couple's high-profile expose.

Police say he contacted law enforcement two days later. The detective consulted another police official who served on a federal human smuggling task force, who said he needed more details.
The ACORN employee responded several days later and explained that the information he received was not true and he had been duped.
Vera was fired on Thursday.

TheMercenary;596371 wrote:

Yea, two of the biggest idiots in the Cellar.

Shawnee123;596378 wrote:

Yea, two of the biggest idiots in the Cellar.
Fixed it for ya.

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--Two top House Democrats requested Tuesday that the Congressional Research Service conduct an analysis into whether recent legislation to strip federal funds from community-organizing group Acorn is unconstitutional.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman
John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., and House Financial Services Committee Chairman
Barney Frank, D-Mass., want details on how proposed House and Senate legislation could be deeming Acorn guilty of illegal activity and punishing it without the benefit of a trial or being proven guilty.

The legislation stems from a series of secretly recorded videos showing Acorn employees offering advice on evading taxes, setting up brothels and smuggling illegal immigrants. In the past, Acorn employees have admitted to filling out false voter-registration forms.

Spexxvet;596368 wrote:

I went to Acorn the other day. I asked them how I could fund a covert insurgency in Central America. A guy named Ollie recommended that I sell arms to Iran and use the proceeds to fund the insurgents.

classicman;596394 wrote:

Barney is posting on the cellar???? Who is he really, Redux or Spex?

Spexxvet;596368 wrote:

I went to Acorn the other day. I asked them how I could fund a covert insurgency in Central America. A guy named Ollie recommended that I sell arms to Iran and use the proceeds to fund the insurgents.

Spexxvet;596504 wrote:

Your mom is Barney.

TheMercenary;596767 wrote:

At least it has helped bring down another government subsidized criminal organization marauding as a service organization...

TheMercenary;596767 wrote:

At least it has helped bring down another government subsidized criminal organization marauding as a service organization. They shouldn&#8217;t have any problem in getting people to donate to their defense against ACORN.

classicman;596777 wrote:

BS - The organization and the principles upon which it was founded are things that I think we need in this country.

I feel they are way too big and way too involved with elected officials and influence...whatever. That they have 300+ whatever sub organizations and all that. Its just out of hand. Power corrupts - and it got too big.

USA TODAY&#8217;s Judy Keen and William Welch reported last week: &#8220;The Internal Revenue Service said it will no longer partner with ACORN to provide free tax advice.

With no fanfare and no roll call vote, not even a speech -- the Senate on Tuesday unanimously approved an amendment by Sen. Mike Johanns, R-NE, that bars any funds from the Defense spending bill from going to ACORN.

Johanns promised to introduce a similar amendment on every spending bill Congress considers this year, until the chamber takes up his broader bill that would impose permanent ban on ACORN receiving any federal funds.

It took the Senate a little over one minute to consider the measure.

Just days after Bank of America Corp. said it was suspending its business ties with the community group ACORN and its housing arm, a bank executive has resigned from the board of ACORN Housing, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

Acorn Offices in New Orleans Are Raided
Acorn Offices in New Orleans Are Raided


By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: November 6, 2009

NEW ORLEANS (AP) &#8212; State investigators raided Acorn&#8217;s offices here on Friday, taking hard drives and documents in an investigation into accusations of embezzlement and tax fraud when the group&#8217;s national headquarters was in New Orleans.

&#8220;This is an investigation of everything &#8212; Acorn, the national organization, the local organization and all of its affiliated entities,&#8221; said David Caldwell, an assistant attorney general.

A lawyer for Acorn said in a statement that the raid was prompted by accusations that former Acorn employees had removed or altered electronic documents and might do so in the future.

The lawyer, Pamela Marple, said investigators wanted &#8220;virtually every document in the possession of Acorn and any related entity.&#8221;

The raid was the latest in a string of troubles for Acorn. Videotapes released recently showed two people posing as a pimp and a prostitute seeking advice on tax evasion at Acorn offices. The responses given by the Acorn workers in the tapes led Congress and state governments to cut financing for the organization.

State prosecutors said their investigation into the New Orleans offices stemmed from accusations involving embezzlement at Acorn nearly a decade ago that were made last year by board members.

Last year, Acorn settled an internal dispute and a lawsuit involving accusations that Dale Rathke, the brother of the group&#8217;s founder, Wade Rathke, made about $948,000 in improper credit card charges in 1999 and 2000. The Rathke family and a donor repaid the money, and no criminal charges were ever filed.

Last month, Louisiana&#8217;s attorney general, James D. Caldwell, the father of David Caldwell, said he would investigate accusations that the embezzlement might have been as high as $5 million.

For 33 years, Acorn&#8217;s national headquarters was in New Orleans after Wade Rathke moved there in the 1970s from Little Rock, Ark., where he started the organization. The embezzlement scandal led the organization to move its headquarters to Washington this year, allowing the national organization to distance itself from the Rathkes.

ACORN sued the U.S. government Thursday for stripping the nonprofit of funding after employees were caught giving tax advice to a couple they thought was a pimp and his hooker.

The lawsuit, filed in Brooklyn Federal Court, seeks to lift a funding ban put into effect on Oct. 1 in the wake of national outrage over the embarassing scandal.

ACORN staffers were captured on hidden cameras at several offices nationwide, including in Brooklyn, advising the couple to hide their income.

"The charges leveled against ACORN by members of Congress such as that it is a 'criminal enterprise,' or a 'corrupt and criminal organization,' or a 'crooked bunch' are false," the complaint said.

The complaint does not specify how much money the group has lost because of the ban.

Jules Lobel, a lawyer for the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is representing ACORN, said the group's rights were violated because the federal funding went into effect before any investigation was completed.

"It's not the job of Congress to be the judge, jury and executioner," Lobel said.

State of California&#8217;s AG, Brown is a &#8220;political animal,&#8221; said David Lagstein, San Diego ACORN&#8217;s go to guy. Brown is expected to be the front runner for an upcoming California governor&#8217;s race, making the ACORN investigation a particularly tricky problem due to the new audio tapes that have surfaced.

If the audio tapes are true there is some profoundly unethical behavior taking place. According to judicial advocates it is not proper protocol to discuss the eventual outcome of an ongoing investigation with the party involved. This is exactly what happened when a call was placed to the State Attorney General&#8217;s office yesterday. &#8220;We cannot comment on an ongoing investigation,&#8221; said a spokesperson.

&#8220;A spokesman for Jerry Brown stated that they&#8217;re going to look at the tapes, they&#8217;re going to follow the facts without fear or favor, and they&#8217;re going to see where it takes them.&#8221;

&#8220;A spokesman for Jerry Brown stated that they&#8217;re going to look at the tapes, they&#8217;re going to follow the facts without fear or favor, and they&#8217;re going to see where it takes them.&#8221;

That would be a first for a politician!

Shawnee123;608962 wrote:

OK, quit hem-hawing around, acorn man. Say what you're thinking there.

Hope springs eternal for what? My sanity? Hahahahaaa.

That I will ever think anything you post about Acorn has any merit in the real world?

That would be a first for a politician!

You got the joke - excellent.

As Derrick Roach tells it, it was either luck or Divine intervention. His version of events may be hard to believe for ACORN supporters but the former Republican state assembly candidate believes something drew him to the Dumpster behind the ACORN office in National City on the night of Friday, Oct. 9.

Roach recalled the moment he discovered thousands of ACORN documents simply bagged up and thrown in the trash.

Roach, who describes himself as a local private investigator concerned about what was happening in his neighborhood, told how he “came by” the ACORN office and “observed some individuals in the office and also observed the individual dumping documents into the Dumpster around the corner,” he said.

“I came back later that evening, after business hours, and from an unsecured Dumpster removed those documents and they have been in my possession since,” he said.

The documents, which filled Roach's vehicle, numbered close to 20,000 according to Tony Krvaric, chairman of the Republican Party of San Diego County.

“This is a massive data breach at the very least of individuals who come to ACORN for help and assistance,” said Krvaric. “To have their information, tax returns, immigration documents thrown in the trash like common trash is absolutely an affront to every San Diegan.”

"In early October, when our San Diego staff were doing an office clean-up in preparation for a major 10-station phone bank program being set up in our offices, it appears that included in the piles of garbage being thrown out may have been some documents containing private information," Schur wrote in an e-mail to NBCSanDiego. "To the individuals whose paperwork was pulled out of the Dumpster we truly apologize. We will seek return of this information so that we may give proper notice of the compromising of the information as required by law."

Roach, who told reporters Monday that he has not been hired by the Republican Party of San Diego, said he has shared some of the documents with various law enforcement agencies.

For Krvaric, the main question is what is the California State Attorney's General doing about this discovery?

&#8220;We have nothing to indicate the attorney general is conducting a thorough, fair, without fear or favor investigation,&#8221; said Krvaric. &#8220;They&#8217;ve not stated anything. Clearly there are documents that they&#8217;re missing because of this document dump that occurred only six days prior to the attorney general coming into town.&#8221;

&#8220;The question is was ACORN tipped off as to when and where or when the attorney general would be arriving?&#8221; Krvaric asked.

Schur confirms the ACORN office was aware of Brown's upcoming visit but said that did not prompt the removal of thousands of documents.

former Republican state assembly candidate believes something drew him to the Dumpster behind the ACORN office

ZenGum;614986 wrote:

2. Isn't removing material from somebody else's bin theft?

[LEFT][FONT=Times New Roman]The unedited videos have never been made public. The videos that have been released[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman]appear to have been edited, in some cases substantially, including the insertion of a substitute[/FONT][/LEFT]

[LEFT][FONT=Times New Roman]voiceover for significant portions of Mr. O&#8217;Keefe&#8217;s and Ms.Giles&#8217;s comments, which makes it[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman]difficult to determine the questions to which ACORN employees are responding. A comparison[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman]of the publicly available transcripts[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=1]2 [/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman]to the released videos confirms that large portions of the[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman]original video have been omitted from the released versions. To date, the videographers have [/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman]declined or ignored our interview requests.[/FONT][/LEFT]

TheMercenary;615981 wrote:

Carries the same weight as Chairman Max Baucus defending recommending his girlfriend for a powerful well paid position in the government and then trying to defend it as if everyone should take his word.

glatt;616127 wrote:

Do you need a primer on how appointment slots are filled by an Administration? I know you know this already, but I think you are having fun pointing and playing dumb.

Any fan of Cookie Monster on Sesame Street knows that "C" is for cookie.

But at the Obama White House, "A" may be for acorn -- as in acorn cookies served at Monday's annual Christmas party.

The chocolate cookies shaped like an acorn were quite a hit with Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa.

"I didn't expect to see such stark symbolism," King said in an e-mail....

...The irony of the White House dishing out acorn-shaped chocolate cookies seemed a little, well, "nutty" to King. The Iowa Republican is one of the loudest voices calling for Congress to investigate ACORN.

King pocketed several of the acorn cookies at the White House soiree.... :eek:



http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/12/09/white-houses-acorn-cookies-surprises-republican-lawmaker/

Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, gave a nearly $14,000 pay raise to a female staffer in 2008, at the time he was becoming romantically involved with her, and later that year took her on a taxpayer-funded trip to Southeast Asia and the Middle East, though foreign policy was not her specialty.

Late last Friday, Baucus acknowledged his relationship with Melodee Hanes, whom he nominated for the job of U.S. attorney in Montana, after it was first reported on the website MainJustice.com. But he said that Hanes withdrew from consideration for the job when the relationship became more serious. The next day, he dismissed calls for an ethics investigation, saying, “I went out of my way to be up and up.”

Since his announcement, more details of the relationship have emerged, raising questions about a workplace romance between a boss and employee that Baucus tried to keep quiet and also contradicting his explanation for why Hanes’s nomination was withdrawn.

Jodi Ravi, a former reporter for the Missoulian revealed over the weekend that the paper informed Baucus in March that it was poised to publish a story about Hanes’s relationship with the senator and the fact that he had nominated her for the U.S. attorney job.

The next day, Hanes withdrew from consideration. According to the Missoulian, Baucus’s office never acknowledged a relationship between the two, and the paper did not run a story.

When asked whether "ACORN will try to steal the election for Martha Coakley," a surprising 25% of those surveyed in Massachusetts said "yes." A total of 38% said "no," and another 37% weren't sure. Lest you think concern about ACORN was limited to Republicans, one out of six Democrats thought ACORN would attempt electoral hanky-panky. One out of four African-Americans expressed the same concern, along with the same number of voters who called themselves moderates.

FBI Special Agent Steven Rayes alleges that O&#8217;Keefe aided and abbetted two others, Joseph Basel and Robert Flanagan, who dressed up as employees of a telephone company and attempted to interfere with the office&#8217;s telephone system...

...JOSEPH BASEL, age 24; ROBERT FLANAGAN, age 24; JAMES O&#8217;KEEFE, age 25; and STAN DAI, age 24, were charged in a criminal complaint with entering federal property under false pretenses for the purpose of committing a felony, announced the United States Attorney&#8217;s Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana...

http://washingtonindependent.com/74832/acorn-investigator-james-okeefe-arrested

classicman wrote:

It also discredits whatever was done with the ACORN fiasco.

Clodfobble;630302 wrote:

Nah... to me it's like a cop coming in without a warrant and finding piles of drugs and guns.

Happy Monkey wrote:

It's more like a cop trying to find someone willing to buy drugs from him.

Happy Monkey;630352 wrote:

...This guy didn't uncover any existing crime, he created a bizarre situation that was handled badly in some cases. Exactly how badly may never be known, unless the Baltimore case brings the original tapes (if they even still exist) out.

NEW ORLEANS &#8211; Four conservative activists accused of trying to tamper with a senator's phones were just trying to record embarrassing undercover video of her staff ignoring phone calls from constituents angry that she supported health care reform, one of their attorneys said Thurday.

"You're dealing with kids," he said. "I don't think they thought it through that far."

Instead, Jordan said, they hoped to get embarrassing video footage of Landrieu's staff handling constituent calls. Her office received complaints last month that callers opposed to her health care stance couldn't get through.

Landrieu was not impressed with Jordan's explanation.

"Attorneys are hired to spin for their clients," she said Thursday in an interview in Washington. "Good luck."

O'Keefe has declined to discuss what he and the others were doing in Landrieu's office. But late Wednesday he told his Twitter followers that the government "concedes no attempt to wiretap."

Instead, Jordan said, they hoped to get embarrassing video footage of Landrieu's staff handling constituent calls. Her office received complaints last month that callers opposed to her health care stance couldn't get through.

ALL 4 INVOLVED IN SENATE HOMELAND SECURITY BREAKIN CIA &#8220;N-O-C&#8221; AGENTS

CIA PROGRAM MAY HAVE TRAINED DOMESTIC &#8220;DEATH SQUADS&#8221;

By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor

Last week&#8217;s breakin at Senator Mary Landrieu&#8217;s office in the New Orleans Federal Building was more than it seemed, much more. All of the 4 arrested had been trained by the CIA and, possibly, Israel. One arrested, Stan Dai, is listed as an Operations Officer of the Department of Defense Irregular Warfare Program and a known expert and lecturer on, not only surveillance but explosives training, assassinations and &#8220;false flag operations.&#8221; If you wanted a plane to crash, an enemy to get sick and die or a building to blow up, Dai would be the man to know how to make it happen. Problem is, his skills were being used as part of a criminal conspiracy inside the United States against members of our own government.

Original reports on the &#8220;break-in&#8221; were also wrong. One of those arrested was found blocks away with a covert receiver, managing the office bugs. The man in the car is identified as Stan Dai, Operations Officer for the Department of Defense Irregular Warfare Program:

&#8220;one of the four was arrested with a listening device in a car blocks from the senator&#8217;s offices.&#8221; The FBI&#8217;s affidavit noted that Flanagan and Basel were in the building with O&#8217;Keefe, and a federal law enforcement official confirmed to AP that Dai was the one in the car.&#8221;

What is not initially known is whether this was the first attempt or, as is much more likely, an additional incursion to plant new bugs as the ones in place were missing key conversations. Also, it is not known how many &#8220;black ops&#8221; crews are being run by the CIA inside the United States in violation of their charter or if their operations are being limited to spying on Democratic lawmakers or if operations of a more threatening nature have been performed but remain undiscovered.

NEW YORK — A New York prosecutor's office says it has found no criminal wrongdoing on the part of three ACORN employees caught on video advising a couple posing as a prostitute and her boyfriend.

The Brooklyn district attorney's office said Monday that its five-month inquiry is over and that no criminal activity was found.

The videos were made by conservative activists Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe, who used a hidden camera on visits to offices.

Since then, O'Keefe has been arrested after visiting Sen. Mary Landrieu's office in New Orleans. He denies trying to tamper with the Democrat's phones.

The Brooklyn video caught ACORN workers apparently advising the pair to bolster their housing application by lying about Giles' "profession" and laundering her earnings.

While the video by James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles seemed to show three ACORN workers advising a prostitute how to hide ill-gotten gains, the unedited version was not as clear, according to a law enforcement source.

"They edited the tape to meet their agenda," said the source.

classicman;638504 wrote:

Wow! So where is the unedited version and why hasn't that been posted?

Redux wrote:

Reading back over this thread, it certainly didnt stop you (or Merc or UT) from presuming guilt based on the edited version...or Republicans in Congress from using it for political purposes....so regardless of the verdict in this case, he accomplished what he intended.

Clodfobble;638548 wrote:

Except for the part where classic was the one who posted the latest article indicating the tape was edited. But I'm sure it's more productive to bring up past posts instead. You argue like a chick.

Redux wrote:

I give Classicman credit for the latest post,

Clodfobble;638551 wrote:

Sure, you do now.

Undertoad;638554 wrote:

No editing I saw could possibly explain why ACORN workers were explaining in detail how to house Salvadorean child prostitutes. No tricky cuts, one didn't need to be led to a conclusion, no playing with timing between scene A and scene B could explain why ACORN workers were providing tips on how to hide income from child prostitution. It is indefensible behavior, and I don't think you should be playing D on this one.

Hynes, a Democrat

xoxoxoBruce;638572 wrote:

But is it illegal?

classicman;638560 wrote:

Which party does the AG belong to. . . might that be a reason - Nahhhhhhhhhhhh
They were just all trying to do whats right. :eyebrow:

xoxoxoBruce;638576 wrote:

That's why Jinx and I asked if it was illegal... duh.

xoxoxoBruce;638582 wrote:

In PA it's illegal to record someone without their knowledge, but we were discussing why charges were dismissed in NY.

xoxoxoBruce;638568 wrote:

It was reprehensible behavior, but is it illegal?

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, better known as ACORN, will shut its doors as a national operation next week. A wellspring of activism for four decades, the left-wing group has gotten more attention lately for a series of scandals, from an embarrassing embezzlement case at the top of the organization to the hidden-camera videos that captured low-level employees doling out advice on how to operate a brothel without raising red flags at the IRS. Republicans hated the group, which they loved to link to the ideas of the veteran activist Saul Alinsky, a demon figure on the right. But the primary problem with the organization&#8212;a trouble running deeper than either corruption or ideology, one with lessons for grassroots activists across the political spectrum&#8212;is that ACORN wasn't Alinskyan enough. It may have emerged from the community organizing tradition that Alinsky helped to found, but it also rejected some of his most important advice.

You wouldn't guess that from reading most of ACORN's conservative critics. Phyllis Schlafly has called the association a "Saul Alinsky-style group," while Human Events described it as "the radical group that directly applies Saul Alinsky's tactics." An article in National Review claimed that "ACORN follows the Saul Alinsky model." Meanwhile, ACORN's own founder is prone to praising the man and clearly regards him as an influence.

But while ACORN learned from Alinsky's confrontational style, there's an important difference between the Alinsky model and the ACORN model. As the liberal writer Harry Boyte put it in his 2004 book Everyday Politics, Alinsky thought the best way to build political power was to "create an organization of existing community institutions," such as churches and neighborhood associations. ACORN, meanwhile, "avoided organizing through institutions and sought out previously disconnected community residents"; as a result it was "plagued by rapid turnover in leadership and transcience of affiliates." The group's central tactic was door-to-door canvassing&#8212;to the point where, in Boyte's view, "the canvass has become the tail that wags the dog. Narrowly scripted issue campaigns come to dominate, while the more complex, vital work of public leadership development and the creation of sustainable local cultures of civic engagement disappears." The canvassers, meanwhile, were overworked and poorly paid, and on at least one occasion went on strike. Until the recent scandals hit, ACORN was best known in some circles for being the group that worked to raise the minimum wage but didn't want to pay the minimum wage to its own employees.

Child's play. ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis says the times people are living in now will "dwarf" all those stains on America's history. And she points to the Tea Party movement -- or "bowel movement," in her words -- as a harbinger of the persecution to come.

"They are coming. And they are coming after you," the embattled head of ACORN said during a talk last month to the Young Democratic Socialists, the youth branch of the Democratic Socialists, the U.S. branch of the Socialist International.

During the address, Lewis praised the group's members for calling themselves socialists, and warned that undefined forces are plotting their doom.

"Any group that says, 'I'm young, I'm Democratic, and I'm a socialist,' is all right with me. You know that's no light thing to do -- to actually say, I'm a socialist -- because you guys know right now we are living in a time which is going to dwarf the McCarthy era. It is going to dwarf the internment during World War II. We are right now in a time that is going to dwarf the era of Jim Crow and segregation," Lewis said.

Lewis went on to explain that she wasn't exaggerating -- just look at the Tea Parties, she reasoned.

"This is not rhetoric or hyperbole -- this is real," Lewis said. "This rise of this Tea Party so-called movement -- bowel movement in my estimation -- and this blatant uncovering and ripping off the mask of racism."

She urged the members to get as active as they possibly can to "build this institution."

The comments come as ACORN, once a massive, multi-million-dollar community advocacy group, is coming apart at the seams. The group has been beset by a tidal wave of bad publicity over the past year and attempts by the federal government to revoke taxpayer funding.

She told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the group is "on life support" -- shortly before a federal appeals court temporarily blocked a judge's ruling that it was unconstitutional for Congress to block funding to the group.

U.S. District Judge Nina Gershon has ruled twice that the congressional cutoff was unconstitutional, prompting the Obama administration to notify agency heads of the decision while it seeks an appeal.

But the court ruling this week grants a stay on the reversal until full arguments on the issue can be heard during the summer.

The group has long dealt with controversy over charges of embezzlement and voter registration fraud, but the tipping point came last year when undercover videos at local ACORN offices showed employees appearing to offer tax advice to a couple posing as a pimp and prostitute.

TheMercenary;651721 wrote:

God, did she stick a big ole foot in her mouth...

Happy Monkey;652037 wrote:

In what way?

Happy Monkey;652037 wrote:

In what way?

Happy Monkey;652037 wrote:

In what way?

TheMercenary;652142 wrote:

So you support her comments as posted?

dmg1969;652269 wrote:

... This from someone who worked for an organization that had their federal funding yanked because their workers were caught giving financial advice to someone claiming to be a pimp trying to obtain a mortgage for a whore-house? Give me a break.

Spexxvet;652272 wrote:

Have some repect for Oran Hatch!;)

dmg1969;652269 wrote:

So let me get this right...you can't be freedom-defending, anti-big-government, anti-socialistic agenda, pro-second amendment person without being called a racist? This from someone who worked for an organization that had their federal funding yanked because their workers were caught giving financial advice to someone claiming to be a pimp trying to obtain a mortgage for a whore-house? Give me a break.

Sheldonrs;652495 wrote:

I thought that had been proven to be a set-up by tea-partiers.

classicman;652580 wrote:

not sure what that smilie means, but that point seems to have been lost to many. I bet if you asked 100 average people on the street, most probably wouldn't know that.

THE ADVICE was meant for the folks tackling the toughest job in Washington, but the American public needs to hear it as well.

This week, Rudolph Penner and Robert Reischauer, both former directors of the Congressional Budget Office, briefed the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform about the challenges they&#8217;ll face in finding ways to cut the federal budget deficit to a sustainable level.

That task is so difficult that some fear it can&#8217;t be accomplished in today&#8217;s polarized Washington. Len Burman, the former director of the Tax Policy Center and now a professor at Syracuse University, worries that little will be done until calamity looms.

&#8220;Our history is that we are good at crises, but we are not good at dealing with long-term problems,&#8217;&#8217; notes Burman, whose article &#8220;Countdown to Catastrophe&#8217;&#8217; in the latest issue of the Milken Institute Review should be required reading in Washington. &#8220;But if we wait until a crisis happens, it will be too late because the consequences will be disastrous.&#8217;&#8217;

Oddly, says Penner, who led CBO from 1983 to 1987, foreigners tend to be more optimistic that the United States will summon the resolve to fix the problem. In his remarks to the panel, he used a Winston Churchill quote to sum up the mood he finds abroad: &#8220;You can count on Americans to do the right thing after they have tried everything else.&#8217;&#8217;

Let&#8217;s hope so, for the deficit challenge will loom like an appointment for a root canal once the recovery takes hold. Confronting it requires a recognition that tough choices simply can&#8217;t be avoided. Indeed, Reischauer, who led CBO from 1989 to 1995, had this blunt advice for the panel.

&#8220;First, don&#8217;t waste time looking for silver bullets or new approaches that hold out the promise of painless sacrifice,&#8217;&#8217; he said. &#8220;There are none to be found.&#8217;&#8217;

As both he and Penner told the commission, the basic math of budgeting dictates that the problem be addressed on both the spending and the revenue side.

&#8220;The magnitude of the required adjustments is so large that spending cuts will have to affect programs we all care about and benefit from, and revenue increases will have to come from a wide swath of Americans,&#8217;&#8217; said Reischauer, who considers himself a fiscal conservative with liberal values. &#8220;In other words, raising taxes on the rich or corporations, closing tax loopholes, eliminating wasteful or low-priority programs, and prohibiting earmarks simply won&#8217;t be enough.&#8217;&#8217;

Penner drew on a National Academies of Science and Public Administration study for concrete examples of what deficit-reduction packages that relied only on spending cuts or only on tax hikes would look like.

Under a cuts-only approach, Social Security recipients would see their cost-of-living adjustments reduced. Medicare premiums would rise, as would the public pension retirement age. The Pentagon would have almost no money for new arms systems or for Afghanistan-scale military operations. All other spending would have to be lowered as a share of GDP.

If we simply tax our way out of the problem, Penner said, the total federal tax burden would increase by 50 percent by 2040.

Assuming income tax rates rose in tandem until the top rate took half of an upper earner&#8217;s income, we&#8217;d also need a value-added tax that ramped up to 7.7 percent by that date. Further, Social Security and Medicare taxes would also have to rise.

A fiscal conservative, Penner said he&#8217;d like to keep tax increases to a minimum, but concluded: &#8220;Some combination of tax increases and spending cuts will be necessary as a practical matter.&#8217;&#8217;

That reality will require both Democrats and Republicans to compromise. Further, President Obama will have to acknowledge openly that we can&#8217;t solve the deficit problem just by raising taxes on those with incomes over $250,000.

That&#8217;s a daunting task in this political climate. It will demand a far-sightedness and fortitude that&#8217;s hard to spot right now, either in Washington or in a country that&#8217;s grown accustomed to a fiscal free lunch.

And yet, act we must. The only question, really, is whether we do it at a time of our own choosing or wait until a crisis forces action upon us.

Redux;652590 wrote:

Most people, including most of those who identify with the Tea Party movement, as well as several prominent Cellar dwellers, did not know that over 1/3 of the $787 billion Recovery Act was in the form of middle class tax cuts and targeted tax relief....the largest middle class tax cut in years.

TheMercenary;652640 wrote:

Maybe they can just produce those "Millions of Shovel Ready Jobs". Most people do not believe the Recovery Act worked or is working to put America back to work as your party promised. You will have to come up with something new.

classicman;652509 wrote:

T=taxed
E=enough
A=already

And here is a breakdown on who "they" are.

Redux;652645 wrote:

Unemployment would have hit 10.8% — higher than December's 10% rate — without Obama's $787 billion stimulus program, according to the economists' median estimate. The difference would translate into another 1.2 million lost jobs.

Redux;652661 wrote:

Demographics:
The vast majority of them -- 89 percent -- are white.
They tend to skew older: Three in four are 45 years old or older, including 29 percent who are 65 plus.
They are also more likely to be men (59 percent) than women (41 percent).

Representative of most of the country?

Or...........

classicman;652720 wrote:

.... just the ones who feel they have been taxed enough already.

Apparently they are from the 53% who are paying taxes not the 47% who don't.

That comes to $655,833 per job.

classicman;652802 wrote:

That would be them, I guess. Then again their interpretation is as valid as yours, I guess.

To get back to the original question.
T=taxed
E=enough
A=already

Oh and you never replied to UT -

classicman;652802 wrote:

To get back to the original question.
T=taxed
E=enough
A=already

xoxoxoBruce;652942 wrote:

Unfortunately, some clever charlatans saw this opportunity to take the lead, feed the frustration with piles of bullshit, and turn the TEA party into another political tool, without most of these good people even knowing they'd been had.

Urbane Guerrilla;653032 wrote:

Larry Elder's latest column, on Obama with a side order of ACORN's philosophy at the top.

We have a Socialist for a President, Socialists among his most fervent supporters, Socialists among some of his unappointable attempts at appointments. It quacks like a duck -- and even Redux, Donkey Party hack extraordinaire, cannot wave it away except solely to his own satisfaction. The rest of us, possessed of the faculty of sight and reluctant to suffer any wool-pulling, know better.

Urbane Guerrilla;653033 wrote:

Name a half-dozen of these, nationally.

Those not funded by the above have been funded by the Koch Family Foundation - ultra libertarians with a free market agenda

and of course....Sarah Palin

Urbane Guerrilla;654908 wrote:

Redux, inasmuch as Larry Elder knows more about economics than you do, and always writes thoughtfully and with reference to the real -- I'll take Larry over a hack like yourself any day of the week and four times on Sundays.

That's why I keep sneering at the things you write.

If you listened to him and such as him, why, you'd actually be educated. As it is, your ideology demands you never use a faculty for wisdom -- or the the friends you have in that circle would disown you.

Since when is that a description of charlatanry? You're beyond belief, Redux: you don't want the way that works for human beings??? Fella, you don't want anything that's actually good for free, adult humans.

The Nazis and the Communist revolutionaries strongly resembled you in that. You're a parlor pink, blaring away on the Internet, which makes you marginally less dangerous than they. The Communists lost their fellow-travelers... eventually. Socialism has not yet lost you.

Urbane Guerrilla;654912 wrote:

Redux, dear boy, have you never understood it takes people to be corporate? It's what humans do. Apparently it's something you don't.

The "corporate interest" is essentially the human interest. Certain invidious sorts combine as a chorus of concealment on that point.

It doesn't work any too well.

Tell me how Federal ownership of 61% of GM isn't socialism, the ownership (in various guise) of the means of production by the State? How many of the European nations spent time under Socialism? There are damned few that didn't, you know... Liechtenstein. Andorra. Maybe Luxembourg?

Urbane Guerrilla;654912 wrote:

The "corporate interest" is essentially the human interest. Certain invidious sorts combine as a chorus of concealment on that point.

Urbane Guerrilla;655053 wrote:

..I wish you would stop mentally masturbating about me running away: I know more about socialism than you do, and I know how capital-S Socialism would come to the capitalist and libertarian United States.

Undertoad;655104 wrote:

You're wasting your time with UG. He's a colorful and sophisticated writer, but he's not a very strong reader...

Urbane Guerrilla;659594 wrote:

I can comprehend reasonable arguments. That mostly means I can't really follow Redux's thinking, as I do not believe it to be honest, and only occasionally informed.

For an instance, he tells us progressive taxation is somehow not Socialist, capital S. There is no socialist economy that doesn't feature progressive taxation. Yet he blandly insists that this socialistic policy is somehow not socialist. Can't buy that one.

I am also certain that when I compose the case for gun control as a necessary precondition for genocide and hence intimately connected with it, that the case I make, regardless of when I make it, will persuade everyone. Everyone. Even Redux will have an epiphany. It's simply that good and that carefully examined. Oh, it's also put together by Redux's coreligionists; did he know that?.

Barack Obama has admitted the need to break his most celebrated campaign promise. Suddenly he is "agnostic" on increasing taxes for people earning less than $250,000. Nine years ago, as an Illinois state senator, Obama criticized the Supreme Court for not removing a roadblock that forbids Washington to redistribute income. That roadblock is the United States Constitution.


Washington routinely redistributes income within American society. When Joe Taxpayer receives government benefits that exceed what he pays in taxes, the effect is what the Heritage Foundation calls a "distributional deficit." Joe's higher-earning fellow taxpayers must fill that deficit. "Each year, government is involved in a large-scale transfer of resources between different social groups." The very idea that human nature or any natural law would be allowed to control humans or nature nauseates progressives. For example, allowing markets to be free and the weather to do its thing are immoral. So then, government must make people and science play fairly. Steeply graduated taxation for financing that government constitutes noble robbery.


George Mason University economics professor Don Boudreaux, who is also a Café Hayek blogger, explains his acid test for determining the genuineness of someone's nobility.


Desire to help others is noble. It's noble, though, not in and of itself. It's noble only if it's likely to lead to helping others who truly need help. A desire to help others that prompts well-meaning people to address nonexistent problems isn't so much noble as it is misguided and, possibly, dangerous.


Misguided nobility tends to focus people on intent, not results. Forty years of Great Society-inspired welfarism has brought a 70-percent illegitimate birthrate among blacks -- a 218-percent explosion since the LBJ years. The non-Hispanic white illegitimacy rate hovers below 12 percent. Amid a finger-pointing blame-fest, "minority advocates" still supply the crutches on which minorities lean. For instance, affirmative action strengthens the haplessness in "protected classes" that motivated liberals to "protect" those classes in the first place.


Interestingly, Johns Hopkins and Syracuse Universities researchers found that immigrant black children attend college at a 25 percent higher rate, and upper echelon schools at a four times higher rate, than multigenerational African-American children. Princeton University and University of Pennsylvania sociologists determined that immigrants comprise 27 percent of blacks at "selective" colleges and a whopping 41 percent at Ivy League institutions despite immigrants comprising only 13 percent of early college-aged blacks in general. A black person has to be born into the victimhood peddled by the American progressive in order to fall for that victimhood.


In order to be progressive, one must keep up the appearance of helping the "less fortunate," pay no attention to the effects of said help, and soak up the feel-good one gets when the world praises the wonderfulness of one's intentions.


Professor Boudreaux points out the absurdity of a Macy's department store poster campaign which implies that 38 million Americans routinely go hungry.


... because feeding oneself and one's family is perhaps the most fundamental of all human impulses, if so many Americans were truly "at risk of hunger" on a regular basis, then it is nearly impossible to explain why poor Americans are so richly endowed with goods and services far less necessary to survival than food.


The Heritage Foundation's Ralph Rector observed that the "typical American categorized as 'poor' by the government" owns a refrigerator, stove, washing machine, home air conditioning, microwave, color TV, VCR, stereo, at least one car, and 30 percent of the time, two cars.


Evidently, then, self-anointed noble watchdogs want us to believe that starving poor people in the throes of fighting off a survival impulse transmitted by their stomachs to their brains leave air-conditioned homes and drive air-conditioned cars to appliance stores, where they buy microwave ovens to reheat nonexistent food that they didn't buy because they couldn't afford it. Such rationale passes for clear thought among progressives, who push taxpayer funding for feel-good programs based on flawed science and economics.


If allowed to remain off-leash, where will noble progressives take America?


The Tax Foundation found that President Obama's policies would massively increase income redistribution. Already, 60 percent of Americans are "net 'receivers' of federal government benefits." Most families earning no more than $86,000 currently pay less federal tax than the dollar-value of government benefits that they collect. The new threshold will grow to $109,000 if Obama gets his way on health care, carbon "cap-and-trade," and new taxes on the wealthy. The president's plans would annually take almost $1 trillion from the top-earning 30 percent of families and hand it to the bottom 70 percent. Essentially, three of ten families will pay all federal bills for the remaining seven.


Even before considering Obama's hefty redistributionism, every federal tax dollar paid by America's lowest earners garners for those earners $10.44 in federal benefits. The president's 2012 reelection campaign slogan will be, "Open a progressive savings account. Hold out your hand and I'll double your 1,000-percent interest rate."


Another Tax Foundation study puts a frightening perspective on Obama's grotesque spending. Eliminating the federal deficit could require a 95.2-percent tax rate on the wealthiest Americans. Beatle George Harrison captured his government's arrogance back when he was enduring confiscatory taxation. Harrison wrote, "Should five percent appear too small, be thankful I don't take it all." One wonders who it is that the noble progressives think will create the jobs they keep promising when $952 of every $1,000 earned by small business owners is used to pay unemployment compensation for people who have no job and no intention of getting one as long as the noble progressives have their backs.


Reality-blind progressives like Barack Obama and the leftist ideologues who inhabit Capital Hill will spend and borrow and tax and spend even as prosperity evaporates. They will "spread the wealth" so thinly that only the super-wealthy will have any wealth left to confiscate for spreading. Progressives' tax-the-rich agenda could have the insidious effect of encouraging the wealthy to work less in order to avoid being nobly robbed of more of their wealth. If Barack Obama somehow rams through his prosperity-killing agenda, then John Galt will emerge from the mountains of Colorado to pluck the achievers from society once again.

Redux;661952 wrote:

Yeah...I agree its laughable.

A typical pattern with you and the guerrilla.

You attack, I respond, he runs away and you morph into your laughing/popcorn mode.

Neither one of you willing to actually engage in a discussion and defend your own positions.

What a surprise!

Redux;661549 wrote:

Are you really that dense or just being an argumentative asshole.

Redux;661564 wrote:

Fuck you.

Redux;661568 wrote:

Fuck off....you cant handle the truth.

Redux;661573 wrote:

Deal with it any way you like, asshole.

classicman;661992 wrote:

yeh - keep telling yourself that. Maybe that dream will someday come true.

classicman;661999 wrote:

Or choosing not to.
Ahh the sweet options that freedom bring. I love being a legal citizen.

Redux;661952 wrote:

Yeah...I agree its laughable.

A typical pattern with you and the guerrilla.

You attack, I respond, he runs away and you morph into your laughing/popcorn mode.

Neither one of you willing to actually engage in a discussion and defend your own positions.

What a surprise!

TheMercenary;662230 wrote:

Oh flatter yourself.

It is just because anything you have to say or your opinions are not important to me. You are usually wrong and spout off the propaganda of the Demoncrat Whores or the White House talking points. You are laughable... :lol:

Redux;662231 wrote:

And yet, you still cant or wont defend your own position.

I suspect it is you cant. That would take actual thinking and not just cutting and pasting. :D

Redux;662232 wrote:

Is it popcorn time?

While screaming ....FAIL!

No guts, no glory, dude.

TheMercenary;662254 wrote:

What are you in High School?


:lol2:

TheMercenary;663686 wrote:

Well done Comrade. Your party is proud of you.

Redux;663692 wrote:

I get it, dude.

Its your new stock answer, regardless of the issue, particularly when the facts are not on your side.

TheMercenary;663695 wrote:

Your party will be proud of your towing the line for the propaganda machine. Well done!

Lusby, Maryland (CNN) -- A conservative activist known for making undercover videos plotted to embarrass a CNN correspondent by recording a meeting on hidden cameras aboard a floating "palace of pleasure" and making sexually suggestive comments, e-mails and a planning document show.

James O'Keefe, best known for hitting the community organizing group ACORN with an undercover video sting, hoped to get CNN Investigative Correspondent Abbie Boudreau onto a boat filled with sexually explicit props and then record the session, those documents show.

The plan apparently was thwarted after Boudreau was warned minutes before it was supposed to happen.

"I never intended to become part of the story," Boudreau said. "But things suddenly took a very strange turn."

O'Keefe is best known for making a series of undercover videos inside ACORN offices around the country in 2009. The 40-year-old liberal group was crippled by scandal after O'Keefe and fellow activist Hannah Giles allegedly solicited advice from ACORN workers on setting up a brothel and evading taxes.

The videos led to some of the employees being fired and contributed to the disbanding of ACORN, which advocated for low- and middle-income and worked to register voters.

But prosecutors in New York and California eventually found no evidence of wrongdoing by the group, and the California probe found the videos had been heavily and selectively edited.

O'Keefe's next big splash ended with his arrest after he taped associates entering Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu's office in New Orleans posing as telephone repairmen. He ended up pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge of entering a federal office under false pretenses and is now on probation.