Joe Conason Calls Out The Right Wing Over ACORN Targeting
By Susie Madrak Saturday Sep 19, 2009 10:00amThank God for Joe Conason, who's a consistent champion of the poor and working class. He writes about the trumped-up hysteria about ACORN - and says Republicans who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones:
[...] ACORN's troubles should be considered in the context of a history of honorable service to the dispossessed and impoverished. No doubt it was fun to dupe a few morons into providing tax advice to a "pimp and ho," but what ACORN actually does, every day, is help struggling families with the Earned Income Tax Credit (whose benefits were expanded by both Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton). And while the idea of getting housing assistance for a brothel was clever, what ACORN really does, every day, is help those same working families avoid foreclosure and stay in their homes.
Perhaps the congressional investigation now demanded by some Republican politicians would be a useful exercise, if conducted impartially. A fair investigation might begin to dispel some of the wild mythology promoted by right-wing media outlets.
Among the most popular canards on the right, repeated constantly by conservative pundits and politicians, is that ACORN has been found guilty of engaging in deliberate voter fraud, using federal funds. In reality, ACORN has registered close to 2 million low-income citizens across the country over the past five years -- a laudable record with a very low incidence of fraud of any kind.
Over the past several years, a handful of ACORN employees have admitted falsifying names and signatures on registration cards, in order to boost the pay they received. When ACORN officials discovered those cases, they informed the state authorities and turned in the miscreants. (That was why the Bush Justice Department's blatant attempt to smear ACORN with rushed, election-timed indictments became a national scandal for Republicans rather than Democrats.) The proportion of fraud is infinitesimal. For example, a half-dozen ACORN workers were charged with registration fraud or other election-related crimes in the 2004 election. They had completed fewer than two dozen false registrations -- out of more than a million new voters registered by ACORN during that cycle. The mythology that suggests that thousands or even millions of illegal registrants voted is itself a fraud.
If only the Republicans who have worked up a frenzy over ACORN's alleged crimes were so indignant about real and damaging voter fraud -- such as the amazing case of Young Political Majors, the firm that ran GOP registration efforts in California, Massachusetts, Florida, Arizona and elsewhere before the authorities in Orange County, Calif., busted its president, Mark Anthony Jacoby, and sent him to jail last year. He had built a lucrative partisan career by teaching his minions to deceive thousands of voters into registering as Republicans rather than Democrats, among other scams. Of course, the only on-air mention of the Young Political Majors scandal on Fox News was made by blogger Brad Friedman -- and the national media, mainstream and conservative, generally ignored it. They were too busy generating "controversy" over ACORN.
So now the overhyped voting registration tales are metastasizing into wild accusations about ACORN's finances and programs, including claims that the group will receive billions in federal bailout funding and that it is a hotbed of corruption, perhaps even murder. In fact, ACORN affiliates -- those not involved with voter registration -- have received a few million dollars annually in federal funding. The group is not scheduled to receive any bailout money (although working people would probably benefit more from subsidizing ACORN than greasing AIG and Goldman Sachs).
The fans of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck regard ACORN as a criminal enterprise that fosters tax fraud, prostitution, child prostitution and even murder (thanks to a satirical "confession" by an employee filmed surreptitiously in the San Bernardino ACORN office). But ACORN chief organizer and CEO Bertha Lewis swiftly dismissed the employees caught on those videotapes and set about reforming the flawed processes that enabled those individuals to speak for the organization. No overt acts were committed by any of the people caught on those tapes -- and so far nobody has found that any of those theoretical "crimes" ever took place.
To claim that the stupid behavior of a half-dozen employees should discredit a national group with offices in more than 75 cities staffed by many thousands of employees and volunteers is like saying that Mark Sanford or John Ensign have discredited every Republican governor or senator. Indeed, the indignation of the congressional Republicans screaming about ACORN and the phony streetwalker is diluted by the presence of at least two confirmed prostitution clients -- Rep. Ken Calvert and Sen. David Vitter -- in their midst. Neither of those right-wing johns has been even mildly chastised by their moralistic peers. Nobody is cutting off their federal funding.
ACORN has pledged to institute reforms, with the appointment of a distinguished outside panel to oversee that process. Let us hope they succeed. Even now they seem far more likely to improve their performance -- and to be more sincere in their intentions -- than the Washington hypocrites who are trying to destroy them.
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I wrote my Rep, a Dem who voted for de-funding ACORN, and asked her when we would stop giving truck loads of money to gang-raping Haliburton and cold-blooded killing Blackwater, since they too have some bad employees.
The corporations are fascist front organizations and legal shields for the Oligarchs standing behind the curtain.
Their PR front men (and women), the sanitized word for propagandists, are out in full force to convince the huddled masses that ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a community advocate organization, is the cause of all of their problems.
The reason for this is simple, to distract attention from the ongoing looting of the US Treasury by said Oligarchs.
If ACORN used two quarters of public money in a way they should not have, that is one thing, a small thing.
When the Oligarchs steal HUNDREDS of BILLIONS of public money, that is entirely another matter.
That is CRONY CAPITALISM.
They own the poverty train, they want to keep it going.
I suggest they start a bank, change their name to AIG and apply for a TARP bailout loan.
more and more people start SPEAKING UP against the hipprocracy going on in this country. Have to love it...it's WAY PAST time.
when the urgency of this message will stick. The crusaders in this nation, the Joe Conason's will be heard finally and the smallness of the Republican thinking will become as obvious as the bully on the playground that finds himself in the dirt. The end of this McCarthyism is coming and it is coming soon. I feel it. The nation is tired of no progress at a time when progress is the only way to survive.
"what ACORN actually does, every day, is help struggling families."
And that is exactly what Republicans hate about ACORN, because the fake christians don't give a rats ass about the poor. Yet somehow they still claim to be the party of Christ. Fuck These People and their False God, they should be ashamed of themselves, except they have no morals or values so there can be no shame.
It's telling that Rove and his followers have put so much effort into undermining an organization who's goal is to organize the powerless. Karl's kids know that letting poor people vote is a big threat to their interests.
The wingnuts know what ACORN does, that's what they want to stop. You say registering 2 million low income voters like it is something good, they hear as a nightmare. They don't care what the truth is. The only way to deal with them is to call THEM out.
ACORN has done great work over the years, since 1970.
Since 1994, they have received $53M of federal money....that's spread out over 15 years.
But, remember this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82xCdg08emA&fe...
The CPA received nearly $9B in Iraq, but it simply disappeared. No oversight. And David Oliver, the CPA Director of Management and Budget at the time the money disappeared, asked, "what difference does it make?"
I wonder what happened to that money....$9B??? I bet much of it went to fund the insurgency.
And what happened to Paul Bremer? He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Yes, ACORN is a great agency and does work hard for the poor and dispossessed. But in typical Democratic fashion, the weak kneed Democrats in Congress folded and pulled funding from them. So the people they need to be organized for elections will not be there to help them due to this quite predictable cave on the part of Democrats. This reminds me of how the right screamed about Unions and they folded on NAFTA and GATT. Instead of actually getting a pair, and standing up to the right wing hysteria that has taken over America, they do as they have done for the past 20 years, and that is crawl in a hole and hide, like the cowards they are. The leader of the democratic party, President Obama, doesn't even have the courage to call out the wingnuts bringing guns to rally's. He instead praises the 2nd amendment, and the right of the people to peacefully carry arms. Like it makes a damned bit of sense for lunatics and morons (never a good combination) to carry guns to rally's about health care reform. I guess after someone is killed, and it could be Obama himself, he just might summon the balls to finally stand up to this right wing thuggery. The yellow streak of the Democrats to stand up to the right lends credence to Republicans and conservatives when they say Democrats are strong enough to really defend America. Unfortunately Democrats like myself would never be elected to office, because I actually have a pair, and would certainly tell these wingnuts to get a damned clue. Oh well! Guess that's why the public option is almost dead.
If every organisation lost funding because of the (illegal) individual actions of it's members them there would be no senate or congress.
But that is what this site is all about 'crooks and liars'.
Defund congress.
How about an investigation into the oil companies and the banks who worked in collusion to bring the price of gas up to 4 dollars a gallon? The REPUGS are for ripping off the American People for Hundreds of Billions of Dollars when it benefits the people who fill their coffers.But when an Organization such as Acorn gets 2 to 3 million a year to help poor people find housing and register for their right to vote they are up in arms. PEPUGS are criminals and should be treated as such.Time to spend a hundred million dollars on investingating White Collar Crime that Occured in the last 8 years.It will be the best money the taxpayers ever spent and plenty of Corporate America cna spend their time in prison where they belong.Lets pressure Congress and the Justice Department and get the ball rolling. The crimes of the politicians can come after that.
Could part of the problem be the Commonunity Organization part in the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now?
There was never any real investigation that I know of regarding Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004.
There's still been no real investigations nor improvements on the paperless electronic voting devices.
By extension they're trying to smear Barack Obama's Community Activist background. So it's still more about smearing President Obama, then having any sort of legitimate voting investigation.
by removing Acorn funds. The voters registered by Acorn probable were the difference is a few close elections. This is the main reason why the Republicans want Acorn dead. Once they have kill Acorn they will go after all the other organization that register the poor. If they could they would prevent everyone that might dare to vote for a Democrat from voting.
I'd be curious about who is funding the anti-ACORN movement.
Could it be banks?
Since afterall for every poor folk's home that ACORN saves is one less the banks can forclose on and sell to another sucker.
That's the part the haters on the right-wing don't understand about their own religion. The following reference was one of the most powerful evocations, for me, during the memorials and service for Ted Kennedy.
Matthew 25:
34 “Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 ‘For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; 36 naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ 37 “Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? 38 ‘And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? 39 ‘When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ 40 “The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’
this evening, I happened upon CNN's Blitzer interviewing the lady who's ACORN's CEO. I couldn't get over the attack tone of Blitzer's interview, basically accusing her of condoning discredited underling's actions, asking how many people she's fired over the year she's had the job, how will she respond to these "very, very serious accusations" etc. etc. I'm starting to think that CNN is more reprehensible than Faux, in that they seem sneakier about their right wing drivel. Time to put the Wolfster in a slicker, stand him in the nearest parkade to cover the hurricanes.
If Republican's were pulling this crap, we'd be furious. Joe Conason sounds (and looks) like a used car salesman. So Linda Tripp was wrong for exposing Clinton's lies? Good Grief!
Chicago Sun Times - 09/18/09
Acorn Equals SEIU Equals Missouri Progressive Vote
Friday, September 18, 2009
One of the more confusing things about ACORN and their affiliates is their constant switching of titles and companies and affiliates. Just to be clear - they all share the same address, the same phone numbers, and the same people.
Mark from Keyboard Militia called me yesterday and said he was in the area, so he took some pictures for me of the ACORN office.
This is the ACORN office in St Louis. It is the former office of the now defunct ACORN housing office. When you see this office, you should think about names like Ken McCoy, and Gwen Cogswell, and Glenn Burleigh, and Julie Terbrock. These are ACORN employees, the first two of whom have strong disagreements with the national ACORN office.
What's most important, is that you also see that SEIU Local 880 has their offices here. This is a different organization than the one that employs Elston McCowan and Perry Molens. SEIU Local 880 is the ACORN created union that is so much in the national news.
SEIU Local 880 was the organization with Dale Rathke as the treasurer. Yep, the $1 million embezzlement scandal that prompted the ACORN 8 investigation.
And just for fun, let's show you a picture of HCAN contacts, the Obama administration led healthcare organizing coalition.
As you can see, Julie Terbrock, the legislative liason for ACORN, is also listed as the contact for Missouri ProVote. She's the Acting Program Director for ProVote. She worked in close coordination with Laura Egerdal on the Voter ID act, using the SEIU predictive dialer phone bank to drive phone calls to Republican legislators and convince them the "public" didn't want to show their license to vote.
And for that, Laura Egerdal was rewarded with the Director Of Communications position with the Secretary of State, despite having no experience for the job but that of SEIU/ProVote. And just to top it off, Sara Howard, Russ Carnahan's new communications director, was involved with helping set up SEIU's phone bank, working with ACORN on the 2006 Minimum Wage/Elect Claire McCaskill program, and of course, Americans Coming Together, where she managed and Egerdal helped hire felons to go door to door registering fake voters.
I just thought the picture spoke so much more eloquently to the deep connections of ACORN/SEIU and the Carnahans. While Glenn Burleigh may be out saying ACORN Housing isn't in Missouri (they shut it down in St Louis after some shady finances, but it's still in Kansas City), the rest of us know that the deep connections between ACORN, different SEIU branches, and Missouri Democrats still has a lot to be discovered.
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