ACORN to play a role in the census

[kinggovernor]

Originally Posted by Donkey®

You do know that FoxNews has a website?

no I didn't know that, I don't go there.

[kinggovernor]

Justice Department Inspector General to Look Into ACORN Funds

September 21, 2009 4:49 PM

Glenn Fine, the Inspector General of the Department of Justice today wrote to the Chairman and Ranking Republican of the House Judiciary Committee – Reps. John Conyers, D-Mich., and Lamar Smith, R-Texas -- informing them that his office is planning on opening a review into whether ACORN applied for or received any Justice Department grants or funds and whether or not the Justice Department ever carried out any audits or reviews of those funds.

You can read the letter HERE.

In a statement, Smith said that the IG’s report “will help Congress ensure that money allocated to support law enforcement efforts is not instead used to support criminal conduct. It is clear that ACORN has fostered a culture of corruption. With investigations of ACORN now occurring in 20 states, it is time for the FBI to open up a full scale investigation into possible criminal conduct by ACORN.”

Last March Conyers seemed to express a willingness to look into allegations made against ACORN, though in May he backed off, issuing a statement saying, “Based on my review of the information regarding the complaints against ACORN, I have concluded that a hearing on this matter appears unwarranted at this time."

In June Conyers explained to the Washington Times that "The powers that be decided against it.”

The Washington Post yesterday published a lengthy look at the embattled community organization, looking at minutes from ACORN meetings last year that indicated the organization owed “over $800k to IRS…Haven't paid medical bills of over $300k. We are essentially 'broke' nationally and lots of offices are struggling."

Embezzlement by Dale Rathke, the brother of ACORN founder Wade Rathke, had hurt the organization.

"Leadership has no faith in staff. Wade betrayed them," the minutes said.

Those minutes, obtained by ABC News, can be read HERE and HERE.

-jpt
Justice Department Inspector General to Look Into ACORN Funds - Political Punch

we are inching along here to a RICO investigation

[Donkey®]

Originally Posted by kinggovernor

we are inching along here to a RICO investigation

I guess you're all for investigations as long as they are investigating something you hate...

[kinggovernor]

Originally Posted by Donkey®

I guess you're all for investigations as long as they are investigating something you hate...

what are you trying to imply here?

and are you for or against for a federal investigation of ACORN?

[Donkey®]

Originally Posted by kinggovernor

what are you trying to imply here?

and are you for or against for a federal investigation of ACORN?

I seriously do not care either way. Acorn is not anything I have nightmares about when I go to sleep at night.

[kinggovernor]

Originally Posted by Donkey®

I seriously do not care either way. Acorn is not anything I have nightmares about when I go to sleep at night.

oh because you have spent a lot of time defending them in this thread.

[Donkey®]

Originally Posted by kinggovernor

oh because you have spent a lot of time defending them in this thread.

Because you seem to be obsessed with them.

[wanna be drummer]

Originally Posted by kinggovernor

oh because you have spent a lot of time defending them in this thread.

In his defense, you've pushed the subject to death and he's been pointing out multiple times about how stupid this whining is.

Although in your defense, you've done a good job in keeping ACORN relevant I guess.


Basically you two girls are catfighting on a subject that matters very little. Most humorous

[kinggovernor]

Originally Posted by wanna be drummer

In his defense, you've pushed the subject to death and he's been pointing out multiple times about how stupid this whining is.

Although in your defense, you've done a good job in keeping ACORN relevant I guess.


Basically you two girls are catfighting on a subject that matters very little. Most humorous

its public corruption by an organization with ties all the way up the power lines in DC, of course it is an important story.

[wanna be drummer]

Originally Posted by kinggovernor

its public corruption by an organization with ties all the way up the power lines in DC, of course it is an important story.

9 pages of importance? Somehow I doubt it.

[kinggovernor]

ACORN's Overdue Unraveling

By Kathleen Parker
Wednesday, September 23, 2009



No one was more delighted by the recent ACORN pimp 'n' prostitute, hidden-camera sting than Marcel Reid, the former ACORN board member who was booted in summer 2008 when she tried to examine the organization's books.

"If we'd known all it took was a half-naked 20-year-old, we'd have done this a year and a half ago," Reid said from the rented desk in a church that she calls her office.

By now most Americans are familiar with the acronym ACORN -- the un-pithily named Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now -- and all its attendant problems: charges of voter registration fraud, embezzlement, tax arrears, corruption and, most recently, accusations of aiding and abetting illegal immigration, prostitution, tax evasion and child abuse.

Quite a dirty laundry list for an organization that once pursued the purest of ideals: to help the poor and disenfranchised through education and employment. The viral videos of ACORN employees advising two young conservative activists ridiculously dressed like a pimp and a prostitute about how to house and exploit underage girls from El Salvador are a long way from the Arkansas kitchen table where, in 1970, a group of impoverished mothers sat trying to figure out how to buy school supplies for their children.

That kitchen klatch was the seed that became ACORN with the help of the now-infamous Wade Rathke, better known recently for resigning from the group's board after he covered for his brother Dale, who embezzled almost $1 million in ACORN funds in 1999 and 2000.

Despite ACORN's history of corruption, it took sex to seize the attention of the nation's leadership. In the past couple of weeks, ACORN has been stripped of $1.6 million in federal funding and been dropped by the U.S. Census Bureau as a partner in conducting the nation's headcount.

Reid, who has been reviled by the left as an apostate, can only shake her head at the sudden interest. A gallows sense of humor helps her through her days now as head of ACORN 8, a group of former ACORN leaders and board members in 15 states trying to reform the community group. Their mission is the same one that first attracted Reid to ACORN 10 years ago -- to help the poor.

What pains her is that the videos that have conservatives in stitches have helped bolster negative attitudes toward those she aims to help.

"Look at those poor ladies. I was so embarrassed. You cannot be operating on any cylinder and do what they did. Unfortunately, they reinforced the idea that poverty is your fault because you're not smart."

Also problematic for this former military wife turned champion of the downtrodden is the odd tension between her new Republican fan base and her affection for President Obama. Reid embraces the irony with a sharp wit and a seen-everything attitude. It's a wacky world out there when a former ACORN activist becomes a darling of the right-wing media.

Then again, Reid says that mainstream media outlets, with the exception of the Wall Street Journal's John Fund, weren't interested in her story when she tried to tell it more than a year ago. As political wisdom goes, you have to hunt where the ducks are.

Politics and salacious stories aside, the bottom line for Reid really is the bottom line. She still wants to help the poor and believes that all Americans share that vision. But ACORN's name has become toxic.

"We need a swift end," she says. "The only thing to do is decapitate."

Reid would like to see all board members and all senior staff gone. She thinks the Justice Department should investigate the charges of civil rights violations under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act that ACORN 8 filed in January. And, though grateful that the president stepped up to the plate on ACORN, she wishes he would go further than he did during Sunday's talk-show round robin.

When asked about ACORN, Obama feigned slight knowledge of the group's federal funding, though did concede that an investigation of the pimp 'n' prostitute revelations was appropriate.

Although the president is inarguably focused on more pressing concerns, his long history with ACORN is familiar. Just as Republican leaders should renounce those who race-bait and peddle anger, the Democratic Party's leader should recognize that ACORN has become an obstacle to its own mission.

Kathleen Parker - For ACORN, an Overdue Unraveling
RICO investigation

[kinggovernor]

oh and now Barney Frank wants to go after the two kids that made the videos

[JaJae]

The IRS has now told ACORN to piss off.
IRS severs ties with ACORN over scandal

It's amazing how deep they got themselves embedded in our government.

[avsp]

Originally Posted by kinggovernor

oh and now Barney Frank wants to go after the two kids that made the videos

At Politico.com a week or so ago the point was made that if ACORN went to court then they opened themselves up to 'discovery' in the legal sense, which is going to allow the defendants to have a real good look at their paperwork & seeing how they're activists with some media backing perhaps isn't really in ACORN's interests.

I've no idea if this would apply in a case against O’Keefe & Giles

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by avsp

At Politico.com a week or so ago the point was made that if ACORN went to court then they opened themselves up to 'discovery' in the legal sense, which is going to allow the defendants to have a real good look at their paperwork & seeing how they're activists with some media backing perhaps isn't really in ACORN's interests.

I've no idea if this would apply in a case against O’Keefe & Giles

I've heard similar stories as well. The reason they filed in Maryland and nowhere else because Maryland has laws regarding private recordings that the other states they went to don't have. But if they truly go after them in Maryland they'll just prolong this story in the media, thus hurting themselves more. It will bring people/money to the defense of O'Keefe and Giles. I doubt they'll get any money out of O'Keefe or Giles and I think they know that. So we'll see how far they want to take it. The further the go the more they'll look like the some big evil organization.

[Fleet]

Originally Posted by JaJae

I've heard similar stories as well. The reason they filed in Maryland and nowhere else because Maryland has laws regarding private recordings that the other states they went to don't have. But if they truly go after them in Maryland they'll just prolong this story in the media, thus hurting themselves more. It will bring people/money to the defense of O'Keefe and Giles. I doubt they'll get any money out of O'Keefe or Giles and I think they know that. So we'll see how far they want to take it. The further the go the more they'll look like the some big evil organization.

I think that they aren't going to question the validity of the recordings. That may stop discoveries, since there is no dispute about it. They will just go ahead on the privacy issue.

However, even if they win on that, which I doubt, they can only be awarded actual damages, which are non existent if the videos are true, which would be established already, and punitive. So chances are they would get $1.00.

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by Fleet

I think that they aren't going to question the validity of the recordings. That may stop discoveries, since there is no dispute about it. They will just go ahead on the privacy issue.

However, even if they win on that, which I doubt, they can only be awarded actual damages, which are non existent if the videos are true, which would be established already, and punitive. So chances are they would get $1.00.

Breitbart has said the lawsuit seems frivolous and ACORN seems to know that, however, their purpose is probably to prevent O'Keefe and Giles from releasing their other tapes and/or prevent these outlets from hosting the tapes, which they claim they still have.

[Fleet]

Originally Posted by JaJae

Breitbart has said the lawsuit seems frivolous and ACORN seems to know that, however, their purpose is probably to prevent O'Keefe and Giles from releasing their other tapes and/or prevent these outlets from hosting the tapes, which they claim they still.

Hopefully any others get released, and no restraining orders come up. I agree the lawsuit makes little sense on the surface. It may just be a defensive mechanism, or anger or something.

[kinggovernor]

Reid blocks ACORN probe

Tracking abuse by political allies could be 'distracting'

ACORN -- the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now -- is stinking up Washington.

And this is far more significant than if a suspiciously large number of operatives for a purely "private" outfit had been found systematically bending and breaking the law, because ACORN receives and spends taxpayer money -- lots of it -- and had carried the imprimatur of official partnerships with the IRS, the Census Bureau ... the kind of "cred" that in the political world comes only from "who you know."

Yes, ACORN has friends in high places -- friends who are still stonewalling attempts to trace where all that tax money went ... perhaps because they know who still has cookie crumbs all over their hands.

It didn't start with those undercover videos made by a couple of independent filmmakers posing as a prostitute and her pimp, visiting various ACORN offices around the country and getting helpful advice on how to hide their income and "qualify" for a tax-subsidized mortgage to set up a house of ill repute, declaring three of their dozen (albeit imaginary) underage illegal immigrant prostitutes as "dependents."

That was just a final shoe dropping loudly enough that the problem could no longer be ignored.

Here in Clark County, Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax said last year he saw "rampant fraud in the 2,000 to 3,000 registrations ACORN turns in every week," with some 48 percent of those forms being "clearly fraudulent."

The Las Vegas headquarters of ACORN, "a Democrat-allied organization," was raided after being "accused of submitting multiple voter registrations with duplicate and false names," the Washington Times reported last fall. The outfit claimed it had registered to vote in Nevada, among others, the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys.

The raid "set off a skirmish over efforts to expand the electorate on behalf of Sen. Barack Obama," the Times reported.

Mr. Lomax noted ACORN had hired 59 inmates from a work-release program at a nearby prison and that some inmates who had been convicted of identity theft had been made supervisors. "That led some local wags to joke that at least ACORN was hiring specialists to do their work," reported John Fund at The Politico, last November.

ACORN's 2008 Las Vegas field director, Christopher Edwards, pleased guilty last spring to two gross misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit compensation for registration of voters, in a deal that saw him agree to testify against fellow defendants.

Fox News' Eric Shawn reported there were at least 11 investigations across the country involving thousands of potentially fraudulent ACORN forms. Yet none of this was sufficient to block President Obama and his congressional minions from upping federal subsidies to outfits such as Mr. Obama's former associates at ACORN from the mere millions to the billions of dollars in their "economic stimulus" bill last winter.

Only when presented with the undeniable evidence of the "pimp and ho" videotape did the IRS last week announce it would terminate ACORN's participation in the agency's Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program -- shortly after the Census Bureau advised ACORN it could forget about helping with its decennial head count.

Smoke? Fire? Washington Democratic leaders have opted to just lay low and not smell nothin'.

Despite all this evidence and a request in writing by 28 GOP senators -- and despite the fact the U.S. Senate voted 83-7 on Sept. 14 to block ACORN from bidding for any more federal grant money -- "Senate Democrat Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is refusing to hold a Senate hearing on ACORN's activities," the National Republican Senatorial Committee complained Wednesday.

Mr. Reid replied additional investigations might distract lawmakers from addressing more important matters, including health care and economic recovery.

"It's become increasingly clear that ACORN may have manipulated tens of thousands of ballots in last year's federal election -- an area where Congress has clear oversight responsibilities -- yet Harry Reid won't lift a finger," said NRSC spokesman Brian Walsh. "It's hard to see his latest roadblock as anything but another example of Harry Reid protecting his liberal allies in Washington while remaining out of touch with his constituents in Nevada."

That's a politically motivated shot, of course. Stripped of the gratuitous elbowing, however, the question does remain: Do Sen. Reid and congressional Democrats really believe that if they just ignore the big mess their pet bear has dumped in the middle of the room, it'll somehow stop stinking?

EDITORIAL: Reid blocks ACORN probe - Opinion - ReviewJournal.com

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by kinggovernor

EDITORIAL: Reid blocks ACORN probe - Opinion - ReviewJournal.com

Reid's corruption knows no bounds. It's so blatant. They aren't even attempting to appear ethical. I wonder if any news organization will sit his ass down in the hot seat and ask him about these things or if they'll continue to hand him fluff interview after another.