Posts about ACORN as of September 23, 2009

Congress was falling all over themselves to pass a bill punishing ACORN . In fact, they refer to the bill ( in the bill itself ) as the “Defund ACORN Act”. The bill passed both the House and Senate. There is only one problem with that — bills that punish a single person or organization without a trial are unconstitutional. Such a law is called a “bill of attainder” and is specifically barred by the constitution . So even though the law doesn’t hide the fact that it is punishing ACORN, the language of the bill itself had to be written more broadly.

I’m with Sarah http://bit.ly/VxJ5B America’s strength has always come from ‘we the people’, not ‘we the politicians.’ # To secure a loan in Latvia, the collateral just may be your soul http://bit.ly/avaNG # Al Gore lowers global temps just by bitching about it http://bit.ly/UcfE8 # .:. Yes, Sarah Palin is a quitter – She has … http://bit.ly/zF500 # .:. Quack Quack! http://bit.ly/jevQm # Do car chase suspects time their getaways to coincide with Shepard Smith’s air time? # #thingsthatfelloff Living within our means (esp.

Census worker Bill Sparkman was found hanged on September 12. Was Bill Sparkman lynched? One hesitates to jump too far, too fast, but it’s hard to read the story of Census worker Bill Sparkman, a single dad and cancer survivor who was found hanged near a cemetery in a remote part of Kentucky’s Daniel Boone National Forest, on September 12th — 9/12 — the lunatic “tea party”/Glenn Beck/Ron Paul fringe’s official Day of Resistance, with the word “FED” scrawled on his chest. It’s certainly a tragedy for Mr.

ACORN sure is a tough nut of a story. And it’s not going away. Not with days like today. With their pimp, ho, and underage slave enabling business in shambles, their Get Out The Fictional Character Vote process under the microscope, and their Game the Census for Dems and Dollars program severed, they must have really been upset to learn that one of their most beautiful scams — Get the IRS to pay you to show people how to screw the IRS — is also being shut out.

ACORN and its two Baltimore employees who were caught on tape offering advice on how to set up a brothel with underage illegal immigrants and hide the proceeds from the IRS (Tonja Thompson and Shera Williams, full transcript here ), have now sued those who exposed them: James F. O’Keefe, III (fake pimp), Hannah Giles (fake hooker), and Breitbart.com LLC (owner of BigGovernment.com).

ACORN is suing the producers of the movies exposing their corruption, for exposing their corruption. Man, you can’t get any lower than that. “Claiming the pair violated state law by recording their conversations without permission of the employees involved”, “Although we do not condone what our former employees did, no matter how entrapped they were , (talk about total bullshit) we are also committed to our 500,000 members that we will hold the defendants civilly and criminally responsible for their violations of Maryland laws and for the damages inflicted upon ACORN’s reputation,” said Bertha Lewis, the organization’s chief organizer.

Abbie Hoffman, Yippie Emeritus, died 20 years ago. He was master of the culture jam before the term was coined, whacking the establishment with its own wack. Quoting Wikipedia: “ Culture jamming sometimes entails transforming mass media to produce ironic or satirical commentary about itself, using the original medium’s communication method.” Hello, ACORN? Can I come over in clown pimp garb and film you getting down with housing fraud? Talking interviews. . .

Huffington Post Going after ACORN may be like shooting fish in a barrel lately — but jumpy lawmakers used a bazooka to do it last week and may have blown up some of their longtime allies in the process. The congressional legislation intended to defund ACORN, passed with broad bipartisan support, is written so broadly that it applies to “any organization” that has been charged with breaking federal or state election laws, lobbying disclosure laws, campaign finance laws or filing fraudulent paperwork with any federal or state agency.

   A ssociation of C ommunity O rganizations                         for R eform N ow     From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia   Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now Abbreviation ACORN Formation 1970 Type Non-governmental organization Headquarters New Orleans, Louisiana Region served USA, Peru , Argentina , Mexico , India , Canada President Maude Hurd (1990-present) Budget $100 Million USD+ Website

www.acorn.org September 19, 2009   A C O R N   Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now           ACORN Announces Major Steps to Address Issues Raised by Videos September 16, 2009     In response to recently released videos of frontline ACORN staff, ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis made the following announcement Wednesday morning: “As a result of the indefensible action of a handful of our employees,

Newt Gingrich wrote a very well written news letter concerned about our freedom and Constitution entitled “Turing the Senate into the Chicago City Council”.  He wrote: “Using the budget reconciliation process to pass health reform and climate change legislation…would violate the intent and spirit of the budget process, and do serious injury to the constitutional role of the Senate.” Further into the letter he wrote:  The Founders Relied on the Senate to Carefully Consider Before They Commit Us to a New Law One of the key means by which the Senate slows down the legislative process is through the filibuster.

The videos have sparked controversy over ACORN, already under fire amid election fraud claims. WASHINGTON (CNN) — ACORN filed suit Wednesday in Baltimore, Maryland, against two filmmakers who secretly recorded videos embarrassing to the agency, claiming the pair violated state law by recording their conversations without permission of the employees involved. The lawsuit seeks an injunction preventing the further distribution of the videos.

From Politico: ACORN has filed a lawsuit in Maryland against James O’Keefe, Hannah Giles and the Web site Breitbart.com for secretly videotaping the organization’s employees at its Baltimore office. So it’s okay to act inappropriately and teach clients how to commit fraud. It’s just not okay to catch you in the act and let everyone know about it. I get it. It’s still not right. But I get it.

« PreviousBarack Obama’s New State Secrets Policy: The Question Of Court Review Dear Insurance Company, You Have a Right to be Wrong Posted by Kate PickertWednesday, September 23, 2009 at 5:14 pm 43 Comments • Trackback (0) Before the lunch break in the Senate Finance Committee’s markup on health reform legislation, members engaged in a long and ultra-wonky debate on Medicare Advantage. The debate was essentially about whether more than $100 billion in cuts to Medicare Advantage will lead to a reduction in benefits.

For legal reasons, that bill against ACORN was written broadly enough that it could defund defense contractors and other recipients of government money charged in fraud cases. AL gloats : I can’t think of a better way of illustrating the double standard at work here. Republicans have singled out a group to demonize based on the supposed bad acts of a few employees. Based on these incidents, we’re supposed to conclude that the entire organization is corrupt and unworthy of continued existence.

The blogs are atwitter today with news of the bill passed by Congress to defund ACORN. Of course, this was at heart a political stunt in which the Republicans finally got to do something against their long-time nemesis ACORN, an organization that helps register minorities and low-income persons to vote.

Since first reporting that Serve.gov was listing activist positions with ACORN it seems now that all ACORN listings have been scrubbed from the taxpayer-funded site without any explanation as to why they were on it in the first place. The government was using our taxpayer dollars to advertise for volunteer opportunities to promote the president’s partisan agenda via a corrupt organization under investigation for voter registration fraud, among other things.

I wasn’t been following the ACORN non-story, a fake scandal peddled by Glenn “I May Have Raped and Murdered a Young Girl” Beck , until Congress decided to weigh in on the matter. And you know it wasn’t gonna be good: both the House and the Senate, including large numbers of Democrats including Joe Sestak and Arlen Specter, voted to defund the group that brings new voters, most of them from natural Democratic constituencies.

There’s an old saying in the African American community. If you dig a grave for someone, better dig one for yourself. In the conservative zeal to attack and destroy ACORN, the GOP has deliciously done just that. The GOP written congressional legislation intended to defund ACORN is written so broadly that it applies to “any organization” that has been charged with breaking federal or state election laws, lobbying disclosure laws, campaign finance laws or filing fraudulent paperwork with any federal or state agency.

There is no good or evil in Liberal Land. Everything is a nuanced shade of murky gray. Moonbattologists call this “moral relativism,” a principle that has been applied yet again as two particularly unseemly congressional Democrats, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee John Conyers (whose wife has been busted on felony bribery charges ) and the repugnant Bonnie Fwank (whose homosexual love interest ran a brothel out of Fwank’s apartment ) have been forced by the shocking O’Keefe/Giles videos to investigate the cesspool that produced our current president .

Ryan Grim reports that the Defund ACORN Act could end up defunding much, much more : The congressional legislation intended to defund ACORN, passed with broad bipartisan support, is written so broadly that it applies to “any organization” that has been charged with breaking federal or state election laws, lobbying disclosure laws, campaign finance laws or filing fraudulent paperwork with any federal or state agency. It also applies to any of the employees, contractors or other folks affiliated with a group charged with any of those things….

ACORN, which had its housing funds cut-off by Congress over a recent scandal , is now embroiled in a tax-evasion scandal, reports the Washington Times . ACORN has long received taxpayer money despite a history of financial fraud and voter registration fraud .  ACORN helped spawn the mortgage crisis by promoting “liar loans .” ACORN is a left-wing group that launched Obama’s career as a community organizer.  He has long-standing ties to ACORN, and an ACORN affiliate received received $800,000 from Obama’s campaign.

In the news, the town of Bedford, New York is repeating the rejection of visiting insane person Moammar Ghadafi, aka Daffy Kadaffi, dictator of Libya and eager kissy kissy welcomer of the Lockerbie bomber who was released from prison over an oil deal and sent back to Libya. Daffy’s enthusiastic, party-time welcome of this guy has pissed off a lot of Americans, particularly those who lost family members when their airplane was blown up over Lockerbie, Scotlant, by Daffys buddy.

It was dreary day much like any other, but on this day Conservatives and a few Democrats ( the ones afraid of their own shadow) decided to collectively shoot themselves in the foot. It is probably not the biggest self mutilation event in human history, but the Pandora’s Box that it opened might get very interesting, Could ACORN defunding bill strike military-industrial complex?

Great analogy:Daily Kos: That Stamp Will Cost You $23,000, Pal.If health insurance companies ran the mail service, you wouldn’t know what it would cost to mail a package, because nobody involved would be able to tell you, even if you spent the better part of a week on the phone with them. You would know what it cost you one only after you received the bill for mailing it. This bill would come one month later, but additional charges would be added a month after that, more additions would come two months later, the total would be revised again in four months, and would be adjusted again after six months.

There is no good or evil in Liberal Land. Everything is a nuanced shade of murky gray. Moonbattologists call this “moral relativism,” a principle that has been applied yet again as two particularly unseemly congressional Democrats, Chairman of House Judiciary Committee John Conyers (whose wife has been busted on felony bribery charges ) and the repugnant Bonnie Fwank (whose homosexual love interest ran a brothel out of Fwank’s apartment ) have been forced by the shocking O’Keefe/Giles videos to investigate the cesspool that produced our current president .

No way they’ll allow defense contractors to be de-funded, even of they richly deserve it: The congressional legislation intended to defund ACORN, passed with broad bipartisan support, is written so broadly that it applies to “any organization” that has been charged with breaking federal or state election laws, lobbying disclosure laws, campaign finance laws or filing fraudulent paperwork with any federal or state agency.

SAN DIEGO turns up the heat on ACORN. “Not waiting for President Obama’s signature on any legislation, the San Diego Board of Supervisors announced a joint investigation into Association of Community Organization of Reform Now (ACORN). This investigation will center on voter registration fraud and why the state of California has failed to acknowledge San Diego’s Voter registrar request to look into 76 allegedly fraudulent voter cards.”

Ignorance Is Bliss: “ACORN Is Not A Major National Issue” September 20th, 2009 Posted By Erik Wong. WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama says there should be an investigation into the hidden-camera video involving employees at the activist group ACORN and a couple posing as a prostitute and her pimp. The two ACORN workers are seen apparently advising the couple to lie about her profession and launder her earnings to get housing aid.

I am on the road and following multiple big stories. There is so much happening at the moment that it is difficult keep up with breaking news. Those following this blog are aware that Larry Sinclair and I are trying to get some straight answers on the alleged Captain Connie Rhodes letter and apparent deployment to Iraq. Larry & I have both emailed Captain Rhodes. This entire sequence of events beginning with attempts to prevent Rhodes from initially appearing in court to Judge Land attacking the motives of this military officer to this suspicious letter all smell to high heaven.

Congress has read  my list and has decided to do something about it . Going after ACORN may be like shooting fish in a barrel lately — but jumpy lawmakers used a bazooka to do it last week and may have blown up some of their longtime allies in the process. The congressional legislation intended to defund ACORN, passed with broad bipartisan support, is written so broadly that it applies to “any organization” that has been charged with breaking federal or state election laws, lobbying disclosure laws, campaign finance laws or filing fraudulent paperwork with any federal or state agency.

This is perfect : The congressional legislation intended to defund ACORN, passed with broad bipartisan support, is written so broadly that it applies to “any organization” that has been charged with breaking federal or state election laws, lobbying disclosure laws, campaign finance laws or filing fraudulent paperwork with any federal or state agency. It also applies to any of the employees, contractors or other folks affiliated with a group charged with any of those things.

A MUST-READ from John Ennis: http://pubrecord.org/commentary/5437/entrapping-acorn/ Related Posts: ACORN and the GOP: A History Leahy to look into BushCo’s “voter fraud” deception More on GOP vs. ACORN Brad Friedman on the ACORN scam $5,000 reward for info on ACORN break-ins

Millions of years from now our descendents will fuel their world with oil produced from the bodies of today’s dinosaur media Woodward and Bernstein helped bring down a president in the 1970s. Now O’Keefe and Giles are helping to bring down both ACORN and the fourth estate with their series of Internet videos. And the press is taking it none too kindly. In response, they’re smear the messenger instead of doing their job by spreading the message that ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Racketeering Now) is rotten to the core and that President Obama has a long history with the taxpayer-funded group.

  A CORN CEO Bertha Lewis told Fox News Sunday on September 20 that her group “absolutely pays its taxes.” But her claim crumbles before the $548,213.25 federal tax lien that the Internal Revenue Service filed against the embattled New Orleans-based activist organization. Louisiana state tax officials also have slapped $334,121.43 in tax liens on ACORN since last October 29. The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now has been in boiling water lately for far sexier charges.

Over the past few weeks, videotapes have been trickling out that purport to show ACORN employees offered tax advice to those seeking to engage in child prostitution or other salacious activities.  Having viewed the tapes, it’s obvious that they have been edited extensively, and that alone should make one wonder what the original tapes may show.  Further, Media Matters has a lengthy critique of the credibility of the conservative activists and the manufactured news story that they have created,

The move in Congress to respond to the allegations against ACORN could have some interesting consequences. The folks at the Sunlight Foundation report that the legislation designed to cut off all federal funding of ACORN would ban any group from receiving public money that is under investigation for fraud or has been found guilty of it. The foundation reports that is a pretty wide net. While this may have seemed like a smart idea, it winds up applying to a large number of defense contractors and others.

From the Boston Globe , former Commonwealth Attorney General, Scott Harshbarger, has been chosen by ACORN executives to perform an internal investigation of the organization that has come under scrutiny for voter fraud and most recently, incidents involving advising prostitutes on how to evade income taxes and run an underage brothel. Harshbarger is currently an attorney with a Boston firm, specializing in corporate defense and investigations. Mr.

REDSTATE MORNING BRIEFING FOR SEPTEMBER 23, 2009 Sign up to get the morning briefing by email here. 1. Inside The ACORN Rolodex: ACORN Has Its Own Political Party Other Than the Democrats 2. General McChrystal to Obama: More Troops Or I Quit! 3. The No-To Guy 4. The Politics of PACs 5. Media Matters Is On the Case of the ‘Stolen’ ACORN Rolodex 6. Obama continues effort to distance himself from ACORN ———————————————————————- 1.

“…Weathermen advocated the overthrow of the government of the United States and the system of capitalism; toward that end, they carried out a campaign of bombings, jailbreaks, and riots.” –From Weather Underground EX-WEATHER UNDERGROUND : What Are They Doing Today? BILL AYERS, BERNADINE DORHN, ZACH POLLET, WADE RATHKE, DRUMMOND PIKE: MAKING THE TRANSITION FROM VIOLENT OVERTHROW TO TAKEOVER from WITHIN FROM PITCHING BOMBS TO PITCHING POLICY What do you do if you’re a spoiled rich poser with time on your hands in the 1960s and 1970s? For some, that question was answered by joining the Weather Underground–The Weathermen.

Every party has got its base. And every party has got its basement. It’s a place where the party keeps under the lock and key, or at least tries to, some of the more eccentric sections of its base. Kind of like what you do to your crazy uncle who insists on wearing his underwear on his head and what the non-magical folks do to Harry Potter in between the academic years at Hogwarts.That’s the theory.

Darryl Issa attempts to spin the current ACORN issue into a fundraising attempt; claiming that taxpayers won a major victory through his efforts …WE WON NOTHING … motions and even the legislation itself mean little or nothing until it is passed by both chambers of Congress and signed into law by the President of the United States.

HuffPo(*) has the scoop, Whoops: Anti-ACORN Bill Ropes In Defense Contractors, Others Charged With Fraud : The congressional legislation intended to defund ACORN, passed with broad bipartisan support, is written so broadly that it applies to “any organization” that has been charged with breaking federal or state election laws, lobbying disclosure laws, campaign finance laws or filing fraudulent paperwork with any federal or state agency.

It was around eleven o’clock this morning that Gretchen ushered three earnest, clean-cut, very well dressed young folks into my office.  “Representing the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now,” she informed me, departing my office with a wink and nod: “Cash customers.  They don’t wish to leave their names.” “No problem,” I assured my visitors, “you’re in good company.  Many of my clients, from all over the world, prefer to do business with me on a cash basis.  Please, make