Acorn

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SEPTEMBER 16, 2009, 7:12 A.M. ET

Acorn Runs Off the Rails

'We're just community organizers, just like the president used to be.'


By JOHN FUND

On Monday, the U.S. Senate voted 83-7 to strip Acorn, the premier community organizing group on the left, of more than $1.6 million in federal housing money meant to assist low-income people obtain loans and prepare tax forms. This dramatic step followed last Friday's decision by the U.S. Census Bureau to sever its ties with the organization, one of several community groups it was partnering with to conduct the nation's head count.

Both of these actions came after secretly recorded videos involving employees in Acorn's Brooklyn, N.Y., Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Md. and San Bernardino, Calif. offices were televised on Fox News. The videos were recorded by two independent filmmakers who posed as a prostitute and a pimp and said they were planning to import underage women from El Salvador for the sex trade. They asked for and received advice on getting a housing loan and evading federal taxes.

OpinionJournal.com Columnist John Fund says the infamous housing organization may not be done collecting federal contributions.
In response, Acorn has so far fired four of the employees seen on the videos. But it claimed the videos were "doctored" and accused critics of a smear campaign and "racist coverage" of the incidents.

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. But now Acorn may be finally running off the rails.

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A growing number of people once affiliated with Acorn want nothing more to do with the group. Marcel Reid, for example, was one of eight national Acorn board members who were removed last year after demanding an audit of the group's books. She notes that Acorn received $7.4 million in contributions from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) between 2005 and 2008 but actively fights unionization efforts by its own employees. Ms. Reid also notes that Acorn was sanctioned by the National Labor Relations Board in 2003 for illegally firing workers trying to organize a union.

In 1995, Acorn unsuccessfully sued California to be exempt from the minimum wage, claiming that "the more that Acorn must pay each individual outreach worker . . . the fewer outreach workers it will be able to hire." The decision to file that lawsuit was made by Wade Rathke, who founded Acorn in 1970 and was its long-time leader. He was forced by the group's board to resign last year after it found that he'd engaged in a cover-up of a nearly $1 million embezzlement of Acorn funds by his brother Dale, then the group's chief financial officer.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...s_Most_Popular

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Time to cut bait.

[mick504]

The organization Acorn was partly responsible for putting our President into office...and to further their continued milking of taxpayer money to furthur the social agenda. They are a sad bunch...alot of which we really don't know that much about.

[Birchtree]

There should be an in depth investigation to see if there was outlandish voter fraud to the extent that the votes should be discarded. Perhaps BHO should resign like Nixon did.

[phil]

ACORN is conducting an investigation into the matter. Let's give them the opportunity to clean house.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090917/...congress_acorn

[mayday]

Originally Posted by phil

ACORN is conducting an investigation into the matter. Let's give them the opportunity to clean house.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090917/...congress_acorn

That's like asking the fox to guard the chicken coop.

[phil]

So.....what else should they be doing? They fired the workers in question and are seeking to conduct an internal investigation.

[mayday]

Originally Posted by phil

So.....what else should they be doing? They fired the workers in question and are seeking to conduct an internal investigation.

They should not get any tax payer dollars.

The congress should be doing the investigating, and all the local newspapers.

[nnuut]

ACORN Is Looking For A Few Good Gynecologists - Or Is Bill Gates In Favor Of Child Prostitution?
By now you are familiar with the ACORN Child Prostitution ring scandal. If not watch this video. Or you could watch this video. Among others.

Well ACORN is embarrassed and plans to investigate what went wrong and who is to blame.

ACORN, calling the actions of some of its employees "indefensible," has suspended advising new clients as part of its service programs and is setting up an independent review to see what happened.
ACORN chief executive Bertha Lewis said in a written statement that she was "ordering a halt to any new intakes into ACORN's service programs until completion of an independent review."

Is the investigation going to be on the up and up? What do you think?

One way to tell is to see how they intend to do the investigation. [much more]
http://www.classicalvalues.com/archi...is_lookin.html

[phil]

If ACORN is being cut off from federal funds, then I suppose they'll have to come up with money from other sources. Maybe some of us should send them money to assist them in the other work they do 99.999% of the time.

Maybe it's also about the good things they've done in the past as community organizers.

[DrScooter]

Instead of playing politics, such as ACORN a community organizing group JUST like Obama lets face some facts. There is illegal activity going on within many groups. Hey, that's why we have cops, court and the law. Charge and convict if you got the proof, the law has gone after the Church when laws were broken (who also had an internal investigation) the law can go after ACORN, the Democratic Party, the Republican Party or even FOX News. We are a nation of laws, if FOX uncovered something that's what journalists do. Police investigate and charge and then we have a trial. Obama is not a conspirator for sitting under an oak tree, if the charges lead up to the White-house then that is where they go, no man should be above the law, except Dick Cheney ()

[Buster]

Originally Posted by DrScooter

no man should be above the law, except Dick Cheney ()