ACORN

Until the 2008 election cycle, relatively few people had heard of Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, more commonly known as ACORN.  In the fiscal 2006-2007 year, ACORN received $218,452 from the National Education Association -- the teachers' union.  ACORN owns radio stations KABF and KNON.

You might also be interested to know that President Obama has close ties to ACORN.

People who conspire to commit large-scale voting fraud are the reason for Voter-ID laws.


Overview:
 Modern day brown shirts.  The so-called "counterculture of the 1960s" bred a number of radical organizations that over time morphed, infiltrated and/or became aligned with the Democrat Party. [...] Remember the Association of Community Organization for Reform Now (ACORN)?  It was formed in the 1970s as, for all practical purposes, a Communist front organization for the purpose of "organizing the urban poor."  ACORN promoted an agenda of anti-capitalism, central planning, victimology, and government handouts to the poor.  This was the organization in which Obama got his start as the proverbial "community organizer" in Chicago.  ACORN was actually first started in Bill Clinton's Arkansas, of all places (the "A" in ACORN originally standing for Arkansas!).  Their goal through the years was "anti-capitalist redistributionism" as a means of promoting a radical restructuring of America's capitalist economy.  ACORN departed from the violent acts of '60s-era radicals by exploiting the political tactic of "burrowing from within" a given city's political system.  They used "in your face" peaceful confrontations, protests, and controlled riots to gain political power in cities like Baltimore, Chicago, and Detroit. [...] But ACORN didn't just disappear.  The organization, its membership, and its funders/backers were leveraged directly by, and morphed into, the next generation of the Left's protest movement: the "Million Man March," Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, and Antifa.  Obama's radical roots with ACORN should have been a warning of what was to come — and to some who shouted about it during the 2008 election campaign, it was no secret.  But we all know how the legacy media obfuscated Obama's radical ties and covered for him for 8 long years.

6 Bizarre Examples of How Voter Registration Fraud Happens.  [#4] In a 2008 case, Seattle workers with the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now, or ACORN, submitted 1,762 fraudulent voter registration forms.  ACORN leader Clifton Mitchell was convicted of false registration and served about three months in jail.  Four other ACORN colleagues got jail time as well.  Washington state also fined ACORN $25,000 to cover the cost of the investigation.  Then-Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed said, "This is the worst case of voter registration fraud in the history of the state of Washington."

Lying About Obama.  [Scroll down]  Take those editors and reporters who covered up Obama's ties to the corrupt left-wing organization known as ACORN, which was supposedly devoted to helping the black community.  Ultimately it was a young freelancer, James O'Keefe, whose covert videotapes made ACORN criminality public.  In response, major media such as CNN and the Post attacked him as a racist; but O'Keefe's exposé was so powerful that ACORN ended up dissolving in 2010.  Even now, however, the ACORN page at Wikipedia — a solidly left-wing site — asserts that O'Keefe's videos "inaccurately portray[ed] the [ACORN] personnel as encouraging criminal behavior."  The fall of ACORN was only one episode.  Throughout Obama's presidency, the MSM presented him as a remarkably virtuous, scandal-free leader.

Five Quick Things:  Pointless Sympathy for the Devil.  [#5] Remember what happened to ACORN.  This agonizing (or delicious!) drip-drip-drip of damaging revelations from that laptop is straight out of the playbook Andrew Breitbart and James O'Keefe wrote when the two combined to utterly destroy the urban leftist ACORN machine with a series of hidden videos showing ACORN employees flagrantly breaking the law.  ACORN twisted in the wind for weeks as O'Keefe dragged them mercilessly through a pattern of revelation, denial, and further revelation invalidating the denial.  And Rudy Giuliani, Steve Bannon, and the conservative news organizations (the New York Post, Fox News, and a number of others) who have imposed this water torture on not just Biden but the legacy and social media giants protecting them have done precisely what O'Keefe did.  You haven't heard much from ACORN lately, have you?

The ACORN Sting, 10 Years Later.  [Scroll down]  There's an unwritten rule in journalism you are not supposed to investigate organizations that "help people."  But after reading about ACORN corruption cloaked with good intentions, we decided to investigate how far their willingness to break the law would go.  The job fell to 20 year-old scantily clad Hannah Giles and I, then 24.  She would play the part of the prostitute and I the pimp.  Together we would bring down ACORN and expose the corrupt mainstream media.

First They Came for Alex Jones.  [T]he major media have refused to concede that James O'Keefe of Project Veritas is a journalist, this despite the fact that at the time of O'Keefe's arrest his undercover reporting had just brought down ACORN, a corrupt $2 billion leftist organization.  In 2010, shortly after the ACORN bust, O'Keefe and three colleagues attempted to investigate whether Senator Mary Landrieu's office in New Orleans was blocking calls from Tea Party activists.  Although the four showed their actual driver's licenses to get into a federal building, the Feds arrested them and charged them with a misdeanor "entry by false pretenses."  O'Keefe spent a night in jail and three years on restrictive federal probation, specifically for telling the Landrieu staffers he was waiting for someone when he wasn't.  The national media were gleeful.  They called the O'Keefe affair the "Louisiana Watergate" and "Watergate Jr."

The Top 50 Liberal Media Bias Examples.  [#17] ACORN:  Speaking of trying to squelch a story, we have a perfect example of that in ACORN. When videographer James O'Keefe unveiled videos of members of several ACORN officials agreeing to help what they imagined was a pimp trying to get government breaks on his housing costs for his prostitutes, the Old Media ignored the story for weeks.  For his part Andrew Breitbart covered that story for weeks before the Old Media finally began to talk about it.  An ACORN Whistleblower even emerged and the media, especially The New York Times, did its level best to squelch the story.

Obama's involvement with ACORN.  [Scroll down to #534] During a 2008 debate with John McCain, Obama falsely said that the only time he had ever been involved with ACORN was when he had represented them in a lawsuit where they tried to get Illinois to adopt a "motor-voter" law.  In realty, there were several other times that Obama had been involved with ACORN.  For example, Obama had taught leadership training sessions for ACORN.  In addition, Obama had also worked as an organizer for Project Vote, an ACORN offshoot.  The New York Times quoted Obama as saying:  "Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote voter registration drives in Illinois, Acorn was smack dab in the middle of it."  Furthermore, Obama had been on the board of directors of the Woods Fund when it gave ACORN $75,000 in 2001, and $70,000 in 2002.  Also, during the 2008 primary campaign, Obama's campaign had given Citizens Services Inc., an ACORN affiliate, more than $800,000 for "get out the vote" efforts.  However, Obama's campaign had falsely told the FEC that the money was for "staging, sound, lighting."

Not All Stings Work.  [Scroll down]  In 2009, for instance, [James] O'Keefe and a young friend ran integrity tests on ACORN offices in six separate cities.  ACORN execs celebrated upon realizing that their Philadelphia office saw through the sting.  This was before they realized that their officials in Washington, Baltimore, Brooklyn, and San Bernardino had no problem advising a pimp on how to find housing for his underage Central American sex slaves.  The major media had turned a blind eye to the flagrant corruption of their ACORN allies for years.  As a direct result of Project Veritas's exposure, this billion-dollar enterprise collapsed within months.  When it did, the media turned on O'Keefe.  He had not only brought down a useful leftist institution, but also embarrassed the reporters who should have done that job themselves. [...] The media have welcomed this integrity test about as much as a corrupt cop does a visit from Internal Affairs.  At every level of these news organizations, employees recognize they are making a mockery of their mission.

Former ACORN officials running new $80M anti-Trump network.  Members of the infamous community organizing outfit ACORN are behind an ambitious, well-funded $80 million anti-Trump network funded by radical currency speculator George Soros.

New $80M Anti-Trump Network Spearheaded by Soros-Funded Org With Former ACORN Employees.  A new $80 million anti-Trump network is being led by an organization whose top funder is liberal billionaire George Soros and which employs former members of the controversial and now-defunct Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN).  The Center for Popular Democracy Action Fund, the 501(c)(4) sister organization of the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD), a New York-based nonprofit that receives the bulk of its funding from George Soros, announced at their spring gala Tuesday that they will be heading up the new $80 million anti-Trump network that will span 32 states and have 48 local partners, CNN reported.  The network will seek to mobilize new voters and fight voter identification laws.  It will also focus on gerrymandering and automatic voter registration programs with an eye on the 2018 and 2020 election cycles.

Trump's Got a Big Job Reining In Voter Fraud.  Fraud long has been an ugly element of American politics, and it has been almost exclusively the dominion of Democrats.  From the reckless corruption of the Boss Tweed and the Tammany Hall thugs in New York during the mid-1800s through the heavy-handed precinct politics favored by Mayor Richard J. Daley and his successors in Chicago during much of the 20th century, to the wide-spread graft of today, the Democratic Party has virtually sole claim to the mechanisms of election corruption.  The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), of which former President Barack Obama has had a close working association and heavy funding for his campaign coffers, has a 40-year rap sheet of widespread voter registration fraud.  Untold thousands who went to their just rewards years ago are resurrected on each election day to cast one more ballot for their favorite Democrat pol, while an estimated 2.8 million are registered to vote in more than one state and often do.

George Soros:  The "God" Who Should Be Jailed.  MORE is simply the rebranded Missouri chapter of ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), the former national organization of paid activists inspired by Marxist strategist Saul Alinsky and founded by 1960s SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) radical Wade Rathke.  Like ACORN, the white "social justice" leaders at MORE pay protesters (mostly black or "people of color") to create street theater that can be exploited to advance their causes.  Some of MORE's rent-a-mob activities in Ferguson were exposed in 2015 when black protesters occupied MORE's offices and threatened the white radicals because they hadn't been paid as promised.  To placate the angry protesters, MORE provided them with documents showing that they had dispersed the funds appropriately.  Where did the money go?

Another $37.3 Mil to Combat Housing Discrimination.  Throughout his two terms Obama has allocated colossal sums of taxpayer dollars to combat what he believes is an epidemic of discrimination against minorities in everything from the criminal justice system to education, housing and the workforce.  This has been a government wide effort in which a number of federal agencies have doled out hundreds of millions of dollars to fund a multitude of controversial initiatives.  Among the biggest spenders has been the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).  Judicial Watch has reported on this waste over the years, including the results of a probe that revealed HUD violated a ban on federal funding for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) by giving the famously corrupt group tens of thousands of dollars in grants to "combat housing and lending discrimination."

How Clinton and Obama Gamed America's Financial System to Expand Their Party's Power.  It is widely accepted that the 1992 Community Reinvestment Act fostered the growth of subprime mortgages.  At the same time there was an interesting growth in the power and influence of ACORN on Democratic Party elections.  Both Obama and Clinton acted to enhance ACORN's Democratic voter registration activities.  In 1993 Clinton signed the "Motor Voter" law, empowering ACORN to register hundreds of thousands of Democrats nationwide.  Barack Obama became involved with ACORN in 1993 when he agreed to run a successful voter registration drive for ACORN affiliate Project Vote.  In 1995 he successfully sued the state of Illinois to enforce the Motor Voter law.  He rose to become a trainer of ACORN staff and then joined the board of the Woods Fund where he funneled substantial grants to ACORN.  In the 1990s as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac started their strategy to lower home mortgage underwriting standards ACORN became the major player in a scheme to use banks to funnel money directly into Democratic campaigns across the nation.

$15 Minimum Wage: Women, Blacks Hurt Most.  The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, traveled from state to state, collecting signatures to place minimum wage increase initiatives on ballots.  To pull this off, the organization needed to hire lots of workers.  In 1995, ACORN came to California to gather signatures for a higher minimum wage.  But ACORN sued the state, seeking to exempt itself from California's minimum wage and overtime laws.  Its brief read, "The more ACORN must pay each individual outreach worker — either because of minimum wage or overtime requirements — the fewer outreach workers it will be able to hire."

More Left-fascism: Undercover journalist who brought down ACORN accosted.  Let's hope that this was just some random jerk.  Let's hope it wasn't some union guy who knew exactly what he was doing, or was told to try to intimidate James O'Keefe by someone else.  That the recorded nut made reference to how happy he was that Andrew Breitbart was dead and how he would like to dance on Breitbart's grave could be construed as a threat.

Obama hired ACORN as Obamacare navigators.  So Obama-Jarrett regime hired Acorn to be ObamaCARE navigators, even though Congress banned all federal funding to Acorn.  Unless Obama is paying Acorn out of his own pocket (which we know [he] would never do), that means federal funds are going to Acorn.  So what do Republicans do?  Nothing.

HHS Violates ACORN Funding Ban to Pay for Obamacare Navigators.  Despite a 5-year-old congressional ban on federal funding for the notably corrupt Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), Judicial Watch has obtained documents that show a chunk of taxpayer money went to an affiliate serving as an Obamacare "navigator."  The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) violated the ACORN funding ban by awarding a Louisiana nonprofit called Southern United Neighborhoods (SUN) a $1.3 million Obamacare navigator grant to recruit customers for the president's disastrous healthcare law and help them "navigate" the complicated insurance exchanges.

More about Obamacare navigators.

Is ACORN behind violent unrest in Ferguson?  ACORN's old Missouri chapter is playing at least a supporting role in the violent unrest and crime wave that has plagued Ferguson and St. Louis, Missouri since the Aug. 9 death of Michael Brown.  With all the pathologies on parade right now in and around Ferguson, really, how could the loyalists of ACORN, which once claimed a membership of 400,000, have stayed away from the opportunity to lynch a white police officer for doing his job?  The recruiting and fundraising opportunities for the cop-hating progressive movement are virtually unlimited.  What's going on in Ferguson is mobocracy at its ugliest.

Watchdog claims union's legal fight reveals ObamaCare fraud.  Non-profit group Southern United Neighborhoods got a $1.3 million federal grant in 2013 to serve as a "navigator," enrolling people in Affordable Care Act coverage.  The group subcontracted with United Labor Unions Local 100, which, according to Cause of Action, paid members less than it billed the government and, in some cases, paid them to recruit union members.  The watchdog group discovered the alleged discrepancy in court papers filed by union workers suing the labor organization for unpaid overtime.

Watchdog claims union's legal fight reveals ObamaCare fraud.  Non-profit group Southern United Neighborhoods got a $1.3 million federal grant in 2013 to serve as a "navigator," enrolling people in Affordable Care Act coverage.  The group subcontracted with United Labor Unions Local 100, which, according to Cause of Action, paid members less than it billed the government and, in some cases, paid them to recruit union members.  The watchdog group discovered the alleged discrepancy in court papers filed by union workers suing the labor organization for unpaid overtime.  "Southern United Neighborhoods and ULU Local 100, both rebranded ACORN entities, present a risk of violating the law — this time by potentially misusing over $1.3 million of taxpayer dollars for union activities instead of enrolling individuals in the Affordable Care Act," Daniel Epstein, executive director for Cause of Action said to FoxNews.com.

Holder Cuts Left In On $17 Billion Bank Of America Settlement.  The deal requires billions of dollars in debt forgiveness payments to delinquent borrowers.  It also requires Bank of America to make billions in new loans and to build affordable low-income rental housing.  The remaining money will go to a slush fund for leftists. [...] NeighborWorks of America has been a major supporter of ACORN, the left's most favored radicals.  According to Investors' Business Daily, in 2008 and 2009 NeighborWorks awarded a whopping $25 million to Acorn Housing.  Moreover, an Acorn Housing spinoff is directly eligible for BofA slush funds.  It's an outfit called Mutual Housing Association of New York.

DOJ To Give Money From Bank Of America Settlement To Liberal Activist Groups.  The Department of Justice is giving liberal activist groups money from a $16.6 billion settlement with Bank of America, Judicial Watch reports.  The groups benefiting from the lawsuit, according to Investor's Business Daily, are the National Council of La Raza, Operation Hope, National Community Reinvestment Coalition and Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America.  The money also went to "delinquent borrowers" in Chicago, Oakland, Detroit, Philadelphia and other major "Democrat strongholds."  "This is a wealth redistribution scheme disguised as a lawsuit," Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, told The Daily Caller.  "And who benefits from the distribution?  Interest groups the administration relies on, outside interest groups, allies and politicians in communities trying to benefit as well."  Fitton noted that these liberal groups are basically what's left of the Association of Community Organization for Reform Now (ACORN) network, and that President Barack Obama has ties to ACORN.

Holder's Bank of America Heist Funds Left's Community-Organizer Shock Troops.  Government coercion of the financial sector to make irresponsible loans was the primary driver of the 2007-08 financial meltdown.  Yet, as we've previously observed here, "Washington has searched every place but within for a scapegoat" — with the Obama Justice Department pursuing politically motivated investigations, prosecutions, and civil lawsuits against banks and credit rating agencies in order to concoct a history that blames predatory lending rather than statist policy.  Now we learn that Eric Holder, the Tom Hagen of this racketeering enterprise of an administration, is using the vig that DOJ muscle is extorting from the banks to pour tens of millions of dollars into the coffers of the radical Left's top rabble-rousers — in addition to diverting what should be public funds to pay off delinquent debts in cities that Democrats have destroyed.

Holder Cut Left-Wing Groups In On $17 Bil BofA Deal.  Buried in the fine print of the deal, which includes $7 billion in soft-dollar consumer relief, are a raft of political payoffs to Obama constituency groups.  In effect, the government has ordered the nation's largest bank to create a massive slush fund for Democrat special interests.  Besides requiring billions in debt forgiveness payments to delinquent borrowers in Cleveland, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Oakland, Detroit, Chicago and other Democrat strongholds — and up to $500 million to cover personal taxes owed on those checks — the deal requires BofA to make billions in new loans, while also building affordable low-income rental housing in those areas.

ACORN's Seeds Sprout Up Across the Country.  The left-wing group crushed by the right is gone, but its members never stopped working.  After four years of anonymity, the liberal veterans want conservatives to know they're back.

Food Stamps Fund Left-Wing Media.  More than four decades ago, when community organizer Wade Rathke landed a job at ACORN's parent nonprofit group, he discovered that the National Welfare Rights Organization had no intention of paying him for his work.  NWRO was one of many rabble-rousing leftist groups across the nation feeding at the public trough, receiving funding through the federal government's Office of Economic Opportunity.  The generously funded OEO was created to underwrite destructive left-wing "community" activism in the mid-1960s as part of the "War on Poverty." [...] This brutal exploitation of workers was typical of NWRO and, later, of Rathke's ACORN, which went so far as to go to court to seek exemption from California's minimum wage laws.  (ACORN lost.)

Premeditated, Manufactured Chaos.  [Scroll down]  There is such a strategy; Obama has known about it for decades and is using it now.  It was developed in the 1960s by Columbia University professors Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, who published an article in Nation magazine titled "The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty."  By packing welfare rolls with new beneficiaries, they hoped to bankrupt local governments and foment a blazing revolution when benefits dried up.  It came to be known as the "Cloward Piven Strategy," or simply "Crisis Strategy."  The strategy helped explode welfare rolls in the 1960s and 1970s, and precipitated New York City's near bankruptcy in 1975.  Speaking of that crisis, New York Mayor Rudolf Giuliani accused the pair of economic sabotage.  Cloward and Piven created the organizations tasked with executing this strategy, most notably ACORN.

Obama's Secret Collaboration with ACORN Bosses.  Former officers of the disgraced radical group ACORN are still advising the Obama administration and guiding its catastrophic far-left policies almost three years after the group filed bankruptcy.  Former ACORN Housing public affairs director Bruce Dorpalen, who now runs the National Housing Resource Center (NHRC), has been meeting with and advising senior Obama administration officials on housing policy, according to good-government group Judicial Watch.  The watchdog discovered the secret collaborations after filing a Freedom of Information Act (FoIA) request.

Obama's ACORN Pals Cashing In on Obamacare Enrollment.  President Obama's old friends in the ACORN crime syndicate have decided to get a piece of the big-money Obamacare action.  United Labor Unions (ULU) Local 100 in New Orleans, which is run by ACORN founder Wade Rathke, announced on its Facebook page that it's gearing up "to do mass enrollment and help navigate people into the marketplaces in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas under the Affordable Care Act!"  Be afraid.  Wherever Rathke goes, lawlessness follows.

Obama's Acorn Cronies To Profit From ObamaCare.  As Mathew Vadum reports on the American Spectator blog, United Labor Unions (ULU) Local 100 in New Orleans, which is run by Acorn founder Wade Rathke, announced on its Facebook page that it's gearing up "to do mass enrollment and help navigate people into the marketplaces in Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas under the Affordable Care Act!"  "Local 100's role as a Navigator, suggest(s) the program is less about health care and more about building a new progressive infrastructure," says longtime Acorn-watcher Mike Flynn of Breitbart.com.

The Mayor from ACORN.  On the evening of September 17, Bill de Blasio declared his primary victory, formally becoming the Democratic nominee and front-runner for New York City mayor.  Standing behind him, one of the few invited onstage for this momentous event, was a friend, an adviser, a strategist, and a campaigner — Bertha Lewis, former head of ACORN.

ACORN's former chief calls for more immigration to boost black power.  ACORN's former CEO Bertha Lewis urged Africans-Americans to support increased immigration as a strategy to gain political power.  "We got some Latino cousins, we got some Asian cousins, we got some Native-American cousins, we got all kind of cousins," said Lewis, who spoke Thursday [9/19/2013] at the annual political conference of the Congressional Black Caucus.  "Cousins need to get together because if we're going to be [part of the non-white] majority, it makes sense for black people in this country to get down with immigration reform," said Lewis, whose ACORN group was formally disbanded in 2010 after a series of scandals.

ACORN chief gets back in the game.  ACORN's former leader is back on top.  Bertha Lewis played critical behind-the-scenes roles in the victorious Democratic primary campaigns of both Bill de Blasio for mayor and Kenneth Thompson for Brooklyn district attorney, The [New York] Post has learned.  "We're baacccck.  The right wing will have to deal with it," Lewis chuckled.  Lewis, a co-founder of the Working Families Party, was an early backer and adviser to de Blasio.

Nonprofit executive overseeing the White House's Obamacare youth video contest is the disgraced ACORN group's former top lobbyist.  ACORN, the once-mighty Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, crumbled in 2010 just months after a video sting operation showed its employees advising activists posing as a pimp and prostitute on how to evade federal taxes and hide crimes including human trafficking and prostitution.  Congress voted officially to defund it shortly thereafter.

Judicial Watch: Feds give housing grant to ACORN affiliate despite federal ban.  A spinoff of the scandal-ridden community organizer group ACORN received more than $200,000 in federal housing grants despite a ban on money going to ACORN affiliates, watchdog organization Judicial Watch announced Thursday [8/15/2013].  ACORN, which officially folded in 2009 after a string of scandals, rebranded into more than 100 spinoff groups, including Affordable Housing Centers of America — also now defunct — and Mission of Peace, an affordable housing nonprofit.

Before James Rosen, There Was James O'Keefe.  Some three and a half years ago, the New Orleans wing of the Obama Justice Department arrested O'Keefe and indicted him and three of his colleagues on the bogus charge of entering a federal building under false pretenses.  For its part, the media celebrated their arrest. [...] Although there was nothing illegal about recording the staffers and the four had all entered the building using their own IDs, the Justice Department wanted revenge for O'Keefe's and Hannah Giles's stunning takedown of the corrupt ACORN enterprise months earlier.

Former New York City ACORN office working to unionize fast food workers.  The New York Times reports that union organizers are trying to convince fast food workers to unionize.  The effort is being led by New York Communities for Change which is the name of the reorganized and rebranded former ACORN office in Brooklyn.  "I feel I deserve $15 an hour," said Linda Archer, 59[,] a McDonalds cashier.  "I work very hard."  Archer currently earns $8 an hour and averages 24 hours a week.

True the Vote: Keeping Our Elections Free and Clean.  During the 2008 election cycle, Catherine Engelbrecht volunteered at the polls in Harris County, the second largest voting block in Texas.  She noticed that although she was there with a small group of people to observe, Harris County had a poll watcher shortage of at least 50 percent.  There weren't enough people observing the election process to prevent fraud.  Shortly after her experiences at the polls, Harris County authorities found 23,000 invalid voter registration forms that had been submitted by an ACORN operative.

CASA de Maryland: The Illegals' ACORN.  CASA receives about 40 percent of its funding from Maryland state and local governments — almost $5 million of taxpayer dollars in 2010 — and spends most of it lobbying for illegal immigrant perks and exceptions.  Their recent lawsuit is a blatant attempt to derail the democratic process itself.

'Hitler' appears on Ohio voter registration form.  Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys, including Quarterback Tony Romo, were names that ACORN workers attempted to register to vote during the 2008 presidential election.  The ensuing outrage sparked a voter registration fraud scandal that helped lead to the activist group's demise, and put new focus on the integrity of third-party voter registration efforts during Presidential elections.

ACORN whistleblower: Corruption widespread.  A former ACORN worker who turned whistleblower on corruption in that agency served as guest speaker for a event Friday [10/26/2012] in Cedar Falls, one of four around the state to address voter fraud.  Anita MonCrief is a former employee turned vocal critic of the now-defunct Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, and its affiliate organization Project Vote.  ACORN, created in 1970, disbanded in 2010.  MonCrief sees corruption as rampant in this country, not just in voter fraud, but across Washington, D.C.  "These people out here are trying to take our country away from us," MonCrief said.

Can Obama Win Without ACORN?  In 2008, ACORN and similar groups came closer than ever before to reaching their goals.  Voter registration skyrocketed across the country — also buoyed by a drawn-out, competitive Democratic primary and widespread enthusiasm about a historic election, to be sure.  But ACORN was a major player.  Working in tandem with an organization called Project Vote, the group recorded 1.3 million voter applications across the country; it claims to have been responsible for one in four new voter registrations of 2008.

Left-Wing Radicalism in the Church: CCHD and ACORN.  It must have been a sad day at the offices of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) in Washington, D.C., last year when the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) announced that its temporary suspension of funding for the embattled radical group ACORN was being made permanent.  Each November around Thanksgiving, every Roman Catholic parish takes up a collection for the non-profit campaign.  CCHD is the grant-making arm of USCCB, which acts on behalf of the nation's Roman Catholic bishops, a group widely assumed to be conservative defenders of traditional morality.  However, CCHD and ACORN share a left-wing ideology that puts a premium on aggressive community organizing.

Report: 170 ACORN-affiliated groups still active.
 It's Alive!  Many of ACORN's affiliates, allies, and old chapters remain active under different names — and at least two have received federal dollars — despite the left-wing community-organizing group's official dissolution and ban on receiving federal funds, according to a new report.  Cause of Action, a nonprofit government watchdog group, recently identified 174 active or rebranded ACORN affiliates, as well as organizations that share former ACORN staff.  The groups shared the same physical location, leadership or staff, or tax ID number as old ACORN chapters, Cause of Action said.

Report: ACORN network still active under new names.  The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now or ACORN famously came under fire a few years ago because its political affiliates engaged in electioneering and lobbying.  There was also an embezzlement scandal, allegations of facilitating voter fraud and a notorious video sting by conservative provocateur James O'Keefe.  The organization officially announced the closure of its offices in 2010 after losing government funding due to the controversies.  But that doesn't mean it vanished from the landscape altogether.  The nonprofit watchdog group Cause of Action published a list today [8/22/2012] of "still-active ACORN entities, ACORN allies, and rebranded ACORN organizations."

Welfare voter push has GOP crying foul.  The state has mailed out voter registration letters to nearly 500,000 welfare recipients, in a push sparked by a group led by former ACORN bigwigs that critics say is a naked bid to boost Democrats at the polls in November.

Taxpayer watchdog calls on IRS to probe re-branded Texas ACORN branch.  The former Texas ACORN chapter has a new name and a scheme to collect donations and divert them for political use in a way that abuses tax laws governing charitable organizations, according to a Washington-based public interest group.

ACORN Housing Finally in Foreclosure.  Like a con artist trying to escape his past, ACORN Housing legally changed its name to Affordable Housing Centers of America (AHCOA) two years ago after the devastating "pimp and pro" videos surfaced in 2009.  In those undercover videos created by conservative activists James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles ACORN and ACORN Housing employees were shown offering helpful advice on setting up a brothel for pedophiles and breaking other laws.  A year later the controlling entity in the ACORN network, ACORN Inc., filed for bankruptcy after Congress cut off its taxpayer funding and left-leaning foundations ran away from it.

Washington's "Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians" for 2011.  [Scroll down]  Despite a ban on funding that Obama signed into law, his administration continues to fund the corrupt and allegedly defunct "community" organization ACORN.  In July 2011 Judicial Watch uncovered a $79,819 grant to AHCOA (Affordable Housing Centers of America), the renamed ACORN Housing which has a long history of corrupt activity.  In absolute violation of the funding ban, Judicial Watch has since confirmed that the Obama administration has funneled $730,000 to the ACORN network, a group that has a long personal history with President Obama.

ACORN Official Grabs $445 Million Grant From Obama Admin.  ACORN, the supposedly defunct organization defunded by Congress in the aftermath of James O'Keefe's video exposing ACORN employees' willingness to help out pimps and prostitutes attain government benefits, is back.  As Judicial Watch has uncovered, the Obama administration offered $445 million to a former ACORN official as part of a $7.6 billion government program designed to help "unemployed or substantially underemployed" Americans make their mortgage payments.

The Anti-Democratic Party.  Democrats love to count perhaps even more than a familiar "Sesame Street" character known for his fangs, monocle, and cape.  If they don't like the results, Democrats keep counting the votes over and over again until they get the result they want.  They tally, calculate, and enumerate their way to victory whenever their candidate is within what columnist John Fund calls the "margin of ACORN."  (See U.S. Sen. Al Franken, Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire, to name just two recent examples.)  With the help of radical financier George Soros they even created the Secretary of State Project to install state officers who would help rig elections for Democrats.

The Left's National Vote Fraud Strategy Exposed.  [Scroll down]  Key to understanding the Left's vote-fraud strategy is the community organizing group ACORN.  ACORN has become synonymous with corruption, complicity in the subprime mortgage crisis and especially vote fraud.  ACORN and its voter registration arm, Project Vote, hire marginal and unskilled workers at very low rates and use incentive bonuses or quotas to encourage them to collect as many voter registrations as possible.  The resulting flood of registrations are fraught with duplicates, errors and omissions, and a large number are overtly fraudulent, including names like "Donald Duck," "Mickey Mouse," "Tony Romo" of the Dallas Cowboys, etc.  According to Matthew Vadum, the senior editor at Capital Research Center, a total of 400,000 bogus ACORN registrations were thrown out in 2008 alone.  ACORN was supposedly disbanded in 2010 but resurrected itself under a slew of new names.  Former ACORN President Bertha Lewis bragged that they created "...18 bulletproof community-organizing Frankensteins..."

TrueTheVote Day One: Facts, Anger and Divergent Images of Two Crusaders.  Keeping the 2012 and future elections clean is at the heart of True The Vote's mission.  That's not a mission that Hollywood lovingly immortalizes, and it's not a mission that the media mentions approvingly, but if Engelbrecht succeeds, it will immortalize the country one clean election at a time.  So Engelbrecht has gathered together a few hundred in Houston this weekend to hear from experts and to study ways to identify and prevent voter fraud.  The first speaker was Anita MonCrief, the courageous young woman who blew the whistle on ACORN's voter fraud and on the 2008 Obama campaign's illicit donation practices.

Anita Moncrief Takes on Eric Holder on Race, ACORN and Voter Fraud.  [Scroll down]  This is not just something that has come out recently.  This is something that started in the '90s when Bill Clinton was in office.  Not many people realize this, but ACORN helped get Bill Clinton elected, and the National Voter Registration Act was Clinton's gift to ACORN.  And so for 10 years, ACORN and its sister organization Project Vote were going around the country and forcing Section 7 of the NVRA, which is the part about registering voters in public assistance agencies.  They coordinated openly with the Clinton Justice Department during the '90s, and during that time they had voter registrations coming out of these public assistance offices in the millions.  This was their demographic.

True The Vote, Day Two: Breitbart Is Here.  Volunteers from 32 states have gathered to bring integrity back to what has become a corrupted election process.  We have heard story after story today and last night — ACORN's $30 million Project Vote effort in 2008; several jurisdictions across several states have more names on their voter rolls than there are eligible voting adults in their area.  Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch directly warned that the Obama administration's Department of Justice is working hand in hand with former ACORN lawyers who have pled guilty in voter fraud cases, on this year's election strategy.  He connected the Obama stealth amnesty for illegal aliens with this voter drive and the administration's overt opposition to commonsense voter ID laws that have already proven to be no obstacle whatsoever to legitimate voters into a terrifying probability:  that the Obama administration is preparing to steal this fall's election.

Still the Alinsky Playbook.  In 1992, after Obama returned to Chicago from Harvard Law School, he ran a voter-registration drive for Project Vote, an ACORN affiliate set up by Alinsky acolytes.  The purportedly non-partisan effort registered 135,000 new voters and was integral to the election of Carol Moseley Braun to the Senate.  Obama then moonlighted as a top trainer for ACORN.  Obama even became ACORN's attorney in 1995, when he sued on its behalf to implement the "Motor Voter" law — a loose system of postcard voter registration that has proven to be a bonanza for vote fraudsters — in Illinois.  Later, while on the board of the liberal Woods Fund, Obama saw to it that the group gave substantial grants to ACORN.

Obama's 'Organizing for America' Pose as Official Registrars in Virginia to Register Students?  President Barack Obama got his start as a community organizer, working with groups like ACORN and other corrupt activist groups.  ACRON [sic] eventually collapsed under the weight of its own corruption, but their tactics live on.  Organizing for America, the DNC project to reelect Barack Obama, is working to reelect the President.  The President isn't very popular right now for any number of reasons, Obamacare, the economy, unemployment, his seeming fetish for apologizing to people who hate us or kill our troops, $5+ trillion in new debt, etc., etc.  Whatever the case, Organizing for America has a steep hill to climb in front of it.  Given the President's affinity for, and past with ACORN, it's not surprising that OfA would be caught using ACORN tactics.

Judicial Watch Announces List of Washington's "Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians" for 2011.  President Obama continues to countenance actions by his appointees that undermine the rule of law and constitutional government.  Despite a ban on funding that Obama signed into law, his administration continues to fund the corrupt and allegedly defunct "community" organization ACORN.  In July 2011 Judicial Watch uncovered a $79,819 grant to AHCOA (Affordable Housing Centers of America), the renamed ACORN Housing which has a long history of corrupt activity.  In absolute violation of the funding ban, Judicial Watch has since confirmed that the Obama administration has funneled $730,000 to the ACORN network, a group that has a long personal history with President Obama.

New Yorkers Were Paid to Commit Vote Fraud.  A trial has been underway for a week in an upstate New York vote fraud case that has brought to light criminal actions committed by Democrats in city government in Troy, New York, that seems to go back decades.  Some of the first witnesses are also claiming that they were paid by Democrat officials to commit vote fraud.  The case centers around fraudulent voter registrations and absentee ballots for the Working Families Party, a thinly disguised Democrat Party entity originally created by the disgraced community activist group ACORN.

ACORN-linked group raising funds for California 'Occupy' protest.  A re-branded ACORN branch in California is raising money to help fund an upcoming "Occupy" protest in Sacramento, FoxNews.com has learned.  The Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment sent out letters this month pleading for contributions of up to $20,000 for buses, food, printing, sound and other supplies for an upcoming event dubbed "Occupy the Capitol."

ACORN Is Up to Its Old Tricks.  Reports of ACORN's demise are greatly exaggerated, a fact by which nobody with even a cursory familiarity with their practices should be surprised.  The evidence suggests that the group has weathered the fallout from its scandals with a remarkable fortitude -- it is not just surviving, but thriving; and it is doing so with thousands of those federal dollars that it is explicitly banned from receiving.

Congress Warns Holder Over Acorn Payola.  Last week, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith fired off a three-page letter to Attorney General Eric Holder warning that his recent punishment of Bank of America's mortgage unit seemed political.  In fact, he may have abused his power.  As IBD first reported Jan. 4, 'BofA Must Pay Excess Settlement Funds To Acorn Clones," the $335 million lending-bias deal requires BofA to fork over a chunk of the payout to leftist groups not connected to the suit.  The unusual term is part of a secret Justice program to redistribute millions in settlement cash to third parties instead of alleged victims.

Self-Help Homeownership Grants:  The Self-Help and Assisted Homeownership Opportunity Program provides grants to facilitate "self-help" homeownership. ... Only a small number of nonprofit groups receive SHOP funds, including Habitat for Humanity and the ACORN Housing Corporation.  The latter group is part of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which is a left-wing political outfit known for perpetrating vote fraud.  As one columnist noted, ACORN "promotes a 1960s-bred agenda of anti-capitalism, central planning, victimology, and government handouts to the poor."  In recent years, ACORN has received more than $2.7 million in SHOP funds.

House Judiciary letter warns Holder not to redistribute $335M Countrywide settlement to ACORN affiliates.  In a letter obtained by The Daily Caller, House Judiciary Committee chairman Rep. Lamar Smith warned Attorney General Eric Holder not to permit the transfer of funds from a recent $335 million Department of Justice settlement to organizations associated with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, more commonly known as ACORN, or other advocacy groups allied with President Obama.  Smith is concerned that flimsy language in the settlement agreement with Countrywide Financial — the mortgage arm of Bank of America — could be politically motivated.

White House/DOJ Working with ACORN, Massive Voter Registration Fraud.  In January, Judicial Watch obtained additional documents about meetings held between Estelle Rogers, Director of Advocacy for the ACORN organization Project Vote, and officials from the Obama White House and the DOJ.  Judicial Watch is investigating the extent to which Project Vote, which once employed Barack Obama, has been working with the Obama administration to use voter registration laws to register greater numbers of low-income voters, widely considered to be an important voting demographic for the Obama presidential campaign.

Unions And Rebranded ACORN Behind Violent Occupy San Francisco Clashes With Police.  In San Francisco this past weekend, the Occupy movement bolstered by labor unions and the rebranded California ACORN group ACCE once again terrorized private businesses and got into direct clashes that included throwing furniture, bricks and Bibles at police officers.  This was another "Day of Action" for Occupy San Francisco, in a move that was designed to show the world that #Occupy is still relevant despite being thrown out of their encampments.

Justice Department coordinates suits with ACORN's Project Vote.  Remember ACORN, the far-left activist community organizing group that filed for bankruptcy a couple of years ago?  That followed revelations that some members were advising pimps and prostitutes on tax evasion, not to mention operating houses of prostitution and smuggling underage girls into the country to work in the sex industry.  The Democratic-dominated Congress voted in 2009 to ban ACORN from receiving federal funds.  After ACORN's bankruptcy filing, many of its local chapters remained intact by the simple expedient of reorganizing under different names.

Dead People and Other Voters.  The late, unlamented ACORN put new a twist on the dead-people-voting gambit:  Their minions registered non-existent people in several states.  In Seattle, in recent years, several were caught filling out voter registration sheets using names from the telephone book.  In St. Louis, they filled in the names of baseball players.  Currently, Indiana is investigating a case of fraudulent voting in South Bend.

The Left's War on Voter Fraud Reform.  Although Democrats insist that little or no voter fraud is occurring, at least 55 former Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) employees or associates have been convicted of some form of voter fraud in 11 states, according to the Capital Research Center's Matthew Vadum.  Voter integrity rules are long overdue to prevent fraud, and Democrats seem to think that minority, young, and elderly people are morons who can't play by the same rules as everyone else.  The left's strategy is simple:  energize the base with false fears while depicting Republicans as barely disguised Klansmen with pitchforks and torches.

If GOP Goes Easy on Obama, It'll Be a Fatal Mistake.  There are also signs that Democrats may be willing to cheat as they look for ways to rally their disillusioned base.  Scandal-plagued ACORN has reemerged, and according to investigative reporter Matthew Vadum, at least five ACORN officials have visited the White House for meetings in 2011.  Vadum reports that "one of these officials has been involved in vetting Department of Justice hires who may help to enforce the voter fraud-enabling National Voting Rights Act, also known as the Motor-Voter Law."  The DOJ has been accused of refusing to enforce parts of the law that prohibit ineligible felons, dead people and nonresidents from voting, while vigorously enforcing parts of the law that require states to register voters at welfare offices, the vast majority of whom vote Democratic.

The truth behind Holder's push for 'electoral equality'.  One might also ask why Holder never bothered to investigate allegations of rampant voter fraud by ACORN in 2008, which included attempts to register a voter named Mickey Mouse in Orlando, Florida, entering a man's name on the Ohio voter rolls 73 times, and registering 400,000 voters who were dead.

Will Obama steal the 2012 election?  The administration is trying to whip up minority frenzy, propagating the myth of widespread ballot suppression.  The goal is to foster a sense of racial persecution of blacks, intending to maximize voter turnout in November. ... Mr. Holder evidently wants to scuttle ID laws because he knows which organization will be hurt most:  ACORN.

Yes, Virginia, There Really Is Voter Fraud.  Eric Shawn at FOX News reports that two Troy city officials, the city clerk and a councilman, along with two Democratic political operatives, have pled guilty to forging absentee-ballot signatures and casting fraudulent ballots in the 2009 Working Families Party primary.  The WFP is the political party associated with ACORN.  One of the citizens whose votes were stolen was stunned at what happened.  She said that she was "sure this goes on a lot in politics, but it's very rare that they do get caught."

Documents Reveal Coordination Between ACORN Affiliate and Justice Department Voting Section.  Judicial Watch has done it again. It has produced — following a Freedom of Information Act request filed with the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) — documents that suggest extensive coordination and communications between the DOJ Voting Section and former ACORN affiliate Project Vote.  Project Vote appears to be directing DOJ resources toward particular states; is having meetings with DOJ staff; and is even recommending lawyers to work in the Justice Department Voting Section that will oversee the 2012 presidential election.

ACORN Returns as 'Occupy'.  When the radical group ACORN was shut down, Jeff Quinton at Quinton Reports reminds us, the state and local chapters of ACORN reconstituted themselves as new non-profits.  And guess what they've been up to lately?  ["]In more than two dozen cities across the nation Tuesday, an offshoot of the Occupy Wall Street movement took on the housing crisis by re-occupying foreclosed homes, disrupting bank auctions and blocking evictions.["]

ACORN Visits Obama White House.  Leaders of the resurrected radical group ACORN are lobbying the Obama administration in what appears to be a concerted effort to game the electoral system to help Democrats, new evidence suggests.  At least five Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now leaders have visited the White House this year alone.  One of those ACORN officials has been involved in vetting Department of Justice hires who may help to enforce the voter fraud-enabling National Voting Rights Act (NVRA), also known as the Motor-Voter law.

ACORN Searches for a Few Fools.  You remember ACORN, the Association of Community Organizers, also known as Obama's mothership?  After being busted for voter fraud, they've retooled with big money from unions to call themselves New York Communities for Change (NYCC).  Apparently they thought that New York Communities for Hope and Change would be a little too obvious, huh?  Well they connected with the Occupy crowd during the late unpleasantness down on Wall Street.  According to FoxNews, NYCC even paid protestors to expand the Occupy numbers in NYC.

Obama Administration Violating ACORN Funding Ban According to New Audit.  ACORN is dead.  Isn't that what we were told after ACORN workers were caught on tape helping undercover reporters evade prostitution laws?  In fact, following the media outburst that resulted from the undercover videos, President Obama himself signed into law an ACORN funding ban that included any affiliate and/or subsidiary.  And the organization filed bankruptcy.  But as Judicial Watch announced in September with the release of our groundbreaking report, "The Rebranding of ACORN," rumors of ACORN's demise were completely fabricated.

President Obama's Justice Department Opposed Enforcement of Anti-Vote Fraud Laws.  President Obama's Justice Department is doing its part to maximize the Democratic turnout in the 2012 elections by filing "motor voter" suits across the country that claim state officials are not circulating voter registration forms in social service agencies.  The lawsuit filed against Louisiana this past summer is closely timed with a separate suit advanced by ACORN's Project Vote affiliate and the NAACP.

Obama administration, GAO appear to have ignored group's ACORN affiliation to award $700K.  A newly released internal audit appears to indicate that the Government Accountability Office and President Barack Obama's Department of Housing and Urban Development incorrectly argued that a specific organization wasn't ACORN-affiliated.  HUD's office of general counsel and the GAO have both claimed that Affordable Housing Centers of America, or AHCOA, is not affiliated with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN.  AHCOA formerly called itself ACORN Housing, but changed its name after the 2009 ACORN meltdown.

Obama uses taxpayer cash to back ACORN Name changes used to dodge the law.  The Obama administration has showered its allies at ACORN Housing with $729,849 so far this year despite powerful, newly unveiled evidence of corruption and massive accounting irregularities at the longtime affiliate of ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now).  Watchdog group Cause of Action recently pressured NeighborWorks America, a taxpayer-funded federal nonprofit that funneled more than $26.5 million in federal foreclosure-avoidance money to ACORN Housing, to disclose an internal audit furnished to then-Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, Connecticut Democrat, late last year.

House Oversight Chairman Calls for Probe into ACORN Role in Occupy Wall Street.  House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa is calling for an investigation into allegations that ACORN-related group New York Communities for Change "engaged in fraud through its participation in the Occupy Wall Street protests."

Email Confirms ACORN Role in Occupy's Next Assault on Banks.  Lisa Fithian — the radical organizer whose role in Occupy was first exposed at Big Government — has apparently confirmed that ACORN-linked organizations are leading the Occupy movement's next major protest action against banks nationwide.

ACORN Front Group Pays Homeless People to Protest at Occupy Wall Street.  Lee Stranahan and Brandon Darby have released the latest video clip from their visit to Occupy Wall Street.  In the video, an activist named Channing, who has been at the Occupy Wall Street protests from the beginning, volunteers the information that the former ACORN organization — through its new front group, New York Communities for Change — is paying $10 per hour and $100 per day to homeless people to attend the demonstrations.  She suggests that ACORN's involvement is unwelcome, alleging that its homeless employees are "being paid to come here and mess things up."

After being exposed as players behind Occupy Wall Street protests...
 ACORN Officials Scramble, Firing Workers and Shredding Documents.  Officials with the revamped ACORN office in New York — operating as New York Communities for Change — have fired staff, shredded reams of documents and told workers to blame disgruntled ex-employees for leaking information in an effort to explain away a FoxNews.com report last week on the group's involvement in Occupy Wall Street protests, according to sources.  NYCC also is installing surveillance cameras and recording devices at its Brooklyn offices, removing or packing away supplies bearing the name ACORN and handing out photos of Fox News staff with a stern warning not to talk to the media, the sources said.

ACORN Playing Behind Scenes Role in 'Occupy' Movement.  The former director of New York ACORN, Jon Kest, and his top aides are now busy working at protest events for New York Communities for Change (NYCC). ... NYCC's connection to ACORN isn't a tenuous one:  It works from the former ACORN offices in Brooklyn, uses old ACORN office stationery, employs much of the old ACORN staff and, according to several sources, engages in some of the old organization's controversial techniques to raise money, interest and awareness for the protests.

Occupy Wall Street Militancy Just Getting Started.  What is the real point of "Occupy Wall Street"?  The violence in Oakland offers the first clue.  Now with politically connected union bosses and Acorn involved, it might just be worth looking at its links to Democrats.

Guess Who REALLY Planned The Occupy Wall Street Millionaires March.  Yesterday's march on the Upper East Side was well planned, well staffed and well researched.  We know that Occupy Wall Street is capable of doing something like that, but this time, the credit for yesterday's showing goes to someone else. ... [Including] The Working Families Party.

Inside The ACORN Rolodex.  Roger Stone has suggested the Working Families Party is ACORN.  Bertha Lewis's contacts list suggests as much.  Lewis is both the head of ACORN and also the Co-Chair of the Working Families Party.  As you can imagine, ACORN would have us believe that those are separate roles.  However, information suggests otherwise and we also know that ACORN has a habit of creating political parties for its own ends.  To understand how the Working Families Party is part of ACORN, we need to understand the concept of "fusionism."

ACORN: Puppet Master of Occupy Wall Street.  The Working Families Party, an infamous ACORN front group notorious for corruption, was instrumental in organizing the Occupy Wall Street protests, according to radical journalist Laura Flanders of Free Speech TV.  The protests, which have spread to several other large U.S. cities, are part of what ACORN's neo-communist founder Wade Rathke calls an "anti-banking jihad."

More about Occupy Wall Street demonstrations.

Are the conditions ready for revolution?  The goal of the protesters in the "Occupy Wall Street" movement (or at least their unacknowledged leaders) is no different than what it was in Cairo or Tripoli.  Indeed, Wade Rathke called the Occupy Wall Street movement an "anti-banking jihad," using the rhetoric of Islamic holy war to warn bankers that violence was coming.  No surprise, Rathke, the founder of ACORN "community organizers" got his start as a foot soldier in Students for a Democratic Society, the precursor of the Weather Underground.  Rathke, Piven and the rest of the "generals" of this jihad want nothing less than the collapse of the American government and economy...

ACORN by another name is just as rotten.  When scandals expose systemic voter fraud in your organization, Congress seizes your bank account, and a popular YouTube video shows your employees helping a pimp and a prostitute break the law, there are few avenues open to you.  Unless, of course, you change your organization's name and hope no one notices.  A new report from Judicial Watch alleges that the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), did just that.

The Rebranding of ACORN.  Over the years, the left-wing activist group, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (commonly known as ACORN), has been linked to serious scandals involving misuse of taxpayer funds, embezzlement, intimidation tactics, employee abuse, questionable hiring tactics, and fraudulent voter registrations.  Officially, ACORN made a show of closing the doors of its national headquarters and regional offices, brought down by the corruption of its leaders and its arrogant, nefarious flaunting of state and federal laws. ... But was this the end of ACORN?  Definitely not.

Obama's 'Jobs Bill' Makes ACORN Eligible for $15 Billion in Taxpayer Money.  ACORN and other radical left-wing groups would be eligible for up to $15 billion in federal funding if President Obama's new economic stimulus package becomes law.

Report: ACORN-affiliated group gets $300,000 more in taxpayer money.  An affiliate of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) received another $300,000 in taxpayer funding in early August, The Daily Caller has learned.  President Barack Obama's Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) awarded the $300,000 grant to the post-ACORN ally:  The Affordable Housing Centers of America (AHCOA).  The Obama administration awarded the money despite a 2010 law saying no taxpayer funds could be issued to ACORN "or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, or allied organizations."

White House-ACORN smoking gun.  White House visitor records show that attorney Estelle H. Rogers, director of advocacy at ACORN-affiliated Project Vote, met with a senior aide to Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett and with Van Jones' former chief of staff.  Is a single visit to the White House normally cause for concern?  Not necessarily, but this is a visitor from the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), an organization infamous for massive voter fraud and that at one time employed the president of the United States.  What in the world did Ms. Rogers and White House officials talk about?

The Editor says...
 The White House has telephones.  The only reason to go there in person is to discuss something that can't be said over the telephone.

Sentencing ACORN.  After more than 40 years of waging war against America's democratic institutions, the lawless ACORN gang has finally been brought to justice.  Sort of.  ACORN, the organization that brought Americans the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (the "Motor Voter" law), which makes election fraud a breeze, was sentenced for felony voter fraud in Las Vegas last week.  The nonprofit group famous for turning graveyards across the nation into Democratic strongholds, had previously pleaded guilty to unlawful compensation for registration of voters, a crime in Nevada.

Judge fines ACORN but wanted prison.  A judge on Wednesday [8/10/2011] fined the defunct grass-roots community organizing group ACORN $5,000 for its illegal voter-registration program in Nevada — but said he wishes he could have put someone in prison, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.

'Banana Republic' ACORN Hit with Maximum Fine in Voter Fraud Scheme.  The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) was fined the maximum of $5,000 in Las Vegas today for its role in a massive voter fraud conspiracy.  Judge Donald Mosley said if an individual, as opposed to a corporation, had been before him, he would have handed down a 10-year prison sentence.  "And I wouldn't have thought twice about it," he said, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

'New' ACORN Groups Join SEIU's Economic Terrorism Campaign.  Newly created ACORN front groups across America have signed on to SEIU's economic terrorism and sabotage campaign.  ACORN, long associated with President Obama, is participating in the disruptive campaign through its newly renamed state chapters.  Mortgage and student loan strikes, crippling bank boycotts, intimidation, and who knows what else are all on the agenda.

Pension Fund Fraud at SEIU and ACORN?  As far as I know there has never been a criminal investigation of the multiple counts of possible pension fraud committed at ACORN, at least not at the federal level.

Federal tax dollars still rolling in for ACORN.  President Obama has said that both parties must take on their "sacred cows" in order to reach a debt-ceiling compromise.  He could start by taking on ACORN, a cow so sacred to the Democratic Party that it is still receiving federal funding despite a 2009 vote by Congress to stop giving the controversial group any more tax dollars.  The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has awarded two separate grants of $79,819 and $461,086 to ACORN this year, according to USAspending.gov.

MSM Ignoring Criminal Wrongdoing by ACORN, Planned Parenthood.  How can we rely on these networks to bring us actual news when they cannot even function as proper investigative journalists, instead opting to highlight stupid attacks on conservative Presidential candidates?

ACORN continues to receive taxpayer cash, group says.  In spite of a law aimed at de-funding the controversial organization, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) is still receiving taxpayer money through an offshoot group.  Legal watchdog group Judicial Watch discovered that the Obama administration's Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) issued a $79,819 grant to an ACORN offshoot, Affordable Housing Centers of America (AHCOA).

It Turns Out Obama Gave ACORN $541K This Year, Not $80K.  Remember that story from a few days ago, the one about the Obama administration giving ACORN a $79,819 grant in March despite a federal law that prohibits the government from giving money to ACORN?  It turns out that sum is a lowball figure.

Happy Dependence Day from Your Community Organizer Friends!  America needs to know that ACORN is restructuring in time to help re-elect President Obama in 2012.  Obama used to work for ACORN and represented the group in court as its lawyer.  These radical leftists who use the brutal, in-your-face, pressure tactics of Saul Alinsky want to destroy America as we know it and will use any means to do it.

Obama Gives New Grant to ACORN; Did He Violate Federal Law?  Why is President Obama apparently defying federal law by funding ACORN?  Judicial Watch discovered that the Obama administration is flouting the will of Congress by giving federal taxpayer money to ACORN.  Obama's Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) gave a $79,819 grant to the largest branch of the ACORN tree, ACORN Housing Corp. (AHC).  AHC filed papers last year legally changing its name to Affordable Housing Centers of America (AHCOA).  It's the same old organization with a brand new ACORN-free name.

Justice Has Never Been High on Eric Holder's Docket.  Obama considered ACORN to be an arm of his campaign.  That's why his campaign paid ACORN affiliate Citizens Services Inc. to do partisan political work.  The Obama campaign disguised its $832,598 payment to Citizens Services Inc., falsely describing it in campaign finance filings as "polling, advance work and staging major events."  In reality, CSI performed get-out-the-vote services.  After the subterfuge was uncovered, the Obama campaign claimed it had simply goofed up and filed an amended report with the Federal Election Commission.  Whoops.  This could be a violation of election laws but Attorney General Holder couldn't care less.

The New Desperation of Team Obama.  It may well be that Democrats are growing more desperate because they no longer have ACORN to ensure success at the polls in November 2012. ... In the past, ACORN seems to have performed a valuable function for the Democrat party.  They helped to swell the ranks with anyone willing to vote for Democrat candidates.  ACORN was hugely successful too and was able to register millions of new voters, some living, some not.

Nuts to Acorn.  The case of Acorn v. U.S. ended with a whimper this week as the U.S. Supreme Court turned aside the advocacy group's attempt to revive its lawsuit claiming that Congress had acted unconstitutionally in denying it federal funds.

Supreme Court Refuses to Take ACORN Case Appealing Fed Defunding.  ACORN, the controversial and defunct community activist group accused of a variety of criminal activities, will not get a chance to air its grievances about losing federal funding before the Supreme Court, the justices announced Monday [6/20/2011].

Federal Agencies Slow to Implement ACORN Funding Cutoff, Report Finds.  Nearly a dozen federal agencies did not take comprehensive action to cut off funding to ACORN and its affiliates until a government research group started asking about it — a year after Congress voted for the funding restrictions.

Supreme Court Rejects ACORN's Appeal on Federal Funding.  The Supreme Court won't hear an appeal from ACORN, the activist group driven to ruin by scandal and financial woes, over being banned from getting federal funds.

Vote fraudsters redouble efforts.  Even with the demise of ACORN, a lot of people are worried about voter fraud in the 2012 presidential election.  That's because the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now has not really gone away since two young conservatives posing as a pimp and a prostitute administered a very painful video sting in 2009.  ACORN has transmogrified into lots of little ACORN groups with misleadingly innocent names, such as Affordable Housing Centers of America (formerly ACORN Housing Corp.) and New England United for Justice.

House Votes to Defund ACORN Successor Groups.  Last week the U.S. House of Representatives voted to block funding to any remaining ACORN affiliates and to "new" ACORN groups that have sprung up over the last year.  The ACORN network of 370-plus organizations is not actually dead, as I've written.  It is merely restructuring itself.  The lead corporate entity, ACORN, filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy, but the state chapters and other branches of the infamous activist network continue to operate.

Liberal Billionaire Bankers Paid ACORN to Hurt Wells Fargo.  America needs to know that ACORN is restructuring in time to help re-elect President Obama in 2012.  Obama used to work for ACORN and represented the group in court as its lawyer.  These radical leftists who use the brutal, in-your-face, Machiavellian pressure tactics of Saul Alinsky want to destroy America as we know it and will use any means to do it.

Rep. Steve King compared to McCarthy in ACORN floor spat.  Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) made the comparison in comments on the House floor after King attempted to exclude dozens of groups related to ACORN from receiving government funds through an amendment to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) appropriations bill.  King proposed an amendment that would deny DHS funding to several ACORN affiliates across various states.

ACORNs Falling.  While many people thought that the community organizing group, ACORN, had folded up after it was de-funded by Congress, it turns out that it still very much alive and still up to its corrupt and nefarious dealings.  On May 18th at the Heritage Foundation's weekly blogger's briefing, Matthew Vadum discussed his recent book, Subversion, Inc., which is his latest investigative work about the infamous, taxpayer funded group.  Vadum unhesitatingly describes the group as "ballot box stuffers, urban terrorists, and gangsters."

Surprise! Obama's ACORN Thugs Are Alive And Preparing for 2012  ACORN is far, far worse than everything you've heard.  It celebrates and promotes the worst pathologies in society in an effort to kill the American experiment in self-governance.  And the rumors of ACORN's death have been greatly exaggerated.  The radical group declared bankruptcy at the end of 2010, but its leaders acknowledge that they are building a new network of activist groups to continue ACORN's work undermining America's free institutions.

Obama and ACORN Directly Contributed To Our 2008 Economic crisis.  We all know about the voter fraud in which ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) has been involved in for many years.  What some may not know is Barack Obama's close connections and work with this radical leftist organization over the years; and how they brought forceful pressure on banks to make the bad "subprime" loans that are the root of our current financial crisis.  Just how close was Obama to ACORN?

ACORN Guilty Again; Obama DOJ Still Won't Investigate.  The criminal enterprise that Obama's Justice Department refuses to investigate despite extensive evidence of fraud and corruption is guilty of a felony in yet another state.  It marks the latest of many legal defeats for the Chicago-based community group known as ACORN, famous for illegal voter registration drives, embezzling federal funds and a tight knit relationship with the president.  In fact, Obama once worked at ACORN and the group's massive campaign drives helped him get elected in 2008.

Obama's favorite gangsters convicted again.  Are Mickey Mouse and Mary Poppins registered to vote in Nevada?  In a Las Vegas courtroom last week, prosecutors found the fictional characters not guilty but convicted those impersonating them of voter fraud.  The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), the radical left-wing activist group, was convicted in a massive voter-fraud conspiracy.  It has been committing identify theft for decades.  ACORN pleaded guilty to unlawful "compensation" for registration of voters, a felony under Nevada law.

One Woman, One Vote.  Voter integrity has always been an issue in America.  If you've seen the movie Gangs of New York, set in the 1860s in New York City, there are scenes of the Irishmen voting, then having their hair cut to alter their appearance so that they can be sent back to vote again.  In recent times, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) has been charged with voter fraud.  In 2008, the bipartisan Elections Board of Lake County, Indiana, actually stopped processing a stack of about 5,000 applications delivered by ACORN just before the October 6 registration deadline after the first 2,100 turned out to be phony.

Woman Claims ACORN Continues to Deduct Money for a Now-Defunct Membership.  A Delaware woman says ACORN as recently as two weeks ago deducted money from her bank account, despite countless efforts to cancel her membership with the now-bankrupt community housing organization.

All things reconsidered.  [James O'Keefe] is the young man who made his debut when he confirmed what we all knew:  that ACORN, a "holy-owned" subsidiary of the Obama political machine, was a fundamentally corrupt, leftist organization.  I respect any man as pasty white as O'Keefe who dresses up as a pimp and gets ACORN employees to help him, on camera, with child prostitution, money laundering and human smuggling.  The result?  Congress de-funded ACORN and it has all but folded.  Of course, the Left cries that O'Keefe's tapes were unfair and not properly edited (you know, like every newscast their own media outlets do).

Obama Unions a Microcosm of Liberalism: Parasites Devouring Their Host.  [Scroll down]  When Barack Obama was still coming off the sugar high of his election, ACORN was toppled like a lightning-struck diseased oak.  Everyone knows ACORN, the election registration group that also pushed affordable housing, had deep roots in leftism and unions.  Obama had one of his few private sector jobs representing them during his community organizer phase.

ACORN Sprouting Fresh Branches.  As the remnants of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now regroup in order to bring chaos to the 2012 election cycle, ACORN's renamed New York chapter is teeming with activity.  The successor organization, called New York Communities for Change (NYCC), operates out of the same office on Nevins Street in Brooklyn that is home to ACORN and its partisan arm, the socialist Working Families Party of New York.

Is the President Above the Law?  To this day, Eric Holder refuses to initiate any investigation of the corrupt enterprise known as ACORN, despite the organization's long, sordid history of election fraud.  In fact, while noting that ACORN had engaged in "questionable hiring and training practices," Holder's Justice Department actually closed down one ACORN investigation in March 2009, claiming ACORN broke no laws.  Meanwhile, the organization, now splintered into corrupt cells across the country, continues to violate the law.  Holder's unwillingness to prosecute ACORN calls into question his impartiality, considering the fact that President Obama previously worked with the organization.

Safeguards must be installed to prevent voter fraud.  In the last presidential election, there were numerous reports of electoral irregularities, in particular of dubious actions believed to have been engaged in by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN).  In one instance, the irregularity was filmed and put on youtube.com — the case of the "New Black Panthers," where there was no doubt as to the facts nor was there doubt as to the illegality of the voter intimidation that was displayed.

'ACORN' is reborn in Brooklyn.  Watch out!  ACORN is back — in all but its name.  Backed by hundreds of thousands of dollars in union donations, New York Communities for Change — a rebranded version of the controversial organization that closed up shop amid several scandals — is acting again as labor's attack dog on controversial issues.  NYCC took over ACORN's office on Nevins Street in Brooklyn, shares some of the same board members and uses its membership lists and other resources.

ACORN's man takes over the Democratic Party's war machine.  A longtime ACORN operative is about to take over the reins of the Democratic National Committee as its executive director — just in time to begin initial preparations for President Obama's 2012 reelection campaign.  The activist in question is Patrick Gaspard.  He currently holds the title of White House political affairs director, the same title Karl Rove held in President Bush's administration.

Acorn's Man Going To The DNC.  Tim Kaine, chair of the Democratic National Committee, has announced that White House political director Patrick Gaspard will leave the West Wing to become executive director of the DNC.  As documented by Matthew Vadum of the conservative Capital Research Center and others, Gaspard has considerable ties to the radical-and-providers-of-tax-preparation-services-to-prostitutes Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

Top 10 Obama Administration Investigation Targets:  [#6]  ACORN:  How much federal money was sent to ACORN and what was it used for?  That this vote-stealing, partisan group of thugs received tens of millions of taxpayer dollars is an outrage.

ACORN leader avoids prison for voter fraud conspiracy.  A Las Vegas judge has spared senior ACORN executive Amy Adele Busefink jail time for her role in a notorious voter fraud conspiracy.  Judge Donald Mosley sentenced Busefink to two years imprisonment but suspended the jail time provided that she abides by the terms of her probation.  She was also fined a total of $4,000 and ordered to perform 100 hours of community service.  Prosecutors had argued for a fine of just $1,000.  Voter fraud, sometimes called electoral fraud, is a blanket term encompassing a host of election-related improprieties.

Milwaukee voter fraud conviction makes ACORN's 2010 total at least 15.  Yet another former ACORN employee was convicted of voter fraud last week.  This brings the total number of convictions for former workers from the embattled group to at least 15 so far this year.  Kevin L. Clancy of Milwaukee pleaded guilty last week to participating "in a scheme to submit fraudulent voter registration applications," according to Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen.  Clancy admitted to filing multiple voter registration applications for the same individuals and registering himself and other voter registration canvassers to vote multiple times while working on an ACORN voter drive.

Two more dots connected!
 FEMA Paid ACORN For Firefighting.  FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, figures in many paranoid fantasies about government control.  Popular fiction often depicts it as a shadowy agency whose sinister operatives are planning to manufacture a crisis that will give them unlimited power and funding. ... In reality, FEMA occupies itself with harmless and benevolent activities, such as funding ACORN.

18 Former ACORN Workers Have Been Convicted or Admitted Guilt in Election Fraud.  The scandal-plagued ACORN may no longer exist, but its tarnished legacy lives on in court, as the activist group and its former employees face criminal punishment.  So far this year, at least 18 former workers have admitted guilt or been convicted on varying charges of election fraud.  The punishment has ranged from probation to several months of prison time.

ACORN Bankruptcy Filing Raises New Questions and Concerns.  While the rest of the nation was out voting last Tuesday, ACORN — the major voter registration organization in cities and among the poor — was quietly filing for bankruptcy in a Brooklyn, N.Y., courthouse a few blocks from its main office.  But despite the bankruptcy filing, many of the group's critics remain suspicious of the community organizers' intentions.

Auditor:  ACORN Owes Government $3.2 Million.  A government audit says the advocacy group ACORN should reimburse the government $3.2 million for failing to adequately show that lead removal work was performed at a reasonable cost.  The auditors also say some grant money was spent inappropriately, including for political campaigns and fundraising.  Congress already has cut off ACORN's federal funding after allegations of voter registration fraud and embezzlement.

ACORN Executive Pleads No Contest To Election Fraud Conspiracy.  ACORN executive Amy Busefink has pleaded "no contest" to conspiracy to commit voter registration fraud in Nevada, the Las Vegas Review-Journal is reporting.  Sentencing is set for Jan. 10.  Busefink ran the 2010 national voter drive for ACORN's notorious subsidiary, Project Vote, which was President Obama's employer in 1992.  ACORN, which filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy on Election Day to escape its debts, is also charged with multiple counts of the same crime in Nevada.

ACORN's latest trick.  That corrupt "community organizing" group known as ACORN is going out of business — or so its CEO, Bertha Lewis, claims.  She calls it the "end of an era."  If only.  Lewis sent out a statement on Election Day saying the group was filing for bankruptcy.  She blames a "right-wing media blitz" for ACORN's troubles.  Alas, almost none of it is true.  Certainly not her lame, right-wing-blame-game excuse.  Indeed, not even the part about ACORN shutting down.

ACORN lives.  On Tuesday [11/2/2010] there's a good chance "Mickey Mouse" will help bolster the vote count of Pennsylvania Senate candidate Joe Sestak and other Democratic hopefuls across the country.  That's because the sneaky left-wing advocacy group ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) is running an aggressive get-out-the-vote effort that inside sources told me probably has a budget north of $15 million.  Reports of ACORN's death have been greatly exaggerated.  The group is still soliciting donations and is reorganizing state chapters under new names.

Notorious ACORN aiding Sestak campaign.  Cemeteries in Pennsylvania may be hotbeds of political activity in the next few days because the zombie group ACORN is deeply involved in congressional races in the state.  The undead group is working to help get Pennsylvania Senate candidate Joe Sestak and other Democratic hopefuls in the Keystone State across the finish line in the Nov. 2 congressional elections.

ACORN's Get-Out-The-Vote Operative Under State Felony Charges.  Many might recall that Congress turned off the spigot of federal funds flowing into the coffers of the organization responsible for federal election law crimes all across the country.  Many might all recall that ACORN itself eventually said it would shutter its operations.  But even with all that recent history, ACORN's Project Vote is still in operation and one of its main directors is a woman under a cloud of criminal charges in the state of Nevada.

ACORN's October Surprise.  Like a zombie in a horror movie, ACORN is alive! Even worse, it's still in the business of registering Mickey Mouse and dead people to vote — and the person running its get-out-the-vote operation is under indictment for felony voter registration fraud.

How ACORN Survives — and Thrives.  The Obama administration is stonewalling efforts on two fronts to investigate the still-operating ACORN and uncover what aid administration officials offered the radical advocacy group infamous for its thug tactics and election fraud.  The Obama administration is sitting on Capital Research Center's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that seeks correspondence between Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan and ACORN.  HUD rules state that FOIA requests must be answered within 45 days, but at this writing our request has been pending for just over seven months.

HUD May Require ACORN Spinoff to Reimburse Some Taxpayer Money.  The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development may require an ACORN spinoff group to pay back more than $200,000 in taxpayer funds.  It also may put the group on "inactive status," making it ineligible for future federal grants.  An investigation by the HUD inspector-general found that salary expenses charged to HUD counseling grants "were not fully supported"; that "ineligible salary expenses" totaling $65,548 for at least six terminated employees were charged to a FY 2009 HUD grant; and that "federal procurement standards were not met" to ensure tax dollars were being used effectively.

Former ACORN Official Condemns Voters' Spontaneous Pledge of Allegiance.  At a debate sponsored by the Illinois League of Women Voters between Democratic incumbent Rep. Melissa Bean, GOP challenger Joe Walsh and Green Party candidate Bill Scheurer Wednesday, the audience loudly objected when the moderator, Kathy Tate-Bradish, insisted on proceeding without reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.  In the end, she didn't stand a chance against the 300-member audience.

Tea Party Vs. SEIU.  Voter rolls are under assault nationwide by the group formerly known as Acorn, the SEIU, and others. The Secretary of State Project is a group founded and funded by George Soros and dedicated to electing people like Minnesota's Mark Ritchie to control the election machinery. It was Ritchie's suspect recounting process that put comedian Al Franken in the U.S. Senate.

ACORN Is Very Much Alive; Funding Ban Dies This Week.  In a recently completed probe, the inspector general for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) found that ACORN Housing (now renamed Affordable Housing Centers of America) appeared to have committed massive fraud against the taxpayers of the United States.  Investigators must have felt it was necessary to urge the funding cutoff because the federal government's prohibition on funding ACORN isn't a permanent ban.  It exists at the whim of lawmakers and (because it was attached to annual appropriations bills) runs out at the end of this month.

ACORN Spinoff Smacked Down by HUD Inspector General.  A new report out from Housing and Urban Development (HUD) inspector general recommends placement of ACORN spinoff entity on "inactive" status due to legal violations.

Republican Congressmen Call for Government to Further Investigate ACORN Spin-Off.  Two Republican members of Congress are calling on the Justice Department to state in writing whether it will initiate a criminal investigation into an organization, formerly known as the ACORN Housing Corporation, after an investigation found the group engaged in poor accounting measures involving federal grant money.

ACORN sprouts new branches.  It looks like the congenitally corrupt, still-operating Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) won't be getting any more U.S. tax dollars — for the time being.  That's because in a startlingly unusual victory for common sense, a federal appeals court slapped down a bizarre ruling by Brooklyn-based federal Judge Nina Gershon.

Working Families Party claims it's no longer subject of federal probe.  The union-backed, ACORN-connected Working Families Party — under federal investigation for the last eight months — today declared it's off the hook in the probe.  "We were advised last night that the US Attorney's Office has decided to close its investigation without the filing of any charges," a statement from the left-leaning party said.  The US Attorney's Office declined to comment.

Federal appeals court rules against ACORN.  A federal appeals court has overturned a lower court decision that prevented Congress from withholding funds from ACORN.  According to the Associated Press, "The ruling Friday [8/13/2010] reverses a decision by a district court.  That judge found Congress had violated ACORN's rights by punishing it without a trial."

Revealed:  The Obama Donor List.  In 2008 the liberal media provided the cover needed for Obama to get elected, but two years later, questions remain about his relationship with ACORN and it has been clear that Obama has lied repeatedly to the American people. Its time to get Obama and ACORN on the record about what really happened with the donor lists in 2007 and 2008.

ACORN 8 board refuses to fall far from tarnished group's name.  Even as it considered dropping its tarnished name last year, ACORN threatened a whistleblower group composed of former board members with a trademark lawsuit.  Community activists who had held high-ranking ACORN positions have continued, however, to operate under the banner of ACORN 8, which is named for the eight board members who were blocked from investigating an embezzlement scandal.

'ACORN Youth Union' Chapters Were Funded by Justice Department, Says GAO.  The U.S. Justice Department gave a group called the New York Agency for Community Affairs a grant of $135,130 in fiscal year 2005 to "provide youth leadership training to students at select New York City schools, form 'ACORN Youth Union' chapters, and coordinate student campaigns to address issues such as school funding, neighborhood safety, and school governance," according to a Government Accountability Office report released this week.

Former ACORN Employees Tell FBI Of Deliberate Election Fraud.  New documents have been obtained and released by Judicial Watch, a watchdog organization that keeps an eye on government corruption, that shines more light on the dismembered ACORN organization.  The documents show of election fraud as an employee told the FBI that ACORN was "working for the Democratic Party."

ACORN employees tell FBI of deliberate election fraud, according to new documents.  The radical activist group ACORN "works" for the Democratic Party and deliberately promotes election fraud, ACORN employees told FBI investigators, according to an FBI document dump Wednesday [6/9/2010].  The documents obtained by Judicial Watch, a watchdog group, are FBI investigators' reports related to the 2007 investigation and arrest of eight St. Louis, Mo., workers from ACORN's Project Vote affiliate for violation of election laws.  All eight employees involved in the scandal later pleaded guilty to voter registration fraud.

Organizing for America and the DNC:  ACORN 2.0.  Investigative reporter Carol Greenberg's work inside Obama's Organizing for America has already helped expose the OFA's connection to ACORN and its network of top Democrat party insiders.  Greenberg's latest article explains the OFA plan to deploy rapid response teams to Ohio ahead of the elections.  Any liberal discussion of Ohio includes the sentiment that "Ohio is ground zero for the left."  Long a playground for groups like ACORN, they conducted voter experiments, filed lawsuits against the state and their voter fraud shenanigans led to a civil RICO suit brought by the Buckeye Institute.  ACORN's settlement of the case required that it surrender its business license in the state.

ACORN Colorado defunct, still drawing donations.  Dan Bishop figured that when scandal-plagued ACORN went out of business it would stop deducting donations from his bank account.  He was wrong.  "They supposedly shut down several months ago," Bishop said.  "I just assumed they would stop taking money."

Anonymous Donors, Liberal Foundations and Labor Unions Fuel Renamed ACORN affiliates.  Even if Congress does move decisively to cut off funding from the self-described network of community organizers who previously called themselves ACORN, the renamed entities are likely to remain potent and well-funded into the foreseeable future, former insiders say.

Why They Hate.  Former ACORN president Bertha Lewis must have been in a foul mood last month.  Once the queen bee of the community organizing left, Lewis had watched ACORN come crashing down around her, destroyed by two young college students with a video camera.  Her eyes smoldering, Lewis took to the podium at a Democratic Socialists of America gathering and lit into the Tea Parties of late.

Bertha Lewis Arrested at Immigration Protest.  It's only a trespassing charge, but there is something really gratifying about seeing the corrupt, race-baiting Bertha Lewis being led away in handcuffs.

Bertha Lewis' Lunacy.  Performing in its usual anti-American fashion the mainstream media is refusing to report on what is perhaps the most telling revelation by an Obama cohort yet.  Bertha Lewis, the current head of ACORN, Obama's initial path to power and the tool he used to destroy the US economy, gave a speech to the Young Democratic Socialists, an arm of the Democratic Socialists of America.

Supreme Court refuses ACORN appeal of funding ban.  The Supreme Court has turned down ACORN's request for help in its lawsuit claiming Congress was wrong to shut off the activist group's federal funding.

Despite being 'dissolved,' ACORN still trying to raise money.  In February it was announced that "ACORN has dissolved as a national structure of state organizations."  If that's the case why is ACORN still trying to raise money, and what do they plan to do with it?

Bertha Lewis Bashes Conservatives and the Tea Party, Promotes Socialism.  Apparently CEO Bertha Lewis said of ACORN yesterday "we're on life support".  Well, I think ACORN's remaining benefactors might be a little closer to pulling the plug once and for all after watching this bizarre rant from Ms. Lewis from just a few weeks ago.

Appeals Court Reinstates ACORN Funding Ban.  The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has issued a stay on the December 2009 injunction by Clinton-appointed Judge Nina Gershon that declared the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) funding ban was unconstitutional.  The result of the stay is that the Congressional funding ban will go back into effect, and ACORN will not receive taxpayer dollars while the court reviews the case.

Proof of Media Bias:  A Tale of Two Cases.  [Scroll down]  Oh dear.  It would seem that the only thing that matters to Media Matters is a false narrative.  Perhaps some of their state media contemporaries compare better:  "Senior Fellow" Eric Boehlert is still on a mission to prove that what happened on the ACORN videos didn't actually happen (while insisting that what didn't happen on the Lewis/Carson/Cleaver videos did), which is really the only defense left.  Good luck with that.

Justice Dept. appeals ruling preventing ACORN from being defunded.  In December, U.S. District Judge Nina Gershon in New York issued a temproary order halting the government from defunding ACORN.  Then last month she issued a rulling permanently preventing the government from defunding ACORN — in effect, she ruled that ACORN has a right to your money.

Brown won't prosecute ACORN or those who filmed.  California Attorney General Jerry Brown said Thursday [4/1/2010] that he will not prosecute the community organizing group ACORN or conservative filmmakers who posed as a pimp and prostitute while secretly videotaping conversations at Southern California offices of the group last year.

ACORN Playing Rebranding Game.  [Scroll down]  Multiple sources within ACORN have already confirmed to me that the exercise is a hoax.  ACORN intends to keep a low profile and then re-emerge in a year or two under a new name, they say.  For decades ACORN has maintained tight control over its supposedly independent network of affiliates through interlocking directorates and massive intra-network financial transfers.  There is every indication it plans to use the same top-down management techniques under the new organizational arrangement, they say.

Frances Fox Piven Joins Board of Project Vote.  While ACORN has earned much of the scorn of the press and public in recent months, its voter registration arm, Project Vote, is actually the entity that has been conducting the questionable voter registration drives.  Project Vote has been accused of voter registrations fraud in more than a dozen states.  Its parent group ACORN, along with a staff member, are scheduled to be tried for fraud in Nevada in a matter of days.  Recently, ACORN was nailed under the RICO Act in Ohio and ordered to never come back to the state.

She Wouldn't Harm a Fly.  Frances Fox Piven is a sociology professor who for four decades has advocated violent social upheaval as a means of effecting the radical change she believes in.

Acorn folds.  ACORN was always a very decentralized group, with a great deal of its activity and power concentrated in local chapters from New York to Arkansas — the strongest of which will survive.  The collapse of the national group, though, reflects the impact of a conservative assault that never prompted any prosecutions.

ACORN Swap?  ACORN, the embattled community activist group, says it is disbanding.  The group, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, claims it will close its affiliates and field offices by April 1st.  But some of its critics think the move is really an April fool's switch.  They claim ACORN actually isn't going anywhere, just rebranding under different local organizations with new names but with the same mission.

ACORN Operating Under Different Name.  The crime-infested community organization famous for voter registration fraud blames right-wing attacks for its demise as covert branches pop up under different names, allowing the original group to keep much of its public funding.  The Obama-backed Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) has conveniently changed its name to shed its criminal history, but the scandal-plagued leftist group is still alive and quite active.

An ACORN by Any Other Name Still Smells Like an ACORN, Critics Say.  Rep. Darrell Issa, the top Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, who led an investigation into the group, said ACORN's assertion that it is closing is just another scheme designed to get its hands on taxpayer funds.

In Re Excreta.  If ever there was an organization that deserved to have its federal funding permanently stripped, it is surely ACORN.  From election fraud, to embezzlement, to abuse of tax-exempt privileges, money-laundering, racketeering, and a host of other criminal acts, ACORN is emblematic of the problems that can occur when federal agencies are careless in awarding taxpayer dollars.

A Weedlike Acorn.  Is scandal-hit Acorn folding?  Don't bet on it.  With federal cash at stake, the enterprise is morphing into new groups to keep a hand in the pot.  It's like a con man who changes his name and moves to the next town.

ACORN Disbanding; Press Not Handling It Well.  Two twenty-somethings, acting entirely on their own, assisted later by a skilled mentor who knew the value of their work and how to maximize the mileage to be gained from it, brought down what had turned into a pretentious, intimidating, fraud-riddled wing of the Democratic Party's get out the vote effort.  All that remains — frankly more than should be allowed to remain — is ACORN Housing Corporation.

Is ACORN's Bankruptcy Claim Just More Deceit?  ACORN, the ultra-secret, keep-the-books-from-the-leadership community organizing group, called the New York Times to say it's preparing to file for bankruptcy?  The corrupt outfit is choosing now to be transparent?  Or did it seek that opportunity to call an allied newspaper at precisely the moment conservatives were all in a lather about ObamaCare?

While the Nation Is Distracted, The Obama Administration Restores ACORN Funding.  While America is distracted by Democrats' attempts to unconstitutionally ram government-run healthcare down the throats of the American people, the Obama administration began preparing to resume funding to President Obama's favorite community organizing group.  The fiscal floodgates are opening for [ACORN], the president's former employer and legal client, despite a congressional ban on funding the activist group that has long been a practitioner of election fraud.

ACORN to rename, rebrand after scandal.  Affiliates of the once mighty liberal activist group ACORN are remaking themselves in a desperate bid to ditch the tarnished name of their parent organization and restore federal grants and other revenue streams that ran dry in the wake of a video scandal.

ACORN's Maryland chapter is shuttered.  A former leader of Maryland's ACORN chapter said Monday the group will no longer operate in the state, doomed by an embarrassing national scandal six months ago from which the organization never recovered.

ACORN canvasser pleads to registration charges.  A Forest Hills man has pleaded no contest to several charges in connection with his work with the voter registration group ACORN.  Eric Jones, 20, was a canvasser for ACORN in 2007 and in the course of his work, he submitted 30 voter registration applications from individuals who did not exist, according to Mike Manko, spokesman for the Allegheny County District Attorney's office.

Activist judge rules ACORN has a right to your money.  Back in December, U.S. District Judge Nina Gershon in New York issued a temporary injunction preventing Congress from cutting off funding to ACORN.  She has now ruled that injunction will be permanent.  So no matter how grossly illegal the activities an organization is engaged in, they apparently have a constitutional right to your money if an unelected federal judge says so.

Obama Justice Dept. shut down FBI's ACORN investigation.  Judicial Watch has unearthed some explosive new ACORN documents that, according to a press release, show the Obama Justice Department quashed an FBI investigation of ACORN.  It started when the Republican Registrars of Voters of Stamford and Bridgeport, Connecticut — Lucy Corelli and Joseph Borges — filed a complaint with the FBI during the 2008 election season.

ACORN is out of Ohio's elections.  ACORN, the liberal group notorious for allegedly trying to inflate voter rolls through fraudulent practices, has seen its last election in Ohio.  The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now will permanently surrender its Ohio business license by June 1 as part of a legal settlement with the conservative Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions, both sides said yesterday [3/10/2010].

ACORN Defends Voter Drive Despite Workers Being Charged With Fraud.  The community organizing group ACORN defended its voter registration drive in Milwaukee, after two of its workers were charged with felony election fraud.  36-year-old Maria Miles of Milwaukee and 26-year-old Kevin Clancy of Racine were accused of trying to sign up the same voters more than once — so they could meet ACORN's quota of 20 signatures per day.

New indictments hit crumbling ACORN.  New election-fraud charges against employees of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) in Wisconsin are a helpful reminder that the scandal-prone, far-left liberal group remains as determined as ever to cause trouble come election time.

Court Dismisses ACORN Suit Against Hannah and James.  A state court in Baltimore has dismissed ACORN's lawsuit against James O'Keefe, Hannah Giles, and Breitbart.com LLC after the plaintiffs failed to serve the complaint on the defendants within Maryland's 120-day limit.

Update on ACORN RICO suit while Obama administration shuts down criminal probe.  That case has been settled and the settlement is confidential.  But one portion of it is now public and it indicates that Buckeye was successful.  ACORN will no longer conduct election activities in [Ohio].

According to Documents Obtained by Judicial Watch...
 Obama Justice Department Shut Down Federal ACORN Investigation.  The documents include background information on two specific complaints filed in October 2008 by Lucy Corelli and Joseph Borges, Republican Registrars of Voters in Stamford and Bridgeport, Connecticut, respectively, during the 2008 election season.  According to Corelli, on August 1, 2008, her office received 1,200 ACORN voter registration cards from the Secretary of State's office.  Over 300 of these cards were rejected because of "duplicates, underage, illegible and invalid addresses," which "put a tremendous strain on our office staff and caused endless work hours at taxpayers' expense."

Obama Spiked ACORN Investigation.  Documents released today by Judicial Watch reference serious allegations of corruption and voter registration fraud by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform (ACORN), as well as the Obama administration's decision to shut down a criminal investigation into these matters. ... These documents reflect seemingly systematic voter registration fraud by ACORN.  It is unconscionable that the Justice Department has not conducted a fully comprehensive criminal investigation into — and prosecution of — this matter.

Watchdog Accuses Obama Justice Department of Ignoring ACORN Fraud.  The Obama Justice Department administration shut down an investigation into ACORN last year, ignoring evidence of fraud at the community group, a government watchdog claimed Thursday [3/11/2010], citing investigative documents it obtained.  The watchdog, Judicial Watch, in releasing the documents, accused ACORN of "evident criminal conduct" and suggested that Obama's past ties to ACORN played a role in the investigation's conclusion.

ACORN Registration Workers Charged With Felony Voter Fraud.  Five Wisconsin residents, including two who worked for community organizing group ACORN, were charged Monday [3/8/2010] with election fraud relating to the 2008 presidential election.

ACORN Leaders Attempting Stealth Consolidation.  The election of President Barack Obama — though celebrated within the association — was actually the worst thing that could have happened to ACORN.  The meteoric ascent of the first community organizer to reach the presidency means a level of scrutiny was thrust upon ACORN that it had never experienced before.  The secret of ACORN's success was that it was always underestimated.  Corporate executives would see a group of little old ladies in bright red hats, holding signs, chanting aloud in front of their buildings and laugh.  Never realizing they were caught in the sights of a $100 million multi-national conglomeration — with state, congressional and national political reach.  That is — until it was too late.

ACORN Housing Boom.  As ACORN gears up to use your tax dollars to influence future elections, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is conducting a "massive" probe of ACORN Housing Corp., a source familiar with the ongoing investigation says.  A spokesman for HUD's inspector general refused to confirm or deny whether ACORN Housing was being investigated.

Government, law enforcement giving absolution to ACORN.  It looks like the jokes on us.  There's no need to rehash the "he said/she said" back and forth between ACORN pundits and those that find ACORN's counseling principles lacking... or their social-engineering existence for that matter.  What does deserve comment is this:  if counseling those involved in clearly illegal activity (not just prostitution but that which also supposedly involved the underaged) on how to evade taxes, lie about their means of income (which, in pretty much every case involving such a profession, is "unverifiable" at any rate), and manipulate a federal home loan document doesn't qualify as criminal... then is there any such thing as "white collar" crime?

ACORN Crime Family Shutting Down Nationwide:  Launching Renaming Effort.  ACORN is attempting to perpetrate yet another spectacular fraud on the American people in order to keep tax dollars and foundation grants flowing into its coffers.  With the fallout from the hidden camera videos last fall, congressional funding of ACORN's election fraud and racketeering business is no longer guaranteed, so ACORN is trying to pass off various state chapters as "new" groups.

Issa vs. ACORN:  Apparently there's a lot of money in poverty, and ACORN has found some interesting ways to raise revenues:  After Katrina, the City of New Orleans gave ACORN 121 properties, which were to be given to poor families affected by the storm.  ACORN rented them out for profit instead.  Internal ACORN memos suggest that the organization regards SEIU union dues as a regular part of its own revenue stream.

ACORN:  We're Still Here.  A spokesperson for ACORN is denying a report published in City Hall earlier today [2/22/2010] that the national organization is splitting into unaffiliated state organizations.  A follow-up report from Ben Smith quotes "a senior official close to the group" who says "ACORN has dissolved as a national structure of state organizations."

Gangster Group Will Be Bankrupt Soon But Fake Spinoff Groups Will Carry On.  The ACORN crime syndicate is not going away anytime soon, but it's going to look different.  ACORN will probably run out of money and fold by year's end but a dozen ACORN state chapters reincorporated to seem like new, independent organizations will spring up in the next week to carry on ACORN's business, a leaked email from ACORN's online director suggests.

ACORN slated to get nearly $4 billion in Obama's fiscal 2011 budget.  To add to the list of outrageous earmarks in Obama's fiscal 2011 budget, ACORN, the embezzlement-prone, voter-registration-fraud-plagued, leftist community organizing group, is slated to receive nearly $4 billion from a taxpayer-funded slush fund.  The money will come from the Community Development Block Grant, one of the Department of Housing and Urban Development's longest-running programs.

Obama didn't tell the truth about his relationship to ACORN.  At CPAC, Rep. Daryl Issa, R-Cal., released [a] video that shows the President didn't tell the truth about the extent of his relationship with ACORN.

Acorn-ucopia.  Didn't Acorn, the corrupt community organizer, get its federal funding yanked after its last scandal?  Actually, no.  Through municipal middlemen, it's poised to rake in another $4 billion.  Where is the outrage?

Issa Report finds ACORN Fraud, SEIU Connections.  Republicans on the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee have released a new report leveling fresh allegations and evidence of corruption against the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN.

Census 2010:  Up to 800 Canvassers With Criminal Records.  Despite reports last fall that the Census Bureau had severed ties with community-organizing group known as ACORN, Americans might want to think twice before opening their doors to canvassers for the 2010 Census after reading what I discovered this morning.

Official at ACORN Funder Confirmed as Head of Corporation for National and Community Service.  On Feb. 11 the Senate confirmed Obama nominee Patrick Corvington as chief executive of the Corporation for National and Community Service, which oversees Senior Corps, AmeriCorps, and Learn and Serve America.  Corvington was a senior official at the left-wing Annie E. Casey Foundation of Baltimore, Maryland, which granted funding to ACORN during his tenure.

ACORN funder confirmed to head Corporation for National and Community Service.  Democrats just can't stay away from ACORN.  Even as scandal piles on top of scandal, they continue to embrace the organization.  The latest is that the Senate just confirmed Patrick Corvington as chief executive of the Corporation for National and Community Service.

Piven:  ACORN-style Mass Movement May Deepen Foreclosure Crisis.  The original Cloward-Piven Strategy, born in a 1966 article in The Nation magazine, was to overwhelm the welfare system by flooding the rolls with new recipients.  The government would not be able to keep up (this was a time when a government could actually go bankrupt), the system would crash and a Democratic presidential administration would be "forced" to implement a "guaranteed annual income" for Americans.

Show ACORN the Money.  ACORN and other left-wing advocacy groups could be eligible for up to $3.99 billion in federal funding included in the $3.83 trillion fiscal 2011 budget blueprint that President Obama unveiled yesterday [2/1/2010].

ACORN Eligible for $4 Billion in Obama's Fiscal 2011 Budget.  Even with all its troubles, the ACORN organized crime syndicate is eligible for $4 billion (well, really $3.99 billion in CDBG slush funds) in President Obama's fiscal 2011 budget.

California ACORN breaks off into new nonprofit group.  California ACORN has broken away from its embattled parent organization to form a new nonprofit group, a move that observers say might foreshadow other defections that would seriously undermine one of the nation's largest and most politically powerful community organizations.

CRS Report On ACORN An Incompetent Whitewash.  Apparently Congressional Research Service employees are as good at research as ACORN employees are at registering voters.  Not surprisingly, the new Congressional Research Service report on ACORN continues the Democrats' coverup of President Obama's favorite advocacy group.  The CRS report commissioned by House Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) and House Financial Services Committee chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.)  — both longtime ACORN allies — is a whitewash.

White House Spokeswoman Says it's a Different Bertha Lewis on Visitor's Log.  According to Politico's Ben Smith, the Bertha Lewis who went to the White House is not ACORN's CEO but another woman named "Bertha Lewis." ... What is the point of the White House issuing visitor logs if those named can't be identified and verified?

'You Are a Bad, Bad, Bad Journalist'.  I respected her for staying on the phone when she had no reason not to hang up.  I even believed her when she claimed she wasn't Obama's personal guest in their White House residence even though in the last four months Bertha Lewis rarely uttered a statement in public that wasn't a provable lie.  And her friends in the press did everything they could to pretend they didn't notice her lies — and repeated them often to ensure the group didn't completely implode.

Barney Frank And Chuck Schumer Channel Wade Rathke.  Was ACORN's systemic voter registration fraud a strategy to bring about automatic voter registration?  Sure is beginning to look that way.  So if ACORN and Democrats collude to destroy the current voter registration system, can they be convicted under RICO?

Bigger Than Watergate.  ACORN critic Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) is mystified that both the Democratic-controlled Congress and the Obama administration aren't doing much about the tax-subsidized organized crime syndicate ACORN even as evidence of its wrongdoing continues to pile up.  In an exclusive interview, the House Judiciary Committee member describes the ACORN saga as "the largest corruption crisis in the history of America."

GAO tells Smith, Issa it will probe ACORN.  The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has informed two House Republicans that it will investigate ACORN's use of federal funds.  The GAO sent a letter to Reps. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, and Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the ranking member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, informing them of its decision.

Wade Rathke and the Myth of ACORN.  Wade Rathke, a former member of the Students for A Democratic Society (SDS) and The National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO) never intended for ACORN to be an organization that really helped poor people.  Rathke, from all indications, wanted to use ACORN as a vehicle for political power.

Cloward-Piven Government.  [Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven] implemented the strategy by creating a succession of radical organizations, most notable among them the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), with the help of veteran organizer Wade Rathke.  Their crowning achievement was the "Motor Voter" act, signed into law by Bill Clinton in 1993 with Cloward and Piven standing behind him.  As we now know, ACORN was one of the chief drivers of high-risk mortgage lending that eventually led to the financial crisis.  But the Motor Voter law was another component of the strategy.  It created vast vulnerabilities in our electoral system, which ACORN then exploited.

Eric Holder, ACORN, and Cloward-Piven Justice.  Current law prohibits the community organization ACORN and its associated groups from receiving any federal funds from any federal law currently on the books.  However, the Eric Holder Justice Department has interpreted the law as allowing federal agencies to pay ACORN for "binding contractual obligations" made before the current prohibition was enacted.  This questionable interpretation may go a long way toward neutralizing ACORN's funding prohibition.

Obama And His Appointees Dismantling US.  [Scroll down]  This radicalism pervades every corner of the White House and Mr. Obama's appointments.  Take Craig Becker, an Obama appointee to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).  He was a union lawyer, who was associate general counsel of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).  The SEIU is the union with close connections to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), the corrupt group of community organizers best known for voter fraud and extortion and intimidation of lenders.

ACORN Qualifies for Funding in Senate Health Care Bill.  Senator Roland Burris is claiming credit for a provision in Harry Reid's "manager's amendment," unveiled Saturday morning, that could funnel money to ACORN through the health care bill.

Judge blocks ACORN funding ban.  Excising ACORN funding from the federal budget will be a difficult task.  It will be impossible unless a full blown investigation into ACORN activities — especially their "non-partisan" political activities — is undertaken and they are revealed to be the danger to the republic that they truly are.

Judge Blocks U.S. Ban on Funding for Acorn.  U.S. District Judge Nina Gershon in New York issued a temporary injunction late Friday [12/11/2009].  Her ruling is expected to stand until the current restrictions on Acorn expire next Friday as part of a temporary spending bill. A permanent ban, the Defund Acorn Act, has passed the House and is pending in the Senate.

Not everything is unconstitutional.  It's interesting that [Judge Nina] Gershon brought up the matter of separation of powers, since it's doubtful she understands them herself.  Congress has the power to appropriate tax money, not the judicial branch.  Gershon may be overstepping her judicial authority by dictating to Congress whom the body can and cannot fund.  And she's yanked yet another right out of thin air:  the "right" to federal funding.  The arrogance of some federal officials — that they have a right to taxpayers' money — continues unabated.

Gershon's ACORN Ruling.  [Judge Nina] Gershon's opinion — that not receiving discretionary federal funding fits the definition of "punishment" as a prohibited Bill of Attainder — would be laughable if there were not such serious issues at stake.

Enabling ACORN's Comeback.  On Tuesday evening [12/8/2009] the House Appropriations Committee rejected on a party line vote of 9 to 5 an amendment offered by Rep. Tom Latham (R-Iowa) that would have blocked federal funding of the radical advocacy group.  The amendment was needed because the Obama administration thumbed its nose at a provision in spending legislation that banned ACORN funding until the end of next week.

ACORN Document Dump:  Citibank Jeopardizes Customers for ACORN.  What does the Persian Gulf emirate of Dubai and ACORN have in common?  Both of them have some bankers on Wall Street worried.

Defunding ACORN:  Necessary and Proper, and Certainly Constitutional.  The Congressional Research Service (CRS) has issued a report mistakenly concluding that a "court may have a sufficient basis to overcome the presumption of constitutionality, and find that [the Defund ACORN Act] violates the prohibition against bills of attainder."  This conclusion is clearly wrong for a number of reasons; indeed, it should be noted that even the CRS seems to concede its argument is weak at best.

Judge:  ACORN funding restored.  A judge in New York ordered that ACORN's federal funding be restored, rolling back a slew of Congressional actions that sought to stop taxpayer money from flowing to the community group on the heels of a fall full of embarrassments for it.

On the Money Trail.  Is ACORN engaged in a massive money laundering scheme?  Although evidence abounds that the radical left-wing advocacy group-cum-organized crime syndicate is recycling funds mafia-style, government investigators and the media have paid scant attention to ACORN's money trail.  Red flags that appear to signal unlawful activities by ACORN are everywhere yet ACORN's collaborators in the White House, Justice Department, and House Judiciary Committee, smugly ignore them.

A World Without ACORN.  Last week, we learned that the Department of Justice wants the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) to continue receiving taxpayer dollars in spite of ongoing criminal investigations into widespread fraud and other illegal activities on the part of ACORN officers and employees.  Somehow the Department of Justice missed the fact that Congress overwhelmingly passed — and the President signed — unambiguous legislation to strip ACORN of its funding.

ACORN Whitewash:  What ACORN Won't Tell You About the 'Audit' it Bought.  On September 16, 2009, with much fanfare, ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis announced that ACORN was hiring an independent auditor to review its internal processes.  Yesterday, the former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger produced a report finding ACORN, as a corporation, engaged in administrative negligence.  This of course has not stopped ACORN from declaring victory and calling the report a vindication.  Is anyone surprised that a report paid for by ACORN exonerates them?

Covering Up for ACORN.  The newly released "independent" review of the ACORN undercover prostitution video saga is a breathtakingly audacious work of fiction.  There is hardly a word of truth to be found anywhere in the document's 47 pages.

Dems Vote to Allow Federal Funding for Corrupt ACORN.  Last night [12/8/2009], defying the will of a bipartisan majority of the House and Senate, Democrats voted to allow the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) to receive federal taxpayer dollars.  In September, large Congressional majorities in both houses voted to sever all ties between the federal government and ACORN.

ACORN's Fingerprints on Mortgage Crisis Appeared 20 Years Ago.  ACORN has been fairly criticized for its actions that led up to the mortgage crisis, which culminated in a huge rash of foreclosures last year.  While the tide appears to be waning, it's a problem that is still occuring.  Specifically, ACORN strong-armed banks and worked with members of Congress, such as Barney Frank, to weaken credit standards in order for banks, as well as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to fund risky mortgages.  Mortgages, of course, that stood little chance of ever being paid, as we witnessed last year.

House Republicans Blast Democrats, Obama Over Alleged ACORN Ties.  A handful of House Republicans did their best on Tuesday [12/1/2009] to shame Democrats and the Obama administration for its supposed connections to the controversial anti-poverty group ACORN.  Republicans also voiced complaints that Democrats are not moving forward with investigations into the organization that is alleged to have committed widespread voter fraud to support Democratic candidates, in violation of the group's tax-exempt status.

ACORN Dispersing Resources to SEIU, other Liberal Groups, House Probe Finds.  ACORN, the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now, is in the process of changing its name and has already transferred many of its resources to several other left-wing advocacy and political groups, according to a report released Tuesday by Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

The Future of ACORN.  If you want to know what will happen to ACORN as a result of all the scandals and controversies, this story from Connecticut is a microcosm.

The Holder Justice Department twists the law ACORN's way.  The Holder Justice Department has concluded that the Obama administration can lawfully pay Acorn for services provided under contracts signed before Congress banned the government from providing money to the group.

Eric Holder Won't Investigate His Radical Friends at ACORN.  Attorney General Eric Holder has made it abundantly clear he has absolutely no interest in investigating his radical friends at ACORN.  Holder's Justice Department released a legal opinion last week that allows the Obama administration to ignore the will of Congress which has voted overwhelmingly to suspend federal funding of ACORN until at least Dec. 18.

HUD must cut off ACORN.  More than a month ago, Congress passed a bill designed to protect taxpayers from funding the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.  The left-wing activist group, which has received at leastt $53 million in government funds since 1994, is notorious for submitting fraudulent voter registrations and for allegedly commingling the finances of its nonprofit and political arms. ... Despite ACORN's misfeasance, the Department of Justice has issued a legal opinion suggesting that the group can continue to receive taxpayer money despite the new law.

ACORN considered name change.  ACORN, the troubled community service organization, recently considered changing its name in a bid to rehabilitate its image, according to an internal memo obtained by POLITICO.  The document, which will be released Tuesday [12/1/2009] as part of a Republican congressional forum on ACORN, illustrates the internal deliberation the group has undergone after a year of embarrassing scandals.

Report:  ACORN got $200,000 in Justice Department funds.  ACORN and its affiliates received $200,000 in Justice Department grants between 2002 and 2009, according to a report issued Friday by the department's inspector general.  No DOJ grants went directly to ACORN, but a handful of grants were awarded either to ACORN affiliates or to other organizations that sub-contracted projects to ACORN.

'ACORN Member' Roseanne Barr Confirms Fellow Activist's Shock Admission:  ACORN Got Obama Elected.  I wonder how all of that organizing skill and knowledge to help elect President Obama coincides with ACORN's use of Federal Funds and their status as a 501(c)3 non-profit.

Are Americans Paying Taxes to Organized Crime Syndicates?  They just won't let it go.  Even after exposure of illegal activities, bills show up in Congress to find more ways to give money to ACORN.  If there is any silver lining, it could be the awakening of taxpayers to the current reality.  Beyond "tax and spend," there's the eerie question of where all the money is going.

What Happens When a PI Dumpster Dives Behind a San Diego ACORN Office?  He strikes the flippin' mother lode!  At least that's what happened to private investigator Derrick Roach at the National City (San Diego) ACORN office.  Yep, Roach scored big-time on the cockroaches of ACORN when he staked out their San Diego workplace.

ACORN Document Dump:  Trashed Documents Are Relevant to Investigation.  Have you heard the one about the pimp, prostitute, politician and the community organizer?  Well, thanks to San Diego private investigator Derrick Roach, Californians are not laughing at what is turning into a political nightmare for California Attorney General Jerry Brown and ACORN.

Rep. King accuses Conyers and Nadler of blocking ACORN probe.  Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) accused two Democratic committee chairmen of blocking an investigation into ACORN because of their ties to the organization.  In an interview with Fox News, King took aim at House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) and Judiciary Constitution subcommittee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), whom he says have questionable connections to the organization.

Ex-ACORN official gets probation for voter registration plan.  A former field director for the political advocacy organization ACORN was sentenced today in district court to up to three years of probation.  Christopher Edwards, who in August pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to commit a crime of compensation for registration of voters, a gross misdemeanor, received a suspended jail sentence and a $500 fine.  He has agreed to testify against ACORN and one of its former regional directors, Amy Busefink.

Inside ACORN'S Political Plans:  Ensuring a Democrat Majority.  [Scroll down slowly]  ACORN's shell corporations make it easy for a political plan to become a partisan voter registration drive facilitated by thin veiled "partnerships."  The filing reports of Communities Voting Together raise a number of questions, including whether the misspelling of the name on the filing was intentional.  The payments to various ACORN entities should give any astute lawmaker pause.

Thanks for Paying Attention Big Journalism.  In response to the Columbia Journalism Review's accusing me of "blackmailing" the Attorney General of the United States, I must take notice that the mainstream media as a journalistic establishment IS paying attention to the ongoing ACORN scandal.  Good.  I thought so.  What the Columbia Journalism Review is doing is very similar to what Media Matters is doing:  protecting the Democrat-Media Complex, the natural alliance of the Democratic Party and the mainstream media.

Why Isn't Anyone Really Investigating ACORN?  As we rapidly approach December 18th, the day when ACORN is again eligible to receive federal funds, we still have yet to see a meaningful investigation of ACORN. ... The Department of Justice should have answered calls to investigate ACORN's criminal and fraudulent activity.  The evidence continues to mount, and the Department of Justice continues to look the other way.

ACORN OKLAHOMA Document Dump: The Oklahoma Power Plan.  ACORN's San Diego office isn't the only place its been careless with sensitive documents.  Late last year, ACORN abandoned an office in Oklahoma.  In its haste to vacate the office — and skip out on the landlord's claim of back-rent — ACORN abandoned piles of documents, as well as a computer.

ACORN Goes for Broke.  As its financial resources dwindle, radical advocacy group and organized crime syndicate ACORN may have to file for bankruptcy protection before Christmas, ACORN insiders say.

ACORN Still Owes $2.3 Million in Overdue Taxes.  ACORN and its affiliates are content to impose crippling big-government laws, regulations, and taxes on Americans, but when called upon to obey those same rules, ACORN's network of scofflaws and deadbeats simply refuses to comply.

Citigroup Eyes ACORN Investment.  Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit isn't ruling out reinvesting in scandal-plagued ACORN, the left-wing community group whose employees were caught on a hidden camera earlier this year allegedly giving advice on how to set up a prostitution ring without getting nabbed by the IRS.

Los Angeles Robocall Proves ACORN 'Internal Review' Is a Scam.  The robocall confirms what we have always expected:  ACORN's commitment to an "internal review" is a scam meant to deflect attention from its many problems.  Even before ACORN has publicly released the results of its "review," they have already sued to have their federal funding reinstated.  The robocall and federal suit reveal how ACORN acts when it thinks no one is paying attention.

Hoffman alleges vote fraud in NY 23.  Even as he faces near-impossible odds of pulling ahead in the count, Doug Hoffman announced Wednesday night [11/18/2009] that he is officially revoking his concession from Election Night, and is accusing labor unions and ACORN of stealing the election for Rep. Bill Owens (D-N.Y.).  Hoffman posted a message on his campaign site Wednesday alleging dirty tricks by Democrats, and is asking for additional campaign contributions to fund a legal challenge to the election results.

A Tale of Two Community Organizers.  Jim Jones could round up crowds of protesters and door to door campaign workers on demand.  Admired and enabled by San Francisco Democrats and media moguls, Jones gathered emotionally and economically needy people around him, pretending to be a minister to their needs.  He forced them to drain their bank accounts, sign over their homes and their welfare and social security checks.  Jones gave their money generously to the Democrat liberal elite and stashed millions in illegal overseas accounts.  When Democrats needed a crowd of thousands, Jones provided his willing flock.

Acorn:  Once on the Federal Dole, Always on the Federal Dole.  You've got to say one thing about Acorn:  it has chutzpah.  After all, these are the folks who once sued to avoid paying the minimum wage to their own workers.  These are the people who turned the Community Reinvestment Act into a classic shakedown operation, scoring numerous corporate pay-offs in order to lift Acorn's objections to bank mergers. ... Still, they are upset that Congress cut off their money.  I mean, who doesn't get a government check these days!?  How insulting!

Now Obama wants to put an ACORN fund-raiser on the federal bench.  Hamilton ignored a felony conviction on a man's record when being prosecuted for his third felony drug crime to avoid imposing a life sentence, for which Hamilton was unanimously reversed on appeal.  Hamilton also struck down a law requiring convicted sex criminals from reporting information to police to track their whereabouts.  He also petitioned the White House for clemency for a police officer who produced child pornography.  He has also shown surprising hostility to people of Christian faith.  He ruled that any prayers uttered in the Indiana statehouse that invoke the name of Jesus Christ are unconstitutional and cannot be permitted.

ACORN's Calling.  In those balmy days of the nation's leading community organizer outfit, the sky was the limit.  One team in Las Vegas registered the starting lineup of the St. Louis Cardinals as local voters.  The Cards of course weren't there, but no problem.  In Seattle, other teams scoured telephone books at public libraries, carefully filling in names on their voter registration forms and signing them.  As soon as a mission was accomplished, the platoon leader would call the good news in to the local ACORN headquarters.  In some jurisdictions officials took a dim view of these registration practices.

ACORN sues over funding cut.  A non-profit organization filed a lawsuit against the federal government Thursday morning, seeking to overturn a law stopping the flow of federal funds to ACORN.  The suit, filed in federal court in New York, claims that bills passed by the House and Senate to defund the group qualify as bills of attainder, legislation that unfairly targets one group. Such bills are unconstitutional.

A Constitutional Right to Public Funds.  Activist group and organized crime syndicate ACORN has a constitutional right to defraud the people of the United States it claims in a federal lawsuit.  Actually, the lawsuit, filed with the assistance of the allegedly terrorist-funded Center for Constitutional Rights, doesn't use the word fraud, but that's what it amounts to because ACORN argues in the document that it has a right to taxpayer dollars.

Former ACORN fund raiser gets Obama judicial nomination.  President Obama's first federal court nominee was Judge David Hamilton of Indiana. ... Among Hamilton's "qualifications" is the fact that he is a former fund raiser for ACORN.  That fact was conspicuously left out of the White House statement announcing Obama's nomination of the federal district judge for a position on the Seventh Circuit federal appeals court.

Acorn, Suspicion and the Rule of Law.  As most everyone in the political world now knows, ACORN is under investigation in many states, and by the federal government, for a host of crimes.  The same holds true in California — or does it?

Computers, records seized at ACORN offices in La..  State investigators raided ACORN offices on Friday [11/6/2009], taking away computer hard drives and documents as part of a probe into alleged embezzlement and tax fraud when the organization's national headquarters was based in New Orleans.

Investigators Raid ACORN New Orleans Office.  Investigators with the Louisiana Attorney General's Office raided the New Orleans ACORN office Friday in connection with embezzlement and tax fraud allegations.  Assistant Attorney General David Caldwell said the office got a tip that some employee computers may be missing.  Investigators executed a search warrant and hauled off laptops and hard drives to make copies of information stored on the computers.

State investigators taking dozens of computers from ACORN office on Canal Street.  Attorney General Buddy Caldwell has served a search warrant at the ACORN office at 2609 Canal Street, according to Tammi Arender Herring, a spokeswoman with the office.  Investigators in khaki pants and polo shirts loaded several dozen computers and other electronic items into an SUV.  They are also carrying records out of the building on handcarts.

The Editor says...
 Something tells me the ACORN people are about to find out that deleted computer files can be recovered.

ACORN's Big Spender.  More proof has emerged of White House political director Patrick Gaspard's ties to the radical advocacy group ACORN.  Gaspard, a longtime operative for ACORN and one of its partisan arms, New York's Working Families Party, currently holds the title of White House political affairs director, the same title Karl Rove held in President Bush's White House.  Internal ACORN documents show that Gaspard gave ACORN $40,000 over the past two years.

ACORN Scandals Grow & Grow.  So far, 19 states have begun investigations of ACORN that have resulted in 70 convictions and 11 warrants recently issued to "persons of interest" for "fraudulent forms in elections.  U. S. Representative Darrell Issa, R-Calif., released a report on ACORN in January.  Rep. Issa found that ACORN has evaded taxes, obstructed justice, engaged in self dealing, and aided and abetted a cover-up of the $948.607.50 embezzlement by Dale Rathke, the brother of ACORN founder Wade Rathke.  [And] ACORN has committed investment fraud, deprived the public of its right to honest services, and engaged in a racketeering enterprise affecting interstate commerce.

ACORN at the White House.  The newly released list of visitors to the Obama White House makes the president's claim he's clueless about his former employer ACORN — and its election fraud trials and tribulations — especially difficult to believe.  Of particular significance is the visit by ACORN spokesman Scott Levenson who met with White House political director Patrick Gaspard in March.  The purpose of the meeting with Gaspard, a former ACORN employee himself, was not disclosed.

Nutbusterz Launched To Expose Working Families Party/ACORN Scam.  A new citizen action group is committed to exposing the danger that ACORN and the Working Family Party poses to our democracy based on their record of subverting elections through voter fraud, falsifying petitions and engaging in absentee ballot fraud for favored candidacies, looting government housing programs, blackmailing corporations and cheating the public campaign finance system.

NJ Hospital Denies Claim That ACORN Workers Collected Absentee Ballots.  A New Jersey hospital is denying accusations that ACORN workers have been inside collecting absentee ballots for the state's gubernatorial race.  East Orange General Hospital CEO Kevin Slavin said Tuesday [11/03/2009] that "all proper protocols" were followed as part of its program to allow patients to vote via absentee ballot, and that no third-party groups were signing up patients.

Nadler's ACORN Ethics.  Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), who heads a congressional subcommittee that may be investigating ACORN in the not-too-distant future, has been providing advice to ACORN's lawyer, according to a new report.  Nadler, a longtime ACORN ally, is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on the Constitution, civil rights, and civil liberties.

Taking a crack at ACORN.  A new lawsuit against the Working Families Party also hits another target — the scandal-tarnished group ACORN, which shares office space with the party.  Pointing to a string of probes that ACORN is facing and news reports about the two groups sharing a Nevins Street address in Brooklyn, the suit seeks to flush out the overlap.

Will Congress' defunding of ACORN expire Saturday?  When both houses of Congress voted to defund ACORN several weeks ago, what they actually did was bar lawmakers and federal agencies from giving any money to the community organizing group for the duration of the temporary budget agreement, or continuing resolution, that was in effect at the time.

How Dems outmaneuvered GOP on ACORN.  Although the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency — designed to deal with issues like mortgages and credit-card fees — has nothing to do with community organizing, Democrats offered an amendment that could allow ACORN and groups like it to participate in the new agency.  Republicans offered an amendment of their own, designed to stop the Democratic one.  An argument ensued.

ACORN Mounts a Comeback.  Just a few weeks ago, the criminal enterprise called ACORN was on the run.  Both House and Senate voted to de-fund the organization, but in different ways that were, in effect, more symbolic than real.  The Democrats, having laid low for a while, are now moving to restore ACORN to a more powerful position than ever.

ACORN's Campaign to DeFox America.  Unwilling to admit it's an ongoing criminal conspiracy to defraud the people of the United States of America, ACORN has retained Bolshevik Brave New Films to do some of its dirty work for it.  The leftist propaganda factory headquartered in Culver City, Calif., has launched a new website ... which is an effort to shoot the messenger.  Fox is the only television network that has taken much of an interest in covering the ACORN scandal which some commentators say is bigger than Watergate.

ACORN Throws Out Republican Voter Registrations.  ACORN wants people to register to vote — as long as they're Democrats.  Republican registrations go into the trash.  Here is a first-hand account of how it happens.

Democrats Vote To Give ACORN Regulatory Authority Over Financial Institutions.  During consideration of H.R. 3126, legislation to establish a Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA), Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee voted to pass an amendment offered by Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) that will make ACORN eligible to play a role in setting regulations for financial institutions.

Filmmakers Show Video of ACORN 'Sting' in Philadelphia.  The two independent filmmakers who posed as a pimp and a prostitute and received advice from ACORN employees in five cities on how to skirt tax and immigration laws claim the community organizer group lied when it said the pair were shown the door without receiving assistance from staffers in its Philadelphia office. ... "At no point were we kicked out and at no point were we asked to leave," O'Keefe told reporters at the National Press Club in Washington.  "Why did the Philadelphia press report were we kicked out?"

'Media Matters for America' Will Slime Anyone Who Takes on ACORN.  Throughout the ACORN undercover sting video saga, no one has been more willing to assassinate the character of ACORN's opponents than the hired guns at the left-wing group Media Matters for America.

ACORN's pattern and practice of lying.  The conservative journalist team of James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles has played ACORN like a concert tour:  Baltimore, D.C., New York City, and San Diego.  City by city, a scandal unfolded and the nation watched in bewilderment as the duo, posing as a pimp and prostitute, proposed to commit crimes of tax evasion and underage illegal alien sex trafficking while mid-level managers from the organization did everything they could to assist them in their effort.

The Last Shoe Drops.  I think it's the last shoe, anyway — the last stop on James O'Keefe's and Hannah Giles' tour of ACORN offices around the country.  ACORN's last line of defense was Philadelphia; the organization told reporters that its Philadelphia employees had kicked O'Keefe and Giles out of their office, and a number of newspapers reported that claim as fact.  It wasn't true, of course.

Anita MonCrief Countersues ACORN.  ACORN whistle blower Anita MonCrief has filed a counter suit against ACORN which is already suing her in order to intimidate her into silence.

ACORN Watch:  Fight the thugs.  ACORN is a criminal enterprise.  It took decades to build up its massive coffers and intricate web of affiliates across the country.  It will take months and years to untangle the entire operation.  And it will take time, money, and and relentless sunshine to dismantle the government-subsidized, partisan racket.  It can't be "reformed."  It is constitutionally corrupt.

ACORN, Payola and Color of Law.  Here's one example of how state law enforcement officials have leveraged and possibly violated the law to help ACORN in return for ACORN's political help.  In December 2004, Minnesota Attorney General Mike Hatch sued Capital One for failing to state in its advertisements that it could increase interest rates on credit cards.  As part of a 2006 settlement, Capital One paid $749,999, of which $249,999 went to ACORN, $250,000 went to the nonprofit Legal Aid, and $250,000 to the State of Minnesota.  ACORN's political action committee had endorsed Mike Hatch for attorney general in 1998 and 2002, and in 2006 for governor.

When Will a National Voter Fraud Investigation of ACORN Begin?  Whatever happened with the investigation into ACORN and the 2008 election?  The organization did register a mere 1,315,037 voters by October for the 2008 presidential election.  And, we must not forget about the Minnesota fiasco in which Minnesotans ended up with Senator Al Franken even though Norm Coleman led by 725 votes — the morning after the election!

GOP seeks to strip more ACORN funds.  Illinois Republican Rep. Judy Biggert introduced legislation Thursday [10/15/2009] to strip the community-organizing group of its certification to qualify for federal housing dollars.  "It's abundantly clear that ACORN and its affiliates cannot be trusted as a federally-certified entity," Biggert said in a statement.

ACORN 8.  ACORN is not living up to its original mission; and that is to give meaningful voice and empower low and moderate income members of society.  ACORN has been corrupted from its original purpose by senior management and an organizational structure that exploits the low and moderate income membership ACORN was founded to serve.  Voter fraud, voter registration fraud, unpaid taxes, unfair labor practices, etc, while tantalizing are not the problem, but merely symptoms of ACORN's corrupt leadership.

ACORN Could Remain Potent and Well-Funded Into 2010 Elections.  Despite the scope and magnitude of ongoing scandals that have ensnared ACORN officials, there remains a certain slyness to the news coverage in that the focus is on "conservative firestorms" and "McCarthyite tactics", as opposed to potential felonies that have been captured on tape, to say nothing of voter fraud registration allegations and financial misappropriation.

How Liberalism Exploits The Vulnerable.  Of all of the outrages uncovered by James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles ... certainly the most indicting was the commentary by the ACORN worker who warned Giles that if her supposed underlings became educated, they "wouldn't need her anymore."  Not knowing that she was on camera, this "community organizer" gave away the dirtiest of the dirty secrets of the left.

ACORN's Blackmailing of Banks.  Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) explained to Glenn Beck on his TV show last night how the radical left-wing activist group ACORN uses the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) to shake down banks.  The federal government, in effect, threatens banks into lending money to risky mortgage borrowers, Bachmann said.  The CRA allowed groups such as ACORN to use the law to push banks into doing things they didn't want to do.

Bet on it:  ACORN will be back.  ACORN may be down, but don't count it out.  The elaborate propaganda apparatus erected to support the Obama agenda is already at work spinning the downfall of the community organization into a vicious right-wing plot to destroy the presidency of Barack Obama, who sprouted from ACORN. ... But ACORN is too important to Democrats and Obama in particular to allow it to wither away.

Fool Me Hundreds of Times:  Who Gets to Clean Up ACORN? Why does Bertha Lewis get to "clean house" at ACORN?  Even today, actions have consequences.  The fact that the employee behavior exposed by O'Keefe and Giles happened on her watch — and she has been less than forthcoming about it, by the way — would alone be enough to get most CEO's booted.  Worse, though, is the implication that Lewis has been complicit in ACORN's missteps for a long time.

Bertha Lies.  ACORN chief organizer Bertha Lewis's recent appearance at the National Press Club was an exercise in denial.  Lewis deserved to receive an Academy Award nomination for her virtuoso performance in which she not only depicted ACORN as an innocent victim but also as a whistleblower that tried to nip the subprime mortgage crisis in the bud.

The 'other ACORN story' is how little it does with your millions.  One of the over-looked angles on the growing ACORN national scandal is how little the far-left activist group actually does with the millions it receives from taxpayers, corporations, and foundations.  The group says it provide lots of services for poor people, but a recent NewsBusters post by Tom Blumer exposes the hollow facts behind the claims.

How ACORN Hides Behind Fake Names:  Many states have ways to look up the businesses, organizations and people with whom the state does business.  Illinois has such a service on the Secretary of State's website. ... The problem with the Illinois search system is that groups like ACORN register hundreds of different shell corporations to hide behind.  They register them to their workers and their directors and then they offer them to government as a vendor or organization for the state's use.  Naturally, state funds flow like water into ACORN's coffers as a result.

The Real Problem With ACORN.  [Scroll down]  Eventually I soured on welfare in a number of ways.  Even with the women it was doing no good.  They had no sense of self-sufficiency.  It was just a sophisticated form of begging.  They would develop a sense of entitlement so that "getting ahead" simply meant making more and more strident demands on more and more people.  And that's what Wade Rathke seems to have picked up on.  He said on the Fox show that when funding ran out for welfare rights he moved to Little Rock to start his own community organizing effort, based on that same sense of endless grievance.  ACORN became skilled at moral gangsterism, shaking down governments and corporations for larger and larger amounts, making ever more ridiculous demands.

Beth Butler, longtime director of Louisiana ACORN, fired in wake of Obama flap.  Butler's sacking came two days after local ACORN leaders criticized President Barack Obama's planned itinerary for a trip to New Orleans this week  — comments that drew an immediate rebuke from ACORN's national leaders.

ACORN Corruption Runs Deep.  Unfortunately for America, the media has been filtering news for years and this practice has allowed some of the main figures in the Teamstergate scandal to assume top spots in the Democrat party.  Part 1 of this series reviewed the history of the scandal and its strong ties to ACORN and President Obama.

Some Criticize SEIU for Its ACORN Connections.  A rapidly growing union that represents nurses, janitors and other low-wage workers is coming under fire from conservatives because of its long-standing financial and leadership ties to ACORN, a liberal organizing group recently embarrassed by videos filmed covertly.  Some Republicans say federal agencies that recently cut ties with ACORN — the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now — should also consider severing their relationship with the Service Employees International Union.

SEIU Hit by ACORN.  As the full extent of ACORN's corruption and criminality is revealed, we are also learning about ACORN's special friend, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), one of the most militant and active unions in the country.  It turns out that the two organizations are quite chummy.

ACORN's Pension Shell Games.  ACORN didn't listen [to advice from Elizabeth Kingsley].  It let the problems fester.  In the following months when honest national board members such as Marcel Reid and Karen Inman tried to do something about ACORN's corruption and demanded to see critical paperwork, current chief organizer Bertha Lewis showed them the door and denounced them as traitors to the ACORN cause.

The Problem is Bigger Than Just ACORN.  The Republican Party has been a big enabler of Democrats' using taxpayer money to turn cities, counties and even states bluer.  It's nice to see that someone in Congress understands the bigger picture and the more troubling aspects of how too many nonprofits use taxpayer money for partisan purposes.  This is not just one nonprofit breaking the law; it's downright theft from taxpayers for political purposes, and it's Democratic political corruption that stinks to high heaven.

Firefighters lose large U.S. grant to ACORN.  Nearly $1 million in Homeland Security funding typically earmarked for fire departments has been awarded to ACORN, despite a clear signal from Congress that it intends to cut off federal funding to the embattled group. ... It was one of only three such grants issued to the state and made up almost 80 percent of the firefighting money earmarked for Louisiana, prompting one of the U.S. senators from the state to demand that the funds be taken back.

The Nine Voting Lives of ACORN's Darnell Nash.  The activist group ACORN, which has long worked with criminals as it preys on the weak and the troubled, is on the verge of yet another public relations catastrophe.  That's because a cross-dressing Ohio male escort whom ACORN registered multiple times to vote was convicted of full-fledged vote fraud in addition to the lesser crime of voter registration fraud.  A spokesman for Cleveland prosecutor Bill Mason confirmed yesterday [10/7/2009] that a local investigation of ACORN remains wide open.

Officials:  ACORN won't get grant.  Several members of Congress said they were pleased that ACORN will not get the money, which would have come from funding typically earmarked for fire departments across the country, but they questioned why it had been awarded to ACORN in the first place.  At least one also still wants official assurance of a permanent withdrawal of the $997,402 fire safety grant.

Roland Burris Defends ACORN, Says 'Fox Sting' and 'Agendas' to Blame.  Defending ACORN on Capitol Hill these days is a lonely, usually fruitless task, but Sen. Roland Burris (D-Ill.) took on the director of the U.S. Census Bureau on Wednesday [10/7/2009] over his decision to cut the bureau's ties with the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) without a formal review or inquiry.

The Bizarre Silence of Child Advocates on ACORN's Child Sex Trafficking Advice.  You know what's weird?  It's weird that child advocacy groups (secular and religious) haven't raised more hell regarding ACORN who, on tape, in multiple locations, and on our dime, were perfectly peachy with the potential sex trafficking of little 13-year-old El Salvadoran girls.  That's what's weird.  Did anyone else notice that when Giles and O'Keefe's characters said they wanted to bring underage sex slaves from El Salvador into the United States that none of those acornites so much as blinked?

Now will Congress investigate ACORN?  Evidence continues to accumulate from far and wide that the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now is lousy with corruption.  The latest revelations come from Louisiana and Oklahoma.  In the former, the local ACORN Housing Corp. office received contracts worth a combined $625,000 from the City of New Orleans for repairing existing low-income housing and developing new units in poor neighborhoods.  The contracts were paid for with funds from federal Community Development Block Grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

ACORN Prosecutions Coast to Coast.  Last year at this time, it was evident to every open-minded person that ACORN was engaged in widespread voter registration fraud under the cover of helping 1.7 million unregistered (and given the ease of registration, apparently disinterested) citizens to vote. ... This week, almost a year later, it turns out that the investigative effort of the organization overlooked what ACORN's critics and Nevada law enforcement authorities did not:  the entire ACORN voter operation in that state was designed to defraud Nevada's voters of their right to an honest election.

ACORN embezzlement was $5 million, La. attorney general says.  Louisiana's attorney general has broadened the scope of an investigation of ACORN to include a possible embezzlement of $5 million a decade ago within the community organization, five times more than previously reported.

The $5 million ACORN embezzlement figure is not new — and the NYT knows it.  The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports tonight that the ACORN/Rathke embezzlement sum was $5 million, not the widely cited $1 million figure admitted publicly to date by the left-wing racketeering group.  But guess what?  The figure is not new — and it is not news to the whitewashers at the New York Times.

ACORN's Lewis suggests opponents are racist.  ACORN's Bertha Lewis charged Tuesday that accusations about the embattled community organizing group are racist, alleging that a coordinated political effort started by former Bush adviser Karl Rove sought to stop the group from registering minority voters.

ACORN embezzlement was $5 million, La. attorney general says.  An internal review by the board of directors of the community organization ACORN determined that the amount allegedly embezzled from the community organization was $5 million, well more than the previously reported amount of nearly $1 million, according to a new subpoena in an investigation by Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell.

The Final Crackdown.  For years, ACORN has been ladled federal funds by its friend on the Hill.  Now, congressional Republicans are working to snip the unseemly relationship, bill by bill.  On Tuesday [9/29/2009], Sen. Mike Johanns (R., Neb.) gained unanimous support for his amendment to block ACORN from any spillover cash in the defense-appropriations bill. ... Across the Capitol in the House, Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R., Kans.) has devised another way to crackdown on ACORN:  end its tax-exempt status under the Internal Revenue Code of 1986.

Democrats admit ACORN helped elect Al Franken to Senate.  Even the Democrats in Minnesota now realize their new US Sen. Al Franken was elected with the help of ACORN chicanery.  The disgraced, pimp-friendly community organizing group claims it registered 43,000 new Minnesota voters.  If just 1 percent were fraudulent but survived the recount process, that's 430 votes, almost all cast for Franken, who won by just 312 votes.

Did someone mention Al Franken?

ACORN's 'Power Plan" found in documents group left behind in Oklahoma City.  A five-year ACORN plan to "make Oklahoma a progressive state in the way it was 100 years ago" was found amid thousands of documents left behind last year in an abandoned office formerly used by the Oklahoma City branch of the controversial leftist community organizing outfit.

ACORN active in Oklahoma.  On the second floor of an old building in South Oklahoma City "Little Mexico" neighborhood, there is a room that until recently, housed a branch of ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), a low-income advocacy organization known for left-wing activism, rabble-rousing and — shockingly — voter registration fraud.

ACORN plot found, Oklahoma GOP says.  A Republican state legislator released documents Tuesday [9/29/2009] which he says show the community-organizing group ACORN focused on helping Democrats in three legislative races in the November 2008 election and had developed a game plan to "take power" in Oklahoma within five years.

Investigate Jerry Brown.  Gerry Brown is one of ACORN's A-rated attorneys general.  In other words, all the while ACORN was engaged in its apparently many unlawful activities in his state, Gerry Brown was helping ACORN on the taxpayer dime.  It's a bad sign, to say the least, when the chief law enforcement officer of a state is actually helping an entity that is running afoul of multiple laws.

Amid new ACORN scandals, lawsuit revives an old one.  The conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch has filed two Freedom of Information lawsuits, one of which could re-open the strange case of alleged embezzlement in which ACORN's founder and former chief organizer kept an embezzlement scandal "in the family."

ACORN's Prophetic Lawyer.  ACORN's lawyer warned ACORN 15 months ago to begin fixing its massive internal problems or face certain catastrophe.  ACORN didn't listen. It let the problems fester. ... The memo is a kind of Holy Grail for ACORN researchers.  One source of mine keeps a copy in a safety deposit box.  I've lost track of how many people have asked me over the last year if I knew how to get a hold of it.

Patrick Gaspard, ACORN, and Obama.  During the 2008 election, Obama's close links to the far-left New Party were revealed and explored (although not by the mainstream press).  Yet many seem to have forgotten that the New Party, particularly in Chicago, was dominated by ACORN (and by an ACORN-controlled SEIU union local).

ACORN:  A Cautionary Tale.  ACORN's progressive supporters, not to its mention leaders, should begin by taking responsibility for its decline.  The depth of ACORN's dishonesty and dysfunction was clearly indicated over a year ago by New York Times reporter Stephanie Strom's stories revealing Dale Rathke's embezzlement of about $950,000 and its nearly decade long cover-up.

The End of ACORN.  I don't see how ACORN survives at this point; the IRS is the latest to pile on, severing ties with ACORN, and slapping a tax lien for unpaid payroll taxes on top of that blow.  The lawsuit seems like an even worse attempt — less of a Hail-Mary Pass than an own-goal.  At best, it keeps this distressing story in the news, more firmly impressing it into peoples' consciousnesses and making it therefore more difficult for Democrats to quietly let the organization back on the government gravy train at some future date.  At worst, the lawsuit opens up ACORN to discovery, during which the defense can plunder their records.

Not Far From the Tree.  While everyone in Washington is suddenly pretending they've hardly ever heard of ACORN, they might want to pretend they've never heard of the SEIU, one of the nation's largest unions.  The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now and the Service Employees International Union are as tight as Heidi Klum and a new pair of jeans.

Hey, big spender!  Former ACORN bigwig Dale Rathke racked up a $157,000 American Express bill that he couldn't repay around the time he was caught embezzling from the group founded by his brother Wade, The [New York] Post has learned. ... Dale, who was in charge of ACORN's financial arm, continued to make $46,000 a year on the community-activity group's payroll until 2008.

Exposing the Axis of Crime.  [Wade] Rathke has been very careful.  He has created literally dozens of shell organizations, not for profit groups, consulting entities, and other for-profit companies to funnel money meant for charitable or community organizing efforts into illegal political activity.  The scheme is so complex, that forensic accountants will have trouble unraveling the whole, stinking mess.  In the end, unless there is an administration and Congress determined to get to the bottom of things, it is doubtful the whole truth will ever be known.

ACORN and Their Allies Lambaste Giles and O'Keefe's Politics and Faith.  You might wanna note that the U.S. Census Bureau and the Internal Revenue Service severed ties with ACORN because of these videos; the House and the Senate voted in an overwhelming majority to defund ACORN; and the Treasury Department and the DOJ are smelling rats, as well, and are going to take a looky into this organization rightly named after a nut.

The Case for Hannah Giles.  Hannah Giles, the sophomore at Florida International University who posed as a prostitute in her ACORN exposé, has been sued by the community-organizing group for secretly taping its employees in Baltimore.  She tells NRO that the suit is "silly."  Nonetheless, she's taking the charges seriously, and has hired Kelly Shackelford, the chief counsel at the Liberty Legal Institute, to represent her in the case.  Shackelford tells us that ACORN's lawsuit is a "clear attempt to chill speech and to bully a young woman."

Insufficient tuned-in-ness:  It's an epidemic.  The videos posted by James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles at Big Government exposed ACORN housing officials around the country as eager to lend a hand.  They wanted to help O'Keefe and Giles set up brothels in which minors from Central America would be set up as working girls.  The New York Times did its [best] to ignore the story, until the political consequences of the videos made it almost impossible.

ACORN's Man in the White House.  Newly discovered evidence shows the radical advocacy group ACORN has a man in the Obama White House.  This power behind the throne is longtime ACORN operative Patrick Gaspard.  He holds the title of White House political affairs director, the same title Karl Rove held in President Bush's White House.  Evidence shows that years before he joined the Obama administration, Gaspard was ACORN boss Bertha Lewis's political director in New York.

Podesta spends Soros' money stupidly.  Every journalism inquiry from the mainstream media continues to focus on the successful operation that exposed ACORN, not on ACORN itself, as if there is no evidence to sift through or common traits to be found in the videos.  Why is the story about journalistic process rather than institutional corruption?

Glenn Beck:  Probe of ACORN 'bogus'.  Conservative commentator Glenn Beck said Thursday [9/24/2009] the ethics investigation into the community activist group ACORN will yield no meaningful findings unless it reaches into the top levels of the organization or the White House gets involved.  "I think this whole thing is bogus," said Mr. Beck, a Fox News talk-show host.

Grassley:  ACORN Uses Tax-Exempt Entities to Funnel Money to Itself.  ACORN is using a tangled web of tax-exempt organizations to funnel tax money to itself according to a detailed review released last night by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee.  Some or all of them may be nothing more than shell companies used to pass money from the government directly through to ACORN and its affiliates.

ACORN and The Working Families Party:  Another Connection.  The mere mention of ACORN rightfully sends distasteful chills up and down the spines of informed voters, particularly in light of recently released videos...  While it is well past due for ACORN's scandalous anatomy and agenda to be fully revealed, many close relatives of the radical entity remain comfortably concealed behind a deceptive grassroots, progressive façade whose crafty mission statements are clearly designed to charm struggling middle-class workers.

CRS: House ACORN ban may be unconstitutional.  The Congressional Research Service has analyzed the case law and other legal issues surrounding last week's ACORN ban passed in the House and found the measure could be interpreted as a "bill of attainder" and therefore unconstitutional, according to copy of the report obtained by POLITICO.

Pinstripe Suits and Purple Pimp Hats.  Jamie Dimon has been described as "Obama's favorite banker" by the New York Times.  He's ACORN's favorite banker, too, and with good reason. ... Dimon, of course, is no white-shoe East Coast banker.  He's a Chicago Democrat, deeply plugged in to Obama's machine — he was said to be Obama's choice for secretary of the Treasury until advisers convinced the president to go with Tim Geithner — and so it's no surprise to find his company shunting money ACORN's way.

Giles:  The ACORN Suit Is 'Silly'.  Hannah Giles, a 20-year-old sophomore at Florida International University, gained notice earlier this month for her exposé of ACORN that was published on Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com.  On Wednesday [9/23/2009], ACORN filed suit against Giles, Breitbart, and James O'Keefe, Giles's fellow political provocateur, for secretly taping the organization's employees at its Baltimore office.

Rules for Counter-Radicals.  For as long as I can remember, the Right — most notably the Capital Research Center — has been writing about ACORN.  And, for as long as I can remember, ACORN has gotten government funding anyway.  For as long as I can remember, churches naively gave them money anyway.  As recently as this summer, we exposed the ties of the Democratic party and its nominee to this community-organizing organization, its radical anti-capitalism and its voter fraud.

Frank turns against ACORN.  In a stunning turnaround, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) is distancing himself from ACORN, blasting their response to a string of recent scandals -- and contradicting a staffer who said the congressman would have voted against a GOP-sponsored bill banning the group from federal funding.

Scandal stings ACORN in N.C..  North Carolina's ACORN office has had to lay off all eight of its employees in the wake of a scandal that has rocked the national office of the grass-roots organizing group.  Yet many workers have continued the past three weeks as unpaid volunteers for the nonprofit organization, reaching out to low- and moderate-income workers who might need help with issues ranging from landlord fights to high-priced mortgages.

ACORN fights back.  A week after undercover videotapes made it the butt of a national joke, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now is launching a three-pronged effort to rebuild its reputation and try to hold on to the millions of dollars in funding it gets each year from the federal government.

ACORN files suit against O'Keefe, Giles, and Breitbart.  ACORN filed suit today in Maryland against conservative filmmakers James O'Keefe, Hannah Giles and conservative Web site Breitbart.com for secretly taping the organization's employees at its Baltimore office. ... The crux of the lawsuit centers around a Maryland law which makes it illegal to tape someone without their consent — ACORN is alleging O'Keefe and Giles did so.

The Catholic Bishops and ACORN:  This is a good news/bad news story.  First the good news:  The Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) cut off all funding to ACORN at some point in 2008, after revelations of the embezzlement of nearly $1 million dollars by the brother of Wade Rathke, the founder of ACORN.  Rathke, who is also a powerful figure in the SEIU, is a veteran of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) who went on to bigger and better things — from a leftist standpoint — in union and community organizing.

ACORN and the AGs:  Despite years of warning signs that ACORN was violating the law, many state attorneys general have not investigated the organization or brought enforcement actions.  State attorneys general, besides being the chief enforcement officers for violations of state laws, claim unique law enforcement authority over nonprofits.  The reasons for inaction by state attorneys general may explain why ACORN is such a problem.  ACORN has developed close ties, to put it mildly, with many state attorneys general as well as others deep in the Democrat establishment.  The relationship between ACORN and Democrats may be described as symbiotic.

ACORN Sues Filmmakers.  ACORN has filed a lawsuit against the makers of a hidden-camera video that showed employees of its Baltimore office giving tax advice to a man posing as a pimp and a woman posing as a prostitute.

IRS severs ties with ACORN over scandal.  The IRS says it is severing ties with ACORN, the community activist group involved in a scandal after employees were caught on video giving advice to a couple posing as a prostitute and pimp.

The Silence of NOW.  The ACORN scandal isn't just about tax evasion and the bad behavior of a few ACORN staffers.  Rather, the videotapes that started it all captured several ACORN staffers' unflinching comfort with the growing crime of human trafficking and child prostitution.  The weeks since the story unfolded have witnessed a willingness within the women's advocacy community and Congress to turn a blind eye to human suffering in the cause of growing government.

ACORN: Tax Cheats.  ACORN 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.

Serve.gov Scrubs ACORN Listings from Its Site.  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.

O's Dangerous Pals.  What exactly does a "community organizer" do?  Barack Obama's rise has left many Americans asking themselves that question.  Here's a big part of the answer:  Community organizers intimidate banks into making high-risk loans to customers with poor credit.  In the name of fairness to minorities, community organizers occupy private offices, chant inside bank lobbies, and confront executives at their homes — and thereby force financial institutions to direct hundreds of millions of dollars in mortgages to low-credit customers.

DA's going to the raw video for probe of ACORN.  Brooklyn prosecutors, considering criminal charges against ACORN, will view raw footage of the organization's workers caught on video advising a pair of undercover activists on how to beat the system, the district attorney's office said on Thursday [9/17/2009].

Reflections on the ACORN story.  What stuns me is that, for all my knowledge of ACORN employees' illegal behavior, it never would have occurred to me that so many of them would blithely collaborate in encouraging prostitution — and child prostitution at that!  One ACORN defender said, in effect, well, that's what you get when you hire low-income people; but I refuse to believe that that's standard operating procedure even in the most disadvantaged of demographics.

Cisneros and ACORN:  Takes One to Know One.  You cannot make this stuff up.  ACORN will be conducting an "independent" investigation of its activities following the pimp-and-hooker episode.  In charge?  Henry Cisneros.  Remember Henry Cisneros? ... In December 1997, Cisneros was indicted on 18 counts of conspiracy, giving false statements and obstruction of Justice.

Cisneros advising ACORN in crisis.  Former Mayor Henry Cisneros said Friday [9/18/2009] he accepted a request to serve on an advisory council for ACORN in order to help the community organizing group recently rocked by allegations of corruption.

The Editor says...
 The article above makes no mention of Mr. Cisneros' trouble with the law or the fact that President Clinton pardoned Cisneros just before leaving office.  If you want to learn more about what Mr. Cisneros did, try to find a copy of the Barrett Report.*

Now that the trail has been blazed, the rest of the media pile on to the Acorn story.
 Sowing the seeds of destruction.  For decades ACORN has presented itself as a grassroots network dedicated to improving the lives of the poor.  But there's more to ACORN than its do-gooder veneer.  Just ask the banks, corporations and politicians who've been the target of ACORN's shameless shenanigans over the past 40 years.

Independent prosecutor for ACORN.  Independent prosecutors should not be appointed lightly.  But in this case, there are good reasons why Atty. Gen. Eric Holder and other political appointees in the Justice Department should step aside.  First, although no allegations have yet touched the Obama campaign, ACORN did have significant ties to the campaign and other progressive causes.  Published reports show that ACORN and its subsidiaries received some $800,000 from the Obama campaign to get out the vote.  Second, ACORN is intimately tied to the Service Employees International Union, one of President Barack Obama's most powerful and vocal supporters.  ACORN's close ties to the progressive movement and Democratic Party mean that there will be little public confidence if Holder decides not to pursue an ambitious investigation and ultimately prosecute.

Acorn Who?  Only one of the five television networks that interviewed President Obama for their Sunday shows bothered to ask him about Acorn, the left-wing community organizing group whose federal funding was cut off last week by an overwhelming vote in Congress.

Justice Department Inspector General to Look Into ACORN Funds.  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.

Bertha, you lie!  Bertha Lewis, ACORN's chief organizer, appeared on Fox News Sunday yesterday, and even though Joe Wilson was nowhere to be found in the studio, you could hear his unspoken words as she misrepresented the fates of several of her employees.

'Nut'-house empire.  ACORN has quietly become one of the Big Apple's biggest owners of low- and moderate-income housing, amassing a real-estate empire worth at least $50 million, The [New York] Post has learned.  New York ACORN and a tangled web of affiliates own or manage nearly 1,500 housing units across three boroughs and draw in an estimated $5.7 million in rents, fees and profits from sales.

Votes to Defund ACORN Are Just Political Cover, Republican Lawmaker Says.  Although both the House and Senate have voted to de-fund the liberal activist group ACORN, it's unlikely such a proposal will be enacted any time soon, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) told CNSNews.com.  If House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid really wanted to defund ACORN, "we could have done it yesterday," Bachmann told CNSNews.com.

ACORN'S Useful Idiots.  [Scroll down]  In fact, ACORN does not have "a history of honorable service to the dispossessed and impoverished."  This is a common misconception on the left where the group is viewed as having roughly the same moral rectitude as the late Mother Teresa.  It is thought of as unassailable because it is believed to be doing good.

As Acorn Falls, Democrats Would Be Wise to Duck.  The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now is no fringe organization.  It is woven into the political firmament at the highest levels.  Over the past 15 years, Acorn has received more than $53 million from the U.S. government, according to a recent report by House Republicans.  Democrats clearly appreciate the value they received for that funding.

The Editor says...

 ACORN Wins Big By Selling Out To NYC Developer Bruce Ratner.  Don't cry for ACORN, the left-wing group that stands to lose all federal funding after some investigative pranksters busted volunteers for giving tax and housing advice to a "pimp".  The group is set to reap a windfall from real estate developer Bruce Ratner, who bought off the group in order to clear the path for his big stadium/residential/commercial plans in downtown Brooklyn.

More about public financing of stadiums.

Acorn selects the mouse who will audit the cheese.
 ACORN's Internal Investigation Draws Skepticism From Hill.  ACORN's announcement that it has hired former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger to conduct an internal review was dismissed as inadequate by the ranking member on a government oversight committee.

ACORN picks former AG to lead probe.  ACORN officials Tuesday named former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger to lead an independent inquiry into the group's social-services program.  "We are pleased that a man of Mr. Harshbarger's standing is going to be conducting this review," said Maude Hurd, chairwoman for the group's board of directors.  "The board is very concerned to see that ACORN is able to carry out its mission of bettering low- and moderate-income communities."

Jindal halts funding of ACORN.  Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal today cut off state funding for the community activist group ACORN.  Jindal has also blocked any state agency for entering into contracts with the organization.  The executive order also cuts off any future state funding of ACORN, on the heels of a series of embarrassing incidents for the organization.

ACORN story fells the big oaks of mainstream media.  If there's one story that's had it all in the past week it's the series of undercover reporting stings that have uncovered the true nature of ACORN — the Association of Community Organisations for Reform Now.  It's got sex, misuse of taxpayer funds, the condoning of illegal activity by officials and connections to Barack Obama.

Arpaio subpoenas ACORN, says funds misused.  Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio alleged Thursday [9/17/2009] that a national community activist organization is using federal and state funds to fight his efforts to enforce immigration law.

ACORN threatens to open Pandora's box.  In the wake of Fox News reporting on the unfolding ACORN scandal, ACORN is now threatening to sue the network. ... If ACORN sues, it would have to sue alleging some variation of defamation or fraud.  The problem is that for either allegation, truth is an absolute defense.  Nothing could be more relevant to Fox establishing its defense of truth in the lawsuit than having access to ACORN's office memos, emails, phone records, and bank statements.

More walls close in on ACORN — a new $548,000 tax lien.  The Pelican Institute's Steve Beatty reports that the federal government just filed a new $548,000 lien against ACORN for unpaid payroll taxes.

ACORN scaling back or shutting down in many cities.  The community activist group is taking no new clients while it investigates its operations, which have been dragged down by the poor economy and recent scandals.

ACORNs stay on branch.  Unlike other ACORN workers nabbed on undercover video, two Brooklyn ACORN employees have not been fired — nearly a week after they were exposed in their office giving helpful advice to a fake pimp and prostitute on how to launder money.

ACORN Scandal Has Deep Roots.  ACORN is wedded to stale thinking that all too often makes people dependent, crushes responsibility, creativity and our very natures.  And the Obama administration only plans to continue to increase welfare spending, ensuring that the system that gave birth to ACORN and its inexcusable conduct will continue to thrive.

Is Legislator Blocking Probe?  The American Spectator has learned that a bill introduced in the Pennsylvania legislature to investigate the activities of the controversial Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now — ACORN — is stalled in the powerful State Government Committee.  The chairman, State Representative Babette Josephs, a Philadelphia Democrat, is a member of ACORN.

ACORN, Kanye West and the Hierarchy of Multiculturalism.  ACORN's many problems have been well known for quite a while, at least to anyone venturing beyond network newscasts and liberal blogs.  As an organization, ACORN doesn't just limit itself to churning out forged voter registrations.  It's a full-blown racketeering enterprise worthy of The Sopranos, and it finances its operations with the help of taxpayer money.

The $1,300 Mission to Fell ACORN.  Republicans accused ACORN of voter-registration fraud in last year's presidential race.  As a community organizer, President Obama worked for a group affiliated with ACORN and once represented ACORN as a lawyer.  This week White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said that "obviously the conduct that you see on those tapes is unacceptable."

And what of ACORN, President Obama?  [Scroll down]  Obama is proud to say his relationship with ACORN goes back decades as a "community organizer" and a legal adviser.  A month before the election he told members:  "You will have input into the agenda of the next president of the United States of America."  The input ACORN is having has shown up like a stain.  It starts with charges of voter-registration fraud in 14 states, and includes video of ACORN employees giving unethical tax advice and suggesting ways to hide 13-year-old girls smuggled into the country to become hookers.

Under fire, Democrats abandon ACORN in droves.  It was an absolutely mind-blowing turn of events, a total collapse of longtime Democratic support for ACORN.  Republicans had worked for years to reduce ACORN's influence, with little success.  Now, in the span of a few days, the GOP scored major victories.  Everybody knows why. ... There's no way to know how it will end.  But it's now a fact that there are on-the-record votes of large majorities of Democrats favoring the total cutoff of federal funds for ACORN — a virtually unheard-of possibility just one week ago.

Taxpayer Funded Serve.gov Filtering Activists to ACORN.  The Obama Administration has placed a large premium on what it calls "national service."  It has launched a website, www.Serve.gov, that is reported to act as a clearing house for Americans eager to "give back" to their communities.  Unfortunately, Americans looking for an opportunity to volunteer may get something they weren't expecting.

Gov. Crist catching heat amid ACORN controversy.  The tidal wave of controversy over ACORN swept rapidly through Florida on Thursday [9/17/2009] with dozens of angry people contacting Gov. Charlie Crist's office and his political rival questioning his ties to the organization.

The Acorn 75.  Yesterday the House voted 345-75 to ban all federal funding for the scandal-plagued advocacy group Acorn.  Coming on the heels of the Census Bureau's dissociation with Acorn last week and the Senate's Monday vote denying it housing funds, this is a welcome decision.  But the fact that there were 75 "no" votes is shocking, even for this Congress.  All of the nays came from Democrats.

Boehner:  "Writing is on the wall" for ACORN.  House Minority Leader John Boehner sees today's anti-ACORN vote as the beginning of the end for the controversial community organizing group — which has become the bûte noire of the right.  And he's demanding to know where President Obama stands on the defunding issue.

Why ACORN's Internal Audit is a Sham:  The announcement by ACORN that it is creating a panel of inquiry consisting of its corrupt friends is a fairy tale.  ACORN did the same thing last year after an internal scandal but when the honest people on ACORN's internal panel began asking uncomfortable questions, it cast them out.

Pelosi:  I'm clueless about cash cut-off.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said yesterday [9/16/2009] she is clueless about an amendment to prohibit government funds for embattled ACORN, although it overwhelmingly passed the Senate Monday and the White House is calling for the group to be held accountable.  "I don't even know what they passed," Pelosi told The Post yesterday.  "What did they do?  They defunded it?"

Prostitution Scandal in San Diego, CA.  With 70 miles of stunning beaches and picture-perfect weather all year round, having fun during the summer in San Diego doesn't require a lot of money. ... If you're looking for trendy boutique hotels, an exploding culinary scene, or visiting the local ACORN to get your underage prostitutes smuggled across the Mexican border, you're in the right place.

Nuts to Acorn.  Acorn, the union-backed activist group that's landed in a scandal involving its offices in several cities aiding and abetting prostitution, is trying to change the subject.  Yesterday, Bertha Lewis, the chief organizer of Acorn, promised to appoint an independent auditor to "review all of the systems and processes" of her group.  This is a bit rich given that it was Ms. Lewis who was in charge last summer when eight dissident Acorn board members were removed from their posts for requesting an outside audit of the group's books.

ACORN Videos Prompt More Calls for Investigations Across the Nation.  Prosecutors in Brooklyn plan to speak with the filmmaker who taped videos of ACORN workers advising about how to evade tax and housing laws, and will decide whether any criminal charges should be filed against the community organizing group, FOX News learned Thursday [9/17/2009].

The stunning, total defeat of ACORN.  The ACORN vote in the House is stunning news.  Just 48 hours after Republican Leader John Boehner introduced the "Defund ACORN Act," the bill — which most Republicans thought Democrats would do anything to block — passed by a resounding 345-75 vote.  It would never have made it to a vote had not the Democratic leadership decided to allow it, and the winning total included 172 Democrats.  Yes, 172 House Democrats voted to totally cut off funding for an organization that has worked for years on behalf of Democrats nationwide.

House votes to cut off funding, but 75 stand by ACORN.  The House of Representatives just [9/17/2009] voted overwhelmingly to de-fund ACORN, 345-75.  ACORN's defenders:
Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisc.
Xavier Becerra, D-Calif.
Robert Brady D-Pa.
Corrine Brown, D-Fla.
G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C.
Mike Capuano, D-Mass.
Andre Carson, D-Ind.
Kathy Castor, D-Fla.
Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo.
James Clyburn, D-S.C.
Joseph Crowley, D-N.Y.
Elijah Cummings, D-Md.
Danny Davis, D-Ill.
Diane DeGette, D-Colo.
Bill Delahunt, D-Mass.
Mike Doyle, D-Pa.
Donna Edwards, D-Md.
Keith Ellison, D-Minn.
Eliot Engel, D-N.Y.
Chaka Fattah, D-Pa.
Bob Filner, D-Calif.
Marcia Fudge, D-Ohio
Al Green, D-Tex.
Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz.
Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y.
Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii
Rush Holt, D-N.J.
Mike Honda, D-Calif.
Jesse Jackson, Jr. D-Ill.
Sheila Jackson-Lee, D-Tex.
Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Tex.
Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, D-Mich.
Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio
Rick Larsen, D-Wash.
Barbara Lee, D-Calif.
John Lewis, D-Ga.
Stephen Lynch, D-Mass.
Markey, D-Mass.
Betty McCollum, D-Minn.
McDermott, D-Wash.
McGovern, D-Mass.
Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y.
Alan Mollohan, D-W.Va.
Gwen Moore, D-Wisc.
Jim Moran, D-Va.
Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y.
Richard Neal, D-Mass.
John Olver, D-Mass.
Frank Pallone, D-N.J.
Bill Pascrell, D-N.J.
Donald Payne, D-N.J.
Jared Polis, D-Colo.
David Price, D-N.C.
Nick Rahall, D-W.Va.
Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y.
Lucille Roybal-Allard, D-Calif.
Bobby Rush, D-Ill.
Linda Sánchez, D-Calif.
Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill.
David Scott D-Ga.
Bobby Scott, D-Va.
Jose Serrano, D-N.Y.
Brad Sherman, D-Calif.
Albio Sires, D-N.J.
Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y.
Pete Stark, D-Calif.
Bennie Thompson, D-Miss.
Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y.
Niki Tsongas, D-Mass.
Nydia Velázquez, D-N.Y.
Maxine Waters, D-Calif.
Diane Watson, D-Calif.
Henry Waxman, D-Calif.
Robert Wexler, D-Fla.
Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif.

How rogue conservative filmmakers took down ACORN.  James O'Keefe is the brains behind VeritasVisuals.com, described as a "collection of satirical short films on newsworthy topics."  He and his partner in crime, Hannah Giles, came up with a plan that transcended satire and exposed the seamy underbelly of the community-organizing racket:  What would happen if the two of them — Mr. O'Keefe pretending to be a pimp, Miss Giles pretending to be a prostitute — went to various ACORN offices with obviously illegal and morally repugnant requests?  Would they find willing accomplices there to help them circumvent the law?  You bet they would.

Democrats Run Away From ACORN.  Democrats in Congress are abandoning an embattled community organizing group after Republicans stepped up attacks on the liberal-leaning ACORN and the federal funding it receives.

Bias alert:
 Liberal leaning?  As if ACORN isn't all the way out on the fringes of the political left?

Analysis of the House ACORN vote:  The House's 345-75 vote to defund ACORN is indeed, as my Examiner colleague Byron York put it, extraordinary.  Democrats voted 172-75 to defund ACORN; Republicans voted 173-0 to do so.  This would not have occurred but for the [BigGovernment.com] videos of ACORN employees encouraging tax evasion and prostitution.  "Mainstream media" studiously ignored this big, big story, because it put Obama's political allies in ACORN in a bad light ... As indicated by members' votes, mainstream America was clearly repulsed by the facts that "mainstream media" tried to conceal.

Acorn May Cut Voter-Registration Work.  Community-organizing group Acorn said Thursday [9/17/2009] it was considering quitting its voter-registration work amid a growing political storm over its activities, a move that could hurt Democrats at the polls. ... Republicans have highlighted Acorn's ties to Democrats and President Barack Obama.  Democrats have steered millions of dollars in federal aid to Acorn with the mandate to help low-income Americans find housing.  Mr. Obama's campaign was aided by voters who were registered by Acorn.

ACORN's Illegal Alien Home Loan Racket.  There's one thing more shocking than the illegal alien smuggling advice that an ACORN official in San Diego gave undercover journalists James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles.  It's the illegal alien home loan racket that ACORN has already been operating with the full knowledge of the U.S. government.

ACORN's Shamelessness.  [Scroll down]  That is the most stunning aspect of the ACORN exposé: the utter callousness of the employees towards the blatantly criminal plans presented to them.  O'Keefe noted to FOX News, "I was prepared for them to call the police, throw me out of the office and be hostile.  Without hesitation, they helped me every way they could with evading taxes and setting me up with a brothel, with getting around federal tax laws — doing everything they could to help us.  I was completely shocked."

Why Not RICO?  The case against ACORN has swiftly moved from being a talk show host's ultimate dream to a serious investigation that may be best served through the use of Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization statutes designed to nail those predators who are always with us, trying to bring down our culture to primitive animalistic levels.

ACORN worker fired over video sting.  Local ACORN officials reversed an earlier decision Thursday afternoon and fired a community organizer who was caught on video providing advice about human smuggling to a couple posing as a pimp and a prostitute.

House Votes to Ban Federal Funds for Acorn.  The House voted Thursday [9/17/2009] to deny federal money to the community-organizing group Acorn after a video emerged in which employees of the group gave advice to two conservative activists posing as a prostitute and a pimp who said they wanted buy a house in Baltimore and start a brothel.

The Absurdity Meter Blow Up.  Very professionally ACORN employees advised them on how to camouflage their purposes, cheat the IRS, and launder the money.  Bury it in the backyard was one bit of advice.  Call yourself not a prostitute but a "freelancing performance artist," came from another.  ACORN's employees are urban sophisticates and apparently very experienced with government.  One told the "pimp" how to collect child tax credit for the Central American girls.  Another boasted of her close connections with Senator Barbara Boxer and Congressman Joe Baca.  This woman, obviously a Californian, also spoke of the good old days when she herself was an "escort."  And she bragged of something even more exciting.  She, Miss Tresa Kaelke, claimed to have killed her husband.

Finally:  An ACORN Story Sprouts Into Print at the NY Times.  On Wednesday morning [9/16/2009], the ACORN scandal finally blossomed into an actual print story from an actual New York Times reporter.  Previously the Times had almost totally ignored the blossoming scandal, even as the Census Bureau cut ties with the controversial left-wing housing activist group and the Senate voted overwhelmingly to withdraw the group's funding.

Obama and Acorn:  In August 2008, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported that the Obama campaign paid more than $800,000 to an Acorn "offshoot" for "get out the vote" projects.  Obama worked for Acorn and Acorn worked for Obama.  That doesn't mean the president is implicated in any wrongdoing, but it suggests at least that the worse things get for Acorn, the more embarrassing it is for him.  If the Justice Department fails to prosecute, it invariably would raise suspicions of political favoritism.

Obama's Direct and Lucrative Ties to ACORN.  Is it any wonder that the Obama presidency is shaping up to be the most corrupt and most oppressive anti-American administration in USA history?  Thus far, any and all attempts to investigate ACORN have been blocked by ObamaThugs and the Democrat-run Congress.  The reason?  They have benefited greatly from ACORN's voter fraud and many might not have been elected or reelected without it.

Former Employee on Fox: ACORN 'Most Corrupt Group in the Country'.  Gregory Hall, a former employee of scandal-plagued ACORN, labeled the organization "the most corrupt group in the country" on Wednesday's Fox and Friends on FNC.  Hall placed the blame squarely on the national leaders of the left-wing group:  "They're the ones that are constantly giving the orders that say — make the money, no matter what — lie, steal, cheat — and I've got the witnesses to prove it".

SEIU: 'One of the Pillars of the ACORN Family'.  In many instances ACORN and Big Labor are one and the same.  In 2008, Big Labor funneled ACORN millions of dollars for so-called organizing activity.  But, that is only the tip of the Big Labor iceberg.  ACORN controls or significantly dominates several Big Labor unions and organizations.  ACORN created and controls SEIU 100 (Gulf Region) and SEIU 880 (a recently expanded SEIU mega-local that covers Chicago, Illinois, Indiana, and Kansas).  ACORN founder S. Wade Rathke referred to mega-union SEIU 880 as "one of the pillars of the ACORN Family."

Calif. Gov. Schwarzenegger seeks state probe of ACORN.  California Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger joined a growing chorus of officials today [9/16/2009] and called on the state's attorney general to launch an investigation into ACORN due to the latest charges of illegal activity by the group, this time in San Bernardino, Calif.

ACORN 'Suspension' A Public Relations Ruse:  Keep the Pressure On!  I've been studying ACORN for more than a year now and have written tens of thousands of words on the organization.  Clearly, ACORN management is well aware of what goes on in its offices.  Management will probably use this so-called investigation as a smokescreen and throw lower-level employees to the wolves. ... These people are not mere activists.  They are gangsters and deserve to be treated as such.

ACORN and corruption go together.  By agitating for mortgage loans that the borrowers could never repay, ACORN and similar groups were primarily responsible for the conditions that led to our current financial crisis.  This is not speculation or partisan blather, but a matter of historical fact, extensively documented in last September's article and many, many others.  But there are other ways to gnaw at the fabric of our society.  Their daily activities are also devoted to corrupting and overloading our society with social ills of every description.  The gameplan seems to be:  if it is illegal and/or immoral, pile it on!  These videos underscore just how low they are willing to go.

No Joke.  The Census Bureau has severed its relationship with ACORN, and House Republicans are pressing the Internal Revenue Service to do the same.  The Senate has voted to deny any future Housing and Urban Development funding to the organization.  (Whether Nancy Pelosi's House will follow suit is not yet known.)  Somebody in Washington must be forced to answer this question:  Why would any government agency have anything to do with this motley crew?

Ladies of the ACORN Video I Will Hire You.  I just found out that the two women featured on the undercover ACORN video posted on our sister site Big Government were fired by the community organizing group.  This is really good news.  First, it proves that the ridiculously funny and unbelievable video is real.  At first glance, it's so over-the-top that one assumes it must be fake.  Now, we have the proof that these women really were ACORN employees and not the most talented improv actors to ever live.

ACORN says workers conduct 'indefensible'.  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."

ACORN Announces Reforms After 'Pimp,' 'Prostitute' Videos.  ACORN said Wednesday [9/16/2009] it will stop any "new intakes" — essentially closing its doors to new clients — until it completes an internal investigation prompted by the release of four hidden-camera videos that show workers advising a fake pimp and prostitute to lie to get loans for a brothel.

House Republican Leaders Ask IRS to Sever Ties with ACORN.  House Republican leaders today requested that the Internal Revenue Service sever all ties with ACORN.  ACORN right now assists low and middle class citizens with income tax preparation.  The group says that since 2004, it has helped low- and middle-income Americans prepare approximately 150,000 free tax returns totaling $190 million in refunds as well as increased participation in the earned income tax credit.

Senate de-funds ACORN, but seven stand by them.  After ACORN workers were caught on tape in three cities allegedly abetting what they believed was a fraudulent mortgage and sex-trafficking scheme, only seven senators were willing to stand by them:
Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.
Roland Burris, D-Ill.
Dick Durbin, D-Ill.
Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.
Bob Casey, D-Pa.
Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.

ACORN = RICO.  Now that a third ACORN video has surfaced, a pattern emerges of ACORN workers willing to help people engage in prostitution, tax fraud, housing fraud, and even human trafficking.  Under federal law, a RICO investigation is now warranted.  Three strikes and you're out, ACORN.

Lefty crooks laugh at you.  Over the last six years, more than $10 million of your hard-earned money has been taken by the federal government and handed to ACORN, which we now know is ready and eager to use your money to finance whorehouses.  What could possibly be more fitting?

Republican Lawmakers Turn Up the Heat on ACORN.  A growing number of Republican lawmakers are calling for congressional hearings and IRS audits of ACORN following the release of three videotapes showing employees at the community organization assisting a purported "pimp" and "prostitute" in obtaining housing.

ACORN Prostitution Scandal:  California Here We Come!  Alinsky Rule #8:  Keep the pressure on.  Never let up.

Spotlight on IRS/ACORN ties.  On September 13 I noted there were ties between the IRS and ACORN through the VITA program, an operation ostensibly designed to help low income persons file their tax returns.  It seemed to me that in view of the clear videotaped evidence of ACORN tax consultants counseling people to engage in tax (and other) fraud, it was time to re-examine that relationship.

Senate votes to deny funds to ACORN.  The Senate voted Monday [9/14/2009] to block the Housing and Urban Development Department from giving grants to ACORN, a community organization under fire in several voter-registration fraud cases.

ACORN wants another $6 million despite scandals.  An ACORN affiliate has just submitted applications for over $6 million in government funding, despite the controversial videos of the organization's workers aiding a child prostitution "promoter."

ACORN's Roots Watered by Taxpayers.  Until last Thursday, many Americans assumed ACORN's massive tax windfall was just a way to funnel taxpayer money to a radical organization.  That was before the shocking video revelation that ACORN Housing staff — funded by millions of dollars of the public's money — is willing to offer their "counseling services" to would-be operators of child prostitute rings.  Clearly, it's time to take a closer look at how taxpayer money drives the ACORN empire.

ACORN mulls suit against Fox News.  Facing intensifying scrutiny after the release of several disturbing hidden camera videos, the community organizing group, ACORN, is threatening to sue Fox News, the website Breitbart.com and the two conservative activists who produced the exposes.

Pattern and practice.  Isn't it time for RICO investigation of ACORN? A third videotape of ACORN employees counseling a couple posing as pimp and prostitute on evading the law has been published on BigGovernment.com.  James O'Keefe, Hannah Giles, and Andrew Breitbart have demonstrated a pattern and practice of corruption in the national organization at three different locations.

Maryland may charge ACORN video-makers.  James O'Keefe, the intrepid filmmaker who teamed with National Journalism Center intern Hannah Giles in the ACORN video sting, now faces the prospect of being prosecuted by the Baltimore City State's Attorney for violating a Maryland that makes it illegal to tape an individual without their prior permission.  If he is convicted, O'Keefe could spend five years in the Maryland State Prison.

On the other hand, maybe that's not such a good idea...
 ACORN Illegally Operating in Maryland.  According to the following documents, ACORN, Inc. — the parent organization of all things ACORN — forfeited its corporate charter in Maryland in 2006.  ACORN Housing forfeited its corporate charter in 2008.  Any ACORN office in the state of Maryland is potentially operating illegally.  The Maryland Attorney General has made noise about prosecuting the intrepid journalists who undercovered the misdeeds of ACORN employees.  Perhaps he should focus instead on how ACORN was able to operate without a license in his state.

Former Leftist Activist Pulls Back the Curtain On ACORN.  [Scroll down]  Over the following years, that particular style of political attack was prominent in New Orleans.  Anytime that ACORN was displeased, the other party was deemed a racist.  If the other party disagreed with the label or with ACORN's agenda, they were met with "of course you feel that way.  You are a racist."  Though it is clearly woefully inaccurate and unethical to use such an accusation as a political attack and as a means of shutting down philosophical debate and discourse, some at ACORN didn't let that stop them.

Filmmaker Demands Apology From ACORN for Claiming Undercover Video 'Doctored'.  The independent filmmaker whose hidden-camera videos prompted the firing of four ACORN workers is demanding an apology from ACORN for calling his work a fabricated "scam" and daring the activist group to take legal action against him.  "Bring it on," filmmaker James O'Keefe said Sunday [9/13/2009] on FOX News.

Time for IRS to review all ACORN-prepared tax filings.  Last year the IRS partnered with ACORN on tax prep and this year they expanded it.  The opportunity for fraud is enormous and the IRS will either have to monitor all returns filed by these people and treat them as they do other preparers — filing fraud charges when there's fraud or can the program altogether.

ACORN Officials Videotaped Telling People How to Lie to IRS.  Officials with the controversial community organizing group ACORN were secretly videotaped offering to assist two individuals posing as a pimp and a prostitute, encouraging them to lie to the Internal Revenue Service and providing guidance on how to claim underage girls from South America as dependents.

ACORN fires 2 after hidden-camera footage aired.  The group ACORN has fired two employees who were seen on hidden-camera video giving tax advice to a man posing as a pimp and a woman who pretended to be a prostitute.  Fox News Channel broadcast excerpts from the video Thursday [9/10/2009].

Video:  "My time with ACORN".

ACORN Fires More Officials for Helping 'Pimp,' 'Prostitute' in Washington Office.  Two more ACORN officials were fired Friday [9/11/2009] after a second video surfaced showing staffers in the community organizers' Washington office offering to help a man and woman posing as a pimp and prostitute acquire illegal home loans that would help them set up a brothel.  The firings came less than 24 hours after another pair of ACORN officials from the group's Baltimore office were canned for instructing the "pimp" and "prostitute" how to falsify tax forms and seek illegal benefits for 13 "very young" girls from El Salvador that pair said they wanted to import to work as child prostitutes.

Census Bureau Severs Ties With ACORN.  The Census Director has sent a letter to the National Headquarters of ACORN notifying the group that the Census Bureau is severing all ties with the community organizing group for all work having to do with the 2010 census.

Census Cutting Ties With ACORN Due to Videotaped Prostitution-Enabling.  The decision comes on the heels of Andrew Breitbart's release of two undercover video investigations, which found ACORN employees in Baltimore and Washington, D.C. more than happy to aid and abet underaged prostitution with advice on tax status, getting grants, and avoiding notice by law enforcement.

Chaos for Glory:  ACORN Baltimore Prositution Investigation.  [Scroll down]  We gave ACORN a taste of its own medicine.  ACORN was alleged to be thug-like, criminal, and nefarious.  This criminal behavior was evidenced by a video of Baltimore ACORN community organizers breaking the locks on foreclosed homes.  Instead of railing against their radicalism, it is best to bring out this type of radicalism.  Hannah Giles and I took advantage of ACORN's regard for thug criminality by posing the most ridiculous criminal scenario we could think of and seeing if they would comply — which they did without hesitation.

Complete ACORN Baltimore Child Prostitution Investigation Transcript.

In the Bowels of Baltimore's ACORN.  The Baltimore adventure with ACORN started off as a silly idea, both absurd and incredible by all accounts.  But it stuck, and quickly escalated into a full blown operation with scripts, method acting, undercover gear, scandalous outfits, fast minds, good hearts, plenty of humor and healthy homemade blueberry muffins.

Wait — there's more!
 ACORN Investigation:  New Video Shows Corruption in Washington, DC Office.  Just one day after explosive video out of a Baltimore ACORN office showed workers advising a young couple on tax evasion, prostitution cover-up and the illegal trafficking of minors for sex, Fox News has uncovered a second hidden-camera conversation with ACORN workers — this time in the nation's capital.

ACORN Gets Its Nuts Cracked.  It appears as if ACORN is not just into soup kitchens, daycare, voter fraud and town hall intimidation; they will also help a young wannabe Madame jumpstart a whorehouse.  ShamWow, folks!  Community organizing, indeed!

Could ACORN Video Maker Be Prosecuted Under Maryland Law?  Maryland is a heavily Democratic state and Maryland resident Linda Tripp was prosecuted under this law for recording her conversations with Monica Lewinsky.  If you don't think they'd do it to [James] O'Keefe, you don't know much about Maryland Democrats.

ACORN's Latest Lawbreaking:  In October of last year I asked why the Department of Justice had not yet instituted RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) proceedings against ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) and I provided examples of its numerous multi-state violations of criminal and election laws.  Since that time no RICO suit has been instituted, and yet even more information of criminal behavior by the organization has come to light.

State's Attorney Considers Prosecuting ACORN Video Posters.  The activist group ACORN has fired two employees of its Baltimore office who were seen on hidden-camera video giving advice to a man posing as a pimp and a woman posing as a prostitute.  Fox News broadcast excerpts Thursday from the video.  The man and woman ask about buying a house and how to account on tax forms for the woman's income.  An ACORN employee advises the woman to list her occupation as "performance artist."  Maryland ACORN board member Margaret Williams says in a statement that the employees "did not meet ACORN's standards of professionalism."

After Census Severs Ties, ACORN May Face Scrutiny of Housing Grants.  ACORN Housing Corporation received $1.6 million in federal money to provide housing services to low-income communities in this fiscal year Conservatives have cheered the Census Bureau's decision to sever ties with ACORN because it had lost confidence in the group, but the hidden-camera videos that prompted ACORN to fire four workers this week could raise more questions about the federal funding ACORN receives for housing outreach.  ACORN Housing Corporation received $1.6 million to provide housing services to low-income communities in this fiscal year, ending Sept. 30, according to USASpending.gov, a federal government Web site for tracking government grants.

The Obama-ACORN Anti Gun Conspiracy.  ACORN ... a publicly funded national organization is using your tax dollars to actively interfere with the Second Amendment exercise of gun rights in New Jersey and elsewhere.  ACORN went public with its gun control activism when it intervened in an unsuccessful attempt to defend Jersey City, New Jersey, a hot bed of anti-gun rights extremists, to disarm its citizens with a local gun control ordinance.

ACORN turns in Fla. workers on voter fraud charges.  Arrest warrants have been issued in Miami for 11 people suspected of falsifying information on hundreds of voter registration cards last year.

Exclusive ACORN Exposé: Stealing Democracy.  When the extortion and vote-fraud conglomerate ACORN isn't busing schoolchildren to the nation's capital to protest proposed tax cuts, it's busy campaigning to expand the size and scope of government, raising the dead from cemeteries and leading them to the voting booth, and promoting the so-called Fairness Doctrine in order to bludgeon conservative-dominated talk radio.  Although congressional Democrats refuse to investigate ACORN, so far this year alone voter registration fraud charges have been laid against former ACORN employees in Nevada and Pennsylvania.  Nevada charges were laid against two former senior ACORN executives and against the nonprofit entity itself.

ACORN Ex-Official To Testify Against ACORN.  Former ACORN Las Vegas field director Christopher Edwards cut a deal with prosecutors and has pleaded guilty to "two gross misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit the crime of compensation for registration of voters," the Las Vegas Sun reports.

In deal, ex-ACORN official promises to testify against others.  The attorney general's office turned up the heat Monday [8/17/2009] on a national organization at the heart of a voter registration fraud investigation.  Christopher Edwards, 33, the former Las Vegas field director for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, pleaded guilty to two gross misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit the crime of compensation for registration of voters.

ACORN in Retreat.  While ACORN retreats across the nation, an upcoming voter registration fraud trial may reveal embarrassing information that hinders the ability of the embattled radical activist group to function.

Ex-ACORN Vegas director to testify against group.  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 [8/19/2009] that Christopher Edwards' plea deal strengthens a felony case against the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now and Amy Busefink, a former regional voter registration director.

Union thugs try to silence critics of Obamacare.  SEIU has a long history of partnering to generate angry mobs.  The union helped fund the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) Muscle for Money program that was set up to pressure corporations in shakedown campaigns, including demonstrations at the homes of corporate executives.  Labor Department disclosure forms show more than $600,000 has changed hands between SEIU locals and ACORN affiliates under the Muscle for Money initiative.  It is not an exercise in subtlety.

Community-Organized Crime.  The election fraud factory known as ACORN should be stripped of its jealously guarded tax-exempt status because it illegally spends taxpayer dollars on partisan activities, commits "systemic fraud," and violates racketeering and election laws, according to a congressional report unveiled yesterday [7/23/2009].  Republican investigators on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee found that by "intentionally blurring the legal distinctions between 361 tax-exempt and non-exempt entities, ACORN diverts taxpayer and tax-exempt monies into partisan political activities."

A web site with a lot of information:
 Acorn Cracked.  The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, is a tool of organized labor to create the political environment in which "social change" is possible.  Its preferred type of social change comes in the form of government-run healthcare, increased unionization and increased government spending as a cure to society's ills.  In other words, ACORN is a leader in America's slouch towards socialism.

The ACORN Thugocracy:  The intimidation by police of a woman at a public event because she didn't support Big Government healthcare "is a glimpse of our future," Glenn Beck said Monday [7/27/2009].  Beck reported that at a healthcare rally organized by the Democratic Party's "Organizing for America" arm in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, ACORN directed police to silence a woman who disagreed with President Obama's socialist healthcare scheme.

Money for Nothing.  Citizens Consulting Inc. (CCI), the shadowy financial nerve center of the embattled radical activist group ACORN, has filed false lobbying disclosure reports with Congress, according to Ron Sykes, a former ACORN employee.  This revelation is important because, as former ACORN national board member Charles Turner said earlier this year on "The Glenn Beck Program," CCI "is where the shell game begins."

Video Shows ACORN Founder Wade Rathke Plotting America's Downfall.  Rathke is a pioneer of the so-called welfare rights movement that aims to get Americans on welfare.  He devotes an entire chapter of his book to what he calls "The 'Maximum Eligible Participation' Solution."  It is a strategy for orchestrated crisis that savvy leftist groups across America are likely to embrace.

ACORN's Labor Pains.  A mountain of paperwork detailing extensive, apparently credible allegations of wage and labor law violations against ACORN was received this week by investigators on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.  A source with intimate knowledge of the allegations who asked not to be identified said 200 documents were delivered to congressional investigators.

Why Won't Conyers Probe ACORN?  On March 19, after a Judiciary subcommittee received testimony that ACORN had violated a host of tax, voter registration, campaign finance, and other laws, Conyers said the allegations were "a pretty serious matter."  After being urged to take action by Conyers, civil rights subcommittee chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-New York) said he would consider holding a hearing on ACORN if he heard credible evidence about wrongdoings.  On May 4 Conyers abruptly changed course and said he didn't believe a hearing about ACORN was justified.

ACORN Involvement Undermines Confidence in Census.  The U.S. Constitution doesn't specify many duties that the federal government absolutely must carry out.  For as long as our republic lasts, Americans will debate the meaning and intentions of the Constitution, but on requiring a decennial census, the Framers wrote with such clarity that no analysis is needed.  Today our nation has 100 times as many people as it did at our founding.  Though much has changed, the headcount of Americans remains an essential function of our federal government.  It's how we apportion representatives in Congress and direct spending.

Seventh person to face trial in Pa. ACORN case.  A seventh person has been ordered to stand trial in connection with former ACORN workers charged with illegally filling out voter registration cards in the Pittsburgh area before the 2008 general election.  Allegheny County prosecutors say 23-year-old Bryan Williams, of McKeesport, filled out 20 voter registrations in his name to help friends who worked for ACORN and allegedly had a daily quota to meet.

ACORN sues to overturn Pa. voter-soliciting law.  The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now and the American Civil Liberties Union have filed a federal lawsuit seeking to strike down a state law used to prosecute voter-registration workers who allegedly employed a quota system in the Pittsburgh area.  Wednesday's lawsuit names Attorney General Tom Corbett and county District Attorney Stephen Zappala Jr. as defendants.

Zappala: ACLU challenge won't affect serious ACORN charges.  Allegheny County District Attorney StephenA. Zappala Jr. says the majority and the most serious of criminal charges against workers for a community activist group stemming from a voter registration investigation will not be affected by a constitutional challenge filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.

Is ACORN Intentionally Structured As a Criminal Enterprise?  Emerging accounts of widespread deceit and corruption raise the need for a criminal investigation of ACORN.  By intentionally blurring the legal distinctions between 361 tax-exempt and non-exempt entities, ACORN diverts taxpayer and tax-exempt monies into partisan political activities.  Since 1994, more than $53 million in federal funds have been pumped into ACORN, and under the Obama administration, ACORN stands to receive a whopping $8.5 billion in available stimulus funds.  Operationally, ACORN is a shell game played in 120 cities, 43 states and the District of Columbia through a complex structure designed to conceal illegal activities, to use taxpayer and tax-exempt dollars for partisan political purposes, and to distract investigators.

GOP Congressional Report Accuses ACORN of Political Corruption, Widespread Fraud.  A new report from Republicans on a House oversight committee accuses ACORN of fraudulent activities and widespread corruption and calls for a criminal investigation into the advocacy group.  ACORN, or the Association of Community Organizations for Reform, has been under constant fire from conservatives since last year for its support of Barack Obama's presidential candidacy and its planned participation in next year's 2010 census.

Arresting ACORN's Deadly Touch.  [Scroll down]  The fact that ACORN continues to pressure banks into handing out these irresponsible loans carries enormous implications.  Simply put:  it perpetuates the same loose lending problems that got the nation into its current economic mess.  Only now, it's next to impossible to trace.  The Acorn Housing Corporation (AHC) has been one of the principal backers of the irresponsible loose-lending policies such as the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), which strong-armed banks into handing out high-risk loans to low-income recipients.  Loose lending and easy money, of course, was the principal catalyst in the mortgage meltdown crisis last year — which in turn triggered the current economic downturn in which the nation now finds itself.  ACORN's role in that crisis was to weaken credit that much more.

ACORN's "Muscle for Money" does the bidding of SEIU.  Corporate and political officials who defy workplace and community organizers risk being made objects of scorn by bright red-clad protestors in public and private, courtesy of an activist union and its close allies in the nation's most controversial liberal non-profit advocacy group.  It's officially called the "Muscle for Money" program within the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) where it was started, and unofficially by the same name among activists of Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN).

Wrathful Wade Rathke.  Associationof Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) founder Wade Rathke wants to use the Internet to overthrow the capitalist system.  He said so in his new book, Citizen Wealth: Winning the Campaign to Save Working Families, in which he serves up some community organizing war stories, and offers his thoughts on the future of organizing.

ACORN labor affiliate declines to file annual report in New Orleans.  Community activists who provide support and training services for organized labor have neglected to file their annual report with the Louisiana secretary of state and are now listed as being "not in good standing," according to public records. ... The ACORN Community Labor Organizing Center (ACLOC) was the single largest recipient of donations from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) to ACORN and its many affiliates between 2005 and 2008, U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) LM-2 disclosure forms show.

ACORN Sells Out the Poor.  [ACORN] has become the leading cheerleader for a controversial real estate development that is slated to use eminent domain to remove the poor people it claims to represent.  ACORN, which has long prided itself on fighting the so-called gentrification of neighborhoods as rising property values force the poor to move, has also taken money from the project's developer and signed a binding agreement forcing it to stand behind the project no matter what.

ACORN whistleblower MonCrief now identifies with conservative cause.  Although she was indoctrinated into liberal thinking at a young age and has been a life-long Democrat, Anita MonCrief said in an interview that she now identifies with economic and social reforms that are championed by conservatives.  MonCrief is a former employee of the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) and its Project Vote affiliate who offered testimony last year in Harrisburg, Pa. as part of an election law suit filed against the organization.

Silent Scandals:  In just the last month, an unusual number of what were formerly regarded as scandals went unnoticed and largely unreported by the old media, to wit: ... When's the last time you heard about the ACORN scandal?  This organization, a recipient of our tax dollars, is under investigation for voter fraud.  The media reporting to date would lead one to believe that it's all the fault of a few rogue employees, despite evidence to the contrary, which was reported only by Fox News.

10 Reasons Why We Fight Against Obama.  [#1] Obama was Not elected through a legitimate democratic process but through fraud.  While Obama is not the first US President to be fraudulently elected, he is the first in well over a century, since the election of 1876.  Furthermore Obama's case is unique in several ways.  The fraud committed to move him into the White House was multilayered, and began with his own apparent ineligibility to serve in office.  It also did not involve only local polling fraud, as was and is commonplace, but the vast well funded ACORN network, backed by local elected officials to perpetrate a massive multi-state electoral fraud operation.

Fifteen Reasons I'm Already Tired of the Obama Era:  [#14] ACORN, which engaged in large scale voter fraud during the 2008 election that won't be seriously investigated because Obama is in the White House, is now unapologetically breaking into houses across the country and encouraging squatters. Apparently, if you're a liberal group, you are above the law as long as the Obama administration is in the White House.

Conyers backs off probe of ACORN.  House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. has backed off his plan to investigate purported wrongdoing by the liberal activist group ACORN, saying "powers that be" put the kibosh on the idea.  Mr. Conyers, Michigan Democrat, earlier bucked his party leaders by calling for hearings on accusations the Association of Community Organization for Reform Now (ACORN) has committed crimes ranging from voter fraud to a mob-style "protection" racket. ... Conyers spokesman Jonathan Godfrey said late Thursday [6/25/2009], several hours after the first request for comment, that the chairman had been referring to himself as "the powers that be."

Who killed the ACORN probe?  Who told House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Michigan Democrat, to lay off the radical activist group ACORN?  The 23-term congressman, who has been enamored of the aggressively partisan group for years, gave a truly odd explanation last week when he reaffirmed a May 4 statement that a probe of ACORN "appears unwarranted at this time."  "The powers that be decided against it," he said Wednesday [6/24/2009], refusing to elaborate.  His spokesman Jonathan Godfrey later said Mr. Conyers was referring to himself as "the powers that be."  Unless you believe that "the powers that be" is a novel variation of the editorial "we," it's clear Mr. Conyers wasn't referring to himself and that somebody "got" to him.

Acorn Role in Census Challenged.  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.  But in the wake of accusations that some former Acorn employees engaged in voter registration fraud in the 2006 and 2008 elections, the partnership isn't sitting well with some Republicans on Capitol Hill who worry that Acorn could skew results.

Do Census Layoffs Clear the Way for Hiring of ACORN Workers?  If the administration hadn't tried a few months ago to move oversight of the Census into the White House and then lied about ACORN and the Census, the news of the layoffs would not have caught my attention.  However, the Obama administration did attempt the Census power play and it did lie about ACORN's involvement in the Census, so reasonable observers have every reason to be suspicious.

ACORN Alert.  Remember the Obama administration lying about ACORN's involvement in the 2010 Census?  After the Census Bureau responded to a Freedom of Information Act request, Judicial Watch reported that "...the Obama Commerce Department downplayed ACORN's participation in the Census, and labeled "baseless" the notion that ACORN would be involved in any Census count ...[but]... offered ACORN the opportunity to "recruit Census workers" who would participate in the count."

Former organizer says ACORN will commit fraud in Census work.  Consider ACORN's record for its staff:  The group has sought minimum wage increases (yay!) but sued to get out of paying its own staff the minimum wage (boo!).  ACORN campaigns for seven sick days a year but only gives its staff five.  ACORN short-changed employees, while the founder's brother embezzled nearly a half-million dollars.  ACORN has founded unions but busts unions when its own employees try to organize.  And every time the organization's machine creates voter fraud allegations, the group throws its poorly trained temporary workers under the bus.

ACORN Rent-A-Mob Thugs to Harass Lenders in 14 Cities.  ACORN, which played a starring role in creating the subprime mortgage crisis, plans to add insult to injury by harassing lenders across the nation with protests tomorrow [6/30/2009] in an effort to coerce them into supporting President Obama's Making Home Affordable foreclosure-avoidance program.  Austin King, director of ACORN Financial Justice, sent out a press release today advising of the demonstrations that are planned as part of its "Homewrecker 4" campaign.

ACORN Money Missing in Missouri?  Blogger Nancy Armstrong (MsPlacedDemocrat.com) reports that St. Louis, Missouri, gave a $100,000 grant to ACORN and that $82,000 of it is unaccounted for.

Judge Urges Prosecutors to Pursue ACORN.  An Allegheny County, Pennsylvania judge urged prosecutors to "go after ACORN," the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports.

'Go after ACORN,' judge says.  A district judge who held another ACORN worker for trial Monday [6/29/2009] 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.

ACORN head claims a home is lost every 13 seconds; here's rest of the story.  So, it appears that ACORN has taken CRL's calculation that every 13 seconds a foreclosure is started, and turned it into "every 13 seconds an American family loses its home."  In politics, they call this "spin."  In Sunday School, they call it "lying."  It's only a slght difference in wording but it's one that makes a hugely different impression on uncritical or casual hearers, demonstrating yet again that with ACORN you can never be sure that things are exactly as the group claims.

ACORN drops tarnished name and moves to silence critics.  Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) leaders are using the threat of a law suit to silence and intimidate critics, according to current and former members of the liberal activist group.  In a letter dated June 11 an attorney for ACORN advised top whistleblowers that their unauthorized use of the organization's name could make them liable for monetary damages and injunctive relief.

The story behind the "ACORN changed its name" story.  ACORN hasn't changed its name.  ACORN International has.  What's missing in soundbite-length TV coverage of the story is the fundamental distinction between ACORN and ACORN International, and why it matters.  They are two separate entities — and there is considerable tension between them.  It's confusing because, of course, ACORN runs a vast network of affiliates across the country that facilitate its money-shuffling racket.

Insider:  ACORN 'always been Democrat operation'.  While the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, remains under investigation for voter registration fraud and related allegations in at least 14 states, one former insider told WND the organization acted as unofficial arm of the Democratic Party during the recent election and used cash operations to keep some financial transactions under wraps.

AmeriCorps and ACORN Go Way Back.  [Scroll down]  As I write this, ACORN donors are celebrating the 39th birthday of the radical activist group just down the street at a $250 a ticket gala reception at the National Education Association.  Center for American Progress president John Podesta, SEIU union boss Andy Stern, and corrupt former HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros are expected to attend.

ACORN, Soros and the Census.  ACORN's core work revolves around Census information and that information leads to funding. ... If such data is the core of their programs, could their vested interest in the outcome cloud affect the impartiality?

Documents Detailing ACORN Partnership for 2010 Census.  Included among the 126 pages of documents, obtained by Judicial Watch under threat of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, is ACORN's original Census partnership application.  The document describes 18 different areas of responsibility requested by the community organization, which is under investigation in multiple states for illegal activity during the 2008 election, including voter registration fraud.

Toxic Mortgage Tycoons:  The "Glenn Beck Program" did an excellent piece on June 3 about Herb and Marion Sandler, the toxic mortgage king and queen, and their connection to ACORN and the inappropriately named Center for Responsible Lending.  Through their charity, the Sandler Family Supporting Foundation, they gave at least $5,723,222 to the ACORN network.

ACORN says it was victimized by workers, helped uncover fraud.  With criminal court hearings upcoming for its former workers, officials with ACORN today [6/2/2009] took the offensive, contending that any evidence of voter registration fraud was uncovered by the organization's internal quality control system.  Ian Phillips, state coordinator for ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, said ACORN turned over 216 suspect voter registration cards to county officials last year.

Ohio Prosecutor: ACORN Voter Fraud/Illegal Voting Probe Underway.  Darnell Nash, a voter in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, has been indicted by a grand jury for, among other things, illegal voting.  Nash was registered to vote by ACORN.

Obama And ACORN Officials Set Sights On Gunowners.  ACORN, the publicly funded national organization linked to voter fraud in several states, is now actively interfering with the exercise of firearm civil rights in New Jersey, and the Second Amendment Foundation is calling for an immediate federal investigation. ... "ACORN has, since 1998, received an estimated $31 million in government funding," said SAF founder Alan Gottlieb.  "Now they have intervened in a New Jersey gun rights case in defense of an illegal Jersey City one-gun-a-month ordinance that violates the state preemption statute."

ACORN Enters the Highly Lucrative Global Warming Hysteria Business.  The radical community group, which is now facing voter registration fraud charges in Nevada, has joined forces with Al Gore and other groups for the ultimate taxpayer shakedown:  carbon emission controls.

The Mighty American Oak, Pruned by an ACORN?  The mighty American oak may soon be pruned down to size.  And the "Association of Community Organizers Now" — or ACORN — could accomplish it all. ... In the last election, a dozen states pressed charges against ACORN, citing everything from intimidation tactics to voter fraud and embezzlement.  How could anyone forget their clever attempt to submit the entire line up of the Dallas Cowboys as newly registered voters, or their legendary submission of thousands of deceased or imaginary persons in identical handwriting?

Group Hires "Lazy Crack Heads" To Register Voters.  Known for conducting fraudulent voter registration drives nationwide, the taxpayer-funded community group that Baracak [sic] Obama once worked for had its Nevada offices raided by state authorities after submitting forms with bogus names, including pro football players from another state.

Bachmann Calls on Congress to Block Funds to ACORN.  Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann called on Congress Thursday [5/14/2009] to block ACORN's access to federal housing funds, citing repeated charges of voter registration fraud against the low-income advocacy group.  The Republican congresswoman, flanked by an ACORN whistleblower and an attorney who worked on an ACORN case in Pennsylvania, escalated a media offensive against the group, which is a favorite target of conservatives who claim liberals are unjustly protecting a dysfunctional organization by allowing it access to taxpayer money.

Get Acorn Out Of Our Pockets, Elections.  Republicans should loudly demand that Acorn (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) be cut off from all further handouts of taxpayers' money.  After all, didn't Barack Obama promise us an ethical administration and an end to the influence of lobbyists and special interests?  Acorn is one of the most successful lobbyists for taxpayers' money, which Acorn uses for very partisan special-interest activities.

More federal funding for ACORN despite indictments.  Under the guise of due process concerns, congressional Democrats have opened the way for organizations with criminal histories to gain greater access to taxpayer funds.  Exhibit A here is the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN), now under investigation in at least 14 states for voter registration fraud.

ACORN Allies Scheme to Distract from Corruption Allegations.  John Podesta's left-wing Center for American Progress Action Fund has invited many liberal and radical groups to a meeting Thursday morning [5/28/2009] to discuss how to use rhetorical misdirection to take the focus off ACORN's increasingly well publicized corruption.

News media barred from ACORN meeting at Center for American Progress.  Freedom of the press stopped at the door of the Center for American Progress earlier today [5/28/2009] when this reporter and a camera crew from Fox News were barred from covering a "briefing and discussion" meeting of left-wing advocacy groups worried about recent coverage of the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN).  Brian Kettenring, an ACORN spokesman, refused to allow journalists to cover the meeting, which was slated to include representatives from 10 organizations.

The Truth About ObamACORN.  At a closed-door powwow hosted Thursday [5/28/2009] at the left-leaning Center for American Progress, activists discussed how to combat a relentless stream of corruption charges from ACORN/Project Vote whistleblowers.  But it's too late for a reputation bailout.  Former Project Vote official and whistleblower Anita MonCrief has harnessed the Internet to crowd-source a massive cache of documents showing ties between Obama staff members and the supposedly "nonpartisan" ACORN operations.

Barney Frank Lies About ACORN.  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.

Former organizer says ACORN will commit fraud in Census work.  Following calls by a reform group known as the "ACORN 8," many are rightly worried about the prospect of taxpayer money flowing to the scandal-plagued Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) for the stated purpose of counting Americans in the 2010 U.S. census.  After all, this is the same group that couldn't count to "1" when registering voters during last year's election.

From ACORN, some shady issues.  Since 1994, ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) has received at least $53 million in tax dollars.  Also, it was reported recently that "the economic stimulus bill enacted in February contains $3 billion that the non-profit activist group ... could receive, and the 2010 federal budget contains another $5.5 billion that could also find its way into the group's coffers." Plus, the Census Bureau has named ACORN a national partner.  Yet simultaneously, ACORN has been linked to voter-registration fraud in more than a dozen states directly, through its employees or both.

ACORN Linked to Illegal Aid for Obama Campaign.  Watching the increasingly rapacious conduct of ACORN (Association of Community Organizations) over the past few years and the considerable power and funds being gifted to it by this administration — while the press and Congress largely remain silent — I fear we are most surely heading into a government run by wolves.  ACORN's role in the past two presidential elections has hardly received the kind of coverage a press concerned about protecting the right to free elections would have accorded it.

The mighty ACORN and the 'Project Vote' story.  ACORN employees across the country have been indicted for voter fraud, and by its own admission, the group has submitted at least 400,000 questionable voter documents, according to a New York Times report dated Oct. 24, 2008.  Now two whistle-blowers, Anita MonCrief and Marcel Reid, who used to work for ACORN have testified under oath before the House Judiciary Committee that the organization took money to intimidate capitalist organizations like the Carlyle Group and H&R Block, and worked closely with the Obama presidential campaign to get voters to the polls.  It is here where the story begins to rise to the next level.

The End of Fair Elections?  It may come as a surprise to some; we may have witnessed the last free and fair election in this country.  How long ago that election was does not matter now; there will not be another one.  Remember when "B1 Bob" Dornan lost his House seat to a woman named Sanchez?  The election was stolen by Hermandad Nacional Mexicana[,] a group that made a concerted effort to register illegal aliens.  Since then, the art of rigging the vote has been refined and perfected by the likes of ACORN and other community activist organizations.  The modus operandi is clear.  First, there must be a team of lawyers to challenge any efforts to determine voter eligibility.  What we end up with here in California is "motor voter" registration.

ACORN joins with unions.  Political activists who masquerade as non-partisan community organizers have joined with organized labor to pressure elected officials into supporting left wing causes, according to a top analyst with the Capital Research Center (CRC).  Matthew Vadum, a senior editor and analyst with CRC has determined that the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) is best described as a "multi-headed hydra" with over 400,000 member families positioned in 110 cities fiercely opposed to the capitalist system.

Bailed-out banks should stop funding ACORN.  The Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now is one of the left-wing groups that have finagled millions in aid from some of the very banks now being bailed out with American taxpayer dollars.  Bank of America, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase are among the top recipients of funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, and they also happen to supply sizable grants to ACORN Housing Corp., one of the group's many affiliate organizations.

ACORN Covering Up Its Ties To SEIU?  ACORN, which until recently proudly listed locals 100 and 880 of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) as ACORN affiliates, has scrubbed its website.  As of right now, the allied organizations section on the ACORN website makes no mention of the group's ties to SEIU.

Obama and ACORN GPS Marking EVERY Front Door in America?  The same week that Americans learned that they were "domestic terrorists" — at least according to Obama's new DHS (Department of Homeland Security), — if they own a Bible, a pocket Constitution or guns, and still believe in Life, Liberty and Freedom, — they also learned that Obama's Census Bureau had hired thousands of new temporary employees, equipped each with a handheld GPS computer and sent them out to mark GPS coordinates for every residential front door in America.

Squeezing Out the Faithful to Make Way for ACORN.  Should the federal government tempt people to cease volunteering at churches and instead be paid to "volunteer" at government-subsidized projects?  That's the essence of the "Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act" which President Obama signed into law on April 21.

ACORN charged with voter registration fraud.  Nevada authorities are accusing the political advocacy group ACORN and two former employees of illegally paying canvassers to sign up new voters last year.  Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto filed charges Monday [5/4/2009] alleging the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now had a handbook and policies requiring employees in Las Vegas to sign up 20 new voters per day or be fired.

Criminal Charges Against ACORN Raise Concerns About Its Partnership With Census Bureau.  Criminal charges filed in Nevada against ACORN, a liberal activist group that is under investigation in several other states for alleged voter registration fraud in 2008, have sparked increased concerns about the organization's partnership agreement with the U.S. Census Bureau to help recruit workers for the 2010 Census.

ACORN got $53 million in federal funds since 1994.  At least $53 million in federal funds have gone to ACORN activists since 1994, and the controversial group could get up to $8.5 billion more tax dollars despite being under investigation for voter registration fraud in a dozen states.  The economic stimulus bill enacted in February contains $3 billion that the non-profit activist group known more formally as the Association for Community Organizations for Reform Now could receive, and 2010 federal budget contains another $5.5 billion that could also find its way into the group's coffers.

ACORN:  Give strapped owners more time to save homes.  A housing advocacy group protested during the monthly foreclosure auction in downtown Houston Tuesday [5/5/2009], hoping to stop the sale of foreclosed homes and call attention to the plight of strapped homeowners.  The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now held other protests in Dallas, El Paso and the Rio Grande Valley.

Conyers Kills ACORN Probe.  The House Judiciary Committee chairman's May 4 statement exonerating ACORN couldn't have come out at a worse time.  "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," Conyers said in a statement aired ... on CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight."  Just hours earlier his fellow Democrats in Nevada, Secretary of State Ross Miller and Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto dropped a bombshell.  ACORN and two former senior ACORN employees in the state, they announced, had been charged with a total of 39 felony counts related to voter registrations.

Seven ACORN workers charged with voter registration irregularities in Pennsylvania.  Seven Pittsburgh-area ACORN workers were charged with falsifying voter registration forms, with six accused of doing so to meet the group's alleged quota system before last year's general election.

From ACORN, a mighty GOP fight.  Consider the past week alone.  In the House, Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) and other GOP lawmakers called on the Census Bureau to sever ties with ACORN, one of several hundred organizations teaming up with the bureau to conduct the crucial Census count in 2010.  At the same time, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), one of ACORN's most vocal opponents in Congress, tangled with Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) over an "ACORN amendment" she introduced that would have prohibited any organization indicted for voter fraud from receiving certain federal housing grants.

More Acorn Voter Fraud Comes to Light.  On Monday [5/4/2009], 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.

James O'Keefe Remembers Andrew Breitbart on 10th Anniversary of ACORN Sting.  Project Veritas founder James O'Keefe is marking the tenth anniversary this month of his infamous ACORN sting by remembering the role that Andrew Breitbart played in shaping the strategy that made the story a success.

ACORN Sues California to Allow More Illegals to Vote.  An ACORN offshoot and other left-wing pressure groups are suing California in federal court because the state hasn't made it easy enough for Democrats to flood voter rolls with illegal aliens and foreign nationals who aren't legally eligible to vote.  Throughout the years Mickey Mouse, Mary Poppins, and celebrities living and dead were registered to vote because now-defunct ACORN and its allied groups were allowed to pollute the voter rolls.

Conyers may seek hearings on ACORN.  He would be the most unlikely ally I could possibly think of but if House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers gets his way, he will likely hold hearings on the many crimes committed by ACORN.

Conyers weighing probe of ACORN.  Opponents of the liberal activist group ACORN have found an unlikely champion in House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr., who is clashing with his own party to pursue hearings on accusations that the group has committed crimes ranging from voter fraud to a mob-style "protection" racket.  "I still want to do it and I probably will," Mr. Conyers, Michigan Democrat, told The Washington Times on Tuesday [3/31/2009].

ACORN to count heads for Census.  We could write a book on the false voter registrations submitted by ACORN.  There are bizarre stories, such as one from Cleveland, where ACORN employees reregistered the same individual 77 times, even though the individual kept on telling the ACORN workers that he was already registered.  But ACORN's people kept offering to bribe him with cigarettes or money to get him to fill out another form.  Similar examples from across the United States are too numerous to count.

Census Bureau:  We'll Work with 'Community Organizations' to Count All Illegal Aliens in 2010.  The acting director of the U.S. Census Bureau, Thomas Mesenbourg, told CNSNews.com that the bureau intends to work with community organizations to make sure every illegal alien in the United States is counted in the 2010 Census.  The Census is used to apportion the seats in the U.S. House of Representative.  There are 435 House seats that are divided among the states in proportion to their population, which is determined by the decennial census.  States with more people get more seats in the U.S. House.  This means that a state harboring more illegal aliens can gain more House seats as long as the Census Bureau finds the illegal aliens and counts them.

Democrats Kill Provision in AmeriCorps Bill that Would Keep Funds from ACORN.  Sen. David Vitter (R-Louisiana) tried to stand up for civil society and taxpayers last week but his effort was shot down by liberal Democratic senators.  Vitter tried to prevent the radical direct-action group, ACORN, and its affiliates from benefitting under the odious national service legislation known as the (proposed) GIVE Act.  The bill itself, which received a glowing review from John Podesta's pro-Obama propaganda factory, the Center for American Progress, would give government money to volunteer programs and would dramatically expand the feel-good liberal program, AmeriCorps, which ACORN and other groups have used to promote their own political objectives.

Doubling Down on Deceit.  The Obama administration has already established that it wants to be intimately involved in the census.  One of the factors behind Senator Judd Gregg's withdrawal from the Secretary of Commerce position was his dissatisfaction with the White House's planned incursion into the Commerce Department's oversight of the census.  Now we have an even more blatant intrusion into the census process:  the Obama administration has decided to allow ACORN — the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now! — to "help" recruit the roughly 1.4 million temporary workers needed to count every American.

NYTimes Killed Story on Crooked Obama Donor.  According to election fraud lawyer Heather Heidelbaugh, The New York Times decided suddenly to drop all efforts last October to publish stories about the Association for Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) because it came to light that ACORN was a big donor to then presidential candidate Barack Obama's campaign.

Congress Hears About ACORN's Extortion Racket.  In recent months demands for ACORN to be investigated under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) for repeated incidents of electoral fraud have been growing.  But voting-related fraud is just the tip of the iceberg.  ACORN runs a mob-style "protection" racket known within the radical direct-action group as the "muscle for the money" program, a lawyer told the House Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties today [3/19/2009].

ACORN Whistleblowers Produce Shocking Testimony on Capitol Hill.  The shocking testimony that began the chain of events came from Pennsylvania attorney Heather Heidelbaugh, who in October of last year represented "a candidate, voters and the Republican State Committee of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania" seeking a preliminary injunction against ACORN and the Secretary of the Commonwealth.  The complaint alleged violations of the election code, fraud and misrepresentation, and violations of equal protection and due process.

Foxes guarding the chicken coop — or having ACORN help with the census.  [Scroll down slowly]  According to a US Census Bureau press release [ACORN] will soon become an "official partner...help[ing] recruit workers" to bring in the 2010 census.  Over 100,000 people are needed for the mammoth task of collecting the detailed data that is then used as a blueprint to dispense federal money, redraw voting districts and allocate representatives to congress. ... ACORN is entitled to have whatever political goals it likes and to use whatever tactics it likes — as long as it doesn't hurt others, destroy property or prevent people (as in legislative sessions) from being heard.

Cloward-Piven, ACORN and the AIG Witch Hunt:  ACORN was itself born out of the Cloward-Piven tactic to throw our system of government into crisis in every conceivable way.  The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) is a grassroots political organization that grew out of George Wiley's National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO), whose members in the late 1960s and early 70s invaded welfare offices across the U.S. — often violently — bullying social workers and loudly demanding every penny to which the law "entitled" them.

Conyers Throwing ACORN Under the Bus?  Just five months ago uber-liberal House Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers called radical direct-action group ACORN "a longstanding and well regarded organization that fights for the poor and working class."  But not anymore.  Yesterday [3/19/2009] the outspoken left-winger called for a congressional probe of ACORN.

Hill panel testimony to accuse ACORN of mob tactics.  A lawyer for a whistleblower on the activist group ACORN is prepared to tell a House panel Thursday [3/19/2009] that the group provided liberal causes with protest-for-hire services and coerced donations from the targets of demonstrations through a mob-style "protection" racket.  ACORN called it the "muscle for the money" program, according to prepared testimony Pittsburgh lawyer Heather Heidelbaugh plans to deliver at a hearing of the House Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution, civil rights and civil liberties.

ACORN to Play Role in 2010 Census.  The U.S. Census Bureau is working with several national organizations to help recruit 1.4 million workers to produce the country's 2010 census, including one with a history of voter fraud charges:  ACORN.

ACORN's Federal Judge:  Giving the term judicial activism new meaning, President Obama has nominated an ACORN loyalist to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, the Chicago Tribune reports. ... The Judicial Confirmation Network notes that [David F.] Hamilton previously worked as a fundraiser for ACORN, the radical direct-action group that not only resurrects the dead and gets them to the polls every election but also shakes down banks and pressures them to make home loans to people who can't afford to pay them back.

ACORN Pushes Return of Fairness Doctrine.  ACORN has a long and rather thoroughly corrupt record, involved in everything from helping tens of thousands (and maybe hundreds of thousands) of people register to vote who aren't legally entitled to do so:  illegal aliens, convicted criminals and the like. And now — apparently planning how to spend their cut of the new Obama "stimulus" spending — ACORN is readying a campaign to kill conservative talk radio.

ACORN demands an end to residents' evictions.  The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now in Houston and six other cities are planning to stage civil-disobedience protests to prevent deputies from evicting residents who have fallen behind on their mortgages.

Anarchy!
 Acorn Breaks into Home.  Some community activists could face criminal charges after breaking into a home in Southeast Baltimore.  Police were at the home Thursday night looking for fingerprints and other evidence.  The activists who staged the break-in belong to the Association of Community Organizations For Reform Now or ACORN.  After snapping a lock with bolt cutters, ACORN member Louis Beverly told supporters "this is our house now."

ACORN Trains Citizens To Protest Home Foreclosures.  The community group ACORN calls [Donna] Hanks a victim of predatory lending.  "This is our house now," said Louis Beverly, ACORN.  And on Thursday afternoon, they literally broke the foreclosure padlock right off the front door and then broke into the house, letting Hanks back in for the first time in months.

Update:
 Arrest Made in Home Foreclosure Civil Disobedience Program.  Police in Baltimore today made what is believed to be the first arrest in a civil disobedience program aimed at supporting homeowners who refuse to vacate their foreclosed homes.  An activist with ACORN — the Association of Community Organization for Reform Now — faces criminal charges after breaking into a home in southeast Baltimore on Thursday to protest the foreclosure crisis sweeping the country.

Those Foreclosure "Victims" Deserve No Sympathy.  As I reported last week, ACORN launched a lawless "civil disobedience" campaign across the country to demand their housing entitlement rights.  With this well-oiled propaganda campaign buoying his efforts, President Obama used his State of the Nation address last night to advance his push for a massive government home foreclosure plan that will help "responsible homeowners avoid foreclosure."  But a closer look at ACORN's sob stories shows that the prototypical foreclosure "victims" don't deserve an ounce of sympathy — or a cent of our money.

ACORN and Obama:  Together Again.  In tandem with the White House Bad Borrowers Bailout, Obama's old friends at the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) are launching a new campaign of their own:  the "Home Savers" campaign.  What a coinky-dinky, huh?  As with most of the bully tactics of the radical left-wing group, it ain't gonna be pretty.  They are the shock troops on the streets doing the dirty work while the Community Organizer-in-Chief keeps his delicate hands clean.

The "Tiny" Trillion-Dollar Turbaconducken You Don't Care About.  [The stimulus bill includes]  $2 billion for neighborhood stabilization programs.  As I've reported previously, that "neighborhood stabilization" slush fund money will end up in the pockets of left-wing shakedown artists such as ACORN and the Massachusetts-based Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA), led by self-proclaimed "bank terrorist" Bruce Marks.  There's an additional $3.25 billion in HUD grants and Community Development Block Grants in the bill that will also inevitably find its way into the coffers of these housing-entitlement lobbying groups.

Obama's Bill Hands ACORN $5.2 Billion Bailout.  A rising chorus of GOP leaders are protesting that the blockbuster Democratic stimulus package would provide up to a whopping $5.2 billion for ACORN, the left-leaning nonprofit group under federal investigation for massive voter fraud.  Most of the money is secreted away under an item in the now $836 billion package titled "Neighborhood Stabilization Programs."

Republicans Object to Stimulus Dollars for ACORN.  Republican lawmakers are raising concerns that ACORN, the low-income advocacy group under investigation for voter registration fraud, could be eligible for billions in aid from the economic stimulus proposal working its way through the House.  House Republican Leader John Boehner issued a statement over the weekend noting that the stimulus bill wending its way through Congress provides $4.19 billion for "neighborhood stabilization activities."

ACORN's Stimulus.  With a new president ensconced in the White House, it's time to roll out the goodies for loyal supporters in left-of-center political advocacy groups such as ACORN.  The latest economic stimulus bill promises to do just that by providing a huge bailout — up to $5.2 billion in taxpayer funds — for some of the same liberal groups that helped get Barack Obama elected.  The three relevant fiscal provisions are buried deep in the $825 billion monstrosity known as the proposed "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009."

How Franken Won In Minnesota ... If He Did.  The number who voted for Alan Stuart Franken, 58, for United States Senator, was 1,212,431, give or take a few hundred.  No one knows for sure.  How many double-counted ballots did he get?  How many felon's votes?  Other illegals?  How many votes (to the nearest thousand, please) did ACORN scrape up for him, tossing voter registration forms like confetti in Democratic strongholds?

Lawyers who supervise voting rights are Obama donors.  If voter fraud would ever be ripe for investigation, this would seem to be the year with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (Acorn) having been caught filing thousands of bogus voter registrations in at least 14 states.  Acorn's history of deceit and the national sweep of today's scandal demand a federal probe.  Safeguarding the integrity of the vote is every bit as important as protecting access to the polls, yet Democrats want Justice to pay attention only to the latter.

O's Dangerous Pals:  One key pioneer of ACORN's subprime-loan shakedown racket was Madeline Talbott — an activist with extensive ties to Barack Obama.  She was also in on the ground floor of the disastrous turn in Fannie Mae's mortgage policies.  Long the director of Chicago ACORN, Talbott is a specialist in "direct action" — organizers' term for their militant tactics of intimidation and disruption.  Perhaps her most famous stunt was leading a group of ACORN protesters breaking into a meeting of the Chicago City Council to push for a "living wage" law, shouting in defiance as she was arrested for mob action and disorderly conduct.  But her real legacy may be her drive to push banks into making risky mortgage loans.

ACORN:  A Clear and Present Danger.  What I have not been able to figure out is why the leaders of the group have not been indicted under RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) for taking part in an ongoing criminal organization.  The only logical reason that the feds have backed off is because of ACORN's close ties to organized labor.  Tragically, in 2008 America, it's not only individuals who are easily intimidated, but the government itself.

Financial Affirmative Action:  After [the Community Reinvestment Act] came into effect, Saul Alinsky-inspired "community organizer" groups such as Greenlining, ACORN, and National Council of La Raza got into the shakedown business.  They preach the hateful class-warfare rhetoric of their fellow community organizers Jeremiah Wright, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Michael Pfleger.  They rage against capitalism and demand crushing taxes and aggressive wealth redistribution programs.  They demand more government spending on social programs, a higher minimum wage, and gun control.

From a little ACORN.  ACORN stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a busy hive of left-wing agitation and "direct action" that claims chapters in 50 cities and 100,000 dues-paying members.  ACORN is where 1960s leftovers who couldn't get tenure at universities wound up.

The Acorn Indictments:  A union-backed outfit faces charges of election fraud.  So, less than a week before the [2006] midterm elections, four workers from Acorn, the liberal activist group that has registered millions of voters, have been indicted by a federal grand jury for submitting false voter registration forms to the Kansas City, Missouri, election board.  But hey, who needs voter ID laws?

ACORN's Suspect Voter Drive:  ACORN … has received wide attention for claiming to have registered more than one million new voters nationwide.  But in state after state allegations are surfacing that ACORN activists are padding the registration books.  In Colorado hundreds of voter registration forms are suspect.  On October 12 Denver television station KUSA reported that one woman admitted to forging three people's names on 40 registration forms to help her boyfriend earn an extra $50 from ACORN.  According to the Associated Press, she also signed herself up to vote 25 times.

Law puts thousands of Florida voter IDs in question.  About 3,200 new voters are in the cross-hairs of Florida's new and controversial "no-match" law, which could force them to cast provisional ballots on Election Day if officials can't confirm their identities.  The law, designed to prevent potential election fraud and remove joke names from voter rolls — "Ricco Suave" and "Joe Blow" among them — requires local elections officials to mail letters to anyone whose registration information doesn't match the state's driver's license or Social Security databases.

Liberals Would Let Dogs Vote.  Nowadays dogs, the deceased, convicted felons, illegal immigrants and imaginary people are registered to vote.  This shouldn't be.  But to hear some liberal groups, any rules and restrictions on the franchise are intolerable.  One liberal group seems to think that everyone should get to register to vote no matter whether they're legally entitled to vote.  The only disqualifying factor might be if the prospective voter doesn't support the group's radical agenda.  That group is ACORN….

Voter Fraud Made Easy:  ACORN Shows The Way.  The Wall Street Journal reported that an Ohio ACORN worker was given crack cocaine in exchange for fraudulent voter registration cards.  Many of the newly registered voters were deceased, underage or were named Mary Poppins, Dick Tracy or Jive Turkey.  In Minnesota, authorities founds hundreds of voter registration cards in the trunk of a car owned by a former ACORN worker suspected of registering voters twice so he could double his fees.

ACORN's Hypocritical House of Cards:  The Consumers Rights League has published a collection of whistleblower documents that suggest "consumer advocacy" group ACORN has reaped substantial financial gains by misusing taxpayer dollars for political ends and attacking lending corporations for the same 'predatory' lending practices it regularly engages in.  These internal emails and policies suggest that ACORN has failed to maintain a proper distinction between its tax-exempt housing work and its aggressive political activities.  ACORN and its affiliates are then able to extract resources from financial lenders seeking abatement from its public relations assaults and force financial settlement agreements that benefit ACORN but are harmful for consumers.

ACORN's mandate today includes all issues touching low-income and working-class people.  The organization runs schools where children are trained in class consciousness; it oversees a network of "boot camps" where street activists are trained; and it conducts operations that extort contributions from banks and other businesses under threat of trumped-up civil rights charges.

— Discover the Networks      

Incidentally...  Activist group ACORN, a longtime proponent of a "living wage" for workers, has been stiffing its own employees, the Baltimore City Paper reported July 26.  Sandra Stewart, a $250 a week intern at the Baltimore branch of the group, complained to the newspaper that the advocacy group had failed to pay her for six weeks of work.  "I find it completely ironic that an organization that fights for social justice" has trouble paying its workers, Stewart wrote in a letter to the paper that sparked its interest in the story.  The paper reported that other ACORN ex-employees have also complained about not being paid back wages.

Minimum Wage Hits $9.50 in Santa Fe.  This month, in the liberal bastion of Santa Fe, New Mexico, they are raising the minimum wage in the city to $9.50 per hour.  The measure applies to all businesses with 25 or more employees.  The driving force behind this decision was Acorn, the 'national community organization,' as Jon Gertner describes it in The New York Times Magazine for January 15, 2006.  Acorn has discovered that the way to win on the minimum wage issue is to cast it not as an economic issue but as a moral issue.

Rotten ACORN:  In what is being called the "worst case of voter registration fraud in Washington state history," seven employees of the liberal advocacy group ACORN have been charged with filling out fake voter registration forms. … The defendants allegedly faked more than 1700 voter registration forms.  They, like all ACORN employees nationwide, are paid by for every name they sign up.  This has led to widespread charges of fraud in Missouri, Ohio, and 12 other states.

Missing headlines:  leftwing voter fraud guilty plea.  Readers may recall that the state of Washington was in the news in 2004 for the closeness of the election for Governor (won by Christine Democrat Gregoire by all of 133 votes; her Republican opponent, Dino Rossi, has since announced plans to run again next year).  That race was subject to claims of voter fraud.  While the defendants who worked for ACORN did not plead guilty for acts that led to actual voting... where there is smoke there is usually fire.

Obama's Ties To ACORN More Substantial than first believed.  You've heard of Moveon.org and Code Pink — two radical leftist groups seeking to elect out and out socialists to public office and who are fierce opponents of the capitalist system.  But have you heard of ACORN? … Not surprisingly it turns out that Reverend Jeremiah Wright and Father Michael Pfleger — two radical clergy closely associated with Obama — have extensive ties to ACORN.  Their views fit nicely within the ACORN anti-capitalist agenda that they have been pushing for years.

ACORN's Nutty Regime for Cities:  If you thought the New Left was dead in America, think again.  Walk through just about any of the nation's inner cities, and you're likely to find an office of ACORN, bustling with young people working 12-hour days to "organize the poor" and bring about "social change."  The largest radical group in the country, ACORN has 120,000 dues-paying members, chapters in 700 poor neighborhoods in 50 cities, and 30 years' experience.  It boasts two radio stations, a housing corporation, a law office, and affiliate relationships with a host of trade-union locals.

Acorn Squash.  While Acorn now operates in more than 100 cities with a national budget of $37 million, it never truly left behind the welfare-rights mentality.  One is hard-pressed to find in the organization's many antipoverty initiatives any programs that address social dysfunctions like illegitimacy and single parenthood. ... While [the Community Reinvestment Act] spurred Acorn's growth, the "living wage" is the group's most successful local issue.

Obama's Alliance with Marxists.  Erik Ericson of RedState.com has a very detailed article today on Barack Obama's connection to a neo-Marxist political party called the "New Party."  Basically, Obama sought out the group as a result of his work with another far left organization ACORN — a "non-partisan" acvitist group whose members have been convicted in several states of vote fraud.

Whistleblower Documents Reveal ACORN's Apparent Misuse.  The ACORN Housing Association (AHC), an ACORN affiliate that receives over 40% of its funding from government sources, claims to be a consumer advocate.  In a newly-released report from CRL, however, a series of documents obtained from a whistleblower source reveals hypocritical and potentially illegal use of taxpayer dollars by ACORN and its related organizations.  These documents — which include staff emails and internal organization policies — suggest that ACORN has failed to maintain a proper distinction between its tax-exempt housing work and its aggressive political activities.

$1 Million Scandal is the Latest to Hit ACORN.  ACORN and its affiliates have a multi-decade history of fraud and abuse of taxpayer funds.  Recently, the Consumers Rights League released a whistleblower report that uses internal ACORN documents to highlight alleged misuses of taxpayer money by ACORN Housing Corp, which took in 40% of its funds from the government and sent more than a million dollars to ACORN's affiliate, Citizens Consulting.  Now, The New York Times reports that ACORN has hid since 2001 the embezzlement of nearly $1 million by the brother of ACORN's founder from that same organization — Citizens Consulting.

ACORN will hold national board meeting in N.O. Friday.  At its national board meeting in New Orleans Friday [10/17/2008], the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now will try to resolve whether two board members overstepped their authority by filing a lawsuit seeking access to financial records that might shed light on an embezzlement scandal involving the founder's brother.

Missing ACORN funds spark lawsuit, power struggle.  Leaders of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now are locked in a legal dispute stemming from allegations that the brother of the group's founder misappropriated nearly $1 million of the nonprofit's money several years ago.  The embezzlement case, a recent revelation to some board members, has spawned a lawsuit and set off a power struggle inside ACORN at a time when the liberal group's voter registration practices are the subject of fraud investigations and fodder for presidential campaign attacks.

Acorn falls into more trouble.  The lawsuit filed in August by two board members accuses ACORN founder and former chief organizer Wade Rathke of either concealing or failing to properly report that his brother Dale embezzled around $948,000 in 1999 and 2000.  Instead of reporting the allegations to police, ACORN executives allowed the Rathke family to repay the money, according to the lawsuit brought by board members Karen Inman and Marcel Reid.

Authorities probe voter registration.  A voter registration drive by a national organization is being investigated by Dauphin County authorities after election officials raised questions about more than 100 of the forms.  Charles Jackson, a spokesman for [ACORN], said that his organization fired a temporary employee involved in collecting registrations and that it has been cooperating with Dauphin County detectives.

Obama Finds An ACORN.  Acorn has been in the lead in opposing voter ID laws and other efforts to ensure ballot integrity.  Acorn has been implicated in voter fraud and bogus registration schemes in Ohio and at least 13 other states.  voter ID laws.

Another Acorn Scandal:  The folks at the far-left radical activist group ACORN are embroiled in a financial corruption and cover-up scandal that they managed to keep hidden from their donors and political partners for eight years.  Now their deception has been uncovered for all to see.  But is ACORN's leadership apologetic?  Not in the slightest.  "We did what we thought was right," said the group's president, Maude Hurd.

ACORN Cracks Wide Open.  For several weeks ACORN has been reeling over accusations that [Wade] Rathke's brother, Dale, had embezzled nearly $1 million during the turn of the decade — and that both had conspired to cover up the offense.  That triggered Wade Rathke's resignation on June 2 as chief organizer.  Sometime this spring an internal whistle-blower forced ACORN leaders to admit if not complicity in all this, then at least a moral blind spot.

ACORN fires 2 who were probing embezzlement allegations.  Community organizing group ACORN, investigated this year for filing fraudulent voter registration forms, has fired two board members it had asked to investigate allegations that an ACORN founder's brother embezzled nearly $1 million.

Obama to amend report on $800,000 in spending.  Money flows back and forth between ACORN, Citizens Services Inc., Project Vote and Communities Voting Together.  ACORN posts job ads for Citizens Services and Project Vote.  Communities Voting Together contributed $60,000 to Citizens Services Inc., for example, in November 2005, according to a posting on CampaignMoney.com.  Project Vote has hired ACORN and CSI as its highest paid contractors, paying ACORN $4,649,037 in 2006 and CSI $779,016 in 2006, according to [Jim] Terry of the Consumers Rights League.

Cuyahoga board probes ACORN voter registration drive.  A national organization that conducts voter registration drives for low-income people has curtailed its push in Cuyahoga County after the Board of Elections accused its workers of submitting fraudulent registration cards. … Board employees said ACORN workers often handed in the same name on a number of voter registration cards, but showing that person living at different addresses.  Other times, cards had the same name listed, but a different date of birth.  Still another sign of possible fraud showed a number of people living at an address that turned out to be a restaurant.

Head of Foundation Bailed Out Nonprofit Group After Its Funds Were Embezzled.  In 2000, Acorn discovered that Dale Rathke had embezzled $948,507.50 from it and affiliated charitable organizations.  The management committee that controlled the organization decided not to alert law enforcement officials, and negotiated an agreement with the Rathke family to repay the money.  That agreement was carried on the books of an affiliate, Citizens Consulting Inc., as a loan to an officer.

ACORN's board sues over records in funds theft.  Board directors at ACORN — the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now — are demanding the organization turn over financial records relating to the embezzlement of nearly $1 million by the brother of ACORN's founder.  Board members Marcel Reid and Karen Inman are seeking a court order that also would sever ties between ACORN and founder Wade Rathke, The New York Times reported Tuesday [9/9/2008].

Bad voter applications found.  Several municipal clerks across the state are reporting fraudulent and duplicate voter registration applications, most of them from a nationwide community activist group working to help low- and moderate-income families.  The majority of the problem applications are coming from the group ACORN, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which has a large voter registration program among its many social service programs.  ACORN's Michigan branch, based in Detroit, has enrolled 200,000 voters statewide in recent months, mostly with the use of paid, part-time employees.

More ACORN Vote Fraud Attempts.  It is looking like fraud on a massive scale in Detroit as ACORN tries to fill the Democrat voter rolls with fake Democrat voters. ACORN is being investigated after several Municipal Clerks discovered fraudulent and duplicate voter registration applications.

Voter Fraud:  More Than 1,000 Voter Cards Suspect.  Some of the estimated 1,100 registrations list Social Security numbers for people who already are in the county's database of registered voters, Toulouse Oliver said.  Other cards list the same name — but a different birth date — of already registered voters.  Some of the people whose names appear in the list of possibly phony registrations, when called by the clerk's office, said they never filled out the new cards changing their voter data, Toulouse Oliver said.

Republicans, ACORN feud over suspicious voter cards.  An ACORN spokesman said the group spotted what appeared to be forged registration cards weeks ago and fired a worker over them.  Seminole's election chief, Mike Ertel, said he was still "tremendously concerned," but stopped well short of calling the incident "fraud."  The Republican National Committee, though, levelled the accusation and blasted the housing and wage advocacy group in a nationwide conference call with reporters, saying this wasn't an isolated incident.

Workers from Community Voters Project implicated in voter fraud.  ACORN and the Community Voters Project are among five activist groups, all from the liberal side of the political spectrum, that have launched massive voter registration drives in advance of the Nov. 4 presidential election.  Those developments have revived partisan debate over whether Wisconsin should require voters to show photo identification to prevent fraud or whether such measures would dampen turnout among poor and minority voters.

An ACORN Falls from the Tree.  ACORN has often been in the news since 2004.  Officially, they work to register voters and support housing.  In reality, everyone in public life knows that they are hardcore supporters for the Democratic Party, and employ bare-knuckle tactics.  Their organization is plagued by repeated investigations of voter fraud and other crimes.  In Ohio, where as secretary of state I oversaw elections for eight years, ACORN has been busy.  One ACORN man in Reynoldsburg was indicted on two felony counts of voter fraud, and another was indicted in Columbus.  Other such problems surfaced in Cuyahoga County, where criminal investigations are ongoing.  It's not just Ohio.  ACORN personnel are facing criminal charges in over a dozen states.

ACORN:  The Poisonous Nut that Ended Democracy in America.  In truth, ACORN is the most virulent, organized crime group in this decade... and it is funded by you.  Put simply, ACORN is ripping off the taxpayer through Congressional hand outs.  In fact, ACORN was recently due to receive nearly $700 million of the $700 billion dollar bailout bill until Republicans in the Senate redlined it.

ACORN's 1st hearing canceled.  The initial court hearing over a leadership crisis at the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now and a possible coverup of a $1 million embezzlement scandal was scuttled Thursday [10/3/2008] when it became clear that defendants had not been properly served notice of the proceedings.  "It appears that due to Hurricanes Ike and/or Gustav, there was a service problem," Civil District Court Judge Michael Bagneris said after an hour and 45 minutes of delays.

ACORN vote fraud continues.  ACORN, responsible for so much vote fraud in Wisconsin and elsewhere, violated Wisconsin law by employing felons for its voter registration drive. Milwaukee election officials approved this and were caught out at it.

Non-Profit Raided In Voter Fraud Probe.  The Las Vegas headquarters of the nation's largest grassroots community organization for low-income people was raided today by Nevada state authorities as part of a voter-fraud probe.  The raid was initiated by Nevada's Secretary of State, Ross Miller, after a series of accusations that the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, also known as ACORN, was submitting voter registration lists to the state that contained false or duplicate names of voters.

Fraud Raid Sacks Bam Activists.  Officials yesterday raided the Las Vegas headquarters of a major pro-Obama community-organizing group as part of a probe into alleged voter fraud that includes using the names of Dallas Cowboy players on sham registrations.  At least four Nevada agents swept into the offices of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, in the morning with a search warrant.

ACORN Vegas Office Raided in Voter Fraud Investigation.  Nevada state authorities seized records and computers Tuesday [10/7/2008] from the Las Vegas office of an organization that tries to get low-income people registered to vote, after fielding complaints of voter fraud.  Bob Walsh, spokesman for the Nevada secretary of state's office, told FOXNews.com the raid was prompted by ongoing complaints about "erroneous" registration information being submitted by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, also called ACORN.

Smells from the shadows:  An investigation of ACORN, a cabal of "political activists" hired to register voters in the neighborhoods where few friends of John McCain abide has now spread to 10 states.  Investigators discovered that the entire offensive line of the Dallas Cowboys had signed up to vote in Las Vegas, unless it turns out that someone forged their signatures to make a quota.  The rules for this game were written in Chicago.

Liberal group's fraud shows voter ID need.  My introduction to ACORN was in the 1990s.  When the savings and loan debacle occurred and large numbers of S&Ls had to be taken into receivership, I was the eastern U.S. director of investigations for the Resolution Trust Corporation, the agency established to clean up the mess. … The history of ACORN fraud and intimidation makes a long list.  While Cynthia Tucker makes readers mad at mean Republicans trying to intimidate voters by asking them to show ID that proves who they are, ACORN is just one example that proves the need, for those of you who need proof.

Is ACORN trying to steal the election?  A radical group Barack Obama used to work for is committing voter-registration fraud in several states, ahead of the election.  What does Obama know about this scam?  It's a legitimate question to raise now that the FBI has raided the offices of the nonprofit [ACORN] in Nevada and North Carolina, two states where Obama and John McCain are running neck-and-neck.  ACORN has registered bogus voters in both states.

Missouri officials suspect fake voter registration.  Officials in Missouri, a hard-fought jewel in the presidential race, are sifting through possibly hundreds of questionable or duplicate voter-registration forms submitted by an advocacy group that has been accused of election fraud in other states.  Charlene Davis, co-director of the election board in Jackson County, where Kansas City is, said the fraudulent registration forms came from the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN.

ACORN: Look, We Can't Weed Out Fraudulent Voters. It's What We Do.  As I noted back in July 2007, ACORN members have been convicted in Wisconsin and Colorado, and had various forms of reprimand, investigation, indictment, and other run-ins with the law and state election authorities in Virginia, Texas, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Ohio, New Mexico, North Carolina, Missouri, Michigan, Florida, and Arkansas.  Yes, this is the ACORN that Obama worked for.

RNC Says ACORN is Undermining the Electoral System.  Nevada authorities raided the offices of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) on Tuesday [10/7/2008], as part of an investigation into suspected voter-registration fraud.  The Republican National Committee (RNC) responded on Wednesday by accusing ACORN of a "significant and blatant" effort to undermine this year's election.

Voter Fraud Ignored by Government and Media.  I'm happy to announce that the mainstream news media are beginning to cover the story of rampant voter fraud perpetrated by liberal organizations such as ACORN.  I've been covering this story for years as part of my overall coverage of illegal aliens and immigration.  While Barack Obama is scolding AIG and corporate America, he's served as an attorney for ACORN in the past, and has not once mentioned the federal investigation of that organization.

ACORN should be Obama's undoing.  We will never know exactly how many fraudulent votes ACORN will be responsible for in the upcoming presidential election, but If the whole truth about ACORN and its long and intimate relationship with rookie United States Senator and 2008 Democrat presidential nominee Barack Hussein Obama, Jr.  becomes fully and generally known, on Election Night 2008 Obama and his ACORNites will moan.

How ACORN Got Me Into Vote Scam.  Two Ohio voters, including Domino's pizza worker Christopher Barkley, claimed yesterday that they were hounded by the community-activist group ACORN to register to vote several times, even though they made it clear they'd already signed up.  Barkley estimated he'd registered to vote "10 to 15" times after canvassers for ACORN, whose political wing has endorsed Barack Obama, relentlessly pursued him and others.

Did ACORN Take Obama's 'Get In Their Face' Rallying Cry Literally?  When Barack Obama was on the boards of the Joyce Foundation and the Woods Foundation, the two groups gave "tens of millions" of dollars to ACORN.  In 1992, Obama headed the efforts of Project Vote in Illinois, an ACORN affiliate.

1 Voter, 72 Registrations.  A man at the center of a voter-registration scandal told The Post yesterday [10/9/2008] he was given cash and cigarettes by aggressive ACORN activists in exchange for registering an astonishing 72 times, in apparent violation of Ohio laws.  "Sometimes, they come up and bribe me with a cigarette, or they'll give me a dollar to sign up," said Freddie Johnson, 19, who filled out 72 separate voter-registration cards over an 18-month period at the behest of the left-leaning Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

Fictitious Donors Found in Obama Finance Records.  An analysis of campaign finance records by The New York Times this week found nearly 3,000 donations to Mr. Obama, the Democratic nominee, from more than a dozen people with apparently fictitious donor information. … It is unclear why someone making a political donation would want to enter a false name.  Some perhaps did it for privacy reasons.  Another, more ominous possibility, of course, is fraud, perhaps in order to donate beyond the maximum limits.

The Editor says...
 Not only is the New York Times lagging weeks behind the internet on this story, their reporter can't figure out "why someone making a political donation would want to enter a false name."  That doesn't sound to me like the work of major-market journalists.

Boehner escalates war on ACORN.  House Republican leader John A. Boehner of Ohio escalated the war on ACORN today [10/9/2008], calling for it to be cut off from all federal money and going so far as to call for a ban on ACORN contracting with candidates for federal office.  ACORN, a community organizing group allied with Democrats, has been blamed by the GOP for pushing housing policies that Republicans say contributed to the housing crisis.  It has been the subject of investigations for voter registration fraud and its Nevada offices were recently raided.

Connecicut looking into voter cards submitted by ACORN.  Joseph Borges, Bridgeport's Republican registrar of voters, filed the complaint.  He said he has found problems with numerous voter registration cards submitted by [ACORN], which works to register low-income people.  In one instance, he says a card was filled out for a 7-year-old girl, whose age was listed as 27 on the card.  ACORN filed more than 8,000 cards in Bridgeport.  The complaint involves 10, but Borges said there were problems with many others.

7-Year-Old Gets an Acorn Vote.  O'jahnae Smith is ready and registered to vote this November.  There's only one problem:  She's 7 years old.  The Connecticut girl is 11 years too young — and nobody in her family knows how she ended up on a voter registration form submitted by ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

Hoosiers turn out in masses for Obama rally.  In Lake County [Indiana], 18,000 new voters have registered in the last two weeks, about 5,000 of them signed up by ACORN, said Ruthann Hoagland, of the county's board of elections.  As they started making verification calls on the ACORN registrations, employees found about half were false, she said.  One was for a Mr. Johns Jimmy at the address of a Jimmy John's sandwich shop in Crown Point.  Some registrants were dead.

Missouri officials suspect fake voter registration.  Officials in Missouri, a hard-fought jewel in the presidential race, are sifting through possibly hundreds of questionable or duplicate voter-registration forms submitted by an advocacy group that has been accused of election fraud in other states.

It's time to shut down ACORN, work against voter fraud.  Thousands of fraudulent voter registrations have surfaced after having been submitted by ACORN.  In some parts of Ohio, over half of the registrations submitted by ACORN are at least questionable.  ACORN even admits that it is unable to insure there is no fraud.  In the Kansas City area, one name, Monica Ray, registered 20 times.  It is time to put a stop to ACORN and restore some integrity to the election process.

ACORN fraud and other Democratic voting shenanigans across the country.  The radical group ACORN has been working for the Obama campaign since its inception — despite its tax status as a "non-partisan" organization … Legitimate questions are being raised as to whether the Obama campaign is knowledgeable of or involved in these fraudulent schemes.  Obama's close ties to ACORN make the idea that his campaign was not aware of what the organization was doing for him unbelievable.  Will the press stand by while the Democrats steal the election?

What is ACORN?  The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, better known as ACORN, is under investigation by state and federal authorities for its voter registration drives.  Allegations are that ACORN's get-out-the-vote efforts have produced thousands of fraudulent registrations.  The probes are encouraging; America wouldn't be in position to criticize other nations of ballot-stuffing if it permits the same at home.  What's most encouraging, though, is that House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio is calling for ACORN to be defunded.

Thousands of voter registration forms faked, officials say.  More than 2,000 voter registration forms filed in northern Indiana's Lake County by a liberal activist group this week have turned out to be bogus, election officials said Thursday.  The group — the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN — already faces allegations of filing fraudulent voter registrations in Nevada and faces investigations in other states.

Democrats accused of trying to steal election.  A number of press reports have surfaced recently about a large number of invalid registrations submitted by Acorn — some of which were revisited by [John] Danforth.  In Nevada, canvassers submitted the names of members of the Dallas Cowboys football team and Mickey Mouse as new voters.  In Indiana, they put in the name of a local restaurant — Jimmy John.  In Ohio, one man registered 73 times.  In Missouri, 10 registrations were submitted in the name of a dead woman.

The Editor says...
 The ACORN fraud discovered so far is just the tip of the iceberg — these are just the ones that have been caught!

ACORN scandal elicits vote-theft charge.  Three weeks before Election Day, more instances of fraud connected to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now are surfacing, including Mickey Mouse registering to vote in Florida.  The Republican Party is quick to pounce.

AG: Jackson man working for ACORN forged voter forms.  A 23-year-old man accused of submitting forged voter registration forms to the Jackson [Michigan] city clerk was arraigned today [10/14/2008] on felony forgery charges.  Antonio Johnson is accused of filling out, signing and submitting six applications using Jackson residents' names without their permission, according to a the Michigan Attorney General's Office.

De-Fund ACORN, Republican Leader Insists.  "All federal funding to ACORN must be stopped," House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said on Thursday [10/9/2008], amid a widening probe into voter registration fraud by the liberal group.  Questionable or duplicate voter-registration forms submitted by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, have turned up in as many as nine states, including so-called swing states.

Bam's Vote-Fraud Buddies:  Ohio. Nevada. Connecticut. Indiana. Michigan. Missouri. New Mexico. North Carolina. Wisconsin.  That's the list of states where investigations are under way into allegations of fraud in the new-voter registrations collected by Barack Obama's preferred collection of "community organizers," the radical extremists of ACORN.  In some cases, however, ACORN is getting some high-placed help — from the (Democratic) state officials whose job should include uncovering voting fraud.

Stealing Pennsylvania:  "Massive Fraud".  [Robert] Gleason was even more explicit.  "Between March 23rd and October 1st, various groups, including ACORN, submitted over 252,595 registrations to the Philadelphia County Election Board" with 57,435 rejected for faulty information.  "Most of these registrations were submitted by ACORN, and rejected due to fake social security numbers, incorrect dates of birth, clearly fraudulent signatures, addresses that do not exist, and duplicate registrations.  In one case, a man was registered to vote more than 15 times since the Primary election."  "Voter fraud is no longer just a Philadelphia problem," Gleason said, with ACORN targeting key counties across the state.

Court halts voter verification.  A federal appeals court in Cincinnati sided with Ohio's top elections official Friday [10/10/2008] in her running battle with Republicans over how to verify the eligibility of newly registered voters.  A three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals put on hold an order from a federal judge that Democratic Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner institute the means to verify voter registration information and make it available to Ohio's 88 county election boards.

Update:
 Judge rules to halt removal of voters.  A federal judge in Detroit ordered state elections officials Monday to halt one method of removing people from Michigan's voting rolls.  The judge found that a second method the state uses to purge voters also was illegal, but declined to take immediate action on that practice.  In a ruling hailed by the American Civil Liberties Union ...

[When the ACLU is happy, that's always a bad sign.]

Another update:
 6th Circuit reverses on temporary restraining order.  A 3-judge panel of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals recently vacated a temporary restraining order which would effectively make Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner follow the law — and do her job — in preventing election fraud.  Tonight, the full court decided to hear the case en banc, and has reimposed the TRO.  This is great news.

Republicans file new lawsuit against Brunner.  Having lost before the U.S. Supreme Court in a lawsuit involving the verification of new voter registrations, Republicans now are turning to the Ohio Supreme Court.  David Myhal, a Republican from New Albany, filed a lawsuit this afternoon asking the state's highest court to issue an order related to instances when new voter information doesn't match records in state or federal databases.

Glitches fill Ohio voter rolls.  In Hamilton County, 17 people are registered to vote from riverfront addresses south of Mehring Way — places with street numbers that would put their homes somewhere in the Ohio River.  Another 46 voters are registered at addresses that would put their homes in the middle of the Paul Brown Stadium parking lot, or at the riverfront project known as The Banks — which hasn't been built.  An Enquirer analysis of more than 8 million Ohio voter registration records found a litany of quirks, inconsistencies, errors, duplicate registrations and other problems with little more than two weeks until Election Day.

Cleveland Election Officials Launch Probe of ACORN.  Election officials in Ohio's most populous county have called on the prosecuting attorney to investigate alleged voter registration fraud by the community organizing group ACORN.  The bipartisan Cuyahoga County Board of Elections voted unanimously Monday to ask prosecutor Bill Mason to investigate four incidents of people signing multiple voter registration forms at the request of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform.

ACORN voter registrations probed.  The State Board of Elections in North Carolina is investigating suspicious voter registration forms submitted by a grass-roots organization whose problems have drawn national attention.  The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now conducted a voter drive that registered nearly 28,000 in North Carolina.  But some forms it filed had information that may have been copied from phone books, local election officials said.

Bogus Voter Booted Amid Probe of Acorn.  Investigators probing ACORN have learned that an Ohio man registered to vote several times and cast a bogus ballot with a fake address, officials said yesterday, as they revealed that nearly 4,000 registration applications supplied by the left-leaning activist group were suspect.

ACORN's Rap Sheet:  The Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now has compiled an irrefutable record of voter registration fraud in recent elections.  The non-profit is accused of submitting fraudulent voter registration applications in 13 states this election cycle.  Seven of those states have already launched investigations into ACORN's activities.  During the 2006 election cycle, ACORN submitted false applications to election officials in Missouri, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington.

The Acorn Doesn't Fall Far from the Tree.  Voter registration fraud is a serious problem that endangers the security of our elections and puts legitimate voters at risk of having their ballots devalued or stolen.  To combat this issue, Congress made such fraud a serious federal crime.  It is therefore deeply troubling to read continued reports of alleged voter registration fraud in many of the states that are considered to be "battleground states" and where the margin of victory or loss could be small.

ACORN Faces "RICO" Lawsuit in Ohio.  This isn't quite what we were expecting but we've learned that the Buckeye Institute has filed suit against vote manufacturer ACORN and its vote fraud marketing arm, Project Vote, under Ohio's Corrupt Activity Act.

FEC Should Start Obama Audit Now.  Turns out that "Doodad Pro" and "Good Will" are not the only phony contributors to Barack Obama's presidential campaign.  The New York Times finally bestirred itself to apply some basic investigative journalism attention to the Democratic presidential nominee's donor list.  The Times found nearly 3,000 other questionable donors like "Jgtj Jfggjjfgj" and "Dirty West" after what the paper admitted was just a cursory look at the Illinois senator's September financial filings.

ACORN's Bad Seed.  As a major voting fraud scandal explodes, the mainstream media seem intent on ignoring it.  Given the seriousness of the charges, maybe a formal federal investigation is in order.

ACORN irregularities alleged.  A former ACORN worker alleges he was fired four years ago by the organization after complaining about voter-registration irregularities to the El Paso County Elections Office.  "I was punished unfairly for being a whistle-blower, because I complained about what I observed at the ACORN office," said Daniel Mahar, a bartender and a stock-market day trader.

Election Theft: Try, Try Again.  George W. Bush's presidential approval rating is nearing the all-time low.  Partially because of his performance, and also due to the almost immediate barrage of leftist hate directed at him since the day he took office in 2001.  Remember, it was not because he won the 2000 election against Al Gore.  It was because he "stole" it.  I contend George W. Bush didn't steal the election, but [he won] because liberal groups like ACORN didn't work hard enough to steal it for Gore.  It would appear ACORN has re-doubled its efforts.

FBI Launches ACORN Probe.  The FBI has launched an investigation into ACORN, the scandal-scarred activist group that is facing accusations of voter-registration fraud across the country, authorities said yesterday [10/16/2008].  Word of the probe comes amid allegations in at least a dozen states that canvassers for ACORN, whose political arm has endorsed Barack Obama, have been accused of submitting tens of thousands of bogus registration cards.

FBI's Investigation of ACORN a Welcome Development.  House Republican Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri applauded reports this afternoon that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has opened a criminal investigation into whether the left-wing advocacy group ACORN has violated federal election law by fostering and promoting a national program of voter registration fraud.  The Associated Press reported today [10/16/2008] that the FBI is actively pursuing leads in the investigation of ACORN.

Why should McCain be angry? Top 10 reasons.  [#9] ACORN is trying to steal the election in battleground states.  Obama has long term association with this group and they are obviously trying to get him elected via fraudulent votes.  The Attorney General of Ohio is fighting a court order to validate thousands of suspicious registration cards.  Why would she do that if there was nothing to hide?  The media give Obama a pass.

Pro-Obama Ohio Secretary of State Refuses to Stop Voter Fraud.  To be filed under "suspicions confirmed," patently partisan-for-Obama supporter Democrat Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer "I-never-met-an-ACORN-worker-I-didn't-like" Brunner has stomped her feet and decided that she should not be required to do her job; that of protecting Ohio voters from election fraud.  She has also decided that she will elicit help from the US Supreme Court in upholding her desire.

How They Cheat:  The Ohio Secretary of State, Democrat Jennifer Brunner, was forced to reveal this week that she is sitting on over 200,000 possibly fraudulent voter registrations.  The documents have a variety of problems such as mismatched drivers license and Social Security numbers.  Despite mounting evidence of voter fraud and the staggering number of problem registrations, Brunner Wednesday night appealed to the United States Supreme Court ...

Update:
 Supreme Court Rules With Ohio Secretary of State on Voter Fraud Rules.  The U.S. Supreme Court agreed with Democratic Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, granting her a stay on Friday [10/17/2008] to a temporary restraining order from the 6th Circuit Court that ordered her to provide a system for implementing voter fraud prevention methods.  The decision by the full court repudiates the lower court's ruling siding with the Ohio Republican Party and ordering Brunner to verify records of about 200,000 of 666,000 new voters this year whose driver's license and Social Security records don't match information in other government databases.

Officials: FBI investigates ACORN for voter fraud.  The FBI is investigating whether the community activist group ACORN helped foster voter registration fraud around the nation before the presidential election.  A senior law enforcement official confirmed the investigation to The Associated Press on Thursday [10/16/2008].

ACORN Admits Project Vote is Part of ACORN.  ACORN doesn't seem to have learned that if you're going to lie, at least lie consistently.  The radical left-wing group, which has been arguing strenuously that Project Vote is a separate entity, posted a job listing at idealist.org for Project Vote.  This demonstrates that the two organizations are virtually one and the same.

ACORN Voter Fraud in NM:  The liberals defending ACORN's fraudulent voter registration efforts have said again and again voter registration fraud doesn't lead to voter fraud.  Well, we didn't have to wait till Election Day to find out they're wrong.  The Associated Press reported Friday [10/17/2008] that the New Mexico GOP found 28 people who voted fraudulently in Albuquerque during the June Democratic primary by absentee ballot.  One of the ballots was cast from someone named "Duran-Duran".

Vote-Theft, ACORN-Style.  After weeks of reports of wide spread fraud, the FBI has opened an investigation into the far-left "community organizer" group's nationwide voter-registration campaign.  Talk about bolting the barn after the horses are out.  It's extremely unlikely that anything significant will come of it before Election Day.  Still, the fact that the Justice Department has gotten involved signifies an appreciation that what ACORN has tried to portray as the inevitably haphazard efforts of local organizers is more likely a nationwide, coordinated voter-registration scam.

28 Out of 92 Cast Votes in NM Democratic Primary Appear Fake.  When you see the same issues coming up with the same group in fourteen different instances, how much more evidence do you need before you conclude that this is "organized voter fraud"?

Pennsylvania GOP Sues ACORN and Rendell Appointee.  The announcement was made at a press conference in the State Capitol by Pennsylvania Republican State Chairman Robert Gleason. "With the election being only a couple of weeks away and with more and more incidents of voter fraud coming to light, we don't believe that we can trust the results of this election," Gleason said.

A genuine threat: ACORN targets a weakness in democracy.  To end the many obstacles Southern states put up before African-American voters as late as the 1960s, Congress worked for decades to make voting much easier.  These efforts had a hugely positive effect — until the 1993 "motor voter" law.  This measure and some related laws made registration so easy — and so difficult to verify because of a lack of resources and time — that they created nothing less than a structural weakness in American democracy.  This election year, we're seeing a determined, well-funded effort to exploit this weakness, led by ACORN.

Could the US election be stolen?  Experts warn that a bitter and protracted fight could ensue if the race to the White House is decided by a narrow margin.  The legal battle over election rules has already made it all the way to the Supreme Court as Republicans fight to block potentially false registrations from being validated and Democrats struggle to prevent voter disenfranchisement.  Compounding the problem is the decentralized US electoral system, which hands often partisan local officials the power to make rules and maintain the voter registration rolls.

'Try Harder'.  Pushed to meet daily quotas and bullied by bosses if they didn't, Ohio ACORN workers faked voter registrations, signed up people more than once, and even paid off registrants to keep from being fired, its canvassers told The Post.  "Every day, there was pressure on us.  Every single day," said Teshika Elder, a Cleveland single mom of three who worked for ACORN this summer.

A National Plague of Unlawful Voting.  I have always disliked the "goo-goo" types.  That stands for good government, the people who want everybody to vote.  I don't want the uninformed to vote because either they will vote the familiar name or they will vote the way somebody tells them to vote.  The goo-goo crowd must be in seventh heaven because in Indianapolis, 105% of the voting age population is eligible to vote.  Thanks to the so-called nonpartisan Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), a great many people who are dead, invented or just plain silly have registered.

45% Say ACORN Trying to Register Illegal Voters.  Forty-five percent (45%) of voters say the liberal activist group ACORN is trying to register voters illegally, but they're divided over whether Barack Obama has ties to the group, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.  Only 25% think ACORN, under investigation in several states for possible voter registration fraud, is not trying to put illegal voters on the rolls.

Help ACORN Mess with Votes Act.  The Republican party sued to force Brunner to comply with Section 303 of HAVA. ... What is amusing is that this very issue came up in 2004, when the Democratic party filed the first lawsuits under HAVA — against then-Ohio secretary of state Ken Blackwell, a Republican.  It was an effort to force the state to count provisional ballots from individuals who voted outside their assigned precincts.  Of course, the Democratic party was arguing then what the Republican party is now — that a private right of action for HAVA exists.

Ex-ACORN worker: 'I paid the price' for voter registration fraud.  Clifton Mitchell helped register nearly 2,000 voters for the community group ACORN.  But not one of them actually existed.  "I regret it.  I paid the price for it," he said.  Mitchell was convicted last year and spent nearly three months in prison.  He's one of the few ACORN workers convicted of voter registration fraud.

ACORN Submitted 'Thousands and Thousands of Phony' Voter Registrations, County Registrar Says.  The Association for Community Reform Now (ACORN) submitted nearly 90,000 voter registration applications to the registrar's office in Clark County, Nev., this year, among which were "thousands and thousands and thousands of phony and duplicate applications" that ACORN did not mark as suspicious, Larry Lomax, Clark Country registrar of voters, told CNSNews.com.

House GOP leader asks Bush to cut off ACORN funds.  House Republican leader John Boehner on Wednesday [10/22/2008] urged President Bush to block all federal funds to a grass-roots community group that has been accused of voter registration fraud.

Group's Tally of New Voters Was Vastly Overstated.  In registration drives, it is common for a percentage of newly registered voters to be disqualified for various reasons, although experts say the percentage is higher when groups pay workers to gather registrations.  But the disclosure on Thursday that 30 percent of Acorn's registrations were faulty was described by Republicans as further proof of what they said was Acorn's effort to tilt the election unfairly.  "We were wondering how many were Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse," said Danny Diaz, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee.  "The group is really tainted, and any work they do is suspect."
[Emphasis added]

In the Fine Print: One possible way to cut off ACORN's funding.  ACORN engages in many forms of left-wing activism, often employing the intimidation tactics made popular by Saul Alinsky, the father of community organizing and a role model to presidential candidate Barack Obama.  The group has waged campaigns against Wal-Mart, against welfare reform, and in favor of "living wage" laws.  In October 2005, the group was accused of flooding a non-union hospital's emergency room with patients they had bused in from far away as part of a unionization pressure campaign.

Acorn Report Raises Issues of Legality.  An internal report by a lawyer for the community organizing group Acorn raises questions about whether the web of relationships among its 174 affiliates may have led to violations of federal laws.  The group, formally known as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has been in the news over accusations that it is involved in voter registration fraud, charges it says are overblown and politically motivated.

ACORN's Unlikely Allies:  The November issue of Labor Watch, published by the Capital Research Center, will delve into just how explicitly ACORN is aligned with Obama.  For instance, in a 2004 issue of Social Policy magazine, ACORN National Association Board member Toni Foulkes wrote that the group "invited Obama to our leadership training sessions to run the session on power every year, and, as a result, many of our newly developing leaders got to know him before he ever ran for office."  Foulkes recorded that ACORN members worked on his campaign, and that "by the time he ran for U.S. Senate, we were old friends."

Furor over ACORN allegations gaining momentum.  The furor over ACORN's national voter registration drive exploded with new controversies Friday [10/24/2008], including a call by Barack Obama for an independent prosecutor, a Supreme Court ruling over voter access and the disclosure of a death threat against an ACORN worker.

Pennsylvania Elections Boss Is ACORN Ally.  The man appointed by Pennsylvania Governor Edward G. Rendell to oversee the security and fairness of Pennsylvania elections has been discovered to be an ally of ACORN.  Rendell, a Democrat, is a leading Obama supporter.

History of Rewarding ACORN.  Between ACORN and the Democrat National Committee we are truly witnessing a culture of corruption.  Remember the Marxist adage:  Accuse others of what you do.  This is the M.O. of the Democrats and their lapdogs in the news media.  While they accuse the GOP of "disenfranchising" voters, it is the liberal-left thugs who are disenfranchising citizens by registering illegal aliens and corpses to vote.  Meanwhile, conservative groups are on the alert in order to prevent military voters from being disenfranchised since polls regularly show soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines overwhelmingly vote for Republican candidates.

How to Steal the Election in a Few Simple Steps:  The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) is drawing intensifying fire in the final days of the presidential campaign.  ACORN, as the group is known, is ostensibly involved in the commendable job of registering voters.  The problem is, it has been caught numerous times registering people who either don't exist or aren't eligible to vote.  The misdeeds have been widespread.

ACORN Loves High Taxes But Doesn't Bother Paying Them.  Capital Research Center has discovered that ACORN, which relentlessly argues for higher taxes, can't be bothered to actually pay its own taxes.  In the November Foundation Watch we report:  "Ironically, ACORN and its affiliates, all reliable cheerleaders for higher taxes, are longtime tax deadbeats.  A search of public records found more than 200 tax liens adding up to more than $3.7 million are associated with groups that share ACORN's address on Elysian Fields Avenue in New Orleans.  The most recent lien, in the amount of $23,383, was filed by the IRS against an ACORN affiliate, American Workers Associates Inc., on September 9, 2008."

Lien on Me.  The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) and its affiliates are content to impose crippling big-government laws, regulations, and taxes on Americans, but when called upon to obey those same rules, ACORN's network of scofflaws and deadbeats simply refuses to comply.

ACORN Owes Millions in Taxes.  An intrepid researcher has discovered more than 200 tax liens totaling more than $3.7 million have been filed by the government against the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now for unpaid taxes since the late eighties.

Is ACORN cracked?  Speaking of tax-related matters, ACORN, which has taken in at least $126.4 million in donations and tax dollars since 1993, can't — or won't — be bothered to pay its taxes.  The network of 100-plus affiliates is littered with cheerleaders for higher taxes, yet it owes at least $3 million in federal, state, and local taxes stretching back to 1993.

The Great Acorn Conspiracy.  Last week Michael Slater, head of its Project Vote, admitted that some 400,000 of its claimed 1.3 million newly registered voters were rejected by election officials as either duplicates or fraudulent — i.e. it doesn't sound as if Acorn's vaunted "quality control" efforts were all that effective.

Former ACORN staffer testifies.  A former staffer for an affiliate of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now testified today [10/29/2008] that the organization was provided a "donor list" from the presidential campaign of Barack Obama in late 2007 for fundraising efforts.  Anita Moncrief, a former Washington, D.C. staffer for Project Vote, which she described as a sister organization of ACORN, said her supervisor told her the list of campaign contributors came from the Obama campaign.

An Acorn Whistleblower Testifies in Court.  Acorn, the liberal "community organizing" group that claims it will deploy 15,000 get-out-the-vote workers on Election Day, can't stay out of the news.  The FBI is investigating its voter registration efforts in several states, amid allegations that almost a third of the 1.3 million cards it turned in are invalid.  And yesterday, a former employee of Acorn testified in a Pennsylvania state court that the group's quality-control efforts were "minimal or nonexistent" and largely window dressing.

ACORN's Food Stamp Mortgages:  In a circa 1999 document, "To Each Their Home: Success Stories from the ACORN Housing Corporation," the ACORN affiliate called the American Dream a sham and bragged about undermining banks' underwriting standards. ... ACORN Housing took credit for developing "several innovative strategies" to get around pesky traditional lending guidelines, which were unfair because they "were geared to middle class borrowers."  Instead of using passé measures of creditworthiness such as, say, credit history and having an adequate income, ACORN convinced lenders to adopt "more flexible underwriting criteria that take into account the realities of lower income communities."  Henceforth, some banks serving inner cities would accept "less traditional income sources such as food stamps."

Top 10 ACORN Voter Registration Abuses.  [#9.] In Milwaukee, Wis., ACORN improperly used felons as registration workers.  [#8.] A teenager in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, said he was offered smokes and money to fill out voter registration cards.  The elections board has 73 cards with his name on them.  [#7.] In Missouri, one ACORN registrant named Monica Rays showed up on no fewer than eight forms, all bearing the same signature.

ACORN 'shock troops' tied to election crimes.  ACORN's "shock troops" have been linked to or convicted of perjury, forgery, identity theft and election fraud in recent years and now are facing investigation for alleged violations of federal election law in 12 states, according to a new report from Matthew Vadum, a senior editor for the Capital Research Center.

ACORN: Who Funds the Weather Underground's Little Brother?  The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) has become America's most prominent left-wing community group.  Little-known until now, ACORN has played a major role in the subprime mortgage mess that has undermined Americans' support for free market problem-solving and set off a worldwide chain of financial troubles.  It is also implicated in vote fraud schemes from coast to coast.  ACORN aims to give America change that socialists can believe in — by any means necessary.

In a Rotten Nutshell:  Everything You've Ever Wanted to Know about ACORN.  Community organizing is leftist, anti-capitalist agitation.  It's about making people angry so they push for change, and the kind of change they seek is rarely good.  Community organizers are essentially professional political activists who believe that something is terribly wrong with America and that they are the ones we've been waiting for to fix it.  The father of community organizing was the late Saul Alinsky, a Chicagoan who elevated local-level political agitation to an ugly art form.  In his book Rules for Radicals, Alinsky — we are not making this up — praised the Devil as the "first radical" who "rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom."

ACORN's Tangled Money Tree.  When Sir Walter Scott wrote in 1808, "Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive," he wasn't writing about ACORN, but he might as well have been.  In 2008, the activities of the radical, corrupt left-wing Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which has tangled itself up in an infinitely complex web of deceit, thuggery, and questionable financial dealings, is long overdue for a RICO probe.

Will ACORN Steal the Election?  "I've watched ACORN for a while," said [John] Fund at Heritage.  "In 2002 they had voter registration scandals, in 2004 they had voter registration scandals, in 2006 ACORN employees were indicted and convicted in Kansas City and St. Louis.  And in Seattle, seven ACORN employees were indicted in the largest voter registration scheme in the state's history."  "After each of these instances, ACORN says 'we're going to clean up our act, we're going to impose quality control programs.'  They never seem to get around to doing it," he said.

Is ACORN a Threat to Our Elections?  First, it is illegal for a federally funded group to endorse or work for any political candidate.  Second, it is illegal for anyone to accept a bribe in exchange for his vote and certainly illegal for anyone to offer and pay the bribe.  Third, it is illegal for anyone to vote more than once.  But perhaps most importantly, even more than what is legal or illegal, is that ACORN is undermining the principle of fair and free elections.

Stealing an Election?  In Indiana, CNN noted, of 5,000 registrations turned in, the first 2,000 turned out to be fraudulent.  In Kansas City, officials found hundreds of bogus registrations.  CNN also reported on the case of Clifton Mitchell, an ex-ACORN worker who served time in prison for voter fraud.  In Pennsylvania, ACORN worker Jemar Barksdale was arrested for voter fraud involving fake registrations.  Meanwhile, the state of Ohio turned up 200,000 questionable voter registrations, but Ohio officials went to court to avoid having to respond.  In Michigan, an ACORN worker has been charged with forgery.  ACORN activists even tried to register Mickey Mouse to vote in Florida.

Falsified registrations become votes.  Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner admits that some 200,000 newly registered Ohio voters have been flagged by her office because their names, addresses, driver's license numbers, and/or Social Security numbers don't match other state or federal records.  She is refusing to release the information on those registrants to county election boards that have requested them for the purpose of running further checks.  Ms. Brunner was elected in 2006 with the support of ACORN, and indeed her campaign consultant that year was Karyn Gillette, who happened to be MonCrief's immediate superior at ACORN's Project Vote.

ACORN, Yes, Marines, No.  ACORN, the organization whose foot soldiers faked voter registration applications in Missouri in 2004 and Seattle in 2006, has been in full battle mode this fall, signing up thousands of previously unregistered voters.  Included were Mickey Mouse and, in Nevada, the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys.  In Cleveland one young man was approached by ACORN registrars 73 times and signed up each time for a simple reward of a cigarette or a dollar bill.

Catholic bishops cut off ACORN funding.  A community grantmaking arm of the U.S. Roman Catholic bishops has cut off all funding for a group embroiled in controversy over claims of voter registration fraud and embezzlement, church leaders said Tuesday [11/11/2008].  The Catholic Campaign for Human Development, which supports anti-poverty and social justice programs nationwide, will no longer make grants to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, known as ACORN, said Auxiliary Bishop Robert Morin of New Orleans.

ACORN, meet RICO:  Let the prosecution begin.  It's not clear whether Minnesota is one of the states where ACORN's practices are being probed; neither the FBI nor the Justice Department would say.  But with Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, a hyperpartisan Democrat who was endorsed by ACORN in his 2006 election, as one of five people overseeing the recount, Mr. Coleman should rightly be afraid, very afraid of having the election stolen out from under him.

History of rewarding ACORN.  Between ACORN and the Democrat National Committee we are truly witnessing a culture of corruption.  Remember the Marxist adage:  Accuse others of what you do.  This is the M.O. of the Democrats and their lapdogs in the news media.  While they accuse the GOP of "disenfranchising" voters, it is the liberal-left thugs who are disenfranchising citizens by registering illegal aliens and corpses to vote.

Former ACORN worker charged with voter registration fraud in St. Louis.  An Illinois woman has been charged with submitting false information on voter registration cards, including turning in cards from nursing home residents without their knowledge.

Back to the Home page

Document location https://akdart.com/acorn.html
Updated November 22, 2023.

©2024 by Andrew K. Dart