Mighty oaks spring from tiny acorns. Big money – some of it yours – is going to an organization of the same name:
(A) more-than-80-page report charges that the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (Acorn) uses “a complex structure designed to conceal illegal activities” — 361 different entities in 120 cities, 43 states and the District of Columbia, amounting to a “shell game” that “diverts taxpayer and tax-exempt monies into partisan political activities.”
The group has over the last 15 years received in excess of $53 million in federal funds. Moreover, as the report warns, “under the Obama administration, Acorn stands to receive a whopping $8.5 billion in available stimulus funds.”
Acorn’s improprieties, of course, are not news. As Issa’s report notes, a third of the 1.3 million voter registration cards the organization solicited and presented in 2008 ended up being null and void; the group has been investigated for voter registration fraud in places such as Connecticut, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina and Ohio…
This corrupt outfit has actually been signed up as a national partner with the U.S. Census Bureau to help recruit the nearly 1.5 million workers who will count and classify our 306 million population for 2010. It’s like getting a car thief to manage a parking garage.
As the Capital Research Center’s Matthew Vadum has documented, $3 billion from the stimulus package, another billion dollars from HUD, and $4.5 billion in Community Development Block Grants look set to come Acorn’s way for a total of $8.5 billion.
Despite the fact that the organization’s finances are deliberately cloaked in layers of complexity that would make a mafia tax lawyer blush, it’s an over-stretch to label ACORN a criminal enterprise using public funds to pervert the democratic process. After all, it would be unfair to blame ACORN leadership for the misdeeds of several hundred of its workers.
Money is power in America. And when you’re attempting to build an enduring political coalition that takes money from those who’ve earned it and distributes it among those who have not, you’ll have to tolerate a bit of seediness around the margins.
It’s only fair.
Please tell me you’re kidding…ACORN is all about thievery. They not only steal money, they do their best to steal public offices and flat out rig elections. But I guess ACORN has to get the payoff for helping out with the election…and yes, I got sick just thinking that.
I will have to give Lex the name of my reconstructive plastic surgeon, who patched the hole in my cheek when my tongue bored through it in a response to a previous posting. Looks like Lex has the same problem…
It is for me one of the few bright spots of last election that now Republicans need never, ever blush over taking as much money as the fat cats will fork over to win. Given The One’s lies about his intent to take public financing and his massive outspending of the Republican champion of campaign finance reform (and the total lack of concern from the usual leftist suspects over the influence of filthy lucre on our elections) I am glad that every blue blooded, greedy capitalist parasite on the body social can unashamedly pour that portion of his/her ill gotten gains/the blood of the people that they still have left after the next 4 year’s worth of massive tax increases and wealth destruction in restoring the old robber-baron socio-economic status quo (even if, for many of them that might come with the unwelcome baggage of inadvertantly having to fund social conservatives – don’t worry guys and gals, you can always jet off to Thailand or naughty Slovak hostels…).
What really drives this whole enterprise, however, is the masses of incredibly gullible, naive, foot soldiers. ACORN workers were all over New Orleans (natch, it’s their HQ) immediately the authorities opened the city to returnees. As one of the first to return on 13 Oct. I witnessed the process first-hand. The vast majority of the volunteers who do the neighborhood footwork are well-meaning, hard-working earnest types of limited, (VERY limited in many cases) education but by no means the dregs or “thug” element. This makes them all the more effective with their client populations as they exhibit all the fervor of “true believers” who think they are doing God’s work helping the downtrodden. We must face the facts; especially when fueled by tons of illegal cash, this movement can be VERY effective on numerous fronts–from voting and campaign organizing to public housing advocacy and petition campaigns of all kinds to influence/pressure politicians at local levels on numerous issues.
Be not deceived, operating pretty much totally unfettered off the radar screen until now, and aided and abetted by it’s ideological friends in the MSM and the Holder Justice Dept, this is a VERY dangerous hydra-headed organization whose abilities should not be under-estimated by anyone.
ACORN was founded by SDS members and had Barry as an instructor – alinsky for dummies 101? Maybe the only applications or transcripts found so far.
Possibly Barry is/was a signed member of the Chicago New party. Any involvement with SDS and ACORN?
SDS, Ayers, Annenberg, Woods Fund, ACORN – Soreto any connections?
8.5 Billion, sounds like someone got a hell of an ROI and a nation, temporarily. Remember the mini-series AmeriKa. This did not even require an EMP, yet.
ACORN is a criminal organization. Whether or not it is a treasonous conspiracy as well can be determined later.
Arrest the lot of them. A fair trial, then the rope.
removed by author
Mike seems to have figured it out.
Then return the $8.5 billion to the taxpayers, or pay off some of the other incredibly wasteful debts being run up to perpetuate the leftist takeover.
We (workers, producers and taxpayers) are in serious trouble unless we start vigorously pushing back against the tyrannical left Peacefully if possible….
John/
It’s not limited to the 8.5, if one reads the bill in detail the amount ACORN has access to through elgibility to bid for Grants, etc., (although granted, there is no “guarantee” they would receive them–but under an Obama Admin, what are the odds?) is actually closer to $13.5 Billion with a “B” for the boys and girls from ACORN when all is said and done. Nice, eh?
Do you have a link to the “80 page report”
Yup.
I am fascinated by the use of tax exempt entities to further your own goals, There is one element, the “doing well by doing good” school of thought. That’s the one that justifies private jets for those defending the “little guy”.
Then there is another — setting up a tax deductible foundation, so you can pad your assistant’s salary to the tune of $10K, pay $6K for a personal trainer, and put $14K of art in your house that you didn’t have to pay for. Man, am I stupid.
It’s not an overstretch at all, unless you honestly believe that the criminal activities are NOT official policy.
I know you are being facetious, Capt. Lex, but….
…doesn’t sound at all like there is a supervisor in charge of the entire organization, and certainly doesn’t follow the train of thought that one’s boss is ultimately responsible for a subordinate’s conduct…..
Perhaps that’s why the Navy(military) is so successful in its own right. Because we more frequently lose Commanding Officers when subordinates screw up than national players and parties, as long as there is a D at the end of their names.
There’s a new reason the Captain should have the ability to flog ‘em till they drop.
Subsunk
Speaking of flogging, Subsunk and Lex, how long ago was the last flogging of a U.S. sailor, aboard a U.S. ship, carried out? Is this what used to happen at a “captain’s mast?”
Just asking.
Marianne
DEMOCrat: Barack Hussein 0bama = ACORN
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http://www.justsaynodeal.com/acorn.html
http://www.clintondems.com/2008/09/obama-and-acorn-voter-fraud/