The ACORN "Scandal"
74
Imagine this scenario with me.
You work in an office where you offer financial advice to poor families. Every day you see people on the brink of losing their homes. You advise the poorest, and you advise the working middle class - helping them save money on home loans and tax preparation.
You know what poverty looks like, and you know the toll it takes on individuals and families. In fact, you have been poor yourself for much of your life.
One day, two well fed young white people walk into your office. The man (still a boy from the looks of him) is dressed like a stereotypical black pimp from a bad 70s movie. The girl is dressed like a porn star.
Are your alarm bells going off yet?
It gets worse. They proceed to tell you that they need your help. The boy claims to be a pimp, and the girl his prostitute. They want to open a brothel, and they want you to tell them how to shield their ill gotten gains from the IRS. If that weren't enough, they tell you that they want to smuggle 14 year old illegal immigrant girls to work at this brothel.
What would you do?
An unknown number of ACORN employees faced this question last summer in an illegal smear campaign to catch ACORN on camera offering advice to this unlikely duo. The two traveled from coast to coast, visiting nearly two dozen offices, before they found 3 employees who decided to play along.
The heavily edited videos show these ACORN employees offering tax advice. The videos do not show the full context of the situation, so we don't have any idea whether the advice was offered in earnest or as a joke, or simply to get these obvious fakers out of the office without calling the police.
ACORN has 700 employees and nearly 100 offices. Bertha Lewis, head of ACORN, had this to say:
from what we can determine, [the pair] visited almost two dozen offices. And in two-thirds of them... because people didn’t really think much of it... they were summarily told to leave. I might add that these folks really were very aggressive and refused to leave in several instances in at least three or four offices, and that’s why people said, “We’re going to call the police,” because they just were very aggressive and very pushy.
Ph iladelphia ACORN president Carol Hemingway said in a statement on Monday that "after causing a major disturbance, they were asked to leave the office, and a police report was filed." (Link broken - originally quoted from http://www.philly.com story from September 18 2009: ACORN Shows Pimp and Prostitute the Door Here).
At least one organizer chose to play a game with the pair, telling them that she herself used to be an escort and that she had killed her own husband. Sadly, when Fox news picked up on this story, they failed to check the facts and report them. Glenn Beck called attention to the supposed "murder", saying:
This is twisted, bizarre, macabre....gosh even to me it seems like this is a potential admission of murder and the way she was describing doing some groundwork beforehand, you know so everyone in town knew exactly what was going on, a case might be made for premeditated murder... And maybe a jury might conclude that it was justifiable homicide. I don't know but we haven't been even able to confirm from the state of California whether Theresa's husband from ten years ago was killed. Or if he's dead. Or if she even had a husband. Did she make the story up? I don't know. Nobody is asking questions. See if the mainstream media will follow this one. This is shocking. It raises serious questions about what is going on inside of ACORN.
You would think that journalists at a major news network would have the skills to make a few phone calls and find out the facts. Instead, Fox chose to run with the story, mentioning the "murder" repeatedly. It turns out that the woman's husband was still alive and well, according to police.
Fox gave the story intense coverage. Their reporters called ACORN a "remarkable criminal enterprise".
The Plot Thickens
The Bush White House started a major scandal when it fired an Attorney General for refusing to pursue baseless allegations of voter fraud. Turns out those accusations were against ACORN.
Karl Rove, Bush's political advisor and a frequent commentator on Fox News, was behind that dismissal, according to White House emails that were recently made public. The right wing campaign against ACORN has been going on for a long time, and it appears to have intensified.
We can look for more of these sorts of underhanded attacks in the coming months. The Republicans are out of office, but they have plenty of money and a full bag of dirty tricks.
ACORN has been targeted because it is effective at registering poor and minority voters - voters who consistenly vote democratic. This latest salvo from Rovian operators and Fox News just proves that the battle for our democracy is far from over.
- The ACORN scandal - a former organizer speaks out
I worked for ACORN in 2004 during the Presidential election. I left, with mixed feelings, after the election.So I have been especially interested, and dismayed, by the latest scandal. I am saddened by the... - Robert Creamer: Time to Get Real About the ACORN "Controversy"--and Republican Double Standards
The Right wing has always hated ACORN. Partially that's because the organization has been so effective at allowing poor people to vote. The Right hates it when poor people vote. - The distracting benefits of ACORN hysteria - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com
Wall Street, defense contractors and the insurance industry v. the poor and dispossessed - In defense of ACORN | Salon
The right-wing crusade against ACORN is a far bigger fraud than any misdeeds a few employees might have committed
 | Amazon Price: $2.30 List Price: $18.00 |
 | Amazon Price: $7.21 List Price: $14.95 |
| Amazon Price: $18.00 |
 | Amazon Price: $2.28 |
CommentsLoading...
Did you actually read the article, jiberish, or did you just react without thinking? Context is key here. The videos, and the reporting on Fox news, don't provide any context. Yes, the individuals on tape offered tax advice to these obvious frauds. What does that prove about the organization as a whole?
William, this was a good Hub, but please say your not defending Acorn? I read the article, I read all the articles I comment on. :)
Thanks for the kind words about my hub. Yes, I am defending ACORN.
These two visited around 24 different ACORN offices and only found 3 employees (2 at the same location) who did what they asked - and we don't know why those 3 did it - there's a good chance they knew that this was a sham and didn't take it seriously.
Lets say I travel around the country and go to every Sears store with a hidden camera and wearing a hockey mask. In each store, I ask someone to sell me a chainsaw so I can cut up the body of someone I murdered. Let's say, out of 24 stores I visit, two people sell me a chainsaw.
Does that make Sears a "remarkable criminal enterprise"? And would any credible news organization report my "sting" as newsworthy, as anything other than a prank?
The only reason this has gotten any play is because ACORN is a target of the right wing, as I documented in the links.
Actually they have 24 tapes, but cannot release them yet. It gets worse William, brace yourself.
They "cannot" release them yet?
Why haven't they made the full, unedited versions publicly available?
William have you heard of the ACORN 8, eight former members of ACORN's board who are sueing ACORN for full disclosure of their financial shananigans. They want ACORN to open their books for unbiased scrutiny.
Those poor and minority voters you mention, would they include Minny and Micky Mouse?
Tom, I have heard of the ACORN 8 but only in passing. I have also heard about Wade Rathke's brother embezzling a few million from the organization.
Those sorts of things should be investigated.
But there are many large organizations that have financial misdealings and corruption. Enron comes to mind.
My concern with the ACORN 'scandal' is that this lurid nonstory is being used to smear the entire organization, despite the good work they do. And it's being driven by political concerns, not by some thirst for justice.
Embezzlement happens every day. It's happening right now in your city or county government. Bernie Madoff? Ken Lay?
Corruption happens. Read the headlines - every day, cops break the law. Check out what's happening with the Chicago police right now.
We haven't yet dismantled all corporations, and we aren't going to dismantle the Chicago police.
As for the voter fraud: I've addressed that somewhat in an earlier hub. I may investigate further and post another hub about it later.
But you make my point for me by tying financial wrongdoing at the top to voter registration "fraud" at the bottom. The two are not related. Failures of the organization? Yes. Conspiracy? No.
Your are right on the money with this one! The right has been on a rampage against Acorn for months - they tried to discredit them for registering low income and minority Democrats in the last election - they will continue with the entrapment and disinformation in hopes of shutting them down - as someone mentioned in your article - the right hates it when minorities vote!
On Fox News, ACORN is the next popular word after Obama. The political tactics of the conservatives is so disgusting that i want to puke. It is nice that you have this quality hub to counter.
Do you know how many organizations are being funded either directly or indirectly through Acorn? You would be surprised.
Rachel Maddow really lays it out in this video - it's truly worth your time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPXIwmu8l0U
The ACORN "scandal" is classic misdirection. The real criminals are walking free right now and will probably never pay.
I do not debate with people who insult me personally or with crazy people.
If you want to debate facts, please feel free. I reserve the right to delete any comments on my pages.
If you continue to comment on my hubs after I've repeatedly deleted you, I will report you to the Hub management.
Reported.
A study looking at how ACORN has been portayed by the U.S. news media has been published: "Manipulating the Public Agenda:
Why ACORN Was in the News, and What the News Got Wrong"
Evidently even the Congress does not agree that the ACORN story is a non scandle. Not to mention ACORN's corporate sponsers are also throwing them under the bus. Your enabling of a basically corrupt organization is astounding.
Congress passed that act because they were scared of political consequences if they didn't, not because it was the right thing to do. In fact the act may well be unconstitutional. It the law stands (and I'm not against this) it may well require defunding of any government contractor who broke the law. That would kind of mess things up, since it would include Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Dyncorp, Blackwater/Xe, Haliburton, KBR, and many many others who employ millions of Americans.
That's the bigger point - ACORN's relative misdeeds pale in comparison to Blackwater or Dyncorp's, both of whom have received many times the amount of federal funding that ACORN did.
As for ACORN being 'basically corrupt'... I don't disagree entirely. ACORN is a decentralized, disorganized organization. Things are very different from office to office, and there are offices all over the country. Some are very professional, others not so much.
Another good article that spells out the political basis of the 'scandal'.
Go get em' Will, the unfair and unbalanced fox is spewing out lies daily, powered and paid for by by guess who??....Lobbyists. Fox skims the negatives and lets the positives go unreported,
They rouse the rabble with fear and false motivation,
to a frenzy, over a health care reform that won't even take effect until 2013-and the reasons they are setting the masses
at Obama's throat right now, are simply "Mid-term elections." They hate to lose, they did, and now they are trying to make a loser out of Obama, who is a winner.
National health care of America paid 50,000 employees to show up a town halls in 30 states...to protest health care reform, because the lobbyist national health care of America wants to maintain the glut of money they currently gouge from all of us. They used paid stooges and then called them patriots. That makes one acorn office employee problem seem microscopic. Much of what we are seeing now also happened in Dallas, just before JFK was killed. He was warned not to go there by many because the populace were riled up over issues they disagreed with him on...hopefully history will not repeat itself. Thanks for the informative blog.~~~MFB III
I'm waiting for all the videotapes to become public. Cracks are already starting to appear in the filmmakers' stories:
Excellent Hub...The move to destroy Acorn is a simple strategy aimed at keeping those who are disenfranchised out of the political process. I am more concerned about a trigger happy, corrupt military organization like Blackwater than I am Acorn.
Thanks for the comment SOBF - I couldn't agree more!
Thanks for this informative article. I must admit, as a non-resident alien in your midst, I was unsure what Acorn was, what it did, and why so many conservative types seem to hate it so. Your article has answered some of those questions.
Thanks lmmartin. Today the Supreme Court ruled that the congressional bill to defund ACORN was unconstitutional.
And where did that ridiculous anti-acorn thread go?? it's always good to have truth near at hand...
I hope the "extremism" posting goes the same way...
Thanks Mike - yeah, maybe the Christian extremists will get tired of lobbing attacks at whoever doesn't agree with them.
Not likely though. :/
Mason has disappeared at least......do we dare call it Progress??
LOL. Don't celebrate yet - I saw him on the forums this morning.
Amazing. Just another author in the pocket of ACORN. How much did they pay you to write this b.s.? Really... at what point does America start revolting against out and out criminal bribery for misdirection of the truth to aid more organizations like ACORN to exist? Just how many times did your parents drop you on your head as a child?
Thank you for the pleasant comment WTF. ACORN has been cleared of any wrongdoing by a Congressional review and other organizations. Try looking at the facts, it might change your life.
jiberish 2 years ago
Yeah I guess hearing those poor Acorn workers in their own words is a real smear. Just like Van Jones and others. Humm