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.


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?

Reid blocks ACORN probe.  Here in Clark County, Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax said last year he saw "rampant fraud in the 2,000 to 3,000 registrations ACORN turns in every week," with some 48 percent of those forms being "clearly fraudulent." ... Mr. Lomax noted ACORN had hired 59 inmates from a work-release program at a nearby prison and that some inmates who had been convicted of identity theft had been made supervisors.  "That led some local wags to joke that at least ACORN was hiring specialists to do their work," reported John Fund at The Politico, last November.

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?

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.

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.

ACORN's tactics are controversial.  The group has drawn accusations of voter fraud and criminal investigations in several states.  Last year, authorities in Washington state brought felony charges against ACORN workers for filing false voter registrations.  Some ACORN workers pleaded guilty and went to jail, while the organization paid $25,000 and agreed to have its registration efforts monitored in a settlement with Washington state authorities.  [Larry] Lomax said while he supports the goal of getting more people registered to vote, he sees rampant fraud in the 2,000 to 3,000 registrations ACORN turns in every week.

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.

Alleging fraud, authorities raid ACORN Las Vegas office.  The secretary of state's office launched an investigation after noticing that names did not match addresses and that most members of the Dallas Cowboys appeared to be registering in Nevada to vote in November's general election. … Agents with the secretary of state and state attorney general offices served a search warrant on the headquarters of [ACORN] … shortly after 9 a.m. [10/8/2008]  They seized voter registration forms and computer databases to determine how many fake forms were submitted and identify employees who were responsible.

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.

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