A blog for all seasons; A blog for one; A blog for all. As the 11th most informative blog on the planet, I have a seared memory of throwing my Time 2006 Man of the Year Award over the railing at Time Warner Center.
Justice. Only Justice Shall Thou Pursue
ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, the community group linked to multiple scandals including voter registration fraud across the country and was implicated in a series of videos showing workers at multiple offices providing dubious information to videographer James O'Keefe, will shut its doors April 1. It had been on the verge of going bankrupt, but with public opinion turned against the organization and funding way down, the group had no choice but to cease operations.
The New York Times public editor had reviewed the coverage of ACORN and the O'Keefe videos and found that while O'Keefe manipulated the videos, the content did show that multiple workers at multiple offices provided shady information to run various illegal operations out of homes that would have been acquired with assistance of the group.
Acorn’s supporters appear to hope that the whole story will fall apart over the issue of what O’Keefe wore: if that was wrong, everything else must be wrong. The record does not support them. If O’Keefe did not dress as a pimp, he clearly presented himself as one: a fellow trying to set up a woman — sometimes along with under-age girls — in a house where they would work as prostitutes. In Washington, he said the prostitution was to finance his future in politics. A worker for Acorn Housing, an allied group, warned him to stay away from the brothel lest someone “get wind that you got a house and that your girlfriend is over there running a house of women of the night. You will not have a career.”
FAIR said that in Brooklyn, O’Keefe and Giles seemed to be telling Acorn staffers that “they are attempting to buy a house to protect child prostitutes from an abusive pimp.” That’s right, but FAIR left out the part about their clear intention to operate a brothel, which the Acorn workers seemed to take in stride, with one warning: “Don’t get caught, ’cause it is against the law.”
So, while the videos were manipulated by O'Keefe for maximum effect, the ACORN workers themselves must take the blame for providing shady information, including turning a blind eye to criminal activities.
Bertha Lewis, who was running the group, had been trying to reform the organization since she took over two years ago. Her time is up.
But don't be surprised if this isn't the last we hear of the group or of Ms. Lewis. After all, I would expect the group to be reconstituted in some form to provide similar services down the road. The ACORN spinoff WFP - Workers Family Party - is still active politically in several states, including New York, so there's still political clout to be had.
Activist James O'Keefe, 25, was already in Landrieu's New Orleans office Monday when Robert Flanagan and Joseph Basel, both 24, showed up claiming to be telephone repairmen, U.S. Attorney Jim Letten's office said Tuesday. Letten says O'Keefe recorded the two with his cell phone.
In the reception area, Flanagan, the son of acting U.S. Attorney Bill Flanagan in Shreveport, and Basel asked for access to the main phone at the reception desk.
After handling the phone, Letten's office said, they asked for access to a phone closet so they could work on the main phone system. The men were directed to another office in the building, where they are accused of again misrepresenting themselves as telephone repairmen.
They were arrested later by the U.S. Marshal's Service. Details of the arrest were not available. A fourth man, Stan Dai, 24, was also arrested, but Letten's office said only that he assisted the others in planning, coordinating and preparing the operation.
Federal officials did not say why the men wanted to interfere with Landrieu's phones or whether they were successful. Landrieu, a moderate Democrat, declined comment Tuesday. She has been in the news recently because she negotiated an increase in Medicaid funds for her state before announcing her support for Senate health care legislation.
Dumb doesn't begin to cover this. There is no excuse for his allegedly illicit behavior. O'Keefe and his comrades deserve to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law no matter how much of a service O'Keefe provided in revealing the lack of character and judgment in ACORN employees at offices around the country who had no problem giving O'Keefe and his associate Hannah Giles all manner of advice on engaging in illicit activities.
Andrew Breitbart and Big Government claim no knowledge of the alleged wiretapping and that they would not have gone along with any such scheme. If I were them, I'd be damned sure that they didn't, or else Breitbart will find himself in serious hot water as well. I don't think Breitbart would be that stupid, but then again I wouldn't think that O'Keefe would attempt to engage in the wiretapping at the offices of a US Senator even as he was being sued by ACORN and by an ACORN employee for videotaping them at one ACORN's offices. The fallout from this arrest has the potential to seriously affect those cases and puts O'Keefe's career in a real bind.
UPDATE:
Here's the PDF of the FBI affidavit, and O'Keefe has apparently admitted to his role in this.
10 years.
That's what he and his fellow conspirators are looking at. And the feds would have every right to throw the book at him.
Should it surprise anyone that yet another ACORN worker is in hot water? Verizon has a small business incentive program for those who use the company's phone services. Donnett Davis signed ACORN up for the corporate rewards program using 10-20 phone lines, but kept the rewards in her own name. She also somehow managed to include 9,000 Department of Education phone lines in her rewards account, allowing the rewards to really add up. In all, she amassed $500,000 in merchandise through a corporate rewards program.
All of the alleged fraud took place while Donnett Davis was working for ACORN, and it continued while she was working for the Department of Education as a parent coordinator for the Acorn High School for Social Justice (which was a school founded as a partnership between the Department and ACORN.
ACORN itself claims that it engaged in no wrong doing.
I see it as yet another sign of the incompetent mismanagement by the organization and an ongoing failure in the character and judgment of those who work on the organization's behalf. It is an ongoing symptom of the moral and ethical flexibility repeatedly uncovered in even cursory examinations of the organization.
The Department of Education isn't even eligible for the rewards program, which is meant for small business. Davis likely had help in securing the fraudulent rewards.
Ah, the fresh smell of another ACORN office whose moral and ethical flexibility are on full display. This time, it's the ACORN office in Philadelphia.
I can't wait to hear Bertha Lewis try to explain this latest video away, claiming that this is yet another isolated incident and that it doesn't reflect on the organization as a whole.
UPDATE: Bob Owens notes that the video has been marked private, which suggests that Andrew Breitbart may have accidentally released the video early. Bob also notes the following:
ACORN Philadelphia Office Director Katherine Conway-Russell flat-out lied on camera to the media. ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis continues to lie to the media, claiming that these incidents are isolated. The media repeated their claims unquestioningly.
Now that ACORN has been exposed—yet again—as lying about their willingness to support the creation of brothels for the purpose of juvenile prostitution, will the media outlets that repeated those falsehoods decide to re-report on the truth of this story? Will they issue corrections?
Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe have shown the unedited footage from every ACORN visit they've made, from Baltimore, Washington DC, New York, San Bernardino, San Diego, and the unedited video from Philadelphia will soon be released. Other videos from other ACORN sting operations are rumored to be lurking in the wings.
Also, recall that ACORN has a spinoff political group the WFP, which has engaged in documented voter fraud in New York. This is a group that stinks to the core.
UPDATE: The video link has been updated as it is now operable, via Big Government.
UPDATE: Don't hold your breath to wait for Media Matters or other media outlets to issue corrections and retractions of their claims that this was merely an isolated incident and in particular, how the Philadelphia office managers lied about their activities and conduct, particularly in light of the video released today showing their complicity.
The ACORN offshoot Working Families Party is involved, which shouldn't be much of a surprise. This isn't voter registration fraud, but actionable voter fraud, where persons engaged in submitting fraudulent absentee ballots in local elections in Troy, New York.
The only problem with these absentee ballot records at the Rensselaer County Board of Elections in Troy, N.Y., is that they're phony, voters and investigators say -- and they've prompted what's being called an unprecedented investigation of suspected voter fraud.
Thirty-eight forged or fraudulent ballots have been thrown out -- enough votes, an election official admits, to likely have tipped the city council and county elections in November to the Democrats. Candidates would have been able to run both on the Democratic and Working Families Party lines in two weeks, and that could have given the Democrats in the general election.
A special prosecutor is investigating the case and criminal charges are possible. New York State Supreme Court Judge Michael Lynch ruled that there were "significant election law violations that have compromised the rights of numerous voters and the integrity of the election process."
Among the reasons cited on the fraudulent forms for absentee voting: "traveling to Buffalo," attending a "screen printing conference in Syracuse," "working late shift," "working construction," and "home -- ill."
"Someone took my signature and voted with it and I felt extremely violated," Suozzo told Fox News. He is a soft-spoken 28-year-old environmental engineer who says he never saw, let alone signed, the Working Families Party Absentee ballot application that carried his supposed signature. He was flabbergasted that someone would vote for him and submit it.
"The whole thing seems dirty to me," Suzzo said. "You wonder how often this happens and people don't get caught."
He says he did not have any type of medical procedure, adding "I haven't been to the hospital in years."
State Election Law calls for the comparison of signatures on absentee ballots and their request forms with that voters corresponding voter registration card. But some of at least 50 Troy residents claiming they were defrauded of their vote in the Sept. 15 Working Families Party primary allegedly requested ballots — they claim they never cast — with an application including a signature bearing no similarities to the one on their voter registration card.
“(Comparing signatures) will eliminate the blatant forgeries that occurred on Primary Day,” said Majority Leader Robert Mirch, also Troy’s public works commissioner, who hired two private investigators to obtain sworn affidavits from the allegedly defrauded voters.
The accusations of fraud made against Democratic and Working Families party operatives and candidates prompted the appointment of a special prosecutor, Trey Smith, to investigate possible criminal charges. They also upped the highly politicized atmosphere on both sides heading into election season.
Democrats and the WFP claim that it's the GOP who is politicizing the process, which ignores the actual evidence - the fraudulently submitted absentee ballots.
New York allows candidates to run on multiple lines, and candidates vote tallies are counted from all lines on which they appear. In other words, someone running on the Democrat and WFP lines will be able to add the votes cast under both lines to give them a total.
According to a review of documents provided to the Louisiana Attorney General's office based on an internal review, $5 million was embezzled by ACORN employees in the New Orleans office, and not $1 million. Where did the money go, and more importantly, who took it?
The new amount was reported in a subpoena released Monday from an investigation by Attorney General Buddy Caldwell. It is unclear if the money was taken from state, federal or private funds, according to the subpoena.
ACORN Chief Executive Officer Bertha Lewis said the new embezzlement allegation is "completely false." She said she would comment further after she and ACORN attorneys have a chance to review the subpoena.
Caldwell issued subpoenas in August seeking documents related to ACORN International then-President Wade Rathke and his brother, Dale Rathke, who kept the group's books. Those subpoenas targeted possible violations of state employee tax law, obstruction of justice and violations of the Employee Retirement Security Act.
The attorney general made inquiries in June into alleged embezzlement within ACORN that happened 10 years ago. The group last year dealt with an internal dispute and a lawsuit involving accusations that Dale Rathke made nearly $1 million in improper credit card charges in 1999 and 2000. Rathke's brother and a donor repaid the money.
Bertha Lewis of course is going to claim that the charges are false (and that's even without seeing the charges or other information relating to the case), but she also claimed that the O'Keefe and Giles videos were isolated cases, right before 5 videos showing substantially similar illicit responses made by ACORN employees at offices all across the country.
Curiously, this New York Times article notes that Lewis admits that Dale Rathke did embezzle some unidentified sum of money from ACORN coffers, but disagrees that the amount of money involved was $5 million. That amount apparently comes from two members of the Board of Directors of the national ACORN group that were voted out of office.
The subpoena, part of an investigation into accusations of state tax violations and obstruction of justice at Acorn, said the internal review was raised in a board meeting in October 2008 that was attended by Bertha Lewis, the chief executive.
“Current high-ranking members of Acorn have publicly acknowledged that the embezzlement did in fact occur, but the exact amount of the embezzlement was unknown,” the subpoena said. “It is still unclear if some of the monies embezzled are from state, federal or private funds.”
In a phone interview, Ms. Lewis acknowledged that the internal review found that Dale Rathke, brother of Wade Rathke, the founder of Acorn, had embezzled money from Acorn and affiliated charitable organizations in 1999 and 2000. But she said that the review had found that the amount embezzled was a little less than $1 million, a figure that has already been publicly disclosed and acknowledged.
She said the $5 million figure came from two former directors who had since been voted off the board.
So, based on the aforementioned information, it appears that the AP wire report left out critical information that identifies that Lewis admits that embezzlement did occur, and that Lewis was merely questioning the $5 million sum, which is a figure that links back to two former board members.
ACORN officials must be besides themselves and are tired of trying to attempt to defend the indefensible actions of their employees who have been revealed to be unethical and promoting illegal activities on a multitude of video tapes.
They're angry. They're pissed. And they've called out the lawyers.
They don't want blood. They want millions in damages and they're suing James O'Keefe, Hannah Giles, and Andrew Breitbart for illegal wiretapping in Maryland because Maryland law requires that both parties consent to the taping.
This isn't going to go well.
Even Admiral Ackbar knows one when he sees one. It's going to be a trap. It's not a good idea to bring a lawsuit when you're angry and haven't had a chance to suss out the possible outcomes, and not just in the courtroom. This is a situation that has media scrutiny written all over it, particularly because Breitbart is being sued. He's not going to let this issue die; he's going to use it to drive continuing traffic to his websites and will continue pushing matters on any news outlet he can get himself booked on, particularly Fox News.
ACORN would have been better off letting the issues slide, because attacking the messenger and pushing ahead with a lawsuit guarantees more news coverage and additional scrutiny on ACORN actions. ACORN could conceivably win on the lawsuit, but they'd lose the war - as their political allies (like Barney Frank) distance themselves to avoid the omniscient stink as media outlets actually are forced to cover the story.
Bear in mind that Breitbart had let on that there were seven sets of videos and only five had been made public. ACORN could have waited this out and let the interest die out and its political allies regained their nerve (although Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid refuses to hold hearings on the matter). Now, there's an incentive for Breitbart to push ahead with releasing the videos at some unspecified date to keep the pressure on ACORN.
Moreover, ACORN fired the two employees in the Baltimore video as a result of their conduct on the video. Those two former employees would have a far stronger case than ACORN, but this is route that ACORN is taking. Instead, they're going to face a potential jury pool that isn't going to take what was seen on the videos lightly when compared to the alleged violation of Maryland wiretapping laws, particularly when ACORN leaders have said that they were thankful for the videographers for outing a few bad apples.
Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour (R) has cut funding to ACORN amid the widening scandal facing the group.
"I have instructed the State Fiscal Officer to conduct a comprehensive review of the state's relationship with ACORN, and all state agencies are to cut off funding for any current contracts with ACORN to the extent the law permits," Governor Barbour said.
Mississippi joins a growing list of states severing ties to the group after a video was released showing employees in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Brooklyn, N.Y., advising two undercover activists posing as a pimp and a prostitute to lie about the prostitute's profession, suggested they launder the money and advised how to hide underage prostitutes.
San Diego's Board of Supervisors might go back and audit the group's voter registrations. Nice. Isn't that a little late? Considering that the group has repeatedly been caught engaging in voter registration fraud - a separate and distinct issue from actual voter fraud - it should have opened an investigation long ago. The ACORN office in San Diego says that if their voter registrations should be audited, so should all the other registrations. Good point (even if broken clocks are right twice a day). Local and state elections officials have repeatedly shirked their responsibilities to confirm that those who register to vote are actually eligible to vote (including failing to cull the deceased from voter rolls). But, special scrutiny should be paid to ACORN-related registrations primarily because of the flexible moral and ethical conduct of ACORN employees as witnessed on the multitude of videos.
Maryland Attorney General has finally launched an investigation into ACORN activities, stemming from the video showing the Baltimore office's gross misconduct. That's after Baltimore officials appear more than willing to overlook matters:
Hours after the Justice Department's inspector general announced Monday that he plans a review of funding to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), Maryland's top law enforcement officer also moved to launch an investigation.
Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler (D) asked and received permission from Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) to investigate and, if necessary, prosecute "conduct involving" ACORN.
Gansler's investigation effectively usurps Baltimore City State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy. She had called the secret taping of ACORN employees giving tax advice to a man and woman posing as a pimp and prostitute illegal under Maryland's requirement for two-party consent for audio recordings.
"As time went on, it became clear that the local authorities were not going to look into it," said Raquel Guillory, Gansler's spokeswoman. "It's obviously something that needed to be looked into, and that's why we've taken this step."
Baltimore's more interested in prosecuting James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles than going after the gross misconduct at ACORN. Curious how that works. Instead of trying to deal with the huge mess that O'Keefe and Giles kicked over with their expose, Baltimore's prosecutor wants to hit the duo. Nice.
It's also good to see that the US Justice Department is finally opening an investigation. They're going to look for improprieties in any funding obtained through the Department. I would suggest that Housing and Urban Development and Health and Human Services likewise open investigations given that ACORN may have obtained funds through both of those agencies as well as part of their homeowner assistance programs and other community programs.
Such investigations are long overdue (going back years in fact), but there is no way one can possibly ignore the mess.
It isn't something he's followed closely? Why is that? The videos are shocking enough, but ACORN's response has been even more shocking in claiming that these were merely isolated cases and that fault rested with the duo who filmed the incidents. They got rolled by Andrew Breitbart, who pushed a video a day over the span of a week to show just how badly ACORN is operated nationwide. One video would have been dismissed. Two videos would have been a coincidence, but now that we're up to five separate locations filmed showing ACORN employees providing advice on how to break the law, and you can no longer simply ignore the evidence.
Law enforcement and attorney generals nationwide should be opening investigations and auditing the books and records of ACORN to see what kind of mess is truly going on there, but ACORN has powerful friends that are more than willing to look the other way. ACORN has a dual mission - providing homeowner assistance and political organizing.
The homeowner assistance program has been suspended because of the videos, and one has to wonder what they've been advising customers for years on end. Employees with a certain moral and ethical flexibility are more than willing to provide advice on how to engage in illicit conduct, and ACORN employment practices appear not to weed out those people who are willing to break the law or look the other way.
Government funds ACORN operations across the nation via pork (member items) and outright grants through Housing and Urban Development to provide homeowner assistance. All these programs and funding needs to be scrutinized because of the level of advice being offered.
Politicians that are willing to overlook this criminality ought to themselves be scrutinized for their willingness to continue funding organizations that do a grave disservice to the communities they claim to represent. After all, politicians provide member items (pork to ACORN), and ACORN and its affiliates, including the WFP support and organize on behalf of political candidates.
One of them is Bill de Blasio, the Brooklyn city councilman in a tough runoff election for Public Advocate against Mark Green.
In January, ACORN endorsed de Blasio, who spent nearly $43,000 in campaign funds to hire an ACORN affiliate, N.Y. Citizens Services Inc., for "field staff," "consulting" and "canvassing" leading up to last Tuesday's primary.
As a councilman, the Brooklyn Democrat sponsored or co-sponsored a total of $115,000 in taxpayer dollars for ACORN and an affiliate, the New York Agency for Community Affairs.
He was also endorsed by the Working Families Party, which ACORN helped create and shares office space with, after spending $67,740 to hire WFP's for-profit arm, Data and Field Services, for campaign consulting. He also got $33,000 as a "consultant" for a WFP affiliate.
That's just the most egregious case. There are others:
In the last three years, more than 20 Council members, state assemblymen and state senators sponsored nearly $1.75 million in taxpayer money for various ACORN groups in New York.
That raises conflict of interest questions for pols who also seek the group's endorsement.
Dick Dadey of the nonpartisan watchdog group Citizens Union said the conflict was "more perceived than actual," but added it "doesn't look good" for ACORN's political committee to endorse pols when a related entity gets money "from those same officials."
In this election ACORN, endorsed de Blasio and dozens of council members, including controller hopeful John Liu, as well as many state legislators.
ACORN has announced that they fired yet another worker viewed on videos showing ACORN employees providing advice on how to break the law. Juan Vera was canned after he was shown on video of the San Diego office providing advice on how to engage in child prostitution, solicitation of sex, and smuggling of children across the border. Yet, Juan Vera's superiors first attempted to claim that he made the best of a bad situation.
David Lagstein, the group's head organizer in San Diego, initially said Thursday that he believed Juan Carlos Vera did his best to deal with a challenging situation and would not be disciplined. But three hours later, Lagstein reversed that decision.
He said he reevaluated the videos posted online in which Vera was secretly filmed answering questions about smuggling people into the U.S. through Tijuana. Lagstein said after further discussion with supervisors and state ACORN officials he decided Vera's conduct was "unacceptable."
How exactly is that a sign of good judgment on the part of Vera's superiors?
What does that say about Lagstein's moral and ethical flexibility where he first concluded that he would not be disciplined? What would it have taken for him to be disciplined? The only reason that Lagstein reversed his position would have to be pressure from above to fire Vera to make the mess go away.
An internal audit will likely result in no substantive change, primarily because the so-called independent people involved are actually quite associated with ACORN and have a vested interest in making sure that ACORN gets cleared with a minimum of disruption.
Let's just say that law enforcement will have a much better time cleaning up the mess than Lewis if managers of various offices are engaging in the same moral and ethically questionable conduct as those who were fired.
The Houston GOP is calling for the city to cut ties with ACORN going forward. ACORN had a $155,000 contract ending this past June to provide homeowner assistance programs to local communities. This goes back to one of the core problems - monies for legitimate assistance of homeowners who need help gets commingled with political organizing. The group's various political organizing and homeowner assistance take place under the same roof and it is anything but clear that the group keeps them separate. That goes to whether the group is violating its tax exempt status.
The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that “undocumented residents” comprise a vast market representing a potential sum of “$44 billion in mortgages.” Citibank enlarged its portfolio of subprime and other risky loans. ACORN enlarged its membership rolls. The program now operates in Miami; New York City; Jersehttp://acornhousing.org/index.phpy City, N.J.; Baltimore; Washington, D.C.; Chicago; Bridgeport, Conn., and at all of ACORN Housing’s 12 California offices. San Diego ACORN officials advised illegal alien recruits that their bank partners would take applicants who had little or no credit, or even “nontraditional records of credit, such as utility payments and documentation of private loan payments.”
The risk the banks bear is the price they pay to keep ACORN protesters and Hispanic lobbyists from the National Council of La Raza screaming about “predatory lending” off their backs. These professional grievance-mongers have turned the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act – which forced lenders to sacrifice underwriting standards for “diversity” – into lucrative “business” opportunities. Or rather, politically correct blackmail. As the Consumer Rights League noted in a 2008 report on the group’s successful shakedowns of financial institutions, “an agreement with Citibank, a significant ACORN donor and partner, showed that some activists become less active when deals are in place."
He claims that this is a bill of attainder. It's an interesting argument since Nadler is essentially saying that ACORN is insulated from Congressional action and can continue spending federal appropriations even if engaging in criminal or potentially criminal actions.
The latest video, coming from San Diego, shows one of ACORN's employees soliciting Hannah Giles for sex in exchange for providing assistance on smuggling girls into the US to engage in child prostitution.
ACORN has tried to cast these videos as random and isolated incidents, but the fact that it was so easy to get this kind of response from workers at multiple offices shows that ACORN's problems run much deeper than that.
They hire people with a certain moral and ethical flexibility, who show a depressing absence of understanding right from wrong. If they were so quick to provide assistance on how to break the law on any number of issues (child prostitution, tax evasion, etc.) what other kinds of questionable advice are they providing to the communities they claim to assist.
After all, ACORN claims that they want to help the lower classes advance and yet we see that their definition of advancement includes turning a blind eye to child prostitution and tax evasion.
So, while ACORN has fired several people in connection with the videos, the ACORN leadership has thus far escaped serious civil and criminal repercussions.
I expect that to change with the release of these videos and subsequent investigations opened in places like New York City and New York State. It would be a gross dereliction of duty on the part of state attorney generals around the nation not to take a closer look at whether ACORN's activities there are legal - including whether they are operating without licenses as in the case in Maryland.
Until ACORN can show that it has cleaned up its act, it should get no government assistance and any money earmarked to housing assistance should be reappropriated to other groups that have legitimate programs, such as Nehemiah Housing.
ACORN makes a big deal about providing homeowner assistance to underprivileged communities, and yet one has to question the kind of advice and assistance provided based on these videos. People coming in for assistance need to know the proper and legal methods of handling the real estate transactions they're interested in, and evading the law perpetuates problems within the community. Excusing such behavior as the ACORN leadership has done by claiming that this is a problem limited to a small group of its employees doesn't wash. It throws into question all of their operations nationwide, and ACORN has repeatedly had egg on its face by claiming that this was first an isolated incident, and then by claiming that its other offices weren't taken in by O'Keefe and Giles. They lost credibility - rightfully so.
Cuomo has to investigate these groups, and promising that he will insure that monies for ACORN goes solely to the homeowner assistance programs is insufficient. Member items (also known as earmarks and as pork) in New York are doled out to groups all across the state, and ACORN gets its share of member items. They don't specify that the money goes to homeowner assistance, but rather to the group generally.
That's a reappropriation of those monies. It doesn't specify what program the money goes to. It is the same for all the other programs listed in the budget bills.
Legislators know, or should know, that the money goes to a variety of operations within the groups it funds. For ACORN, they know it covers overhead, the homeowner assistance programs, and the political organizing, even though such organizing would conflict with its tax exempt status.
The best way for the Attorney General to get to the bottom of matters in New York is to conduct a full audit of ACORN operations to see where all the money has gone. Simply promising to ensure that the money goes to homeowner assistance doesn't address systemic problems within ACORN. Moreover, it doesn't address the questionable advice provided by ACORN to those seeking assistance.
It was bipartisan, but some of the usual suspects wanted to protect ACORN's funding, including Democrat Charles Rangel (D-Tax Cheat, NY). All 75 voting to protect ACORN's funding were Democrats. Birds of a feather.
UPDATE: ACORN is finally trying to strike back at O'Keefe and Giles, claiming that their Philadelphia office called the cops on O'Keefe. They have a copy of a police report claiming that O'Keefe caused a disturbance at the office on 7/24/2009. However, the precise nature of what happened in the office on that day isn't clear, and someone ought to ask O'Keefe about it.
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has opened an investigation into ACORN's activities in the state following the videos released in the past week showing the Brooklyn office providing guidance on how to set up a brothel and engage in child prostitution. That's on top of state officials calling into question how money provided in member items was spent:
State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo yesterday launched an investigation into pork-barrel grants given to ACORN by state lawmakers, as City Council Speaker Christine Quinn froze all city funding earmarked for the scandal-scared community-activism organization.
The actions by the Democratic officials followed release of a shocking undercover video that showed employees at a Brooklyn ACORN office giving illicit financial advice to activists posing as a pimp and prostitute who wanted to start a brothel.
The agency was among several ACORN affiliates, including offices in Baltimore, Washington and San Bernardino, Calif., exposed in the hidden-camera sting.
On Monday, the US Senate voted overwhelmingly to block federal funding to the community group, while Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes opened an investigation into the local office in response to a report in The Post.
A spokesman for Cuomo said the attorney general would seek to make sure pork-barrel grants directed to ACORN by state lawmakers were spent on tax-preparation and loan-counseling services, as intended.
Actually, those pork-barrel grants (the member items) do not necessarily specify that they go to tax-preparation or loan counseling services. That may be where you would hope the money goes, but they don't specifically set out how monies should be spent when dividing up member items in the state budget.
Meanwhile, San Bernardino police have contacted former husbands of Tresa Kaelke, who alleged that she killed one of her husbands and would have no problem doing it again. They're all apparently alive and well although one has a restraining order out on her, all of which goes to Kaelke's credibility and state of mind.
The New York Timesfinally ran one of its reporters out to discuss the developing situation with ACORN, but he focuses on the partisanship of those pushing the videos and avoids serious scrutiny of the discussion of illegal activities on the videos.
The fact is that ACORN hires people with a certain moral and ethical flexibility that allows them to slip right into these kinds of conversations with the greatest of ease. They had no problem discussing how to avoid legal entanglements for running child prostitution rings, brothels, and other illegal activities out of properties purchased with ACORN's assistance.
What that suggests is that ACORN training is far from okay. It suggests a serious breakdown of procedures, and a failure of oversight. It also suggests that the organization needs a thorough housecleaning if they want to get government funds to bolster their operations around the country.
Keep in mind that ACORN has gained at least $1.5 million from New York state and city government in the past four years alone. As the Post notes:
The group and its affiliates have received at least $1.5 million in city and state legislative grants in the last four years, according to a Post review of grant records.
Council budgets from fiscal years 2010, 2009 and 2008 show members showered ACORN and its affiliates with at least $644,500.
ACORN and the tax-exempt affiliate featured in the video, New York ACORN Housing Company, have received at least $890,000 in pork from state lawmakers in the last four years
That's just in New York. Other states have similar arrangements and the group rakes in money all across the country.
The laugh of the day comes from ACORN's latest excuse for the actions of its employees in the videos. "They were just playing along."
If they were playing along, how come ACORN has already fired at least four people in connection with the videos? The latest excuse is just another lame attempt to cover for the criminal stupidity viewed on those videos.
UPDATE: As Michelle Malkin notes, ACORN insiders are on the record as saying that the internal financial structures make it virtually impossible to keep track of where the money goes and what it's being spent on. ACORN engages in community organizing and political activities in addition to homeowner assistance. So, while AG Cuomo says that he's going to make sure that the money goes to homeowner assistance, it will not be possible to do so unless he's about to engage in a massive audit of ACORN activities and finances in the state going back years. Moreover, the inability to keep such activities and monies separate puts the group's tax exempt status in jeopardy.
UPDATE: A confidential source has told me to expect another ACORN tape today, although circumstances may push the release of another tape until tomorrow.
UPDATE: Anonymous email sends along that Jon Stewart skewers ACORN:
UPDATE: Via Don Surber, Biggovernment.com reports that ACORN's management has haltednew intakes into ACORN’s service programs until completion of an independent review. The White House calls ACORN's employees' actions unacceptable.
It has everything to do with James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, who posed as a pimp and prostitute and got at least three ACORN offices to provide all kinds of advice on how to carry out prostitution, political activities, tax evasion, and other criminal acts while seeking to obtain a home through the organization. They've released a series of videos showing Baltimore, Washington, DC, and Brooklyn offices providing very similar advice to the couple.
ACORN had tried to claim that the Baltimore office was an isolated incident. That's when the second video was released. When ACORN again tried to claim it was an isolated incident and that they fired the two Baltimore workers, the second set of videos were released showing the DC office. When ACORN attempted yet again to claim it was a setup and that the New York offices didn't respond to O'Keefe and Giles, the third video was released showing the Brooklyn office providing the same kind of information as the other two.
There is also word that there are more videos to come.
Biggovernment.com, which released the videos (and is part of Breitbart.com), hopes that RICO charges be filed against ACORN.
The reality is, there are at least a half-dozen state and federal laws that could have been broken here. Even though the undercover girl is not a prostitute and there are no El Salvadoran girls either, this could still meet the legal standard for conspiracy to commit these various crimes. At a bare minimum, depending on the state, it likely fulfills the elements for the crime of attempted conspiracy, which usually carries the exact same penalty as the underlying crimes themselves (prostitution, tax fraud, etc.).
What’s important about prostitution and human trafficking is that they are specific triggers for the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, better known as RICO. The RICO law is designed to enable the Justice Department to go after criminal enterprises. It defines “racketeering activity” as including importing illegal aliens for immoral purposes, falsifying identification documents and immigration papers, mail and wire fraud, and the sexual exploitation of children, among others.
These are all implicated on the video tapes. The ACORN workers rattle off their how-to instructions on carrying out these crimes without needing to do more than skim a couple books that they have on hand. The clear implication is that these workers are seasoned pros on how to carry out these crimes, subsidized by federal taxpayer money.
As to the Senate vote yesterday, Sen. Gillibrand voted against the provision to cut funding, whereas even Sen. Chuck Schumer voted to cut funding.
Gillibrand's office said she found the actions of certain ACORN employees "reprehensible" but added, "The truth remains that thousands of New York families who are facing foreclosure depend on charitable organizations like ACORN for assistance."
Those families have no one to blame but the actions of ACORN and the failure to properly oversee and train offices to act in a legal fashion. Providing information that can be used to hide illegal activities is not an activity that can or should be carried out at any of the ACORN offices, and yet it was all too easy to get virtually identical advice from at least three offices. That's the kind of mess that starts at the top and rots its way down to the core of the group.
There are other more worthy community groups that can provide the kind of assistance to families without the criminality or the appearance of criminality. That includes all manner of church groups, which serve many of the areas in which ACORN operates. Housing advice could be farmed out to Nehemiah and its partners, affiliates, or similar organizations.
That the group's shutdown may adversely affect families going forward should not prevent the group from being stripped of funding if it is breaking the law as is the case on those three videos. Moreover, stripping the funding will not necessarily shut down the group altogether as it takes in private donations as well. It would continue to serve but at a much reduced level.
The only thing left to consider is just how far law enforcement wants to take matters and whether they'll pursue the RICO charges or other criminal charges against not only those in the videos but their superiors. That remains to be seen.
UPDATE: Instapundit links. Thanks! Now, there is a possibility that the House will not vote the cutoff since the Democrats still control the House, but that they're allowing the GOP to make this move shows just how far the ACORN has fallen. ACORN's credibility is shot, and the possibility of more videos being released will only further savage ACORN's last remaining bit of credibility and support in Congress.
UPDATE: Via Instapundit, Biggovernment.com has found that ACORN was not licensed to do business in Maryland since November 2006 (ACORN Housing, a separate entity, was operating illegally since November 2008). So, while the Maryland Attorney General is making headlines for threatening to prosecute O'Keefe and Giles, he should have been focusing on ACORN's right to do business in the state - a far more egregious and damaging issue.
According to Maryland law, the following penalties are imposed on business entities that operate without a license: (1) Officers and agents are guilty of a misdemeanor and may be fined up to $1,000; and (2) the corporation subject to $200 fine.
What isn't clear is why the ACORN entities forfeited their right to do business in the state. It is possible that they failed to make a required annual filing.
UPDATE: Via Hot Air, not only are Senate Republicans demanding an investigation, but there's going to be another video released this afternoon (4pm) :
Or, make that four. Big Government plans to release another video this afternoon at 4 pm ET, apparently taken at an ACORN office in Southern California. According to Twitter chatter, this one has some politicians named, as well as a surprising admission from the ACORN staffer on tape.
UPDATE: San Bernardino, here we come:
UPDATE: Is anyone at the San Bernardino District Attorney's office following along with all this? It looks like the woman in the video, Tresa Kaelke, admits to at laundry list of crimes, including prostitution, failure to report income, and those are the tame issues. I'm sure the IRS would love to hear more about this too.
UPDATE: The ACORN website notes that it trains its employees on how to "to recruit members, build an organizing committee, turn people out to meetings and events, develop campaign strategy, work with leaders, do grassroots fundraising, write press releases, and much more." Apparently, engaging in child prostitution, tax evasion, and other sundry activities falls into the "much more" category.
UPDATE: To quote a favorite movie of my wife, ACORN seems to employ people with a certain moral flexibility. Is it not so unreasonable to believe that their hiring practices across the country attract the same kind of people, and if presented with facts (the child prostitution ring and political aspirations and the need to hide such information on the down low), that they'll revert to type?
The rank criminality of ACORN continues to get little play in the New York Times and other national media outlets despite the fact (or perhaps the reason for the inattention) that the organization has close ties to the Obama Administration. ACORN has repeatedly stated that criminality of a few of its offices do not represent the national organization and are a few bad apples.
One time is a fluke, twice is a coincidence. Three times? That's a pattern and bodes poorly for ACORN. This is a group with significant power within the Democratic party and forms a grassroots base. The stupidity and criminality of providing advice to the duo of O'Keefe and Giles posing as pimps on how to break the law, engage in child prostitution and other criminal acts is breathtaking in its scope.
The ACORN workers providing in great detail how to break the law and what to do is just astounding to watch. After all, do these people not realize what they're talking about? They're telling the duo how to break the law, and it's a surprisingly similar answer from the three offices.
Where's the rest of the media to follow up on this and keep the pressure on ACORN, as well as law enforcement who might want to learn who else has taken advantage of ACORN's generous advice.
UPDATE: Don Surber also notes the scandal and that the organization should have its union and government funding cut off.
Yesterday, Andrew Breitbart released video showing two ACORN employees in Baltimore, Maryland telling two people posing as a pimp and prostitute how to engage in child prostitution, tax evasion, and avoid criminal prosecution.
ACORN responded by claiming the report was a gross distortion of ACORN's practices, and that the two ACORN in the video were fired. Today, another secretly shot videotape has surfaced that shows the same couple getting similar advice from ACORN officers in Washington.
So, while ACORN wanted people to think that this was some kind of isolated incident, it isn't.
Andrew Breitbart released a new video from a different ACORN office, and the result is the same - ACORN employees describing how to break the law.
The newly released videotape, shot on July 25, shows ACORN staffers explaining to the pair how they can hide the woman's professed work — prostitution — and get a loan that will help them establish a brothel.
James O'Keefe, a 25-year-old independent filmmaker, posed as the pimp while visiting the ACORN office, accompanied by 20-year-old Hannah Giles, who posed as the prostitute. On a videotape provided to FOXNews.com, they are seen receiving guidance to establish the woman as the sole proprietor of a bogus company to mask the nature of her business.
"She's not going to put on (the loan application) that she's doing prostitution ... she doesn't have to," the ACORN staffer says. "You don't have to sit back and tell people what you do."
While posing as the pimp, O'Keefe was told by the ACORN employees not to make himself too visible because it might affect his political chances and should keep the prostitution ring low key.
You got that folks? ACORN was busy providing advice on how to break the law and advance politically by telling a self-declared pimp how to conduct his business in such a fashion that his political aspirations wouldn't be affected.
How dumb can some people be - namely those ACORN workers who were providing this information? Could they not tell how idiotic they look and sound?
Far from being some kind of localized problem, it appears that ACORN provides the same general guidance wherever one goes. That's a problem that starts at the top and works its way down. It includes condoning criminality, misogyny, and tax evasion.
Yet, the media largely ignores this malfeasance or chalks it up to local issues, and doesn't investigate deeper into the group's ties to none other than President Obama and others who helped get the President elected.
Supporters of ACORN claim that the GOP and conservatives engage in a witch hunt to go after ACORN, but the facts are what they are - ACORN has repeatedly been found breaking the law, and it's not some isolated thing. It's past time for law enforcement to get involved because ACORN will not clean up its act from within.
UPDATE: At the closely affiliated Workers Families Party (WFP), there's money trouble too. The WFP was founded by a coalition of groups including ACORN. They've repeatedly missed filing deadlines in New York City:
The murky finances of the Working Families Party led its treasurer to resign last month, the Daily News has learned - while the party has missed two disclosure filings with state regulators.
Michael McGuire, a mason tenders' union official who became the party's treasurer June 22, told The News he resigned Aug. 19 - five days the after the WFP was supposed to file a mandatory report of its donations and spending.
He was replaced in the unpaid post by longtime WFP activist Dorothy Siegel, but the party also skipped another filing that was due Sept. 4 at the state Board of Elections.
"It was a clerical oversight that we've alerted the board to and we are filing both on Monday," said WFP spokesman Dan Levitan.
Of course it was a clerical oversight. That's what they all seem to say... it's tough to follow the law.
ACORN is closely tied to the Working Families Party, and the two share offices in Brooklyn. So, is it any wonder that the Party threw money to ACORN in the amount of $31,700? What was that amount for? It's simply labeled as cash.
The allegation was outlined in a letter to the state board by a Republican activist, Philip Monthie, who cited a legally required campaign expenditure report from the WFP listing $31,700 as having been expended for "cash."
Monthie's complaint contended the listing was a "facial violation" of the state Election Law, which requires that the names and addresses of the recipient of expenditures in excess of $50 must be disclosed.
"The obvious question is what did the Working Families Party do with $31,700 of cash on primary day?" wrote Monthie, noting that the party's legally required filing also "shows clear connections" with ACORN, which received $8,000 for "consulting."
The union-backed Working Families Party and ACORN have often coordinated activities and both have offices at 2 Nevins St. in Brooklyn.
The State Election Board is thus far refusing to investigate because one of two Democrat members refuses to act.
Just how many fraudulent registrations need to be submitted in order for the media and election officials to realize that ACORN's fraudulently submitted votes are significant? How many fraudulent votes need to be cast before alarm bells go off?
Why is there not a zero tolerance for fraudulently submitted registrations, since that reduces the chances for fraudulently cast votes?
Why is there not zero tolerance for fraudulently cast votes?
Instead, we get election officials and media elites trying to downplay ACORN's nationwide efforts in pushing fraudulent registrations. How exactly does that ensure that all votes are cast legitimately, accurately, and protects the rights of legitimate voters to cast ballots secure in the knowledge that each person gets one vote?
Meanwhile, you've got the Obama campaign pushing to get a special investigation going into Republican claims of ACORN's voter fraud. The campaign wants to investigate the investigators into ACORN's dubious tactics. That's despite all the ties between ACORN and the Obama campaign, up to and including ACORN outlets in parts of the country publicly running ads for people to sign up to get the vote out for Obama and canvassing for Obama, despite ACORN's claims that they are a nonpartisan outlet.
For those who think that all those fraudulent ballot registrations submitted by ACORN and caught doesn't mean anything, or that the fraud doesn't extend to actual votes cast, you've got another thing coming.
The GOP's review was conducted in House District 13 and only included 92 ballots. That means roughly a third of the ballots examined were fraudulent.
“This is a bombshell. We now have undeniable proof that a significant number of fraudulent voters were cast in Democrat primary races for the New Mexico state legislature as a result of ACORN’s voter registration fraud,” said State Representative Justine Fox Young (R.-Albuquerque). “No longer can ACORN argue that their phony voter registration forms don’t translate into fraudulent votes. They do and today we can prove it.”
Conservatives are calling on Congress to defund ACORN of their federal funding. With increasing evidence ACORN is involved in voter registration fraud and voter fraud, as shown in Albuquerque, it become more important ACORN be stripped of their federal assistance.
The ACORN office in Albuquerque has been a beneficiary of generous federal tax dollars. Information from House Minority Leader John Boehner's office shows that Albuquerque's ACORN branch has received $349,253 in federal tax dollars since 1998.
ACORN fraud will cost taxpayers countless more dollars, in Albuquerque and elsewhere, as local election officials are forced to spend hundreds of hours investigating the thousands of fraudulent voter applications ACORN has submitted across the nation.
ACORN's criminality is being investigated across the country with state and federal investigators looking at how the organization operates its voter drives.
Of course, the left screeches back that these claims of fraud are themselves bogus and that there's no evidence of fraud and that any such attempts to ensure that only those who are lawfully allowed to vote is somehow disenfranchising. Or, consider that Rolling Stone and other leftists are claiming that the GOP is stealing the election (where have we heard that one before).
Meanwhile, Georgia's Democrats are busy trying to thwart (HT: DaddyG at LGF) the Georgia's attempts to check identifications prior to voting to ensure that only those who are registered to vote do so. The Georgia Secretary of State fired back hard, noting that checking for proper identification is an assurance that people are who they say they are when they vote and that there's absolutely no evidence that anyone has been disenfranchised by that process.
UPDATE: It figures that the New York Times is covering for ACORN. They think that the issues are overblown. Then again, the Times didn't quite take much of an interest in election fraud in New Jersey, including dead voters, so live voter fraud isn't going to get their dander up. However, the moment someone asks for identification before going into the polling booth to ensure that people are who they say they are - that's cause for concern
I don't think people quite understand the seriousness of the Brunner situation. Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, has been forced by the Sixth Circuit to do her job and cull the voter rolls of discrepancies.
She had claimed that doing so would violate the law and disenfranchise people. That's total nonsense since the only people disenfranchised by such actions would be those trying to vote fraudulently, dead people, or felons. Legitimate voters have nothing to worry about and clearing the rolls of the fraudulent registrations protects our right to vote and ensure that the results are not gamed by those who seek an outcome.
She had claimed that there wasn't enough time to act to clear the rolls. That she sat on this huge stinking pile for so long and fought with Republicans to do her job means that there's little time to verify the legitimate voters from those bogus registrations.
Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner estimated that an initial review found that about 200,000 newly registered voters reported information that did not match motor-vehicle or Social Security records, Brunner spokesman Kevin Kidder said. Some discrepancies could be as simple as a misspelling, while others could be more significant.
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati sided with the Ohio Republican Party on Tuesday and ordered Brunner to set up a system that provides those names to county elections boards. The GOP contends the information will help prevent fraud.
"Things already are in motion to comply," Kidder said. "We're working to establish these processes on how we can make this work. The computer work actually began last week."
About 666,000 Ohioans have registered to vote since January.
Brunner previously cross-checked new-voter registrations with databases run by the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicle and the Social Security Administration and made the results available online, but the 6th Circuit said the information was not accessible in a way that would help county election boards ferret out mismatches.
Nearly 1/3 of all registrations submitted have some kind of problem. How exactly does that work?
Those discrepancies could be anything from misspelled names to failing to provide change of address forms to outright fraud and misrepresentation of information on registration information to get a chance to vote multiple times.
We just don't know how many fall into each column.
Brunner was never going to let anyone find out.
She was jeopardizing the trust in the system to count the legitimate votes and prevent those who should not be voting from being able to cast ballots.
No one would be disenfranchised by any of this. People who are not found to be on voter rolls would still be able to cast provisional ballots, and those votes would be counted once they are verified.
Ace weighs in and goes postal on Brunner for her incompetence and facilitation of voter fraud by not clearing voter rolls of those who do not belong. He also points out that Michelle Malkin has uncovered a website dedicated to facilitating election fraud by getting Obama supporters in contact with each other to register in swing states and providing addresses (sometimes 50 in one house) so that they can cast absentee ballots.
Law enforcement has been slow to react to this criminal enterprise as well.
Allahpundit also weighs in. How many of the mismatched registrations are ACORN related?
I think we've found a legislative "achievement" for Sen. Barack Obama, but I'm not sure that he'd want people to know about it though, especially with all the law enforcement investigations into ACORN throwing tens of thousands of fraudulent voter registrations into the system.
Obama co-sponsored legislation called the “Helping Families Save their Homes in Bankruptcy Act of 2007”-- that was supported by ACORN and protects them.
Helping Families Save their Homes in Bankruptcy Act, S.2136, was introduced in the Senate by Illinois Senator Richard Durbin over a year ago, on October 3, 2007. It was co-sponsored, by Obama and 12 other Democrats, including Vice Presidential hopeful, Joe Biden, and Chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, Senator Christopher Dodd.
According to a Senate transcript, Durbin stated: “It is true that some families knowingly stretched a bit to buy more house than they should have. But many families were sold mortgages they couldn’t afford by unscrupulous brokers... This bill is supported by the AARP, ACORN, AFL-CIO and SEIU, the Center for Responsible Lending, the Consumer Federation of America, NAACP and La Raza, the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition…”
There's a reason that these organizations support the bill; it absolves them of liability at bankruptcy proceedings. The bill amends 11 USC 502(b), by adding the following provision:
[it would prohibit the inclusion of amounts]... subject to any remedy for damages or rescission due to failure to comply with any applicable requirement under the Truth in Lending Act (15 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.), or any other provision of applicable State or Federal consumer protection law that was in force when the noncompliance took place, notwithstanding the prior entry of a foreclosure judgment.'.
It's a get out of penalty card for groups like La Raza, ACORN and others who pushed subprime loans and watched as the borrowers defaulted. And Obama supported this bill as a cosponsor along with other architects of the toxic paper crisis.
