What is this group called Acorn that I keep hearing about?

[napi21]

There were several callers on the WJ this AM yelling about them being an organization of criminals & assoc. with Obama.

[barbtries]

1. ya got me

try this
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/27/politics/politico/thecrypt/main4483168.shtml

i just read the story. it's bullshit propaganda and lies being promoted by fucking republicans.

[meegbear]

8. Thanks for the link ...

I've read around a couple times myself and it smacks of the "Tides Foundation" bullshit on 2004.

[Enthusiast]

14. It is all contrived Republican bullshit

Just more smoke and mirrors. The media should dig into these allegations.

[willing dwarf]

2. ACORN is a consumer protection and community organizing group

THey started in the 70's, and operate in Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago and I assume elsewhere. I volunteered w. them about 10 years ago in Philly to help investigate racial fairness (whether public schools give a warmer welcome to white or black families). They do the same with housing advocacy.

They are like the Public Interest Research Groups across the country, but they seem to be more rootsie and more urban.

[leftofcool]

3. I only know they are being sued for alleged voter fraud

[ikojo]

6. Of course they are being sued. It's yet another attempt

by the Republicans to make sure that low- and moderate-income people are kept as far away from the polls as possible on November 4. ACORN is pretty effective at organizing which is why the ruling class wants to take them down at this time.

[leftofcool]

12. They are part of the home loan problem

[stillcool]

16. really?

Predatory Lending

ACORN has fought predatory lending by targeting the national companies that practice it, working for stronger state laws against predatory practices, organizing against local financial scams, and steering individuals toward loan counseling.

Following a three-year campaign to reform the lending practices of Household Finance, one of the largest subprime lenders in the country, on November 25, 2003, ACORN and Household (now owned by HSBC Holdings) announced a proposed settlement of a national class-action lawsuit that ACORN brought against the company in 2002. The centerpiece of the settlement is a $72 million Foreclosure Avoidance Program which will provide relief to Household borrowers who are behind on their payments and at risk of losing their homes. This settlement came on the heels of an earlier $484 million settlement between Household, attorney generals, and bank regulators from all 50 US states.

In early 2003, ACORN began efforts to seek similar reforms from Wells Fargo. At ACORN's national convention in 2004, three thousand ACORN members presented Wells Fargo with a lawsuit.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=ACORN

[ikojo]

4. It's an activist organization that seeks to organize

low and moderate income people around the issue of affordable housing, so of course the Republicans would be in an all out attack on them.

Here's a link to a google cached copy of their website. I tried to click on their real website but it does not come up.


http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:zYenEy1okdcJ:www.acorn.org/+acorn&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us

ACORN

ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, is the nation's largest community organization of low- and moderate-income families, working together for social justice and stronger communities.

[barbtries]

5. ok after reading a little more

the republicans are saying the group, which advocates for low income housing, is involved in "voter fraud." how dare they register voters? we all know that "voter fraud" is a bullshit term that republicans use to keep the people from being able to circumvent their very real ELECTION fraud.

so there you have it. it's politics as always.

[DrZeeLit]

9. I believe Repubs have tried this and failed; it's a Rove tactic, more to put the Dems in

a bad light, get the headlines, even if not true.
As far as I know, the last time they tried this it fizzled, because it wasn't true.
Of course they got some headlines, small ones, and that "fraud" + "Democrat" label is what they are after.

[pnutbutr]

7. provide loans to low income

It is a group created to provide low income families with home loans. The group lobbies congress for money and the easing of restrictions on lending to people who normally would be declined loans. Basically, the group helped exacerbate the lending problem. There really isn't any way to deny it because that's what the group did. It was good in it's time and helped a lot of people but eventually turned into a corrupt group that abused the system just as most do when there is no oversight.

[Bluenorthwest]

19. That is simply not correct

Acorn was not 'created to provide home loans' and it does not provide home loans. You speak about that which you do not know, or have heard only from frothing liars like Limbaugh.

[pnutbutr]

22. implying

I was implying that the lobbying for money and eased restrictions on leding was how it provided home loans to low income families that otherwise would not have qualified for the loan.

[marmar]

24. Way to peddle outright lies and misinformation....Faux couldn't have done it better.

:wtf:

[pnutbutr]

26. it is

part of what the group does. Prove me wrong if what I said is a lie.

[uppityperson]

33. familiarity

with your posting style of putting 1-2 words in subject line and remainder in message. Odd, since I don't remember this username.

Prove your allegations. You stated them, you must provide proof and not assume they are truth until someone proves you wrong. I bet you know that already though.

[Hansel]

32. No, greed exacerbated the lending problem.

You're looking in the wrong direction. Look up, not down.

Loans can be structured in a responsible way so that low income families can pay them. That is not what happened here to cause this crisis. It was the predatory pushing of irresponsibly structured loans, bundling and packaging these ridiculous loans into stocks, and then traders making ridiculously bad bets on them to get rich quick that caused this crisis. And regulations helping low income people get affordable homes had nothing to do with it. It was schemes and greed.

The right wing is really good at blaming the least powerful for every crisis that they themselves create. It's welfare queens, the blacks, illegal immigrates, low income home buyers, and on and on and on. It's like the old commercials about leaving your keys in the ignition causing a "good boy to go bad" when he steals your car. When in fact it was a bad boy who saw an opportunity and took advantage of it.

When the American people stop buying into this crap, we will be able to fix the problem. But not until.

[annabanana]

10. Unfortuantely... all their online sites seem to be messed up

Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now

There are pages cached, but I don't know how to post them..

[whistle]

11. ACORN, uhmm well....

... Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now but link is not accessable

...ACORN is the leading geodemographic tool used to identify and understand the UK population and the demand for products and services. Businesses use this information to improve their understanding of customers, target markets and determine where to locate operations.

http://www.caci.co.uk/ACORN/whatis.asp


...What is Acorn?
Acorn is the joint library catalog of the Vanderbilt University Libraries. Use Acorn to identify the books, periodical titles (but not individual articles), government documents, scores, sound recordings, and volume holdings of the ten divisional libraries that comprise Vanderbilt's Jean and Alexander Heard Library. The holdings of campus centers, such as the Women's Center and The Center for Teaching, are also included in Acorn.

Acorn offers the ability to search the database for a word or combination of words (keyword) as well as two options for looking up items in alphabetical indexes of authors, titles, subject headings and series (Begins with and Browse).

http://www.library.vanderbilt.edu/science/whatis.html

...ACORN’s Nutty Regime for Cities by Sol Stern
The nation’s largest left-wing group is trying to make a revolution, one city at a time. And it is getting results.
Spring 2003

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. Not only big, it is effective, with some remarkable successes in getting municipalities and state legislatures to enact its radical policy goals into law.

http://www.city-journal.org/html/13_2_acorns_nutty_regime.html

...What is ACORN and how could they negatively impact our election process?
I just read a question where the questioner asked about Republican's 'fixing' the election process. Which, of course is referencing to Bush v. Gore. But it was obvious that the questioner does not understand the Electoral College and our election process.

My question is ... ACORN .. who are they?
And what have they done and do thed continue to do that can impact our Elections?
And who cut their teeth doing community activitist duties in ACORN?

This is what I found about ACORN and their connection to Voter Fraud:

As for voter fraud which is a version of "fixing" an election... well, I believe, ACORN (which so happens to be tightly associated with Obama since he did cut his teeth there as a community activist) ... has well documented cases of voter fraud.

In 2006, ACORN was involved in voter fraud. According to Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed, the incident “was the worst case of election fraud in our state’s history. It was an outrage.”

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080924213603AAifNIx

[Enthusiast]

15. Using these unsubstantiated claims

about the powerful ACORN (:sarcasm: ), Republicans will be challenging voter I.D. in every state. This is their strategy.

[barbtries]

20. yep

acorn is not the enemy, republicans are the enemy. no depth too low

[riverdeep]

18. That last source is just an anonymous Yahoo answer to a question.

That doesn't constitute a 'source' in any sense of the word.

And city journal: "During the Giuliani Administration, the magazine served as an idea factory as the then-mayor revivified New York City, quickly becoming, in the words of the New York Post, “the place where Rudy gets his ideas.”

ACORN may well be an ineffective organization with originally noble goals, but this isn't really convincing.

[madmom]

13. It's another way for the repugs to blame poor people for all that ails

this country instead of the greedy motherf***ers that really did it.

[elifino]

17. Where there is smoke

http://www.rottenacorn.com/activityMap.html

Acorn has done some very good work, however it appears that some of their members are not law abiding citizens.

[barbtries]

21. rotten acorn dot com?

i'll need a better source than that.

[stillcool]

27. nice smear there..

here's some more reality based information about ACORN
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=ACORN
Now if you want to talk about lawlessness...check these people out..
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/index.html@sort=title_tagline.html#or

[riverdeep]

23. Can you say 'muddy the waters'?

WASHINGTON, April 11 — Five years after the Bush administration began a crackdown on voter fraud, the Justice Department has turned up virtually no evidence of any organized effort to skew federal elections, according to court records and interviews.

Although Republican activists have repeatedly said fraud is so widespread that it has corrupted the political process and, possibly, cost the party election victories, about 120 people have been charged and 86 convicted as of last year.

"In 5-Year Effort, Scant Evidence of Voter Fraud"
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/washington/12fraud.html?pagewanted=all

Compare that with this:

The chairman of the Republican Party in Macomb County, Michigan, a key swing county in a key swing state, is planning to use a list of foreclosed homes to block people from voting in the upcoming election as part of the state GOP’s effort to challenge some voters on Election Day.

http://michiganmessenger.com/4076/lose-your-house-lose-your-vote

[marmar]

25. I see the KKKarl phone bank is up and running today.....

More BS rightwing talking points.

[ljm2002]

28. Jeezus F'in Keerist!

The ACORN site is up and running just fine. I checked it yesterday (for a friend who "heard that ACORN is getting $145Bn of the bailout funds from Congress"), and again just now.

http://www.acorn.org/

Here is the text from their "About ACORN" page at http://www.acorn.org/index.php?id=12342 :

Who is ACORN?

ACORN is the nation’s largest grassroots community organization of low- and moderate-income people with over 400,000 member families organized into more than 1,200 neighborhood chapters in 110 cities across the country. Since 1970, ACORN has been building community organizations that are committed to social and economic justice, and won victories on thousands of issues of concern to our members, through direct action, negotiation, legislative advocacy and voter participation. ACORN helps those who have historically been locked out become powerful players in our democratic system.

Community organizing: Each of the 1,200 local ACORN neighborhood chapters in 110 cities and 40 states brings neighbors together to work for stronger, safer and more just communities.

Issue campaigns: Each ACORN office carries out multiple issue campaigns. ACORN members across the country work to raise the minimum wage or enact living wage policies; eliminate predatory financial practices by mortgage lenders, payday lenders, and tax preparation companies; win the development of affordable housing and community benefits agreements; improve the quality of and funding for urban public schools; rebuild New Orleans; and pass a federal and state ACORN Working Families Agenda, including paid sick leave for all full time workers.

A recent study shows that our issue campaign victories have delivered approximately $15 billion in direct monetary benefits to our membership and constituency over the past 10 years.

Service delivery: ACORN and its allied organizations provide extensive services to our members and constituency. These include free tax preparation focusing on the Earned Income Tax Credit; screening for eligibility for federal and state benefit programs; and, through the ACORN Housing Corporation, first time homeowner mortgage counseling and foreclosure prevention assistance, and low income housing development.

Ballot initiatives: ACORN-backed ballot-initiative campaigns in 2006 helped raise the minimum wage in Ohio, Arizona, Missouri and Colorado, working with community-faith-labor coalitions on successful campaigns in each state.

Voter participation: Since 2004, ACORN has helped more than 1.7 million low- and moderate-income and minority citizens apply to register to vote.


ACORN is a non-profit, non-partisan social justice organization with national headquarters in New York, New Orleans and Washington, D.C. To maintain independence, ACORN does not accept government funding and is not tax exempt.

[Minnesota_Lib]

29. Acorn was the victim of fraud, not the perpetrator.

The right keeps bringing up all these cases of Acorn “voter fraud,” but in reality Acorn was the victim, not the perpetrator. Acorn paid canvassers—some per hour and some per registration—and occasionally unscrupulous canvassers would just forge registration cards to rip off Acorn. Remember, these forged cards don’t translate into actual votes no matter what the right would have us believe.

To my knowledge, Acorn has never been prosecuted for voter fraud. In fact, U.S. Attorney David Iglesias was fired in part because he refused to prosecute Acorn. According to Iglesias, he was ordered to prosecute Acorn by the White House, but he declined after failing to find any credible evidence of wrongdoing on Acorn's part. He was subsequently fired--yes, he is one of those U.S. Attorneys. (More about Acorn and Iglesias's firing at http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4372 )

The only ones ever prosecuted, as far as I know, were the dishonest canvassers who defrauded Acorn. The fact is that the right spins these cases just to deflect from their own string of election thefts.

Lately, the right is also using Acorn as a scapegoat for their own failed economic policies. Next will they will be blaming Acorn for getting Caribou Barbie’s daughter pregnant. ;)

[Neecy]

30. We were confronted by a RW nitwit about this yesterday

We were registering voters in south Kansas City and some guy started shouting at one of us, accusing us of being part of ACORN. I didn't hear all of the discussion but I heard the rw tool shout, "Go look it up on the Internet!" before screaming away in his car. My fellow volunteer had never heard of them so I filled him in on the latest wingnut boogeyman.

There were literally hundreds of voter registration drives going on in KC yesterday and the freeper must have gotten totally paranoid (and panicked). Fun day.

[Kingofalldems]

31. Fox had super bulletins about ACORN last night

This is being pushed by the dirty tricksters in the GOP.