Re: Acorn

[grantcart]

The other day I visited a Post Office and asked about an employee.

He had been arrested.

He had been taking money out of the mail for a number of years. Once the Post Office thought they had a problem then they had the Postal Investigators send out a number of letters with money in it to addresses on his route.

The money had been taken out.

The man was arrested and in his house they found more evidence.

No one suggests that the Post Office be defunded.

Similar stories also occur with regularity at Camp Pendleton where the brig is kept full with enlisted men and officers who have tried to embezzle money from the government.

And yet the Marines continue to operate as a part of the government.


If there is a crime, investigate it and prosecute it.

Look for systems in the organization to reduce the possibility of fraud or other crime.

Continue to have your own inspectors that test those systems and also respond to possible leads hinting at fraud.


Ever government organization, including the FBI, the Border Patrol, the CIA have had some bad apples.

You don't throw away an organization becuase of fraud. You find it and prosecute it.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

1. Excellent post!

My pleasure to K&R...

[NYC_SKP]

2. We must de-fund the United States Postal Service.

Forthwith, post haste.

And the marines.



Actually, maybe we should de-fund the military.

A little.

[BlooInBloo]

3. And if you don't, if means you support rape.

[Zoeisright]

4. That is exactly, exactly the point.

Thank you.

[DainBramaged]

5. Great post, but the Pukes targeted ACORN for one reason

racism. They don't want the Black man improving his position in their world. And anyone who disagrees with me can bite a snake.

[Ozymanithrax]

10. They targeted ACORN because it is going to be centeral to next years electon.

This wasn't done just to punish non-white people. It was done because they saw ACORN as a threat to their ability to suppress the votes of non Conservaatives. It is about power.

And I've eaten Rattle Snake. No, it doesn't taste like chicken.

[DainBramaged]

14. $5 million denied ACORN this year or next isn't going to shut them down

And I intend to send them money. If WE as Progressives sent them money like we sent Obama money, it's game, set, match for the Pukes.

This was Racism, bald-faced racism.

[TxRider]

21. But it is half the funding

The repubs will go after any foundations or charities that fund them next, watch..

[Ozymanithrax]

40. Republicans don't want them shut down.

ACORN is going to be ther poster boy. They will point out how they climed ACORN was fixing the election. They will pointo out how ACORN is into Child prostitution. Link Obama and Democrats to Child Prostitution. It doens't matter it is it true or not. Facts don't matter. It is about power.

[Cha]

62. I was thinking too that something big could grow

out of this Acorn. Just because it's not getting funds from the Gov doesn't mean we can't send them money.

[HowHasItComeToThis]

81. REPUBLICANS HAVE BEEN GAMING US SINCE NIXON

[Lisa0825]

6. You nailed it again! nt

[TxRider]

7. ACORN is not a government organization

[grantcart]

8. No but the functions it has undertaken sustain a public purpose.

If we simply eliminate Acorn then those functions will be eliminated, and a new organization will have to be built.


There are many sub contractors that work for the government that are found to have employees who have committed fraud with against US Funds. Hell even companies like Boeing get fined millions regularly for bidding fraud.

To keep the analogy perfect, every single large subcontractor that has ever received money from the US government has had some incident of fraud. They weren't immediately defunded.


This is an attack on poor people pure and simple.

[Luminous Animal]

9. Exactly. Thanks for the OP and the post. (n/t)

[BlooInBloo]

12. If people don't like that purpose, it's predictable that they'll want to shut ACORN down...

for any semi-kinda-sorta plausible reason.

[TxRider]

20. Yes the rebubs want them badly, here's their current agenda

And this was a month ago, before the videos... Convenient timing I think

For this report delivered to congress, the videos, and at the same time as the health care debate..

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/document-preview.aspx?doc_i...

[BlooInBloo]

22. Yah, republicans too.

[sellitman]

84. Who has caused this country more grief?

Acorn or Blackwater?

Who has cost us more?

Who has done the most good?

Where is the Republican outrage with Blackwater?

We know why they are outraged. Jimmy Carter knows too.

[DHub999]

51. And it "becoming" a quasi-governmental agency

... IS a large part OF the problem, folks


every new disclosure like this HURTS your cause, imo


the President's correct in distancing himself after these new
revelations

[paulsby]

11. great, but not analogous

amongst other things, the post office is a government (in most senses) agency. ACORN isn't. ACORN serves US (the public) at the DISCRETION of the govt.

they did NOT police themselves. the fact that so many employees would so willingly do this stuff that the investigators revealed, shows a CULTURE of incompetency and corruption.

ACORN has the burden to prove themselves worthy of federal money. the onus is on them.

they can clean house, fix their problems and reapply

i support congress. they did the right thing, as did the overwhelming majority of dems who voted to do so

[grantcart]

15. actually it is analagous but if you want a perfect "Acorn to Acorn" Analogy- here it is:

All of the large sub contractors who have received money from the government have all had problems with fraud and abuse.


Boeing, McDonnell Douglas and every single major subcontractor in the MIC has had huge fines against them for bidding fraud.


The large subcontractors who work on our bases our do other services for the government have all had problems with embezzlement.


In this case there is no allegation of embezzlement but of stupid advice that was given in a situation that borders on entrapment. In any case ACORN was wrong but the attack on ACORN isn't because they are a government agency or sub contractor who has a bad apple, its because they were poor

[paulsby]

18. if you can't frame an honest argument

then why bother. it was not merely "stupid advice" and the situation did not border on entrapment (i worked undercover narcotics and weapon detail for almost 2 years. i know entrapment. this aint it). it was offering advice to facilitate a purported child sex trafficker.

if and when you can frame the argument honestly, let me know

but calling what they did giving "stupid advice" is absurd

[The Magistrate]

23. Mr. Grantcart, Sir, Has Framed An Honest Argument

That you refuse to acknowledge this opens interesting questions....

[paulsby]

25. no, it doesn;t

i refuse to engage intellectually dishonest argument

his premise is unsound.

ACORN was not defunded based on what he claimed.

thus, the rest of his argument is irrelevant.

he claimed the reason was that they offered "stupid advice"

that is classic minimalization. it's neither honest nor accurate.

[The Magistrate]

26. His Argument, Sir, Is Sound

One organization is de-funded on the ground that some of its employees engaged in behavior that would have been criminal, if the people they were speaking with had been either genuine criminals themselves, or law enforcement agents running a sting: a great many organizations, employees of which have certainly engaged in criminal behavior, because they have been convicted of crimes, or who have employed persons presently under indictment or federal investigation for criminal behavior, continue to receive Federal funds.

[paulsby]

27. no, sir it's not

and i already explained why.

deflection and evasion bores me. honesty engages me.

[The Magistrate]

28. You Have Not Successfully Explained Anything, Sir

You have merely restated an animus towards one organization, and consider that the strength of your personal animus towards it moves that organization into a special category, separate from all other recipients of Federal funds.

[paulsby]

29. i have no animus

and i stated the problem. several posts ago. do you want me to do it again?and you ignore it, because partisanship matters more to you than truth

that is boring to me

[The Magistrate]

32. Nonesense, Sir: No One Can Read Your Posts On the Matter And Avoid Concluding That You Do

Your comments have been couched in highly emotional language, both reflecting and attempting to arouse, unthinking hatred. And it is not the thing of a moment's heat; it has persisted for days now. When pressed, you declare disagreement with you is the result of 'partisanship', which you then claim to hold yourself above. But you are pressing yourself, in fact, a line that has been pressed from the far right for a very long time.

[TxRider]

The analogy does not hold

Acorn is accused of embezzlement, cover up, fraud, illegal political activity etc. etc.

Plus these videos.

[The Magistrate]

41. No Organization, Sir, Is Accused Of Embezzlement

Employees of an organization may commit the crime of embezzlement against it. Nor is embezzlement always reported, even by the most 'respectable' of organizations. The rest of this is similarly shabby. One could prepare with ease a similar bill against a great many non-profit organizations with political tinges, including a very high proportion of churches.

[TxRider]

49. So what?

Congress is considering all these charges against ACORN and their employees across the board, as a systemic problem.

That is why they are being defunded.

That is why the previous analogy is false in minimizing the issue to one of simply a few employees giving bad advice. The issue before congress is not limited to that.

ACORN needs to take the advice of their external council, which outlines many of the problems.

[noiretextatique]

76. the charges are allegations...there haven't been any convictions

meanwhile, and organization like catholic charities continues to be funded. it make no sense to strip ACORN of funding simply because of allegations of wrongdoing.

[FBaggins]

69. Again... there's a difference

I'll start by saying that I've only read the fringes of the embezzlement issue and I don't know the sources' reliability.

There's a difference between some accountant stealing money from a company and the company's senior executives doing it and then seeing other's at the top cover up for it. One represents a corrupt individual with a victim company... the other represents a corrupt organization. One is not a concern from a public funding standpoint... the other is Enron.

IIRC, the embezzlement charge caused Acorn to (similar to today) bring in "outside" help to review the charges... then they fired that help when it got too nosy.

Again... the source I read months back may have been biased... but aren't the accusers former members of Acorn's board?

[The Magistrate]

80. Regarding The Embezzlement, Sir

What is charged, in an attempt to put a criminal construction on the matter, is that laws were violated in how the sum was made good to the treasury of the organization, as well as that taxes were not paid on the sum embezzled. That any of this amounted to actual crime is far from clear.

[FBaggins]

82. Sure ... OTOH...

... I'm sure we can agree that "far from clear" is much easier to assure when the board members that you picked
to investigate the issue get fired after they start saying that something crooked was going on.

I haven't read truly independent sources, but do we really thing that some right wingers were hidden on the acorn board?

[The Magistrate]

83. There Is Often a Hot-House Atmosphere In Such Groups, Sir

Personalities can count for a great deal, and frictions express themselves in a variety of ways.

My personal view is that the embezzler should have been turned over to the law, rather than that a way for him to contrive restitution by note been pursued. But that is separate from whether what was done instead constituted criminal behavior.

[FBaggins]

34. With respect, it really isn't a good analogy.

"Someone who works here did something bad and someone who works somewhere else did something bad" is hardly enough to draw an equivalency. To then go so far as to reduce one to "bad advice" is to cross beyond any measure of "reasonable".

"Personal animus" almost certainly plays into this, but it is at least as likely that it is our (reasonable) animus toward a pseudo-news organization (and this twice-pseudo "investigative reporting") that impacts the discussion.

The original Acorn response seemed reasonable when only one or two videos had been released. They claimed that the sting/entrapment/whatever had been run in many of their offices and had been almost universally unsuccessful. While that story was plausible, we could argue that "every group has some bad apples". The story no longer appears plausible. There would have to be scores of failed visits (they claim there were none) in order for those 4-5 to fit the "few bad apples" notion.

[The Magistrate]

42. It Is Quite Sufficient To Draw An Equivalency, Sir

In many of the instances where employees of other organizations receiving Federal funds have been charged or convicted, the crimes have been major felonies, actually committed with real consequences. In this tempest in a teapot, a few people behaved very foolishly, with no actual consequence to anyone. To the best of my knowledge, to date, the provocateurs have revealed three nibbles, against which can be placed one police report, when the authorities were summoned after they departed. We have heard from only one A.C.O.R.N. employee involved, who states she thought the people were playing some kind of joke, and resolved to press the joke to even more outrageous heights to see if it would break down.

[FBaggins]

46. Again... it's a question of proportion

Studying some corporation and finding a dozen instances of illegal behavior (out of hundreds of thousands of employees) is one thing (that doesn't really accrue to the organization). Going from office to office and (whether it's 100% or 50% or 30%) consistently finding people whose "community assistance" consists of "assisting" them in breaking the law is something entirely different. It's a matter of simple degrees.

And again... the fact that it was not "real" does not mean that the people behaved "foolishly". These were people who knew (incorrectly, but they didn't know it) that young girls going to be used as sex slaves. Foolish people don't go along with that. "Bad" people do.

To the best of my knowledge, to date, the provocateurs have revealed three nibbles, against which can be placed one police report

I think it's five and the only police report I've seen said that he (and I believe a different girl) were causing a disturbance. There was not a report that someone wanted their help setting up a prostitution ring with underage girls. Surely we all see a difference?

The "press the joke" claim is simply not credible (admittedly "to me").

[TxRider]

50. And that doesn't count

The littany of other charges in a dozen states ACORN employees are faced with...

The videos pushed it over the tipping point...

[FBaggins]

54. I don't think so

To some extent they just brought them into the public eye, but these are also worse in character than "Donald Duck" and the like.

That's really what the "sting" was about. These two "knew" that Acorn was crooked and that people weren't seeing it... so they set out to demonstrate it in a notorious fashion. It was either structural weakness within Acorn or unforgivably poor leadership that allowed it to happen.


The real sin is the one that the Magistrate sees here too. We are all blind to the failings of people that we think agree with us and outraged by those of the opposition.

[Hutzpa]

61. Hence the reason why the OP

made a comparison to major corporation funded by the government that have been plagued by
controversy, which you seemed to disagree on.

[FBaggins]

65. Actually

The follow-on example was bidding fraud and the like. Still not the same thing.

IN business there are grey lines that you don't always know you've crossed until you get your hand slapped. That's a cost of doing business. I've known many perfectly honest companies to end up learning those lessons.

This is something entirely different. These are people whose ROLE it is to meet with disadvantaged community members and give them advice re: how to get the legitimate help that they need. This (as with blackwater... I think) is a fundamental abuse of their very reason for existence. If these people receive any training at all it should be in how to help people opperate within the bounds of our society.

This was no grey area.

[The Magistrate]

52. You Might, Sir, want To Look Into Federal Contracting In Iraq, For Instance

Fraud is actually pretty systematic, though it is not treated with sufficient severity, in my view. You are on pretty shaky ground in maintaining there is some difference in kind here.

It strikes me as quite credible people approached by the provocateurs would not have believed them to be what they claimed. The story they gave is not credible to anyone with some awareness of how human trafficking and even prostitution is actually conducted, nor is it credible people actually engaged in the trade at the level claimed would simply walk in to incriminate themselves and ask this sort of advice from perfect strangers.

[FBaggins]

58. I agree,

But the original analogy was a crook at the post office (or similar).

Of course it would be reasonable to pull a contract from a company that was that blatantly negligent. The blackwater analogy seems to fit just fine (admitting that I don't know all of the particulars).

It strikes me as quite credible people approached by the provocateurs would not have believed them to be what they claimed.

If it were you? Perhaps (though could you imagine yourself playing it as she claims she did?). But that's clearly not what happened here. None of them appeared to be quite that "sharp".

This really isn't that difficult. I'm sympathetic to those who see many of out elected officials as DINO or possessing insufficient spines... but large numbers of them are smarter than that and the vote was pretty clear.

I think they knew what they were doing.

[The Magistrate]

63. My Sense Of Humor, Sir, is An Impish Thing

It might well move me to top the fool, though it might well strike me as a better jest to see them confronted with a humorless police officer: it would depend on my mood and caffeine level. Until we hear from the A.C.O.R.N. people in the videos, we cannot say with any certainty what their actual view of the situation was.

[FBaggins]

71. No doubt... but

do you expect them not to have some story? If they are guilty they'll still come up with something. And those who are predisposed to support anyone on "my side" will find a way to accept it. The guy in San Diego said that his English wasn't very good and he was just trying to help.


Of course asking the prostitute how much she charges and if she would work for him is just trying to help. Right? lol.

It reminds me of one of those investigative stings that was run with some local tv station and the police. They caught guys online trying to solicit sex from young girls. When the guy showed up at the girl's apartment she went into the bathroom to fix her hair (or something) and the adult reporter came in and started asking the guy the questions you and I would like to ask (i.e., "what the #@$% were you thinking???"). After which the cops knocked on the door.

How many of them do you think said "aw man... you caught me"? I bet you get the right answer.

One guy said that he was there to protect the girl. That he came to warn her that there are dangerous people in the world and she needs to be more careful. They were laughable for their transparentness... as are these stories. It's sad that anyone would buy them just because the organization is politically aligned with our priorities (or because the exposing organizations are unsavory).

The proper response? Go find a hotel bill that shows that when they went to California they shared a room... or that they were paid to do this by Fox's owner. If they're slimy then take them down... don't get muck on good Democrats trying to defend the bad ones.

[The Magistrate]

72. A Weak Comparison, Sir

In those instances, you have a good deal of evidence to hand establishing criminal intent: you will have a record of explicit comments over time, including declarations of intent to do something criminal, and you will have the overt act of traveling to what is intended as the scene of the intended crime. This record works heavily against any alternative explaination proffered when police appear.

In these provocateur's videos, you do not have that kind of record laid down in advance. No one, not even the provocateur himself, has made even the allegation, let alone presented facts to indicate, that A.C.O.R.N. staff has acted in the past to facilitate prostitution and trafficking in minors. What you have in these videos is a stranger walking in cold, and, if what he says were to be taken as true, freely incriminating himself as a criminal of the most despicable water, which is a sufficiently bizarre occurrence that some degree of confusion and flummox would be expected in any person suddenly confronted with it. One very natural reaction would be to try and probe to determine if what was being said was true, and stringing along would be a serviceable means of accomplishing this. The longer a person who is lying, or who is a fantasist and mythomane, is kept talking, the more likely that person is to reveal their falsity. Had the provocateur come upon an under-cover policeman working in an A.C.O.R.N. office, the officer's reactions would have been pretty similar to those of the employees: he would have kept the man talking, to obtain details, and offered to facilitate, in hope of establishing cause for arrest and prosecution.

[FBaggins]

74. I don't see the distinction you're making.

Certainty of guilt in my example really just serves to point out that guilty people have "stories" to tell when they're caught. The existence of a story isn't evidence of innocence. I in no way meant to commingle the weight of evidence in one case with that in another... but the results aren't equal either. This isn't a criminal prosecution.

Look... my point is that they're either crooked or they aren't. If they ARE, then you should expect exactly the kinds of "creative" excuses that we're seeing. If they aren't... then (given the videos), the real story is going to SEEM awfully "creative".

So the story tells us little to nothing. Let's just say that they appear awfully implausible.

<i>which is a sufficiently bizarre occurrence that some degree of confusion and flummox would be expected in any person </i><P>

I've seen no such confusion or degree of "flummox". I've seen several people hunker down and begin providing advice on how to accomplish their illegal ends.

This is important, because it speaks to the organization as a whole. They must receive SOME training in how to do their jobs. Acorn is set up almost exclusively in poor inner-city areas (likely with high crime rates). SOME of the people who come to them for help will be involved in illegal activities. How can you NOT include some training on what to do when the client says he has all this drug money and the bank doesn't trust him?

[The Magistrate]

78. In Your Close, Sir, You Have Put Your Finger On A Real Point

And deserve some commendation for being the first among the 'anti' faction to do so. While it steers us into murky waters all around, it warrants consideration.

It is quite likely, given the circumstances of some of the neighborhoods which A.C.O.R.N. services, that some genuine clients do derive income from illegal activities. In neighborhoods where unemployment ranges towards forty percent, and most of those employed are receiving minimal wages, it would be hard for it to be otherwise. How this should be handled is an interesting question.

My first engagement in this controversy was to point out advice on circumventing tax laws, and means of concealing the source of illegal income in order to make large credit purchases, is readily available to more prosperous criminals, and that what the people in the initial videos were depicted as doing is fairly common in professional suites. It is still illegal there, certainly, but it is part of the ordinary operation of things, and mostly goes unremarked and unpunished. Persons who display great umbrage at such behavior by an A.C.O.R.N. employee without displaying a similar umbrage at corruption of far greater reach and scale nearer the top of the criminal and social order do not deserve to be taken seriously as opponents of corruption and criminality, and persons who claim that action against A.C.O.R.N. strikes a great blow against corruption and criminality in our country are, to put it bluntly, either blind fools or lying allies of grand scale corruption. This would certainly take in the whole of the right wing attack machine promoting and pumping up this trivial occurrence.

If, in advising people on the purchase of homes, A.C.O.R.N. did nothing but what was routinely done by ordinary mortgage brokers over the last half dozen years, they would certainly have been engaged in some practices that were fraudulent by any reasonable standards. Mortgage brokers advised a great many clients to mis-state their incomes on applications, for example. To the best of my knowledge, this wide-spread practice has not resulted in prosecutions for fraud, though one would think it ought to have violated statutes in plenty. Even if one puts the worst possible construction on what these videos seem to show, it is difficult to make the case the behavior shown is something exceptional, and so it is hard to regard it as something worth especial effort at outrage.

When a society so structures its affairs that large numbers of its people are effectively cut off from legal income, illegal activity among those people cannot be regarded strictly as a question of personal moral worth or responsibility. It may still be necessary to police such behavior, as it can indeed do real harm to others, and in so policing it, it will be convenient to pretend the individuals in question are solely responsible for what they choose to do, and moral failures and bad people accordingly, but this is a fiction obscuring the fact that the real harm is done by those who maintain and benefit from unjust structures of economic life, and that the great moral failure is the grasping and covetousness of those at the top of the social pyramid. Without corruption and criminality at the top, there is none at the bottom; the one creates the other, and indeed, enjoins it on many.

What a service organization like A.C.O.R.N. ought to do if approached by a client who does derive income from illegal activities admits, in my view, of several answers. Certainly, on one level, it would be well advised to hew strictly to the law, which will bar advising a person how to launder money and make fraudulent representations. There would certainly exist strong temptation to do as is often done for more prosperous criminals, however, and try to walk up to the line, as professionals do, in imparting information indirectly on the wink and nod. Most anyone working for such an organization, after all, will likely share the view outlined above concerning roots of, and ultimate culpability for, much of criminality in society. In some instances, establishing oneself as a property owner, gaining a respectable face, is an essential step to getting out of the criminal life, and getting a footing in legal society for one's children and family. The old saw that at the root of every great fortune is a great crime is not an idle one. To have something to lose tends to tame a person.

[The Magistrate]

88. Some More Facts In Evidence For You, Sir....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

[TxRider]

30. His argument is not sound

Here is the 88 pages of allegations against acorn in congress.

All these issues, plus the videos, is why they are being defunded.

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/document-preview.aspx?doc_i...

Surely they are not all true, but it sure doesn't look good.

Contractors do get fined, but they likely have a much easier time providing
evidence that they have put in place policies and procedures prevent repetition.

[The Magistrate]

33. You Cite Issa, Sir, As a Serious Commentator?

He complains of Acorn registering people who will not likely vote for Republicans; doubtless he does consider that a crime....

[TxRider]

36. That is your only issue out of 88 pages?

I believe it using federal funds for political purposes, which in some situations is not legal.

I don't vouch for all those charges, but some are admitted.

To minimize the ACORN situation in congress to a simple "a few people gave bad advice" is an invalid analogy at best.

[The Magistrate]

39. Charges By Issa, Sir, Do Not Move Me In The Slightest

You are wise to state you 'don't vouch for all these charges'....

The vote in Congress was a political necessity from the standpoint of Democratic Representatives, given both the heated present atmosphere and unimportance of the organization. It does not bother me, but it does not compel me to regard it as anything remotely resembling a finding of fact.

[TxRider]

44. Then you have no desire for honest discussion.

I'm wise to not vouch for all those charges because I did not take the time to check his cited sources.

But to ignore current charges filed in several states on ACORN and employees.

To ignore that the founder's brother embezzled a million dollars, which was hidden from the board and not reported to law enforcement.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/09/us/09embezzle.html

To dismiss serious charges of transferring government funds for political activism use.

And to do to completely out of hand without a second thought is not honest discussion of the issue.

To state this defunding is only about these videos, and state that no other issue was considered in congress when voting to defund is ludicrous at best.

To make an analogy that minimizes ACORN's situation to a just a few people giving bad advice, is a false analogy and disingenuous.

I hold no dislike for ACORN, but it is clear they need to get their house in order...

[woo me with science]

55. Your patience is admirable.

You are doing a yeoman's job of underscoring, with facts, the intellectual dishonesty of those who insist on holding their hands over their ears.

[The Magistrate]

56. Citing Issa, Sir, Is Not Honest Discussion

The embezzlement story is well known, and of no consequence. The details so far on 'transfer' of funds are not persuasive: money is fungible, what matters is the amounts spent to purpose.

If you wish to defend Congress against a claim of stampede, you are free to try, but are unlikely to succeed: that is what Congress best, and most often. The vote was the result of present headlines, and would not have occurred otherwise.

A.C.O.R.N. probably could use a management review, and knowing they were in the cross-hairs of serious enemies, certainly ought to have been more careful in training their staff.

[TxRider]

64. It certain is honest

It is a report before congress by a ranking member of an oversight committee.

It is part of the issue, it is part of the discussion, regardless of it's every allegation being factual or not.

What is dishonest is disregarding that report out of hand due to the author alone without regard to actual content or checking the sources cited for the allegations.

Shoot the messenger.

Apparently congress disagrees, they voted to defund.

ACORN certainly needs to heed the advice of it own outside legal counsel, who has pointed out it's lack of auditing, lack of proper policy to segregate funds, and many other issues that have led to the current actions.

[The Magistrate]

67. Issa Is Not Honest, And His Being A Senior Republican Gives Him No Credibility Whatever, Sir

It simply means he has been working to do harm to the country for a longer time than some of his fellows....

[haele]

75. Issa is honest? As honest as Tom Delay, as honest as

the birthers, and a host of others that have brought both wing-nuttery and quid-pro-quo in front of both Congress and in his case, the electorate of California to be voted on. Issa was the driving force to help Enron push Governor Grey Davis out of California.

The man will push any agenda that waves donations in front of him. The fact that he comes from a district with about 70% mix of right-wing-nuts or corporatists has a lot to do with his "seniority" in Congress.

The Republicans have been reaching for any reason to de-fund ACORN since 2004, when it was becoming obvious that their community outreach - not their "vote registration" inconsistencies - were helping too many of the "wrong sort of people" gain and hold on to some form of local power.
A poor renter who on food stamps working paycheck to paycheck for several employers is not going to be involved with local politics. However, someone who has brought themselves up to a economic level where they have enough leisure to actually participate in their community will cause trouble for those who depend on depressed, passive constituents living in borderline poverty to keep their own personal power.
The problem with ACORN is that it helps "those people" become educated, which in turn makes them uppity. Whether "those people" were under/unemployed, working middle class, legal immigrants or minorities, they were getting above their station. And that, to those who depend on a large pool of ignorant consumers for their constituency, must be stopped!

Granted, those that were videotaped by provacatures were not wise to play around with what was pretty much obviously a game during working hours, but to pull the funding for the entire organization based on non-criminal behavior, misdemeanor activities, or individual isolated fraud is, in a word, bogus.

Where are the actual charges, please? Not commentary by those in power who don't believe in the organization in the first place, but actual court decisions should determine whether or not they should lose funding - or if they lose funding for certain operations only, which is what happens to all other federal contractors in cases of fraud or criminal malfeascence. Unless the whole organization was, say, a Mafia money laundering cell, the government does not "defund" an entire organization. Instead, they will defund certain operations where there was clear criminal intent.
Perhaps they wouldn't fund the voter outreach. But they would, and usually could still fund community small business outreach, or health access outreach, or any of the other services ACORN provides where there is little or no question of organizational effectiveness.

Haele

[TxRider]

77. I didn't say he was honest.

I didn't say his report was honest.

I said dismissing the report and all of it's allegations out of hand is not honest.

Look, if there's nothing wrong then ACORN has nothing to fear by being transparent, and being scrutinized.

Afterward they get their funding back.

When you see wrongdoing from the top, embezzlement and cover up, to the bottom, employees charged in several states, then this series of videos on top of it... It adds up.

Open the books, open the records, shine the light of day onto the operation and prove you are a clean operation that will responsibly and transparently use taxpayer dollars.

[The Magistrate]

79. You Continue To Maintain, Sir, That He Is A Credible Accuser, And He is Not

The pattern he claims to present as fact is a thing of mere allegation, focused through clouds of smoke and an infinity of mirrors.

If you have actually waded through the report, you will understand what a trumped up thing it is, and that it is trumped up out of desire to see jailed persons who have had some effectiveness in mobilizing people contrary to the interests of Issa and the corporate criminals he represents and enables.

[TxRider]

85. I never did and do not now

I simply provided a report that I assume has been part of the debate in congress, as it is report to congrees, and could be affecting the debate, and therefore the outcome of the vote to defund ACORN.

That is all.

I stated quite clearly I haven not taken the time to check the cited sources in it and do not vouch for the claims made.

Unless I do, I reserve judgment on any claims within it and do not either reject them out of hand nor accept them.

Factual or not the claims made seem to be part of the discussion in Congress. Which amounts to more than a few employees giving bad advice.

Would ACORN be defunded if these videos were the only issue involved in the debate in congress? I think not.

[The Magistrate]

86. If You Cite It, Sir, You Claim It As a Credible Source, You Endorse It: Do Not Try And Craw-Fish

'Report from the ranking member of the committee' is an excessively multi-syllabic way to say 'two-ply toilet paper': it has no standing whatever in the House. It is nothing but a hatchet-job put together by minority staff. You will note that even the Justice Department of the Bush administration could not bring itself to take seriously the possibility of prosecution of the organization as a whole, and could not even manage to convince itself a civil R.I.C.O. action had any probability of success. This despite twisting the law and Federal procedure in genuinely scandalous ways to try and procure trifling prosecutions of employees of the organization calculated to achieve head-line impact in election season.

The vote in Congress was a typical head-line stampede, like the condemnation of the Move-On advertisement attacking Gen. Petreaus some years ago, and like many other items in the history of that flighty institution. Republicans voted unanimously on their party line, and a number of Democrats saw nothing to be gained by casting a vote in favor of an organization being widely maligned on cable television. Nor does that last trouble me much: the most salient element of this whole affair is its triviality.

[TxRider]

89. So you believe then

That the videos alone are solely responsible for members deciding to vote to defund.

And they would have done so if none of the other issues had ever existed? If ACORN had never been accused of anything else in it's history?

I do not.

I agree with your logic, but the issa report is also a headline, the embezzlement is a headline, the registration fraud is a headline, and the videos are today a headline.. That is my point, thank you for presenting a better way to put it forward.

The members voting to defund are indeed a headline stampede, but a stampede from the collection of headlines, not simply this latest one in isolation, sir.

[The Magistrate]

90. No Other Factor, Sir, But the Present Wind, Is Required

Issa's report certainly is not a head-line, and the only other appearances of the thing in wide circulation, the fraudulent claims of 'voter fraud by Acorn', are long out of date.

Attempting to treat a lurch of the Congressional herd as a thing indicating either solid fact or reasoned consideration of a matter is foolishness.

Added to which, as time passes, we have more and more evidence of deceit by the provocateurs in this matter.

The ground on which you are fighting, Sir, grows smaller and shakier by the hour....

[grantcart]

31. that you don't see that it borders on entrapment then I wonder about your

law enforcement ethics.

The people sitting in the office had no interest in seeking out Prostitutes or giving advice to Prostitutes.


Somebody came into their office and then engaged them in conversations about illegal activities that they would never have initiated on their own initiative:

Entrapment is the act of a law enforcement agent inducing a person to commit an offense which would be illegal and the person would otherwise have been unlikely to commit.<1> In many jurisdictions, entrapment is a possible defense against criminal guilt.

Unless you have evidence that Prostitutes regularly visit Acorn and ask for ways to defraud the IRS then I think it is safe to say that it is a crime that they otherwise would have be "unlikely to commit". This is not entrapment but it is bordering on entrapment.


As for framing the argument so that subcontractors are matched with subcontractor:


Here is a sample of fraud that is going on all of the time with subcontractors

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Corporate_Welfare/Mil...
According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, every single one of the top ten weapons contractors was convicted of or admitted to defrauding the government between 1980 and 1992. For example:
* Grumman paid the government $20 million to escape criminal liability for coercing subcontractors into making political contributions.
* Lockheed was convicted of paying millions in bribes to obtain classified planning documents.
* Northrop was fined $17 million for falsifying test data on its cruise missiles and fighter jets.
* Rockwell was fined $5.5 million for committing criminal fraud against the Air Force.


These sub contractors were fined, in some cases criminal prosecutions resulted, but the subcontracting organization was not targeted for elimination.

That is reserved only for organizations that serve the interest of the poor.

[The Magistrate]

37. Under the Law, Sir, a Defense Of Entrapment Would Not Be Available To these People

If police working in mufti had come into the office with this same story, and received the answers they did in a couple of offices, a defense pleading entrapment would surely fail. That is a very difficult defense to bring off.

[TxRider]

19. But there is embezzlement.

Two prominent national nonprofit groups are reeling from public disclosures that large sums of money were misappropriated in unrelated incidents by an employee and a former employee.

The groups, Acorn, one of the country’s largest community organizing groups, and the Points of Light Institute, which works to encourage civic activism and volunteering, have dealt with the problems in very different ways.

Acorn chose to treat the embezzlement of nearly $1 million eight years ago as an internal matter and did not even notify its board. After Points of Light noticed financial irregularities in early June, it took less than a month for management to alert federal prosecutors, although group officials say they have no clear idea yet what the financial impact may be.

A whistle-blower forced Acorn to disclose the embezzlement, which involved the brother of the organization’s founder, Wade Rathke.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/09/us/09embezzle.html

Then add in voter registration fraud by employees under investigation in about a dozen states.

Transferring HUD funds to their political activism arm under investigation

It's just piling up, these videos are the straw breaking the camel's back.

[The Magistrate]

43. Best To Drop, Sir, the 'voter registration fraud by employees' Hobby-Horse

This is not a crime by A.C.O.R.N. but rather a crime against it. People paid to collect registrations sometimes pad their totals, as a low-grade scam to get a little more money for themselves. The organization collecting applications is required to turn in to the state whatever sheets they receive from their canvassers. A.C.O.R.N. has generally flagged sheets they felt contained such made-up signatures, as other organizations doubtless do, there being a shortage of 'Donald Ducks' and such actually abroad in the land, but they are still required to turn them in to the registrar.

[TxRider]

53. It speaks of incompetence at best

To put in place policies that reward employees financially to forge registrations.

And to do so even after the issue has been brought to light?

Not all were labeled Donald Duck, and it is a crime. One they are culpable for to some degree hiring people and setting the policies they set for them that encourage that behavior.

Why not simply just pay them a 40hr minumum wage?

You can dismiss it as a hobby horse, but state law enforcement officials are not doing so and have pressed charges in several states.

[The Magistrate]

60. It Is A Natural Out-Flow, Sir, Of the Task As Envisioned

Two things are attempted. One is to get registrations out of difficult and dangerous neighborhoods; an offer of pay gives some incentive to go where mere volunteers of 'goo-goo' persuasion would not often wish to go, and might not be able to go safely. The other is to give some people temporary employment, and a bit of a pay-check for a while, recruiting canvassers in neighborhoods with very high levels of unemployment.

The matter is, in any case, something that no one has yet demonstrated resulted in the casting of a fraudulent vote, so it has had no effect on any election. It is certainly a crime to falsify registration forms. The prosecutions you are referring to, however, have in most instances been pressed for partisan purposes by Republican officials. That party has taken as its electoral strategy for some years attempts to suppress minority voting and registration.

[emilyg]

24. Excellent take. Thank you.

[woo me with science]

57. Thank you.

Keep up the good work. You are more patient than I.

[timo]

13. Still wondering

Why Obama still has them on the payroll? I was thinking they would be the first to get the axe! xe, and triple canopy etc

[grantcart]

16. Why would PRESIDENT Obama get rid of them?

[Canuckistanian]

17. Has ACORN ever been convicted of a crime?

I can't recall any convictions. There may have been some but I don't recall.

A Boeing engineer, on the other hand, has had a conviction.

Why is Boeing not denied federal funds?

[prostomulgus]

35. We're going to NEED Acorn NEXT YEAR.

We need to increase our majorities, that's going to take ALL of us. We cannot afford to lose an organization with a successful track record like Acorn.

In fact, this whole thing is nothing more than a move by the repukes to preemptively attack and weaken us. We need to DEFEND Acorn, not DEFUND them!!

[FBaggins]

38. I disagree

We DO need lots of grassroots support and community involvement.

That doesn't mean that we need Acorn.

Right now we need to keep those concrete shoes as far away from our feet as possible.

It doesn't matter whether it's "fair" or not. This stuff just "sells" too well.

[Hutzpa]

45. I would like to know

how you came to that conclusion, please, none of this thrash about
how the employees have done such and such.

I would like your vivid explanation on you came to this conclusion.

[FBaggins]

I've never considered them all that valuable (in most states).

Their work is sloppy and we don't get what we pay for. In most cases these aren't political professionals.

All of that is forgivable when you have a group of fervent supporters with links to parts of the community that you might not otherwise reach (and who do plenty of good work in non-political roles)


...but now they're a weight that can drag others down.

[Hutzpa]

59. So according to you

they are not valuable which makes for the sentiment you have displayed, but
you are also not willing to give them the benefit of doubts which is not
surprising as you would rather see them destroyed than helped the very
community that you somewhat give them credit for, so you would rather
see ACORN destroyed than continue to help the community.

It's a twisted concept if you asked me...

[FBaggins]

68. Lol

"Twisted" describes the logic in that post better than anything else.

But I suppose that if a straw man is all you can knock down...

No. I would rather see Acorn de-funded of taxpayer dollars (not "destroyed") than see another 1994 which does far more damage to our (and coincidentally Acorn's) ability to help the community.

"Benefit of the doubt" ended several screw-ups back.

[The Straight Story]

47. I think the same applies to the catholic church

Now we joke about priests being molesters (which happens it seems more in public schools than churches) and we want to demonize a whole group which has done a lot to help the homeless and poor.

But hey, they have religion so it is ok to blame a whole group on what some in it do.

Guess we don't like it when the same happens to groups we like.

[cliffordu]

48. K&R

Fuckin' up the poutrage with logic and clarity, hmm....?

Good work.

[cliffordu]

66. Kicketty again. Paying off the loan, one rec at a time.

[democracy1st]

70. there's fraud in every organization that exist

[spanone]

73. there should be a formal investigation....this is all knee jerk reaction

[yodoobo]

87. Wow they told you all that?

Usually when i've asked about an employee that suddenly disappears, I just get a curt "he is no longer employed here".

Especially when a crime has occurred they are told to clam up for a variety of legal reasons.

[Name removed]

91. Deleted message

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