OOPS! The ACORN Ban Could Snag Lockheed & Catholic Charities

Continuing the GOP's attack on the poor people's organizing group ACORN, the House and Senate -- by wide margins -- have voted to bar ACORN from receiving federal funding on account of fraudulent activity.

Let's hope the legislators enjoy their gloat and then get right back to business.  Passed in a flurry of bloviating bluster, The Defund ACORN law is written so broadly that it just could come in very handy.

Rep. Alan Grayson (D of Florida) has already asked the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) to find out which other contractors might be caught in the ACORN ban-net.

When it comes to fraud felons receiving federal funds -- Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman top the list, with 20 fraud cases between them. Where military contractors go, the cash-for-killers at Blackwater (now XE) are rarely far behind. (Indeed, see Jeremy Scahill's story.) And then there's Halliburton and the magically disappeared federal cash for troop services and Iraq reconstruction. (Has anyone seen that $9 billion? )

Fraud by recipients of the $750 billion financial bailout program is bound to show up soon. Earlier this year, federal investigators said they had opened 20 criminal probes into possible securities fraud, tax violations, insider trading and other crimes by TARP recipients.

If Congress - including scores of Democrats --  can get this hot and bothered over the $50 million ACORN's supposed to have received over the past 15 years they're going to become hysterical about the BILLIONS received by banks in the blink of a brokers' eyelid.

Not to be left out, several supposedly faith-based groups, recipients of federal grants, currently stand accused of misspending taxpayer cash to cover for child-molesting clergy.

To name just one, in at least two cities Catholic Charities stands accused of using federal funds to settle or cover up sex abuse charges, but that didn't stop Catholic Charities from receiving a federal government contract this August for $100 million to work with victims of natural disasters.

Bankers, brokers, bomb-makers, and let us not forget the child molesters...  This could all get very interesting very fast. I can hardly wait to turn on the television. Lou Dobbs, Glenn Beck. Who's going to be first with the outrage?

The F Word is a regular commentary by Laura Flanders, the host of GRITtv which broadcasts weekdays on satellite TV (Dish Network Ch. 9415 Free Speech TV) on cable, and online at GRITtv.org and TheNation.com. Follow GRITtv or GritLaura on Twitter.com.

Comments (51)

1. It won't get interesting. I guarantee this goes no where. Granted the law maybe be hastily and poorly written but if someone brings up the fact that the net extends to defense contractors and banks the net will just be cut smaller so it's only the people they intended.

   Posted by Cccomfo1 at 09/25/2009 @ 6:11pm

2. Nice try but no cigars, Ms. Flanders! As anyone knows, there are crooks in any outfit, even journalists who make up stories, imagine that!

   I believe this is the first blog commentary on ACORN by TN (Alterman don't count since I for one, don't bother to read anything here not open for taking shots at)....so, let's see what is ACORN's mission. Here's directly from its website's "About" page:

   Who is ACORN?

   ACORN is the nation's largest grassroots community organization of low- and moderate-income people.....building community organizations that are committed to social and economic justice.....ACORN helps those who have historically been locked out become powerful players in our democratic system.

   ==================================

   If I read the ACORN `mission statement' correctly, they were exposed by the couple to be doing exactly the opposite of what they were supposed to be doing. Unless, of course, Ms. Flanders, you belief:

   - Helping folks to set up housing via fraudulent means upholds "social and economic justice"

   - Helping entrepreneurs in prostitution strengthens low- and moderate-income neighborhoods

   - Teach entrepreneurs how to evade taxes helps them to "become powerful players in our democratic system"

   - Willingness to aid human trafficking of 13-yrs old girls across national borders is part of "grassroots" community organizing at its best

   - Confessing murder or manslaughter of a husband is all just in a day of work to establish rapport with the needy `poor'

   Reality is....criticisms from the Right won't mean much to rehabilitating ACORN....only those who really, really, really care about aiding low- and moderate-income people (with Gubber money) through ACORN, IF it survives, will bring real reform.

   So, are you a problem or a solution?

   Posted by Happy at 09/25/2009 @ 8:07pm

3. 1¢ ACORN (+ fake slave prostitution) : $1,000,000 Military Contractor Fraud (+ real slave prostitution + murder)

   Talk about asymmetrical fake outrage by new con repub paid off MIC whores in congressional suits.

   Posted by hsuBfools at 09/25/2009 @ 8:31pm

4. Blackwater, which has had five of its operatives indicted on manslaughter charges for gunning down unarmed civilians while on an official US government contract. A sixth Blackwater operative already pled guilty to killing an unarmed female doctor in Iraq. Blackwater didn't fire these men, as ACORN did its workers who were set up in a potentially illegal sting operation. No, Blackwater defends this senseless killing by its men.

   Or how about the fact that two Blackwater operatives plead guilty to illegal weapons smuggling charges and former employees say the company's owner Erik Prince has smuggled unauthorized weapons into Iraq in dog food bags on his private planes?

   The GOP smear machine tries to link ACORN to prostitution. Beyond the hypocrisy of Republicans denouncing prostitutes (long history of using them), do they really want talk of prostitution? One former Blackwater employee recently stated in a sworn declaration that Blackwater owner Erik Prince "failed to stop the ongoing use of prostitutes, including child prostitutes, by his men." Another former employee described "having young girls provide oral sex to Enterprise members in the ‘Blackwater Man Camp' [in Iraq] in exchange for one American dollar." [PDF links to these affidavits are here] Even if ACORN did provide inappropriate tax advice to a prostitute, is that really on the same level as this conduct being conducted on a huge US government contract? If you think these are just the allegations of disgruntled employees, read the Justice Department's perspective on Blackwater's crimes and how its men "specifically intended to kill" Iraqi civilians as "payback for 9/11."

   http://tinyurl.com/ybuo44m

   Posted by hsuBfools at 09/25/2009 @ 8:39pm

5. Ninety-percent--a full 90%--of Blackwater's business is with the government, including over $1 billion in "security" contracts. ACORN got $53 million over 15 years, most of which went to support housing for low-income people.

   How could any sane person put even the wildest allegations against ACORN up against the systematic misconduct and criminality of war corporations and gigantic multi-nationals?

   Posted by hsuBfools at 09/25/2009 @ 8:40pm

6. Manipulating the Public Agenda:

   Why ACORN Was in the News, and What the News Got Wrong

   Download the Full Report (PDF)

   Using the controversy over ACORN as a case study, this report illustrates the way the media help set the agenda for public debate, and frame the way that debate is shaped. It describes how "opinion entrepreneurs" (primarily business and conservative groups and individuals) set the story in motion as early as 2006, how the "conservative echo chamber" orchestrated its anti-ACORN campaign in 2008, how the McCain-Palin campaign picked it up, and how the mainstream media reported these allegations without investigating their truth or falsity. As a result, the relatively little-known community organization became the subject of a major news story in the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, to the point where 82 percent of the respondents in an October 2008 national survey reported they had heard about ACORN.

   http://departments.oxy.edu/uepi/acornstudy/

   Posted by hsuBfools at 09/25/2009 @ 8:44pm

7. A contractor died when a DynCorp manager used an employee's armored car to transport prostitutes, according to Barry Halley, a Worldwide Network Services employee working under a DynCorp subcontract.

   "DynCorp's site manager was involved in bringing prostitutes into hotels operated by DynCorp. A co-worker unrelated to the ring was killed when he was traveling in an unsecure car and shot performing a high-risk mission. I believe that my co-worker could have survived if he had been riding in an armored car. At the time, the armored car that he would otherwise have been riding in was being used by the contractor's manager to transport prostitutes from Kuwait to Baghdad."

   Two former employees of DynCorp, the government contracting powerhouse, have won legal victories after charging that the $2 billion-a-year firm fired them when they complained that co-workers were involved in a Bosnia sex-slave trade...

   Because of a combination of international treaties, jurisdictional loopholes and bureaucratic confusion, employees of private military companies such as DynCorp can escape prosecution for crimes they commit overseas. Most common crimes committed outside the United States are beyond the jurisdiction of U.S. courts, and the burgeoning local law enforcement systems in war-torn regions such as Bosnia are often insufficient or unwilling to police U.S. contractors.

   http://tinyurl.com/4yw6ra

   Posted by hsuBfools at 09/25/2009 @ 8:52pm

8. Yeah, but ACORN pushed for a higher minimum wage!!!

   And as all sane people know -- that's heresy to new con repubs' god of profiteering... off the weakest amongst us.

   Posted by hsuBfools at 09/25/2009 @ 9:01pm

9. 'Yeah, but ACORN pushed for a higher minimum wage!!!

   And as all sane people know -- that's heresy to new con repubs' god of profiteering... off the weakest amongst us.'

   As we know, "hsuBfools," that's exactly what got Honduran President Manuel Zelaya into trouble: raising the minimum wage.

   Thank you also for your other context-filled postings.

   Posted by JakobFabian at 09/25/2009 @ 10:23pm

10. How anyone at this point can defend ACORN is just beyond me. What's next? Will they be using stimulus money to pay for their lawsuit against the two journalists who exposed their corruption? And where's Barack Obama on the issue of safeguarding taxpayer money? His response when questioned about it, "It's not important."

    Mmmm, mmmm, mmmm, Barack Hussein Obama! Mmmm, mmmm, mmmm, Barack Hussein Obama!

    That's not me saying that, it's five year olds in a public school being forced to sing it.

    Macy Gray was kicked off Dancing With The Stars because she's black. Jimmy Carter said so.

    This country is in big trouble.

    Posted by gunslinger1 at 09/25/2009 @ 10:55pm

11. ACORN is using a tangled web of tax-exempt organizations to funnel tax money to itself according to a detailed review released last night by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee.

    Some or all of them may be nothing more than shell companies used to pass money from the government directly through to ACORN and its affiliates.

    "This analysis regarding the vast number of charitable organizations that ACORN set up to funnel money to itself raises questions about whether ACORN used the entities to advance the charitable mission of helping poor people get housing, or whether the entities were used as part of a shell game to funnel charitable funds to a taxable entity," Grassley said of his report.

    "Despite the fact that ACORN set up 42 tax-exempt entities and even housed 31 of them at the same address in New Orleans, ACORN told me three times in 2006 and 2007 that it did not operate as a tax-exempt entity. The public deserves an accounting of ACORN's conglomerate of tax-exempt organizations given the public dollars involved, both through direct government support and tax-exempt status."

    Grassley also said that the potential abuse of charitable dollars is no different than Jack Abramoff's use of charities to launder money but on a much larger scale.

    Posted by BigPasture at 09/25/2009 @ 11:27pm

12. How sweet it is!

    Megan McArdle

    The End of ACORN

    25 Sep 2009 01:16 pm

    .....when your workers are caught on tape offering to help you smuggle your illegal underage prostitutes across the border, impugning the motives of the tapers hardly suffices.

    I don't see how ACORN survives at this point; the IRS is the latest to pile on, severing ties with ACORN, and slapping a tax lien for unpaid payroll taxes on top of that blow. The lawsuit seems like an even worse attempt....

    Liberals have legitimate reason to be mournful...

    Posted by Happy at 09/25/2009 @ 11:33pm

13. Maybe we should discuss the Demoncrats coverup of its contractors in Afghanistan that even their national liberal MSM ignores even MORE than ACORN? Homoerotic partying guards for all the Demoncrats embassy money now there is a pretty picture?

    Hsubfools loves those animal house frat boy parties apparently and has no criticism of them!

    Posted by BigPasture at 09/25/2009 @ 11:34pm

14. It's always amazing to watch Liberals rationalize.

    ACORN has numerous fraud suits across the country alleging voting irregularities.

    ACORN appears to have a pervasive "the end justifies the means" reparations mentality.

    On virtually every left-wing outlet my Google Alerts take me to via links, I notice a trend.

    There are many lefties with A-D-D, reasoning deficiencies and reading comprehension problems.

    YOUR Socratic (sorry oh wise one) method reveals this logic:

    1) ACORN only gets $50 million 2) Others get billions!!!! 3) Others are frauds 4) ACORN pushes for Socialist measures 4) Leave ACORN alone

    Just watch the liberals go from one topic with a specific point and weave their way into their Bill Mahr talking points.

    "Fox Noise", Cheney, Halliburton, Blackwater, Neo-Cons, and on an on.

    How did you go from the premise of this article to Blackwater. Just because you read something on someone's blog doesn't mean it's factual.

    Many times it's written by someone with A-D-D, reasoning deficiencies and reading comprehension problems.

    And most likely he/she is stoned.

    Posted by BellicusPium at 09/26/2009 @ 12:20am

15. Posted by Happy at 09/25/2009 @ 8:07pm |

    - Helping folks to set up housing via fraudulent means upholds "social and economic justice"

    You mean like your "son's" new house, Hap?

    - Teach entrepreneurs how to evade taxes helps them to "become powerful players in our democratic system"

    Yeah I'm sure you pay all yours given the fraud perpetrated above.

    - Willingness to aid human trafficking of 13-yrs old girls across national borders is part of "grassroots" community organizing at its best

    You mean the crime that was reported to the police by the ACORN rep?

    - Confessing murder or manslaughter of a husband is all just in a day of work to establish rapport with the needy `poor'

    If its obvious that you're being hustled by an idiotic Fox-funded punk? And the supposed victim was contacted and is alive and well to this day?

    Posted by snowball777 at 09/26/2009 @ 05:58am

16. Posted by BellicusPium at 09/26/2009 @ 12:20am |

    We're awfully sorry that profiteering from the administration you elected was so rampant as to be almost unavoidable.

    We're also sorry you're too dumb to understand the implications of the reactionary law put in place to defund ACORN and it's imprecise language (talk about a deficiency in comprehension!).

    Try changing the channel every once in awhile...or even reading one of those dusty things with the paper inside.

    Posted by snowball777 at 09/26/2009 @ 06:03am

17. Cons are too funny!

    Ignoring millions in fraud by military contractors then getting all upset over " a few bad apples" in ACORN.

    Just more of the same, MSM right wing CREATED outrage so that the real crimes go unnoticed.

    YEs, DYNACORP used REAL prostitutes when using tax payer money. Lockheed, Beoing and Blackwater have STOLEN more money from HAPPY and GUN than ACORN even received from them in ten years.

    It would be wonderful to see this knee jerk law come back to do some real good ...against those that GUN would allow to rip him off.

    Posted by crabwalk at 09/26/2009 @ 06:13am

18. Posted by crabwalk at 09/26/2009 @ 06:13am |

    ACORN probably received less in funding than certain Pug reps who are now doing time received in kickbacks during their tainted tenure.

    Posted by snowball777 at 09/26/2009 @ 06:20am

19. And, the lying preacher wants me to stop lying...

    "It begins...

    the Traitors Strike Back

    Feds probe US Census worker hanging in Kentucky

    http://tinyurl.com/y8aklhj

    Will we hear ANYTHING from the neo-cons about the attack on a US citizen from a Tea Party Sympathizer?

    Posted by crabwalk at 09/24/2009 @ 08:11am

    It's not nice to lie. There is no mention of any suspicion of Tea Party sympathizers.

    What is more likely according to police was the gentleman encountering drug dealers.

    And whoever did it deserves the death penalty.

    Posted by antisocialist at 09/24/2009 @ 10:16am

    But, this is what the news actually said.."...some in law enforcement also cited the prevalence of drug activity in the area - including meth labs and marijuana fields - although they had no reason to believe there was a link to Sparkman's death."

    Nope, no connections to Anti-govt types here!!

    Nope, no connection between Right to Life and the deaths of physicians!

    Nope, no connection between anti-Clinton types and the bomb attack on the Federal Building!

    The Americans that kill Americans must be real patriots.

    But, Saddam had connections to AQ!

    Fear the non-existent, ignore reality.

    Posted by crabwalk at 09/26/2009 @ 06:20am

20. "Using the controversy over ACORN as a case study, this report illustrates the way the media help set the agenda for public debate, and frame the way that debate is shaped. It describes how "opinion entrepreneurs" (primarily business and conservative groups and individuals) set the story in motion as early as 2006, how the "conservative echo chamber" orchestrated its anti-ACORN campaign in 2008"-hsuB

    I am going through this months issue of Atlantic Monthly. I wondered how Sotomayors critics were able to produce her speeches, specifically ONE LINE from multitudes of speeches, so fast. Turns out the "opinion entrepreneurs" had this stuff lined up for months, on multiple possible Obama picks.

    Then we get to listen to the neo-cons whine and cry about the "liberal MSM".

    BOO!

    Be afraid cons. Live in fear of the media created story that has no legs. Talk to us about Family Values, the importance of sticking it out, the outrage of graft....and vote Palin!

    Posted by crabwalk at 09/26/2009 @ 06:26am

21. "The final version of the 2006 Department of Defense appropriations bill, for example, included $1.3 million for Lewis and Clark Appreciation Day. In 2005 the Foreign Supplier Assessment Center, operated by a firm involved in bribing former California Republican Rep. Duke Cunningham, received $3 million in funds. In the 2006 budget, passed before Cunningham resigned, its appropriation shot up to $9 million.

    In the early months of this year, the Democratic Congress passed an emergency spending bill for Iraq that included $20 billion in pork, including $74 million for peanut storage and $100 million for citrus growers, to bring stragglers on board. President Bush and the GOP denounced these spending items vehemently and repeatedly. But that was just camouflage for their real objection to the bill: that it set a timetable for a troop withdrawal. Bush didn't have trouble signing a pork-laden defense bill just a year earlier, when the emergency appropriations for Iraq somehow included $700 million to relocate railroad tracks in Mississippi."

    REASON.COM

    ACORN must be held to account!!

    Posted by crabwalk at 09/26/2009 @ 06:31am

22. So if SCOTUS rules that the Defund ACORN Act is unconstitutional-- does that mean the supremes are moderate to left?

    http://tinyurl.com/y9ff2v

    Posted by hsuBfools at 09/26/2009 @ 08:42am

23. Blackwater gets what ACORN got in all 15 years total, every day. And war contractors have been using and supporting 'real' child prostitute slavery and committing real murder-- not a peep from hypocritical and disingenuous new con repub GOP.

    Is it because war contractors are after all killing and raping poor people? And ACORN for the most part are for helping poor people? Is it because ACORN fired the wrong doers and the war contractors for the most part keep the violators and fire the whistle blowers?

    Is it because war contractors are considered by new con repub GOP part of "A free market success" ?

    And ACORN is in direct opposition... They want a higher minimum wage!

    "A free market success," DeLay calls Saipan's indentured worker system. And that's emblematic of what the new con repub GOP represent.

    Posted by hsuBfools at 09/26/2009 @ 09:08am

24. I didn't want to believe it, but the progressives have used perfect logic to convince me that ACORN is just as bad as DYNACORP, Blackwater, and Halliburton. All of them must be cleaned up, preferably permanently dismembered and buried. No corruption must be allowed. To think that an organization committed to "social justice" is no better than a mercenary band of thugs is just shocking!

    Posted by sntauri at 09/26/2009 @ 10:24am

25. Posted by sntauri at 09/26/2009 @ 10:24am

    BWAHahahahah, duh, the new con repub GOP idiocracy disease must be really seriously infectious... but ok, clean'erup; dip-spit.

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/

    Posted by hsuBfools at 09/26/2009 @ 11:53am

26. Posted by hsuBfools at 09/26/2009 @ 11:53am

    You are a funny guy! You almost had me believing that you took me seriously. But then I realized that progressives are way to clever to be fooled by mere words.

    Posted by sntauri at 09/26/2009 @ 12:18pm

27. Yeah, if only it were that easy to convince new con repubs to do the correct thing. And another reason why one can spot their disingenuous moral arguments. No equity in sight. Fair and balanced be damned.

    Posted by hsuBfools at 09/26/2009 @ 2:25pm

28. This country is in big trouble.

    Posted by gunslinger1 at 09/25/2009 @ 10:55pm

    alas, you've taken your eyes of the ponzi scheme prize.

    Posted by frosty zoom at 09/27/2009 @ 01:53am

29. Planned Parenthood deserves the same treatment ACORN is getting and should be stripped of the hundreds of millions of tax-payer dollars it receives annually. For that to happen, the conservative media must give O'Keefe's debut film another look.

    The similarities between ACORN and Planned Parenthood are hard to ignore. Like ACORN, which seeks to "help those who have historically been locked out become powerful players in our democratic system," Planned Parenthood has a noble-sounding mission.

    "For more than 90 years," its website informs us, "we've worked to improve women's health and safety… and advance the right and ability of individuals and families to make informed and responsible choices."

    But both organizations are marred by a culture of corruption. Employees at ACORN affiliates have been accused of everything from voter registration fraud and embezzlement to aiding and abetting illegal immigration and prostitution.

    At Planned Parenthood, besides O'Keefe's sting, its affiliates have also ignored numerous cases of actual statutory rape and sexual abuse of minors. And workers in seven states were caught on audio tape agreeing to receive donations designated for abortions of black babies.

    Like ACORN, which has received $53 million in direct taxpayer funded assistance since 1993, Planned Parenthood has come to view the American taxpayers as a reliable cash cow. Planned Parenthood received more than $349 million in government grants and contracts during Fiscal Year 2007-2008.

    We know why Planned Parenthood receives such government largess. Like ACORN, Planned Parenthood is a favored political patron of the Democratic Party. Consider both organizations' cozy relationship with Barack Obama.

    Posted by BigPasture at 09/27/2009 @ 12:40pm

30. The president is trying to distance himself from ACORN. He acted like he knew little of the organization when asked about it last week on the Sunday talk shows. But, as columnist John Fund pointed out this week, Obama's association with ACORN goes back almost 20 years.

    Fund is the author of Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy, which details the ways in which groups like ACORN manipulate election results. In his recent column he notes that in 1991, Obama took time off from his law firm to run a voter registration drive for an ACORN partner. He later became an ACORN attorney and listed ACORN as a key supporter for his campaign for the Illinois Senate.

    Planned Parenthood is also an eager Obama supporter. Last year, Planned Parenthood made only its second ever presidential endorsement when it stated that it was "proud to endorse" Obama for president because he is "a passionate advocate for women's rights."

    Planned Parenthood is so tight with the president that it can brag about the "unique role" it has in shaping the Obama administration's health agenda. (Yet more evidence that Obama wants abortion covered in his healthcare reform plan.)

    Posted by BigPasture at 09/27/2009 @ 12:41pm

31. Planned Parenthood is so tight with the president that it can brag about the "unique role" it has in shaping the Obama administration's health agenda. (Yet more evidence that Obama wants abortion covered in his healthcare reform plan.) Posted by BigPasture at 09/27/2009 @ 12:41pm

    Hey, PigBasture-- why not do away with corporate welfare 1st since we're talking 100's of billions to trillions over the same time period going to for-profits, while only few million going to the non-profits. We may even balance the budget, not that was a concern of new con repubs for the last decade or so. Seems it's all about whether the non-profit is a dem for the poor entity or a new con repub religious anti-science right, which makes the determination to attack it and little to do with a balanced set of fiscal priorities that were once a conservative repub trademark.

    Poor Ike is spinning in his grave seeing his party's big tent burned down by the few maniacal Raygun toting progeny.

    Posted by hsuBfools at 09/27/2009 @ 6:00pm

32. Posted by hsuBfools at 09/27/2009 @ 6:00pm

    I guess in your world, two wrongs makes a right huh? Why can't you ever address a wrong that someone points out to you without trying to play one upsmanship? If democrats wanted to address the problems that you cite, they would. They control everything. Ask them.

    Posted by gunslinger1 at 09/27/2009 @ 9:43pm

33. Posted by hsuBfools at 09/27/2009 @ 6:00pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    1.Funny boy, the biggest corporate welfare ever seen has been passed by Demoncrats, and signed onto by the Obamanation! The Bush administratiton will look like 10 times more fiscal restraint than the first year of Obamanation!

    2.ACORN is NOT a non-profit org.! They have illegally funneled taxpayer dollars into non-profits to avoid their own taxes!

    Donations to any recognized non-profit are not taxable as the money has already been taxed. You clearly show your biased HATE by your criticism, but what is new about that on the left?

    Posted by BigPasture at 09/27/2009 @ 10:09pm

34. If democrats wanted to address the problems that you cite, they would. They control everything. Ask them. Posted by gunslinger1 at 09/27/2009 @ 9:43pm

    They will and if after 8 -12 years, they're still picking on the little fish in the pond like new con repubs, I'll be just as against them too. As for now, why can't new con repubs address 1st why your guys never did what you're whining about while in power for 8-12 years--- before attacking dems that have only been in power for a few months. New con repubs did leave quite a enormous mess to clean up. Funny how it's the tiniest little fry that makes you gag.

    Posted by hsuBfools at 09/28/2009 @ 01:27am

35. 2.ACORN is NOT a non-profit org.! Posted by BigPasture at 09/27/2009 @ 10:09bm

    "ACORN comprises a number of legally distinct non-profit entities including a nationwide umbrella organization established as a 501(c)(4) that performs lobbying; local chapters established as 501(c)(3) nonpartisan charities; and the ACORN Housing Corporation."

    http://tinyurl.com/54o77a

    Posted by hsuBfools at 09/28/2009 @ 01:43am

36. And Ike is still there spinning, spinning, spinning,... in his grave, but neigh a new con repub sheds a tear, but spits a be done with ye in its stead. Whine on new con repubs, whine on.

    Posted by hsuBfools at 09/28/2009 @ 01:51am

37. ACORN has not been perfect, who doubts it. But is so much more the good they have done that in the final balance they should be acquitted (less the people that embezzled that money).

    Reps as always die of fear of any grassroots movement. They don't want Africans and Latinos getting organized and voting. They hate community organizers (as when they mocked candidate Obama) as being too cheap and limited to take care of business, they judge people for what their salary is or if they belong to a Fortune company. But what they don't really want is people from the bottom getting over their disenfranchisement into conscience of who is who in politics in this country because if that truly happens some day, then they will never again be a majority. Remember that traditionally about at least 20% of the population does not vote, and it is mostly the lower end in the social and economical scale.

    And that is why they did this cheap theatrical prostitution move over some ACORN offices. Thinking perhaps that the ACORN people would make advances to the lady as many of their Congress members and Governors (known as "values politicians") have done. What they found though, was very predictable: people very lowly paid and clearly unprepared, but still willing to help.

    If ACORN dissapears, who will be out there in the street to give a hand to the poor? Reps say : "Christian charities". With due respect - I am a Catholic - they only give some food, they don't jump start a citizen for civic action. And most of those charities are very limited, selective, and subscribe to a conservative agenda that most of these people don't agree with.

    If ACORN gets busted, so we need to do with the corrupt Rep contractors like Blackwater.Who knows for Reps, pimps are criminals but murderers are not

    Posted by Frank42 at 09/28/2009 @ 03:40am

38. Let's see how far this goes. There is SO much corruption that was fed under the bush administration, it would be interesting to see so many dragged down. ACORN may well be the catalyst for the reform of the thieves.

    Posted by rasputin195 at 09/28/2009 @ 06:50am

39. Funniest thing about this story is the fact that the anti-ACORN guys, screaming about "corrupt groups getting Federal money".....NEVER seemed to think it would touch...

    THEIR corrupt groups.

    Main problem for the Right, they don't try to encourage new "William F. Buckleys" in their fold, but just mindless zombies like HAPP or RIO/BP...

    and then can't figure out why things blow up in their face and their ideology has become simplistic pap.

    Posted by Mask at 09/28/2009 @ 07:21am

40. Donations to any recognized non-profit are not taxable as the money has already been taxed. You clearly show your biased HATE by your criticism, but what is new about that on the left? Posted by BigPasture at 09/27/2009 @ 10:09pm |

    Save it for Joel Osteen, lamprey.

    Posted by snowball777 at 09/28/2009 @ 08:27am

41. Posted by Mask at 09/28/2009 @ 07:21am

    So is that why new con repub idiocrasy isn't catching on? I know they tried growing their base via cuts to public school funding as much as they could. Kept teachers salary growth way under inflationary growth. Fed their following tons of fear and war. Showed they'd protect them, while also giving them a chance to fight and die; to take pride in their fears and lost rights. And what about all the no-bid biggest and the scariest corporations getting in line. Gave trillions to mad men for ad campaigns that would whip those most easily manipulated into a frenzy at the drop of a hat.

    But still the need to exaggerate their rally numbers... Still the need to make up easily discredited faux spews.

    Just can't suspend that disbelief?

    So the new con repub GOP still don't understand that they actually need to make some type of logical sense?

    Who could've known!

    Posted by hsuBfools at 09/28/2009 @ 08:42am

42. Where was your concern in 2004, SNTAURI?

    Many of the corruption details of DYNACORP, Xe (BLackwater), KBR were public knowledge by 2004/5. We here pointed them out to you, yet I do not recall you ever being concerned about a dime of your tax dollars being lost/stolen in Iraq. Now, you say that ACORN is AS BAD as DYNACORP? What is your new paradigm of comparison? How much did KBR steal via "no-bid" contracts vs how much has ACORN stolen?

    Are you comparing just the money KBR stole from you, or are you also including the tax liability that KBR has yet to correct? That means that if KBr does not pay the tax they owe, YOU have to make it up, or it has to be borrowed.

    [More than 21,000 people working for KBR in Iraq - including about 10,500 Americans - are listed as employees of two companies that exist in a computer file on the fourth floor of a building on a palm-studded boulevard here in the Caribbean. Neither company has an office or phone number in the Cayman Islands.

    The Defense Department has known since at least 2004 that KBR was avoiding taxes by declaring its American workers as employees of Cayman Islands shell companies, and officials said the move allowed KBR to perform the work more cheaply, saving Defense dollars.

    But the use of the loophole results in a significantly greater loss of revenue to the government as a whole, particularly to the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. And the creation of shell companies in places such as the Cayman Islands to avoid taxes has long been attacked by members of Congress.

    A Globe survey found that the practice is unusual enough that only one other ma jor contractor in Iraq said it does something similar.]-boston.com

    Posted by crabwalk at 09/28/2009 @ 10:31am

43. If we compare ACORN to UBS clients...

    ACORN = $53 million over ten years from federal tax dollars. Not STOLEN money, TOTAL monies.

    UBS clients = $400 million in unpaid taxes.

    In your world SNTAURI, does that make the two equivalent?

    Posted by crabwalk at 09/28/2009 @ 10:34am

44. [Hundreds of pages of recently unsealed court records detail how kickbacks shaped the war's largest troop support contract months before the first wave of U.S. soldiers plunged their boots into Iraqi sand.

    The graft continued well beyond the 2004 congressional hearings that first called attention to it. And the massive fraud endangered the health of American soldiers even as it lined contractors' pockets, records show.

    Federal prosecutors in Rock Island have indicted four former supervisors from Kellogg, Brown, and Root (KBR), the giant defense firm that holds the contract, along with a decorated Army officer and five executives from KBR subcontractors based in the U.S. or the Middle East.

    Those defendants, along with two other KBR employees who have pleaded guilty in Virginia, account for a third of the 36 people indicted to date on Iraq war-contract crimes, Justice Department records show.

    On Wednesday, a federal judge in Rock Island sentenced the Army official, Chief Warrant Officer Pete Peleti Jr., to 28 months in prison for taking bribes.]

    So, many people over a large area were indicted... where was SNTAURI?

    GUNSLINGER, where were you? Where was your concern equivalent to your ACORN concern?

    Why the schiedenfrued (spelling?) now? Is it, as suggested here, that it is the helping of the poor and downtrodden that gets you so riled up? Obviously it is NOT the graft and theft, that has gone on with your blessing since 2002. The difference sure seems to be what the thieves were using the money for. One group was using it to try to help the poor (outrage!!!) and many companies were using the money to kill brown people (blissful acceptance).

    Please help us understand why you get upset over one group stealing your money, but are prideful when another does it.

    Posted by crabwalk at 09/28/2009 @ 10:40am

45. Posted by hsuBfools at 09/28/2009 @ 08:42am

    Easiest media image to see how fall the the idea of "intellectual conservatism has fallen"...

    25 years ago it was William F. Buckley Jr. on "Firing Line" discussing the impact of across-the-board tax cuts, Laffer Curves, and incentivizing economic growth in inner cities with "Opportunity Zones"....

    today? It's Limbaugh calling Obama "Hitler" and Beck calling Obama "Stalin" and discussing how an expansion of health care will "kill your grandma!"

    Posted by Mask at 09/28/2009 @ 11:08am

46. Posted by Mask at 09/28/2009 @ 11:08am

    someone is going to kill Grandma Crab?

    Do you happen to have any similar archival footage from these blogs?

    Posted by crabwalk at 09/28/2009 @ 11:41am

47. "How could any sane person put even the wildest allegations against ACORN up against the systematic misconduct and criminality of war corporations and gigantic multi-nationals?"

    well, republicans aren't sane, so.....we know the answer to this question.

    Posted by darladoon at 09/28/2009 @ 12:37pm

48. Actually the moral equivalency of the new con repub is that ACORN is much much worse than the military contractors that disappeared billions of our money, murdered civilians, raped enslaved children and were responsible for the death of our own US troops. So, is that why they attack ACORN mercilessly whilst giving XE / Blackwater /KBR / Halliburton/ (i.e. Ike's military industrial complex), a big 'doing a yet of a job' pat on the back; wink wink? Nah, it just that new con repubs no longer have any morals, so there's no moral equivalency to have to consider. It's now whatever it takes to win-- even if it means making the USA loose. And worse, the new con repubs-- have no shame about it...

    Quote of the Day

    "To keep your character intact you cannot stoop to filthy acts. It makes it easier to stoop the next time." – Katharine Hepburn

    Posted by hsuBfools at 09/28/2009 @ 1:21pm

49. Posted by crabwalk at 09/28/2009 @ 11:41am

    Just google up "Palin" and "death panels"...too much to post it here.

    heheh

    Posted by Mask at 09/28/2009 @ 1:26pm

50. Posted by Mask at 09/28/2009 @ 1:26pm

    I was thinking of something from me....about 2 years ago.

    Posted by crabwalk at 09/28/2009 @ 2:27pm

51. Posted by crabwalk at 09/28/2009 @ 2:27pm

    Ahhhh....yes, of course. You mean-

    "NATION STAFF: how about a story on wether or not Oregons system is working? This trial ranks procedures by efficacy and cost/benefit. It leads to.. (gasp) rationing, which is what we need in some form. Paying out hundreds of thousands to keep Grandma alive for a few more weeks is not a sustainable system. "-----Posted by CRABWALK 03/25/2007 @ 05:09am

    BLOG | Posted 03/24/2007 @ 8:54pm Edwards Stands Out On Health Care Debate Marc Cooper

    Posted by Mask at 09/28/2009 @ 2:54pm