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Political Hay
No Justice, No Peace
When the extortion and vote fraud conglomerate ACORN isn't staging sit-ins to pressure banks to lend to high-risk borrowers, busing schoolchildren to the nation's capital to protest proposed tax cuts, campaigning for big government policies, or raising the dead from battleground-state cemeteries and leading them to the voting booth, it is at war with itself.
Months after the radical left-wing group gave the bum's rush to disgraced founder Wade Rathke last summer, leaders of the normally cohesive Association of Community Organizations for Reform's network began aligning themselves with internal factions.
The process accelerated in October when ACORN national board members Karen Inman and Marcel Reid were unceremoniously booted them from the board for asking too many questions. They wanted to know more about a nearly $1 million embezzlement that senior ACORN officials covered up for eight years.
They called it due diligence and fiduciary duty, but higher-ups at ACORN -- which may soon have a shot at collecting a chunk of the $5.2 billion set aside for liberal groups in the current economic stimulus bill -- called it violating by-laws.
Before I go further, some background might be helpful here.
Inman and Reid were appointed by the ACORN national board in June to a special committee that was charged with looking into the financial scandal. The two dared to ask to see the group's financial records in hopes of making sense of the circa 2000 misappropriation by Dale Rathke, brother of the group's founder.
After they were unexpectedly denied access to the documentation they sought, the two filed suit in New Orleans, joined by six other board members, demanding access to the papers.
But the board ordered them to discontinue the lawsuit and ACORN's CEO, chief organizer Bertha Lewis, toed the party line, telling reporters after the inquisitive duo was axed that they were removed "for violating the board's code of conduct."
This is unlawful, the dissidents say. According to Inman, only state chapters have the authority to remove her from the group's national governing body. Inman represents the Minnesota branch on the national board, and Reid represents the District of Columbia branch.
And so the cover-up continues, the law, as always, being of little consequence to the ACORN network, itself a tangled mess of interlocking directorates and affiliated tax-exempt groups that routinely swap 7-figure checks.
But Inman, Reid, and other disgruntled ACORN members are now fighting back.
Reid says ACORN nowadays focuses on making money and doesn't give a damn about the poor people it is supposed to be fighting for.
"ACORN has become a cornucopia of power and wealth, wielded by people who patronize and exploit more than empower or even help the poor and moderate income people ACORN purports to serve; and any civil or constitutional right to dissent is a casualty of their intent to retain that control," she says.
Calling itself the "ACORN 8," a splinter group founded by Inman and Reid has asked U.S. attorneys in several states to look into the Rathke embezzlement and the odd business practices of the nation's leading community-based left-wing activist group.
The antics of the hyper-aggressive ACORN, which has taken in at least $126.4 million in donations and tax dollars since 1993 yet owes millions of dollars in back taxes, have long cried out for a probe under federal racketeering laws. Now one might actually happen (if the Obama administration wants it to).
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Dustoff| 2.5.09 @ 10:05AM
If it's got Obama's name on it, you know it's bad!
Marc Jeric| 2.5.09 @ 10:08AM
Stealing, corruption, tax evasion, etc. - but the main criminal activity of ACORN is vote fraud! When shall we know finally about that? In Ohio, Indiana, Minnesota especially?
Anthony| 2.5.09 @ 10:08AM
Hmmm, a familiar pattern seems to be emerging among the leftist elites, both in Washington or in ACORN headquarters; that normal rules don't apply to them. The stench of corruption from their shakedown scams, their insatiable appetite for filthy lucre, that they scream daily, is the sole provenance of rich Republicans, appears to be systemic on the left. Apparently, socialists of all stripes love their creature comforts as well, and how they're obtained is of no concern. Too bad President Bush, prior to leaving office, didn't initiate an all out investigation of ACORN. Maybe we on the Right need to take to the streets, ( I know, we work and tend to our families) and coerce the slogan; No justice, No peace, and start kicking some ass. Civil disobedience works both ways!!
1Freeman| 2.5.09 @ 10:09AM
Honor among thieves? Not likely.
These idiots (ACORN) violate election laws, lie and steal to push their left-wing agenda and make a mockery of our political freedoms and then cry foul when they get sacked for suddenly wanting to adhere to the rules they like.
Get a clue! You can't just pick and choose which laws you want to follow. Perhaps this will be the first of the multitude of lawsuits and arrests that will shed light into the smoky backroom dealings of what is sure to be discovered as an illegal organization. Like the rest of the Dems in power: acorn will get caught.
Only one month into the new administration and the scandals and coverups are happening all around the new President. This is just the beginning folks!
Doctor Right| 2.5.09 @ 10:12AM
I'd like to be optimistic about this, but with "President Acorn" occupying the Oval Office, I won't expect this to go that far...
"What's that, Doctor Right? Are you saying that Obama and Holder will use political influence to suppress and bury this investigation??"
...How cynical of you to even ask!!
Sebastian B. O. Buniontow V| 2.5.09 @ 10:32AM
Just wait until the Stimulus Plan throws a few billions into the mud pit.
Luonne Dumak| 2.5.09 @ 10:36AM
Add voter fraud in Wisconsin to the list. We have been fighting this for years. Our lousy Gov. vetoes it even though its been proven that Democrats as well as Republicans want photo I.D. I guess the Marxist are afraid they might not win unless they cheat.
Wayne| 2.5.09 @ 11:00AM
It must be Bush and Cheney's fault!
Alan Brooks| 2.5.09 @ 12:38PM
i grew up with these people-- new left radic-libs.
at one time they weren't in it for the lucre, and there was something quaint, even slightly humorous
(though the left's most salient flaw is their grim socialist-realism humorlessness)
in their non-profit antics. It would be somewhat of an exaggeration to say they today are money-grubbing lefties; no, it is WORSE than that, it is more that they see funding as a way to both personal & political power, the two are intertwined in their minds, due to the decads-evolved constancy of their psychological processes.
However the good news is what they don't understand.
what they understand is: they can use people-- as marxist invariably do-- as a means to be manipulated to their own social engineering ends.
what they do not get is that others can observe what they are doing and do the same to them.
Turnabout is fair play.
ruth| 2.5.09 @ 3:52PM
The dummocrat party is a stinking mess. The more I read about their corruption the more I loathe them. Where are Jeremiah and Intergroper? Why aren't they defending ACORN, accusing us of sour grapes? We have become a Banana Republic.
Alan Brooks| 2.5.09 @ 3:58PM
but it must be added that Obama himself is no marxist, he is a lib-cum-triangulator.
think 1993
Alan Brooks| 2.5.09 @ 4:05PM
.. it's becoming predictable:
a 21st century Gingrich touting biotech immortality and space colonization will assume his duties in 2011...
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Capital Research Center: links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Jeremiach| 2.5.09 @ 7:35PM
If you guys think a couple of clowns from ACORN are what's with this country, after 8 years of failed government policies, impotent regulation, massive deficit spending, corruption galore, one right war incompetently executed, and a wrong war resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands, all I can say is ... Dudes! Read a newspaper.
Tim| 2.5.09 @ 7:56PM
Acorn, is to the Democratic party and Obama what Tom Hagen and the boys were to Vito Corleone.....end of story.
stmichrick| 2.5.09 @ 8:16PM
What a sordid outfit.
Shame on the McCain campaign for not making this clearer to the electorate. I know so many non-political type voters who have no understanding of the depths of Chicago slime from which our smooth talking president emerged.
He did dance well when he appeared on 'Ellen' though.
ruth| 2.5.09 @ 8:31PM
Jeremiach, we'd love to read a newspaper--but your liberal ragsheets are all dead. Yeah, stmich, slimy and smooth talking.
stmichrick| 2.5.09 @ 8:42PM
I'm watching the Chosen One on TV now as he blames the messengers (cable tv)for the trouble his ACORN stimulus package is having.
He says the purpose of the package is "not JUST to grow government."
OK.
JR| 2.5.09 @ 8:45PM
I was a Republican, but I have CHANGED, I have read some of the comments on this old rag spread and I am a reformed person.
My eyes have open, since I was told about Press TV.
stmichrick| 2.5.09 @ 8:47PM
JR;
If you want, I'll run to the pharmacy for you.
Go back and finish your nap.
ruth| 2.5.09 @ 9:23PM
But, JR, as an old daffy liberal rag spread, do you have hope?
Alan Brooks| 2.5.09 @ 10:59PM
why does Jeremiah keep coming here if we're wrong about ACORN, Iraq, Afghanistan, corruption galore, impotent regs?
what does he want from us? he could blog at any number of progressive sites, but he'd rather come here thinking he's wasting our time when we're actually wasting his?
does he have doubts about his own positions?
does he want to pick our brains?
Kat| 2.5.09 @ 11:37PM
Jeremiah is actually Rahm E. He's got 'issues'.
1Freeman| 2.6.09 @ 12:40PM
Possible answers about Jeremiah :
1) He is a shill republican looking to stir the pot for the sake of discussion (but with poor grammar and typos, I doubt it)
2) Many people are posting under his name and under the other trolling nick names used here so it is not just one "dude"
3) He is afraid. He knows his lies are emotional and baseless but he can't face them. Possibly hoping that if he chants the mantra about the liberals being in it for the children it may come true some day. The forest outside Kiev is filled with the buried corpses of people just like him.
Maybe it is part of all three. Who knows?
stmichrick| 2.7.09 @ 12:16PM
I think Jeremiah and Bob, to name two, like to come here because they can brag to their leftist friends how they tell off all the ideologically- blinded, reactionary, 'mind- numbed robots' that they find. I find their debate tactics amusing.
Especially Bob, when he tries to portray himself as the 'real' conservative. Everyone else is not educated and incapable of logical analysis.
One thing we will ALL become familiar with during the next 8 years is the Alinsky method, if not by name, then by style.
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BIGJER| 2.9.09 @ 2:59PM
IN THE BEGINNING, WE, THE PEOPLE, WERE THE GOVT.
WHAT HAPPENED ? WE ELECTED A REPR. TO SPEAK FOR US, AND NOW THE LOBBYISTS HAVE BOUGHT THEM OUT AND THEY NO LONGER WORK FOR US.
IF WE WANT THIS NIGHTMARE TO END , FIRST, FORGET ALL ABOUT PARTY LINES....
VOTES AT THIS POINT IN TIME ARE ALL WE HAVE ...DEMOS CONTROL CONGRESS, AND WITH A DEMO PRES...WE ARE IN VERY BIG TROUBLE, AND FOR "CHANGE" YOU REALLY DO NOT WANT. !!!!
THE ONLY THING WE HAVE AT THE MOMENT IS THE "VOTE" , SO FAR, BUT IT HAS TO BE USED TO VOTE OUT THE ONES WHO HAVE BEEN IN CONGRESS FOR OVER TEN YEARS, AND "DONT" GET HUNG UP ON NAME FAMILIARITY...THAT IS WHERE WE ARE DRASTICALLY LOOSING ..!!
UNLESS WE OUST PEOPLE LIKE NAN PELOSI ,HARRY REID, DURBIN FROM ILL. KENNEDY FROM MASS. ALONG WITH HIS CO-HORT KERRY, AND JOHN MURTHA OF PENN.
FINESTEIN OF CALIF. AND ALL OF THESE OTHER NAMES, AND ESPECIALLY THE TWO FEMALE SENATORS FROM WASHINGTON STAT WHO HAVE DONE EVRTYTHING EXCEPT INVITE THE ILLEGALS OVER FOR DINNER....THEY HAVE EVEN VOTED TO GIVE SOC.SECURITY TO THEM AND THE ARE TO OLD TO HAVE EVEN CONTRIBUTED.
THESE ARE THE PLACES WHERE WE CAN DO SOME GOOD, BUT UNLESS WE ALL GET RID OF THIS CONGRESS, WE ARE DONE CAUSE OBOMER CAN DO ANY DAMN THING HE WANTS WITH A DEMO CONGRESS, WHO BY HIS ORDERS HAVE ACORN IN THE STIMULUS PACKAGE FOR A TAD BIT LIKE
$ 5.2 BILLION. OUCH, THATS OUR MONEY PEOPLE.....WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO ?
ashok| 2.9.09 @ 6:27PM
Just wanted to say thank you for reporting this - I hadn't seen it anywhere. Good for liberals that can't stand corruption: it's too easy to just let one's ideological allies get away with anything nowadays.
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Democrat Party's MASSIVE CORRUPTION with G.E.,NBC,ACORN,& UNIONS being unravelled! - links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
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Democrat Party's MASSIVE CORRUPTION with G.E.,NBC,ACORN,& UNIONS being unravelled! - links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
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