Special Report
The Powers That Be
Is ACORN squelching critical voices — even that of House Judiciary chairman John Conyers?
Is the radical leftist group ACORN squelching voices that dare to criticize it?
That’s the distinct impression House Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers (D-Michigan) left last week when he told the Washington Times that he wasn’t proceeding with an investigation of ACORN because “the powers that be decided against it.”
Conyers refused to explain who “the powers” might be, but his spokesman Jonathan Godfrey twisted himself into a pretzel trying to spin the statement. The congressman was referring to himself as “the powers that be,” Godfrey claimed.
Conyers has his own problems. His notorious wife Monica, a Detroit City Council member, who once threw a temper tantrum and called the council’s baldheaded presiding officer “Shrek” as an insult when he reclaimed the floor, pleaded guilty Friday to felony bribery charges. On Monday she tendered her resignation.
Just three months before Rep. Conyers was convinced that looking
into the affairs of the Association of Community Organizations
for Reform Now was the right way to go.
During a March 19 hearing, he received testimony from Republican
lawyer Heather Heidelbaugh about ACORN’s alleged serial
violations of tax, campaign finance, and myriad other laws.
Heidelbaugh’s testimony was based on the evidence provided by a
former ACORN employee, Anita MonCrief, who explained the
thoroughly corrupt inner workings of ACORN and Project Vote, its
voter drive-organizing arm, to a Pennsylvania court last year.
Conyers was told about ACORN’s “muscle for the money” program, its protest-for-hire services, its mob-style shakedown tactics, and how President Obama’s campaign sent the group its “maxed out donor list” and asked it “to reach out to the maxed out donors and solicit donations from them for Get Out the Vote efforts to be run by ACORN.”
At the time, Conyers described the allegations as “a pretty serious matter” and a fortnight later said he would “probably” order a probe. “That’s our jurisdiction, the Department of Justice. That’s what we handle — voter fraud. Unless that’s been taken out of my jurisdiction and I didn’t know it.”
On May 4 he unexpectedly pulled back, announcing that a probe of ACORN “appears unwarranted at this time.” He refused to elaborate even though earlier the same day Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller and Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto, revealed that ACORN and two former senior ACORN executives had been charged with 39 felony counts related to voter registrations.
A few days later Allegheny County, Pennsylvania District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. laid voter registration fraud charges against seven ex-ACORN canvassers. Cuyahoga County, Ohio prosecutor Bill Mason is also probing ACORN after a man who was registered multiple times by ACORN was indicted by a grand jury for fraudulent voting. The Ohio charge should be especially worrisome to ACORN, which claims as a matter of policy that illegal voting does not happen.
Since Miller, Cortez Masto, Zappala, and Mason are all Democrats you might expect ACORN, which also as a matter of policy insists the Republican Party is determined to destroy it, would refrain from claiming partisan persecution, but you’d be wrong.
ACORN lawyer Lisa Rasmussen said at a court hearing June 3 that election fraud charges laid against the group in Nevada were motivated by politics. “The politically motivated charges, such as those brought by the attorney general and secretary of state, just highlight the voter registration system that is broken,” Rasmussen said in a Las Vegas courtroom.
As credible allegations of wrongdoing continue to mount against the group, it becomes increasingly harder to believe Conyers’s claim that his hands were tied.
But then again why did anyone actually believe that Conyers, an ally of ACORN who until recently resisted calls to probe it, was serious about looking at the group?
In the fall Conyers, who garnered a 100% rating from ACORN in its 2006 legislative scorecard, called the organization that helps get out his party’s vote “a longstanding and well regarded organization that fights for the poor and working class.” In June 2008 he called America’s corporations “capitalist predators” to wild applause at ACORN’s national convention in Detroit.
It’s not like there is a shortage of things to investigate.
About the Author
Matthew Vadum is an award-winning investigative journalist at a conservative watchdog group in Washington, D.C. Vadum is also author of Subversion Inc: How Obama’s ACORN Red Shirts are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (62) | Leave a comment
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Richard Baker| 6.30.09 @ 7:02AM
John Conyers comes from a political culture in Detroit that is even more toxic, corrupt, and venal than anything that Chicago or LA have to offer. His wife resigned from the Detroit city council and pleaded guilty to taking bribes from someone seeking contracts with the city. Johnnie Lad say that, like SGT Schultz on Hogan's Heroes, that he knows "Nothing" about her activities. Kwame Kilpatrick, the ex-Mayor, goes to jail for various felonious offenses. ACORN is getting a pass from the same people who brought on the destruction of Detroit when Coleman Young became the first black mayor of the Motor City. Investigation? Yeah, sure.
Richard Baker| 6.30.09 @ 7:04AM
Correction: Johnnie Lad says
Deborah D | 6.30.09 @ 7:46AM
ACORN has the biggest protector of all in President Barack Obama...as you called him -- a former employee and employer of ACORN. The left has succeeded in gaining the presidency and the Congress. ACORN is one of their subsidiaries...therefore, they can do no wrong. Because, you see, the ends justify the means. The rule of law? Doesn't apply.
Frightening times we live in. Throw the bums out if they don't investigate this radical mafia. The press is just another left-wing subsidiary, apparently they close their eyes to all the corruption in this group and the corruption in Congress in order to maintain it. I wonder if they'll awaken one day and regret their blind-eyed acceptance of all things "Democrat."
Ryan| 6.30.09 @ 8:16AM
It doesn't look like the DoJ is going to do anything, but that won't stop various local attorneys general from doing their jobs. I don't think we'll see much nationwide, but someone on a local or statewide level may hit a good score...
Mattled| 6.30.09 @ 8:51AM
Isn't Nevada currently heading an investigation?
ACORN screamed racism but it was hard to justify as the D.A. is a Democrat.
Frankly, I think screaming racism is all they have.
Racists screaming racism. Funny times.
Dave| 6.30.09 @ 11:14AM
RB, I wouldn't yet link John Conyers with the sewer of corruption that MonCon traveled in. The guy has been around a long time without a whisper of impropriety.
His marriage to MonCon was motivated by the desire to become a father. John has never been, well, a ladies' man if you get my drift. But he did want progeny. Monica was the right woman at the right place at the right time.
BTW, her record of venality goes back to when she ran JC's local office. I seem to recall office funds being used to buy T-Giving turkeys that were supposed to go the poor but instead were distributed to staffers and friends. By MonCon.
Truth to Power| 6.30.09 @ 12:47PM
Conyers has been recently chided by the ethics commitee for the wrongful use and abuse of his staffers. Our tax payer dollars were being used to pay his staffers to babysit, tutor and other unauthorized personal activities. Like any long time member of a one party district one should assume the worst. BTW I believe John was at the center of the turkey scandal.
Everly Waverly| 6.30.09 @ 12:50PM
Mid-Western Political Crack-Heads!!!!!
The corruption going on in those large mid-western inner cities is nothing new, now for that matter is the corruption going on in, say Sacramento, in reference to Kevin Johnson and the resulting crap that's being flung in association with the firing of the IG for pointing out fraud. Monica Conyers is just one of the many flipp'n disgusting, so-called representatives of the people, total crooks, all of'em. Take these people and their politics of, it's all the "white man's" fault and their BS,encouraged in Sunday sermons conducted by Rev. Wright, Louie Farrakahn, Father Flegher, and attended for 20 years by the current verbal octopus residing in the White House. Doesn't it seem that the entire leftist, black political class come across like crack house occupants standing on the front porch yelling incoherently at passing cars???
Dave| 6.30.09 @ 12:56PM
JC can afford to be incompetent in the administration of his office. He has a rock solid district that requires precious little maintenance. And he is not exactly a good manager. Fer crissakes, he had Monica running things for a while.
Nor is JC a particularly powerful congressman, especially given his lengthy tenure.
But if you left him alone in a room with a million bucks in taxpayer's cash, he wouldn't even breathe on it. Its just not in his nature.
JC wanted children and the very butch Monica was willing to bear them in exchange for the power and privilege JC's name gave her. There are plenty of reports in recent days indicating he finally understands what a Faustian bargain it was.
Oldefarte| 6.30.09 @ 1:00PM
This is a situation where taxpayer/governmental money is/has been spent on placing ONLY Democrats in office and keeping them there. What would happen if the government was financing the Knights of Columbus to elect/re-elect ONLY Catholics to office? This is nothing more than an extention of Chicago, mafia-styled, Blogo/Daley [and also the Massachusetts Kennedy political machine] politics at work here. This 80 year old Detroit moronic politician is worthless--------it's amazing that he's adamant about prosecuting Republicans over the war issues, but conveniently turns a blind eye to his own wife's corruption and to that of an organization that is stuffing money into his [and every other Democrat's] pocket. When are Americans going to WAKE UP!!!!!!!!
Richard Baker| 6.30.09 @ 4:19PM
Dave:
Since Coleman Young became Mayor years ago, Detroit has descended into it's present deplorable state. The incestuous relation between the political establishment is without doubt. In Detroit, John Conyers IS the kingmaker. If you think that he didn't know then you don't know Detroit. My relatives left in the mid-'70s because the city was already a black kleptocracy. Detroit used to be a great city but now...
robert a| 6.30.09 @ 5:02PM
Everly, Just love that phrase! So much insight in one sentence. It should be enshrined in a plaque on various state buidings. "Doesn't it seem the entire,black leftist political class comes across like crack house occupants standing on the front porch yelling incoherently at passing cars!!"
Richard Baker| 6.30.09 @ 5:11PM
robert a:
That's sooo unfair to "crack house occupants". At least they're minding their own business. Such cannot be said for the "Race Hustlers".
Marc Jeric| 6.30.09 @ 5:32PM
ACORN thugs are Abu Hussein's brownshirts. The whole affair becomes clearer when one remembers that "community organization" in Russian means "soviet".
Peter McGrath| 6.30.09 @ 5:39PM
ACORN is an abomination to our republic. It is engaged in racketeering, election fraud, and a host of other offenses. Its principals should be arrested and all of its assets seized. This won't happen and we all shrug our shoulders and accept the fact that it's because the President of the United States - THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES - is a previous member and current protector of this vile organization.
Have we lost our collective minds?
How can we, as a people, possibly find this situation acceptable?
Pingback| 6.30.09 @ 5:46PM
Is the radical leftist group ACORN squelching voices that dare to criticize it? links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Len| 6.30.09 @ 6:04PM
None of this ACORN/AmeriCorps garbage would be possible without the illegal taking of money from US citizens to directly benefit specific people. First Congress has no legal authority to pass laws that fund or create "publc service" entities". So that means it's not government.
Second it is never government if it benefits only select(ed) people or groups. Government is formed to protect life, liberty and property, and may when empowered engage in mutually beneficial activities such as building roads.
If we do not soon act to deliver ourselves of this evil, corrupt mobocratic monolith it WILL be too late. The corruption is so deep, so criminally unconstitutional that it is not political differences over lawful engagement in granted powers, but outright subversion of the government. There will need to be trials, there will need to be a dramatic freeing ourselves from corrupt, power hungry, criminals who have engorged themselves and others at our expense. Congressmen will need to answer under what provision of the US constitution they engaged in their activities. I include the majority of Republicans.
Len| 6.30.09 @ 6:08PM
SHOW YOUR SUPPORT!!
How appropiate that we should take time this 4th to truly remember the war for freedom, and encourage each other with big turnouts at tea parties this 4th. The more people that show, the more morale will be built up. People will know that others desire to be free and reclaim their rights, and can use that to be involved restoring a legal, constitutional, by necessity bare bones government.
Nonnie Mouse| 6.30.09 @ 6:29PM
Even if ACORN was the subject of a Congressional investigation, wouldn't the outcome be suspect? With Democrats in control of all the committees and of who would be called to testify, would there be any likelihood of an impartial result?
Rose| 6.30.09 @ 8:00PM
America is being run by thugs in my opinion and if anyone dares to question or enforce the law against those involved then it appears that they suddenly change their minds and refuse to enforce the laws including the supreme laws of the United States Constitution. The media reports on the corruption in the Middle East but I think that they're beginning to look like a slight distraction as the American people are having their rights trampled upon and eliminated through laws that are being enforced because people in office are being chosen who aren't bi-partisan as promised, but all belong to the same gang.
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Rove deposed over eight hour period in US Attorney firings - Page 5 links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 7.16.09 @ 12:04AM
Capital Research Center: links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 7.20.09 @ 8:22AM
FOX: Why Won’t Conyers Probe ACORN? « NewsReal Blog links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 7.23.09 @ 5:01PM
Capital Research Center: links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 7.23.09 @ 5:24PM
Ms Placed Democrat » House Of Representative’s ACORN Report Released, 7/23/09 links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Trackback| 7.23.09 @ 6:33PM
Yedda: Why Should ACORN get One Thin Dime Of Stimulus Money?, on MarineReconDad's questions on Yedda - People. Sharing. Knowledge., links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 7.23.09 @ 9:32PM
FOX: Congressional Committee Accuses ACORN of Massive Fraud, Racketeering « NewsReal links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 7.25.09 @ 11:38AM
FOX: Congressional Committee Accuses ACORN of Massive Fraud, Racketeering « Right Sid links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 8.7.09 @ 7:52PM
ACORN’s Labor Pains | The Secret To Wellness.com links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
weight | 11.12.09 @ 1:52PM
hi
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Why Won’t the Mainstream Media Cover the ACORN Story? « NewsReal Blog links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
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John Conyers Hates Haitians? | The Sundries Shack links to this page. Here’s an excerpt: