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The Spectacle Blog

ACORN's Pre-Prostitution Troubles

By Doug Bandow on 9.20.09 @ 10:12AM

ACORN's problems long were evident even before ACORN members were giving advice on how to take tax deductions for employing underage El Salvadoran prostitutes. So serious are those problems that--wonder of wonders!--even the Washington Post now has noticed.

Reports the Post:

The liberal political organizing group ACORN faced internal chaos and allegations of financial mismanagement and fraud long before two young conservatives embarrassed the group with undercover videos made at field offices in Washington and across the country.

Internal ACORN documents show an organization in turmoil as last year's presidential election approached, with a board torn over how to handle embezzlement by the founder's brother and growing concern that donor money and pension funds had been plundered in the insider scheme.

Minutes from a meeting ACORN held in Los Angeles last summer reveal a group then on the brink of financial collapse. "Currently owe over $800k to IRS," the minutes note. "Haven't paid medical bills of over $300k. We are essentially 'broke' nationally and lots of offices are struggling."

Some top ACORN officials tried to shield the scheme, which involved Dale Rathke, the brother of ACORN founder Wade Rathke. "Leadership has no faith in staff. Wade betrayed them," the minutes said.

There's something almost too delicious for words about a self-styled "social justice" organization which does not pay the medical bills of its workers. Or its taxes--its contribution supposedly for our collective good. A few years ago ACORN even sued the state of California attempting to avoid paying the minimum wage because, well, they said they were so busy promoting social justice that they just couldn't afford to take care of their own workers. Rather like unions which attempt to prevent their own workers from unionizing.

You know ACORN is bad when, as Matthew Vadum points out, even Jon Stewart points to the mainstream media's enormous failure in discovering the facts and covering the story.

View all comments (16) | Leave a comment

Matthew Vadum| 9.20.09 @ 10:39AM

Sad but true. I had the ACORN story, the inside documents, everything that the mainstream media is now going to claim it discovered, a year ago!

Ken (Old Texican)| 9.20.09 @ 10:39AM

OK, Doug...I can't help it. Reading your article it tickled into the back of my evil mind.

...Remember when Hitler purged the brownshirts once he became, (or was becoming), "mainstream"?

I have waded through Malkin's book, and it is not a pretty picture. Brrrrr!

Ken (Old Texican)| 9.20.09 @ 10:43AM

Oh guys, I forgot. I just finished a book that should be required reading for every veteran in the country. "The Last Centurion" by John Ringo
I actually went to his site this morning early and read some of his "rants" and op eds.

...Wow, that will get one's blood circulating.

John Ringo| 9.21.09 @ 1:27AM

If you think Centurion is prophetic, you should read Road to Damascus. So far, Obama hasn't done a single thing that wasn't outlined in that book which was outlined back in 1998.

Just remember: Anything that a liberal accuses a conservative of doing is what they are actually engaged in. If you're looking for dirt, listen to what they say about us then find out where they're doing it.

DrTomVoter| 9.20.09 @ 11:35AM

We should not be deceived by the fact that both houses of Congress passed bills to cut off funding for ACORN. As they are different, they must go through reconciliation, be voted on again, and then signed by the President (what are the odds?). Until all of that happens, the cash will continue to flow to ACORN.

Liberal Reader| 9.20.09 @ 2:08PM

Bandow, like Vadum, is a shameless race baiter.

Bohemond| 9.20.09 @ 5:02PM

Dear Liberal Reader,

Please be advised that your Race Card account has been closed. This decision was based on your account history of excessive over-limit spending. Please destroy your card immediately as it will no longer be honored.

Sincerely,
The American People

Conservative Reader| 9.20.09 @ 2:20PM

Liberal Reader, like all liberals, has to resort to the race card when they have no real argument. Too bad when it is used hourly, the effect of the race card just invokes laughter at the liberal who presented it.

John Ringo| 9.21.09 @ 1:32AM

'Liberals' are becoming more and more purely totalitarian in motivation. Totalitarians accuse others of what they are engaged upon. Every statement that has been made about 'racism' is, in fact, their modus operandi. Racism is not a 'lost' word. Racism simply means that one group is superior to another group.

Any government program based upon race is, by definition, racist. It separates persons into racial groups with 'winners' and 'losers'. (Which, by the way, means we can never become truly post-racial.)

Ergo, every liberal program designed to uphold and defend certain racial minorities is, inherently, racist.

Which is why they keep calling conservatives, who simply don't care about race at all, racist.

It's standard communist doctrine.

Margie| 9.23.09 @ 9:29PM

Dear Mr. Ringo,
Can I hire you to be my personal body guard? I am continually under fire by one, Mr. Liberal Reader, daily.
Thank you for your consideration... and Amen!

ConservativeWanderer| 9.20.09 @ 2:40PM

Liberal Reader needs to learn to read.

There's no word in Mr. Bandow's article that indicates race, except El Salvadoran, which is the nationality of the girls the investigators claimed they were going to bring in and use as prostitutes.

In short, there's only one person in this thread (as of the time of this writing) who shows evidence of obsession with race, and that's the lefty.

quod erat demonstrandum

Angel| 9.20.09 @ 3:16PM

The real race baiter is LibReader. Playing the race card is the last bastion of all liberal scoundrels: LibReader = Jimmy Carter.

If everyone is a racist then no one is a racist. Absolute dilution.

Al McIver| 9.20.09 @ 4:26PM

Dealing the race card is like chanting 'four legs good, two legs bad' as they were taught to do in animal farm. I also see the emergence of something like doublespeak, from the pres.

Paul McGrath| 9.20.09 @ 8:29PM

It occurs to me that the Washingon Post, and all the other big time rags that missed this story, refer to these journalists as "young conservatives," not because they don't like conservatives, (which they don't, anyway), but because they can't stand the fact that someone beat them to a story that has been staring society in the face for the last ten years.

The Post calls these journalists "conservatives" because they believe the term somehow delegitamitizes their effort. What a bunch of jerks.

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