The American Spectator

Rob| 6.16.10 @ 7:08AM

ACORN is not NEEDED and a waste of federal dollars.

martin j smith| 6.16.10 @ 7:44AM

This issue of ACORN and curruption is only one of many issues that require much more agressive oversight. The question is that there are so many issues that it is easy to be over extended. The key I think in dealing with ACORN first is winning an election in a big way. Writing exposees are fine, but its winning elections that really counts. Thus, until there is a change in government, I have absolutely Zero faith in any governmental organ that is in existence along with the OBama regime to do its job fairly and properly. when you have the power of the winner is when there is a chance to change the character of the players.

VOTE AGAINST OBAMA AND THE LEFT AGENDA. DO NOT SIT HOME ON YOUR BEHINDS OR COMPLAIN THAT THE CANDIDATE AGAINST OBAMA IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH. JUST VOTE.

Timothy L. Pennell| 6.16.10 @ 8:05AM

This is no surprise when you start at the beginning. Obama is a RACIST. He's a Jew Hater, and a White Hater. There was "No Evidence" in the trial of the BLACK PANTHERS doing anything wrong at the Voting Place in Philly. "But what about the VIDEO of them doing EXACTLY what they were CONVICTED of?"
Sorry. NO EVIDENCE. And those "STUPID COPS". How dare they arrest his BLACK FRIEND.
Frank Marshall Davis. Jeremiah Wright. LOUIS FARRAKHAN! He's got the Jew Hating, White Hating AL SHARPTON, as his Liaison to the HOOD.
20 YEARS in a RACIST, ANTI-SEMITIC, AMERICA HATING 'Church'. Hanging out with COP KILLING TERRORISTS: Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. Palling around with PLO TERRORIST Khaleed Rashidi.
This ACORN thing is no surprise. these are HIS people. Black Radicals and Self Hating Jews. Obamas' kinda people.
We have a Muslim, Marxist, America Hating, Jew hating, White Hating Far Left RADICAL in the White House. He will NEVER do what's right for this Country.
It's not in his nature.

Nobama| 6.16.10 @ 12:40PM

ACORN/SEIU = Obama's BrownShirts.

Vasu Murti| 6.16.10 @ 2:53PM

Your support of the RICO Act against ACORN could easily be used to stifle ALL political discourse and dissent on both the Left AND right!

In These Times, a progressive political newspaper in Chicago observed in the late 1980s: “Our reaction to scenes of anti-abortion activists engaging in civil disobedience outside of clinics is similar to that of many on the Left: ‘What are THEY doing using OUR tactics? One major factor may be uncomfortable for many of us to admit: that many of them ARE us.’”

The Seamless Garment Network (SGN) is a coalition of peace and justice organizations on the religious Left. The SGN takes a stand against war, abortion, poverty, racism, the arms race, the death penalty and euthanasia.

Animal rights, like ecology, nuclear power, gun control, or the drug war, is a topic of serious discussion among SGN members. His Holiness the Dalai Lama has signed the SGN Mission Statement.

Carol Crossed, then Executive Director of the SGN, wrote in 1994:

“In the last 27 years, I have engaged in civil disobedience and risked arrest in over 20 demonstrations around issues as varied as civil rights in Washington, DC; anti-Vietnam War actions; and sleeping outside the City Hall in Rochester, NY to call attention to the plight of the homeless. Most recently, I was arrested in opposition to the Gulf War. Five of these arrests were in opposition to aborting children. Rescues are not a monolithic expression by a single group. Many participants, even leaders, are feminists, Quakers, and Pacifists from Catholic Worker communities.”

On January 21, 1994, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the sanctions of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) could be applied to anti-abortion protesters. According to Carol Crossed, “It is an inescapable fact that activists today engage in acts of civil disobedience remarkably similar to some of the acts of pro-life protesters which NOW (the National Organization for Women) would like to transform into federal felons...

“Environmentalists chain themselves to trees; plowshares activists damage warheads; and animal rights activists sit in at stockyard feed lots. A current bill (HR 1815) called ‘Hunter Harassment’ is under consideration which would not only criminalize actions against hunters—assaults, seizing guns, blocking entrances to hunting grounds, etc.—but speech directed at hunters as well.

“A Washington Post editorial ‘Shouting and Shooting’ (12/3/93) says, ‘The point of picketing, protests, demonstrations and boycotts is to make people who are targets so uncomfortable that they will change their politics or behavior. So it is with the opponents of hunting, as it has been with civil rights, labor unions and abortion protesters.’”

When the RICO decision was issued, Carol Crossed saw it as a threat to the whole range of nonviolent protest, and warned others of the threat that the RICO decision posed to all forms of nonviolent protest and peaceful dissent.

Signers of a newspaper ad protesting the decision included Erwin Knoll, editor of The Progressive; Daniel Berrigan, S.J.; Philip Berrigan; Liz McAlister; Leonard Peltier, American Indian Movement; Joseph Lowery, President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; civil rights leader Will Campbell; environmentalist Wendell Berry and others.

Organizations signing included the International Black Women’s Network; the Fund for Animals; Koininea Partners; People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA); Sojourners and others.

Anti-nuclear plowshares activists have met with Operation Rescue activists and even “pro-life” and “pro-choice” activists have met to find common ground. Why shouldn’t there be an ongoing discussion between animal rights and anti-abortion activists?

Again, RICO could be used to stifle ALL political discourse and dissent on both the Left and Right.

Greg| 6.18.10 @ 1:51PM

A good reminder. However RICO has a valid place in the scheme of things and in the case of ACORN, it is not to discourage political discourse but to address obviously corrupt money laundering and coercive activities that are the opposite of disparate groups of concerned citizens being free to engage in political discourse. Let's not get carried away and back off of prosecuting ACORN because RICO has the potential of being used inappropriately.

John Schroy| 6.29.10 @ 1:42PM

The power of ACORN really stems from the HUD grant system which they have become proficient in exploiting for their own ends. Furthermore, ACORN is not really an entity, but rather a movement of like-minded individuals that form corporations, willy-nilly as meets their needs.

This article explains why ACORN is so hard to kill: http://www.capital-flow-watch.net/gmqri

By the way, the new 'Financial Reform' bill (Dodd-Frank Act) contains in Title XII a juicy new source of grants that seem to be designed for voter fraud by ACORN-like organizatins.

See: http://www.capital-flow-watch.net/eespk