ACORN and Holder

We all know about ACORN by now.

The voting fraud, and the illegal activities in several states.

Prior to the election we discovered that ACORN workers were commiting fraud by registering people who didn't exist, paying people to register, and otherwise violating state and federal laws.  This happened in more than four states.

We find out later, after two individuals do an undercover sting operation against a number of ACORN offices that they rouitinely violate or suggest violating the law. 

Several states began investigations into ACORN and its illegal activities and obstruction of justice efforts.

Now we have California AG - Jerry Brown inform us that we may not like them but ACORN has a right to conduct business.

The US Attorney General Eric Holder (stand in for OBAMA) told us that ACORN can receive federal monies, again.

Politics meets the road and politics wins.

The Democratic party understand the earthquake that has occured even if everyone else hasn't quite caught up, and the Democratic party is desperate to have all its most passionate workers out there creating voters for 2010.  They need them.












democrats

FRANKEN: Elected by ACORN?

Katherine Kersten: Worst trouble with ACORN is at the polls

Nationally, its voter registration is often fraudulent. So what about here?


By KATHERINE KERSTEN, Star Tribune
Minneapolis
September 26, 2009

Unless you've been stuck in the Gobi Desert, you've read the headlines about the scandal at ACORN -- the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Earlier this month, ACORN staffers in four states were caught giving not-so-sage advice to two journalists, posing as a pimp and a prostitute, on how to defraud the government, cheat on taxes and wangle a mortgage for a home-based brothel.

ACORN was once the darling of Democrats for its support of every item on the left-wing wish list. Suddenly, its employees can hardly find a Democrat who will answer their phone calls. When the U.S. Senate voted on Sept. 14 to cut off federal housing dollars for ACORN, the tally was a lopsided 83-7.

ACORN's foibles may seem largely irrelevant here in Minnesota, where the organization has so far been able to keep its nose relatively clean.

But ACORN does have a special place in its heart for at least one prominent Minnesota politician. Last year, it showered praise on Al Franken, endorsing his run for the U.S. Senate. Franken returned the esteem: "I'm thrilled and honored to receive this endorsement," he gushed in a press release. He added that he was "more motivated than ever to work with ACORN."

I'm not suggesting that Franken had any association with the folks behind ACORN's recent scandal. Indeed, when the Senate voted to defund ACORN, he got religion and joined the pack.

It's worth recalling, however, that ACORN is best-known for its massive voter-registration campaigns, which focus relentlessly on getting Democrats elected in targeted states. Here its record is appalling -- and goes to the heart of our democratic electoral system.

In October 2008, ACORN announced triumphantly that it had registered about 1.3 million new voters in 18 battleground states, among them Minnesota. A few weeks later, however, the director of Project Vote -- an ACORN affiliate -- acknowledged to the New York Times that election officials had rejected about 400,000 of those, for reasons including duplicate registrations, incomplete forms and (in the Times' words) "fraudulent submissions from low-paid field workers trying to please their supervisors."

Nothing new here. ACORN's registration drives "routinely produce fraudulent registrations," according to a staff report released in July 2009 by the ranking Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The report describes ACORN as "a criminal conspiracy" and details violations ranging from unpaid taxes to a million-dollar embezzlement and cover-up. "To date," the report says, "nearly 70 ACORN employees have been convicted in 12 states for voter-registration fraud."

The latest such scandal broke a few weeks ago, when authorities in Florida accused 11 ACORN workers of falsifying information on 888 voter-registration forms.

In May 2009, Nevada's attorney general charged ACORN and two employees with 39 felonies. Authorities raided ACORN offices after complaints about numerous forms with false addresses and names -- including the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys. Forty-eight percent of forms turned in were "clearly fraudulent," according to a Las Vegas election official. ACORN recruited felons living in transitional housing in Las Vegas to act as canvassers and promised illegal bonuses if they signed up more than 20 new voters a day.

ACORN's practices can make fraud difficult to detect. For example, "at election offices around the country, ACORN workers are famous for waiting until registration deadline to dump thousands of new documents on overworked clerks -- making it harder for them to fully vet the registration forms," according to the New York Post.

As a result, fraud often only comes to light by chance. Fraud "has been discovered by cursory checks or by accident," John Samples, an election expert at the Cato Institute, told the Post. "There's a lot more out there to be discovered."

Here in Minnesota, ACORN has boasted of playing a major role in the 2008 elections. It claims to have registered 43,000 new voters, which it describes as 75 percent of the state's new registrations. Franken's margin of victory in the Senate race was razor-thin: 312 votes out of about 3 million cast. And Minnesota's laws on proof of voter eligibility are notoriously loose. Did ACORN folks pull some fast ones to help get their favorite son Franken elected -- a win that handed Democrats the 60-vote, veto-proof majority that they needed to enact their liberal agenda?

Secretary of State Mark Ritchie assures us that Minnesota's system of voter verification protects electoral integrity.

But here's an uncomfortable fact: Ritchie himself was endorsed by the now-notorious ACORN and elected with its help.










ACORN

ACORN: Falling VERY close to the tree.

The acorn doesn't fall far from the tree. Obama represented this group, used them as a model of community action, told them they would be involved in his administration, had them lined up to help conduct the US Census.

Whether it is an ACORN worker who claims she shot her husband or was willing to help smuggle people across the border ... it is not one person, it is endemic within this organization. They employ people with less moral character than pimps and prostitutes.

And THEY attack the sting operators as 'immoral'.

No wonder employees of ACORN are in jail and several states are investigating them. No wonder.



ACORN worker fired over video sting

By Eleanor Yang Su
Union-Tribune Staff Writer

September 17, 2009


The complete National City video can be found on BigGovernment.com

From the U-T ACORN flap has local angle


NATIONAL CITY - Local ACORN officials reversed an earlier decision Thursday afternoon and fired a community organizer who was caught on video providing advice about human smuggling to a couple posing as a pimp and a prostitute.

In an afternoon press conference, Lagstein said he believed his employee, Juan Carlos Vera, did his best to deal with a challenging situation, and would not be disciplined.

But two hours later, Lagstein stated he had reevaluated the videos posted online in which Vera was secretly filmed answering questions about smuggling people across the Tijuana border.

Lagstein said in his earlier evaluation, he had only found a short, 52-second video, and not a longer seven-minute video. After consulting with supervisors and state ACORN officials, he decided Vera had contradicted his earlier statements and his conduct was "unacceptable."

The recording showed Vera appearing to suggest he could help get people across the border and asking the woman posing as a prostitute how much her services cost.

At the news conference, Lagstein said the organization is "furious" that hidden cameras filmed employees of the community-organizing group, and he called such actions "immoral if not illegal."

He also added that "we accept the imperfections that it exposed."

Vera was at the news conference and he gave an emotional recounting of what happened. He broke into tears at least twice.

He said that English isn't his first language and that he was confused about what was going on. He said he was just trying to help.

Lagstein said at the news conference that Vera ended up contacting a family member who works for police, and he said that shows that Vera knew what was happening was wrong.

Lagstein also said that he believes the timing was politically motivated, as it coincided with the day that President Obama gave a speech on health-care reform.












acorn

ACORN: Didn't fall far from the tree.

ACORN, that group Obama represented, supported, and used in his campaign ...

is corrupt to its core and being investigated in several states, employees having been arrested, and several jailed ... what a bunch of losers.

The NY Post interview with the pair that exposed ACORN






ACORN