More ACORN Allies Abandon Ship
September 30, 2009
Senator Al Franken - who once gushed that he was “more motivated than ever to work with ACORN” - has finally “got religion” according to Katherine Kersten, writing in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. Franken joined 83 other Senators in voting to slash funds for the disgraced group, but President Obama has refused to say whether he’d sign legislation to remove ACORN from the federal trough.
Kersten alludes to ACORN’s role in helping Franken sneak into the Senate, nothing that ACORN “is best-known for its massive voter-registration campaigns, which focus relentlessly on getting Democrats elected in target states.” All true, but she neglects to mention allegations by the legislative watchdog group Minnesota Majority concerning “a number of irregularities” in Minnesota’s voter registration records - including the registration of dead people and convicted felons at a time when ACORN was bragging about registering 80,000 new voters in time for the 2008 elections.
Calls for an investigation were quickly quashed by Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, whose campaign was bankrolled in part by the Secretary of State Project - a political operation funded by hedge fund billionaire George Soros to help sway close elections to liberal Democrats.
Do ACORN and the Secretary of State Project have any formal working relationship? Can’t say - but they are certainly toiling in the same vineyards.
Florida Black Caucus Slams Trial Bar Over “Racially Charged” Mailer
September 29, 2009
I guess I wasn’t the only one who found the Florida trial lawyers association’s latest mea culpa hopelessly lame. State Senator Gary Siplin, Chairman of the Florida Legislative Black Caucus recently fired off a letter condemning a sleazy, racist direct mail piece “created, approved and funded” by trial bar that tried to scare away voters in the September Republican state Senate primary with images of Black Panthers and armed thugs.
“The members of the Caucus find the mailing to be deplorable and represents the very worst nature of political campaigning.”
Scott Carruthers, executive director of the trial lawyers lobby, feigned outrage after the fact, even as the group tried desperately to hide their involvement. To his great credit, even though the groups have been allies in the past, Senator Siplin wasn’t buying it:
“It is obvious from the mailer that the FJA, who created, approved and funded this mailer has racially biased proclivities that are manifested in their thinking and actions. There as no need for FJA to invoke these racial images in an overwhelming Republican and non-minority district. [Hopefully Siplin didn't mean to imply the images would be OK in a Democrat or minority district] Therefore, it is our strong desire for FJA to continue to uphold its integrity [if any] and clean house within its association of anyone who spearheaded and/or had any involvement with this controversial mailer …” [emphasis mine]
No word yet from the trial bar about how the house cleaning is going.
More Trouble At The Trial Lawyers Lobby?
September 29, 2009
Back in 2006, the Association of Trial Lawyers of America tried to shed its ambulance-chasing image by switching its name to the American Association for Justice. Nobody here but us guardians of right and virtue, you know - not like those buck-raking scavengers who preyed on the legal system for their own profit. It was a move that would have made George Orwell proud.
But apparently the new persona hasn’t been a big hit among the faithful. The Washington Times reports that the group is “awash in debt ($6.2 million) and bleeding members.” Declining dues led to a more than $9 million revenue loss between 2005 and 2008. With so many of the trial bar’s leading lights in jail (Dickie Scruggs, Bill Lerach, Melvyn Weiss), it’s a wonder anyone counts themselves a proud member of such a discredited group.
The Justice League’s gleaming new 11-story headquarters in D.C.’s toniest downtown neighborhood has also been a major cash burner. The group sued its lender (surprise!) for $120 million after it backed out of a loan deal, but the case was basically laughed out of court, leaving the trial lawyer lobby scrambling to find some renters for its surplus space. If they can’t find enough tenants, I guess they’ll just have to go back to suing small business and shaking down insurance companies for some extra $$.
Even amidst its financial troubles, the trial bar still managed to scrape up enough cash to launch an ad/direct mail blitz scolding lawmakers not to even consider medical liability reform, despite well-documented evidence it will lower health care costs. Given Howard Dean’s admission that congressional Democrats won’t go near liability reform out of fear of angering the trial bar, Victor Schwartz speculates the Justice League is just using the issue as a cynical way to raise money. Some things never change.
Trial Lawyers In Florida Finally Fess Up To Race-Baiting Sleazeball Tactics
September 25, 2009
Florida’s trial lawyers association has finally admitted it was behind a sleazy, racist direct mail piece that tried to scare voters away from the polls in a state Senate race by warning that “armed thugs” and Black Panthers planned to harass them. The Orlando Sentinel has the whole reprehensible story, complete with the trial bar’s pathetic mea culpa.
The executive director of the Florida trial lawyers association, Scott Carruthers, admitted the group’s political operatives approved the piece and paid $69,000 to distribute it to 88,000 homes. Carruthers called the mailer “shameful” and faulted anonymous staffers for “fail[ing] to object” to its racist message.
Nice try, but the apology rings hollow. All along, the trial lawyers lobby tried to hide its attempts to slime candidate John Thrasher, who led the fight for tort reform when he was House Speaker. Wealthy trial lawyers funneled money to a front group called Conservative Citizens for Justice to shield their identities, as I reported in my 9/8 post. Then, after Thrasher won the September 15 primary, the trial lawyers association tried to hush up its involvement by “ignoring a reporter’s requests for information on the flier,” taking a full week to finally acknowledge the group’s complicity in the sleaze campaign.
According to news reports, right after the primary, the trial lawyers lobby “defiantly” said it was trying to “send a message to other candidates in 2010 not to push further tort-reform legislation.” Perhaps it’s time for Florida legislators and Florida voters to “defiantly” inform the trial bar they won’t be cowed by sleazy, racist attempts to trash courageous public servants who believe Florida’s judicial system should serve the people, not the trial bar.
ACORN’s Unusual Severance Package
September 24, 2009
Acorn has filed a lawsuit (POLITICO has the complaint) on behalf of itself, plus two employees caught on video tape handing out advice on how to avoid paying taxes on a brothel and hush up the employment of underage sex workers. Acorn claims Tonja Thompson and Shera Williams “suffered extreme emotional distress with attendant physical symptoms and injury to their reputations.” I guess Acorn ought to know; the group’s chief, Bertha Lewis, fired the employees and trashed them on the TV talk shows last weekend.
Acorn’s lawsuit seeks $500,000 in damages for each of the employees they fired, plus $1 million for each in punitives, presumably due to the damage to their reputations inflicted by Acorn. Of course, the real goal here is to intimidate the heroic filmmakers, James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles, along with Andrew Breitbart who publicized the shocking footage, with harassing litigation designed to drain their wallets and publicly slime them.
This is how these corrupt thugs play. Break the rules, screw the taxpayers and sue the good guys. We need a big boot to squash this outfit of lawbreakers.
Let’s go good guys. Don’t back down. Keep up the pressure. More videos. Pictures say a thousand words and no slick trial lawyer can lie their way out of this. I wish taxpayers could sue this outfit.
Has a defense fund been set up yet for O’Keefe, Giles and Breitbart? I’ve got my checkbook ready.
The Last Man In America To Know
September 21, 2009
“Frankly it’s not really something I’ve followed closely. I didn’t even know that Acorn was getting - ah, ah - a whole lot of federal money.” That what President Obama told George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s This Week.
According to Congressman Darrell Issa, American taxpayers have given Acorn more than $53 million. President Obama refused to say if he’d sign legislation that passed the House 345-75 last week to cut off all federal funding of Acorn.
ACORN Scrambles For Survial
September 21, 2009
When the videos documenting Acorn’s corrupt and illegal activities first aired, Acorn chief executive Bertha Lewis labeled filmmaker James O’Keefe and his partner Hannah Giles criminals.
“… it is clear that the videos were doctored, edited, and in no way the result of the fabricated story being portrayed by conservative activist ‘filmmaker’ O’Keefe and his partner in crime. And, in fact, a crime it was - our lawyers believe a felony - and we will be taking legal action against Fox and their co-conspirators.”
The slap at Fox was pure bluster - a pathetic attempt to portray Acorn as the victim of some vast, right-wing conspiracy. Fox News had nothing to do with the production of the videos, as Chris Wallace made clear when he interviewed Lewis on Sunday. Lewis was more contrite, claiming she was actually “outraged” seeing Acorn employees advising O’Keefe and Giles on the most tax-advantaged way to set up a prostitution ring.
No word from Lewis on the status of Acorn’s “legal action” against O’Keefe, Giles or Fox.
Must Readings On ACORN’s Decline And Fall
September 21, 2009
Internet entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart has an absolute must-read article in today’s Washington Times giving the back story on how the Acorn videos exploded into public view and forced the group to fight for survival. Breitbart believed the mainstream media would “try to kill this important and illuminating expose … and that the well-funded political left would go into ‘war room’ mode, with the 25-year-old Mr. O’Keefe and 20-year-old cohort Miss Giles in the cross hairs.” So he and O’Keefe hatched a strategy to “force the media to see the evidence before they had enough time to destroy” the messengers by posting the footage on Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com. It’s a brilliant illustration of how the Internet is shaking the foundations of the modern media.
ACORN: The Implosion
September 18, 2009
Where to begin today with the smoking hole that once was Acorn?
Byron York has a piece on the 345-75 vote in the House to cut all federal funding to Acorn, led by a stampede of Democrats.
Michael Barone - one of the nation’s most insightful political analysts - digs even deeper into the House vote.
An AP story quotes House Minority Leader John Boehner calling on President Obama to support stripping Acorn’s federal funding.
The Washington Post has a fascinating tick-tock on “The $1,300 Mission to Fell Acorn.”
In Salon, Jon Conason makes the lame, pro-Acorn, “it’s-all-a-vast-right-wing-conspiracy” case.
If anyone hasn’t seen them, the videos themselves can be seen on Andrew Breitbart’s biggovernment.com.
ACORN’s About Face
September 17, 2009
Last week, when confronted with video evidence of ACORN employees advising people how to avoid federal taxes in setting up a brothel and “cloak the status of underage ’sex workers,’” a defiant Bertha Lewis, ACORN’s executive director, called the vile footage part of a right-wing conspiracy to “destroy the largest community organization of black, Latino, poor and working-class people in the country.”
Now that it’s abundantly clear this ham-handed attempt to play the race card has backfired, ACORN is furiously backpedaling. Lewis now pronounces herself “deeply disturbed by what I’ve seen in some of these videos” and pledges to go to “whatever lengths necessary to reestablish the public trust.” One immediate step: “retraining of [ACORN's] front-line staff in its nationwide offices within 48 hours” - presumably to inform them that running houses of prostitution and employing underage “sex workers” is against the law … or at least not worthy of federally-funded advice.
These desperate efforts by Lewis to salvage what’s left (if anything) of ACORN’s public credibility are really just a side-show. The real question is when President Obama is going to show some measure of leadership and public decency by committing his administration to de-funding this disgraceful organization.