Bringing ACORN-Style Elections to Colorado
April 13, 2010
Colorado Secretary of State Bernie Buescher and Speaker of the House Terrance Carroll have cooked up a scheme that could bring ACORN-style election fraud to the Centennial State, reports the Colorado Statesman. A draft bill would allow same-day voter registration and liberalize the rules for mail-in ballots – two loopholes groups like ACORN have used to commit voter fraud in many states.
Speaker Carroll claimed the bill was drafted “at the behest of county clerks” who are charged with administering the state’s elections. But Karen Long, president of the clerk’s association disavowed any involvement, writing in an email that clerks have “not been at the drafting table on this bill.” Both Carroll and Secretary of State Buescher refused to identify even one clerk involved with the bill’s drafting. One clerk willing to speak up called the bill “horrible” and claimed clerks were being pressured to support same-day voter registration to get changes in mail-in ballots they desire.
In the 2008 elections, ACORN was accused of voter fraud in 12 states; in Nevada alone, ACORN employees were indicted on 26 charges of voter fraud. Is this really a list Colorado wants to join?
Jerry Brown as Sgt. Schultz: “I know nothing, I see nothing, I say nothing!”
April 2, 2010
Democrat candidate for governor and current California Attorney General Jerry Brown has ended his investigation into ACORN. Yesterday he announced…wait for it….that he would not bring charges against the group.
Last fall, Gov. Schwarzenneger asked Brown to investigate ACORN’s activites in the Golden State after an undercover video showed ACORN employees helpfully advising a pimp on how to avoid paying taxes on a bordello.
ACORN employees in San Diego were then tipped off that an investigation was coming and were caught tossing out piles of records into a public dumpster.
All of this has some Californians scratching their heads. In the words of Jarrod Agen, a spokesman for State Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, who is running as a GOP candidate for governor:
“I’m no lawyer, but videotapes of ACORN assisting a proposed prostitution ring seems pretty illegal to me. We’re not surprised that at the end of the day, Jerry Brown turns a blind eye to these wrongdoings.”
No surprise here either — the fix has been in on the Brown investigation from the start.
In fact, just to make his true colors plain for all to see, Brown didn’t waste any breath scolding ACORN. Instead Brown trained his fire on the filmmakers who originally delivered the goods on ACORN:
“‘The evidence illustrates,’ Brown said, ’that things are not always as partisan zealots portray them through highly selective editing of reality. Sometimes a fuller truth is found on the cutting room floor.’”
Candidate Brown missed his calling, he should have been in show business. Not even Hogan’s Heroes’ Sargeant Schultz could have delivered that line with a straight face.
ACORN: Disbanded…or Rebranded?
April 2, 2010
To borrow from Mark Twain - the report of ACORN’s death has been grossly exaggerated.
Jonathan Strong, a reporter for Tucker Carlson and Neil Patel’s online news outet, The Daily Caller, reports that ACORN hasn’t disbanded afterall. Rather, it has simply rebranded itself and is conducting business as usual in communities across the country.
Citing a new report from California Congressman Darryl Issa, Strong writes:
“In California, ACORN transferred all its assets to Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE); Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut chapters have consolidated under the banner New England United for Justice – and so on. In each case, a group with the same assets and staff is operating at the same address with the same mission as the ACORN branch that once operated there.”
Issa’s report points out that by renaming its organization, ACORN will once again be free to start collecting tax-exempt contributions:
“‘Rebranding is an important legal strategy for ACORN to survive. By changing the names of its state and local affiliates, ACORN can rebuild its tax-exempt contributions under the guise of its superficially new and separate corporations as well as its public image,’ Issa’s report said.”
Strong’s article provides this new list of groups formerly-known-as ACORN:
- In California, ACORN is now the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (“ACCE”)
- In Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, ACORN is New England United for Justice.
- In New York, ACORN is New York Communities for Change.
- In Arkansas, ACORN has become Arkansas Community Organizations (“ACO”).
- In Louisiana, ACORN is “A Community Voice”.
- In Missouri, ACORN is Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment (“MORE”).
- In Washington state, ACORN is Organization United for Reform (“OUR”) Washington.
- In Minnesota, ACORN is Minnesota Neighborhoods Organizing for Change.
- In Pennsylvania, ACORN has become the Pennsylvania Communities Organizing for Change (“PCOC”) and Pennsylvania Neighborhoods for Social Justice, Inc.
- In Texas, ACORN is now the Texas Organizing Project.
- ACORN Housing Corporation (“AHC”) has renamed itself Affordable Housing Centers of America, Inc.
ACORN’s Candidate in Ohio
March 26, 2010
While ACORN has imploded amidst allegations of fraud and corruption, its allies continue to hold powerful posts – including Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, who is in a neck-and-neck race with Rob Portman to fill the U.S. Senate seat of retiring George Voinovich.
Brunner came to office with the help of the Secretary of State Project (SOS Project) – another campaign group bankrolled by hedge fund billionaire George Soros. Secretaries of State typically serve as the state’s chief election official, putting them in prime position to tip close elections toward ultra-liberal allies of the SOS Project. Exhibit A: Minnesota, where Secretary of State Mark Ritchie was elected with SOS Project $$ and went on to block an investigation of ACORN’s registration of dead voters and convicted felons. Ritchie also played a crucial role in Al Franken’s tainted Senate victory.
An American Spectator article raises interesting questions about some funny business involving Brunner and a prospective Tea Party candidate for Ohio Attorney General.
ACORN, R.I.P.
March 23, 2010
ACORN announced yesterday it is closing its doors six months after video tape was aired showing ACORN employees handing out advice to investigators posing as a pimp and a prostitute on how to evade paying taxes on a bordello. ACORN honcho Bertha Lewis lashed out at – well, at nearly everyone, including Congress, the media and the vast right-wing conspiracy:
“ACORN has faced a series of well-orchestrated, relentless, well-funded right wing attacks that are unprecedented since the McCarthy era. The videos were a manufactured, sensational story that led to a rush to judgment and an unconstitutional act by Congress.”
It says something about the delusional mentality among the radical left that one of its leader seems to believe ACORN has a constitutional right to taxpayer funds so the group can go out and register “Mickey Mouse” and other cartoon characters as voters, as it did in several states.
Kudos to filmmaker James O’Keefe and his partner Hanna Giles for getting the goods on ACORN that shamed the political establishment to action. But the MVP in this entire drama surely goes to Andrew Breitbart (link) and his BigGovernment.com for pushing the story when the mainstream media sat on its hands.
Is the fix in on Jerry Brown’s ACORN Investigation? Part Two
March 1, 2010
In a November post, I asked whether the fix was in on California Governor Jerry Brown’s investigation into ACORN, after an ACORN official was caught on tape referring to Brown as a “political animal” whose office had given ACORN brass indications the group had little to fear from an AG investigation.
Well, Derrick Roach has given us a partial answer in a special report on Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com. According to Roach, instead of conducting a real investigation, Governor Brown has “crumpled like an aluminum can cowardly hiding behind state bureaucrats and a wall of state agencies.” Among the highlights:
“In the wake of Jerry Brown alerting ACORN to an investigation that was to be conducted by his office, ACORN’s actions of dumping records into a dumpster in what appeared to be possible obstruction of justice, statements from ACORN officials that some interpret as possible collusion between ACORN and the Attorney General’s office and a referral of an investigation to another state agency in what appears to be an abdication of responsibility and the equivalent of a political passing-of-the-buck now comes new allegations that ACORN did in fact violate multiple California state and federal laws.
“It is astoundingly amazing that with video evidence obtained by James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles, documents that show an undisputed pattern of political activism by a “non-profit” organization, millions of dollars that have been unaccounted for and a congressional investigation that has documented a pattern of criminal activity that has deprived the State of California from desperately needed tax revenues; that California Attorney General Jerry Brown has yet to show any real sign of leadership or fortitude necessary to protect the citizens of California or seriously investigate ACORN.”
Lifting the Rock on ACORN
February 19, 2010
Congressman Darrell Issa is out with a blockbuster new report that lifts the rock on ACORN’s corrupt activities and its connection with the powerful Service Employees International Union (SEIU). The report makes four key findings:
- “First, ACORN and SEIU’s illegal agreements, and the crimes committed in furtherance of these agreements, constitute a criminal conspiracy.”
- “Second, there is a pattern, signature or ‘trade secret’ of corruption common to all ACORN affiliates called ‘Muscle for the Money.’”
- “Third, ACORN, as a corporation, is responsible for thousands of fraudulent voter registrations throughout the United States.”
- “Fourth, ACORN contributed to the risky lending that led to the financial collapse.”
The media has mostly ignored Issa’s report, but a summary can be read at Human Events.
“A World Without ACORN”
December 3, 2009
On Tuesday, Darrell Issa blasted the Obama Administration, accusing administration officials of covering up ACORN’s illegal activities. Issa leveled the charge during a forum he held to address a host of concerns surrounding ACORN–an event he convened because the Democrats in Congress have been dragging their feet, stalling a serious investigation into ACORN.
Key quote from the Washington Times‘ coverage of the event:
“The current administration is fast becoming, in reality, the war room of ACORN’s political machine,” said Rep. Darrell Issa, California Republican. “I am concerned that the era of corruption promulgated by ACORN and protected by the White House is just the beginning.”
The top Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said ACORN has engaged in “illegal, partisan activities designed to help individual Democratic members.”
“This (action) goes from city councilmen to state assemblymen all the way to President Barack Obama,” he said.”
Issa expands his ACORN criticisms in a piece for the American Spectator here. In the article, entitled “A World Without ACORN,” Issa points out that ACORN’s defenders “whine” thatwithout ACORN the nation’s poor and downtrodden will have no one to help them … as if there aren’t countless other worthy organizations dedicated to doing just that.
Issa lists off dozens of other groups that are doing a fine job of helping the less fortunate and ends with this:
“Clearly, ACORN deserves to lose its tax-exempt status and has forfeited its right to receive taxpayer dollars — dollars more responsibly awarded to thousands of other worthy community-based organizations around which a cloud of criminal suspicion does not hang. Congress was right to defund ACORN, and the Obama administration is wrong in its attempt to explain away the law to keep the money funneling into ACORN’s illicit enterprise.
“Indeed, a world without ACORN would still see government resources helping the poor, keeping down home foreclosures, and opening up economic and political opportunities for those most in need. In fact, it would see those resources used more efficiently, successfully, and lawfully.”
Is the Fix in on Jerry Brown’s ACORN Investigation?
November 19, 2009
Will California Attorney General Jerry Brown charge ACORN for attempting to help set up a brothel and “smuggle Mexican girls across the border to work as prostitutes,” a San Francisco Chronicle article asks? Or will Brown prosecute the filmmakers who uncovered ACORN?s scandalous behavior?
Clearly ACORN believes it has a pipeline to the AG. A top ACORN official told a Democratic Club meeting last month:
“The attorney general is a political animal as well. Every bit of communication we’ve had with (Brown’s office) has suggested that fault will be found with the people that did the video and not with ACORN.”
You can hear it for yourself on Andrew Breitbart’s biggovernment.com.
A cynic might conclude ACORN was offering to help Brown?s gubernatorial campaign in advance of the June primary. But then again, ACORN has given us a lot of reasons to be cynical about the organization recently.
For his part, Brown has long been an ACORN promoter, and the group was instrumental in his political resurrection, running voter registration drives and get-out-the-vote efforts in his campaigns for Oakland mayor and AG, according to an American Spectator report.
Oh, and Brown?s office declined to investigate Brown?s own spokesman, who admitted to secretly recording conversations with journalists.
Can anyone say “conflict of interest?”
The new Jerry Brown isn’t any different than the old Jerry Brown. Back then he was known as Governor Moonbeam. Today, this ACORN apologist is just a NUT.
ACORN on the Ropes
November 13, 2009
Politico reports today on a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee memo that claims ACORN may “be ready to file for bankruptcy.” The ranking minority member on the Committee is Congressman Darrell Issa, who has led the congressional investigation into ACORN’s corrupt practices.
According to the memo:
“… the three main offices of ACORN are engaged in a ‘civil war’ and CEO Bertha Lewis has taken custody of hundreds of bank accounts with fund totaling roughly $20 million, in order to consolidate assets.”
You can access Congressman Issa’s July report, “Is ACORN Intentionally Structured as a Criminal Enterprise?” here.
In a separate article, Politico also reports that ACORN has filed a lawsuit against the federal government, claiming that bills passed by the House and Senate to defund the group are unconstitutional.
I’m not making this up.
ACORN’s complaint cites the loss of $1 million in FEMA funding and $780,000 from the EPA among others, which has forced the group to fire employees and shutter offices. ACORN’s arrogance is already legendary, but its claim of a constitutional right to suck money out of American taxpayers raises this conceit to a whole new level.