Some Thoughts On ACORN's "Full Investigation"

After days or denying that the explosive video tapes were tantamount to a larger problem, ACORN did a pivot today and it's CEO, Bertha Lewis, made this announcement.

In a press release, ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis says, that as “a result of the indefensible action of a handful of our employees,” the group will immediately stop accepting anyone into ACORN office for service programs, will conduct in-service training of staff, and begin an audit “to review all of the systems and processes called into question by the videos,” to be conducted by the group’s Independent Advisory Council.

The Council includes many prominent Democrats, including the man who helped President Obama Transition Team, John Podesta, President and CEO of the Center for American Progress; former Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend; Andrew Stern, International President of the Service Employees International Union; and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros.

There's a cliche that describes the watchdog group that Ms. Lewis has assembled, the fox guarding the hen house. In other words, the watchdogs are just as corrupt as the ones they are supposed to be watching. We're supposed to believe a bunch Democrat and liberal activists are the ones that will be in charge of reviewing the activities of ACORN. That's just absurd. If ACORN were serious about creating a real watchdog, I would suggest members of ACORN 8 as most of them were serious about being watchdogs when they were members of the board of ACORN. Of course, it's highly unlikely this council was supposed to be a legitimate watchdog. Instead, this was most certainly for appearances only.

This is not new either. This is the Modis Operendi for ACORN. Following the disclosure of the embezzlement of Dale Rathke, the very same Bertha Lewis told the members of the board of ACORN that she had hired on an outside body to do a full audit of ACORN. That body was Mesirow Financial. There's only one problem with Mesirow being hired to do audits. Mesirow doesn't do audits. They're a financial services firm and not CPA's. They're in no position to do audits. So, much like this, that audit was mostly for appearance sake.

Here's all you need to know about Bertha Lewis' zest to root out corruption in her midst. Here's the video of her interview with Bill O'Reilly.



In this video, Lewis emphatically states that there will be no corruption on her watch. There's delicious irony in that statement. When Wade Rathke discovered that his brother Dale had embezzled $1 million from ACORN, he covered it up but he did tell a small group of lieutenants (his management council)Steve Kest, Jon Kest, Madeline Talbott, Keith Kelleher, Mike Shea, Zach Polett, Helene O’Brien, Amy Schur, Liz Wolff, and Beth Butler. It is these eight people that hold the highest positions of power in ACORN. The Kest brothers run the ACORN New York branch, the most powerful of the ACORN branches. Mike Shea runs ACORN Housing, the most powerful ACORN affiliate (and the subject of many of these stings) Zack Pollett is ACORN's political director. Beth Butler is Wade Rathke's common law wife. (common law in that Wade doesn't believe in marriage but they've lived together long enough to be common law) Helene O'Brien is the H.R. Director for ACORN. This is the power base of ACORN. They were the ones that knew about the embezzlement and swore to secrecy to never reveal it. Lewis claims to have no tolerance for corruption in her midst and yet, she hasn't done one thing to remove any of them.

Here is my full dossier of ACORN.