The ACORN Rebranding

The intrepid ACORN reporter Matthew Vadum has the latest on ACORN's continuing rebranding effort.

Is ACORN Housing Being Investigated?

Journalist Matt Vadum says yes.

As ACORN gears up to use your tax dollars to influence future elections, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is conducting a "massive" probe of ACORN Housing Corp., a source familiar with the ongoing investigation says.

A spokesman for HUD's inspector general refused to confirm or deny whether ACORN Housing was being investigated.

ACORN Housing is no longer ACORN Housing. It's now called Affordable Housing Centers of America and one of its board members is the former HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros. ACORN Housing is one of the most profitable of ACORN's affiliates.

It also has a unique relationship with ACORN itself. One insider told me that ACORN Housing would on occasion provide funding for cash strapped ACORN. At the same time, ACORN Housing started using its own bookkeeping service and cut of CCI long before CCI became toxic publicly. Michael Shea is the CEO of ACORN Housing.

Floyd Landis is No Whistleblower

By now, everyone has heard about the explosive charges made by Floyd Landis.

Lance Armstrong's RadioShack team has struck back at doping allegations made by Floyd Landis, Armstrong's former teammate who this week confessed to having used performance-enhancing substances throughout his career -- including the 2006 Tour de France he won on the road.

The RadioShack team posted a statement on its website and attached a lengthy series of e-mails written by Landis and his personal physician, Dr. Brent Kay, who is also the primary sponsor of his bike team, and sent to Armstrong; Andrew Messick, president of AEG Sports, whose company owns the ongoing Tour of California; and USA Cycling president Steve Johnson and the federation's lawyer, Steven Hess. The only responses included are Messick's. No correspondence from Armstrong was included in the postings.

Let's put to the side the veracity of Landis' charges, and assume, against all evidence, that they are true. Would this make Landis a whistle blower?

I dealt with a similar situation with my reporting on Michelle Malkin, Michael Gaynor, and Anita Moncrief. Anita Moncrief became the main source for the seven most explosive pages in Michelle Malkin's book, Culture of Corruption. In return, Malkin used the pages in her blog, michellemalkin.com, to prop up Moncrief. Included in Malkin's adoring manner toward Moncrief was Malkin's allusion to Anita Moncrief being a whistleblower.

Last June, I told you about the speech-squelching attempt by ACORN/Project Vote to silence one of its most potent critics — former Project Vote official-turned-whistleblower Anita MonCrief.

The problem with this description is that Anita Moncrief is no whistle blower. Anita Moncrief was an employee of ACORN affiliate Project Vote. During that time, she used a company credit card to run up almost $2000 of personal expenses. Project Vote caught her and fired her. After she was fired, Moncrief then accused Project Vote in a series of voting improprieties.

Now, let's look at a real whistle blower. Pat McDonough was working on a Chicago plumbing project when he noticed a series of trucks that appeared to be stalled and doing nothing on the project. He found out that these trucks were hired by the city to friends of the mayor and he went to the media. As a result of his exposure, what he discovered is now infamously known as the Hired Truck Scandal, one of Chicago's biggest scandals. In fact, McDonough isn't even mentioned in the Hired Truck Scandal's Wikipedia page. To this day, McDonough continues to earn his living as a plumber for the city of Chicago. By blowing the whistle on this corruption, he put himself in the direct crosshairs of those that write his paychecks. His career there is stalled and he also continues to be a champion of good government.

The New England Journal of Medicine recently had a piece on what motivates a whistleblower.

The most common of the themes, integrity (11 of 26 relators), was linked by some relators to their individual personality traits and strong ethical standards. One relator reasoned, "When I lodged my initial complaint with the company, I believed what we were doing was unethical and only technically illegal. This ethical transgression drove my decision. My peers could live with the implications of `doing 60 in a 55 mph zone' because it did indeed seem trivial. However, my personal betrayal . . . so filled me with shame that I could not live with this seemingly trivial violation" (Relator 25). The relators in this group felt that financial circumstances helped to subvert such ethical standards in their colleagues, saying that most colleagues were unwilling for personal or family reasons to jeopardize their jobs.

A slightly less common theme (7 of 26 relators) involved trying to prevent the fraudulent behavior from posing risks to public health. Most of the relators who described this type of motivation felt they had unique professional experiences or educational backgrounds that gave them a superior grasp of the negative public health implications of the illegal conduct. Some relators (7 of 26) characterized their action in reporting the fraud as emanating from a sense of duty to bring criminals to justice. Many of these relators were new employees who perceived themselves as being outside the fold in their companies.

In the case of both Landis and Moncrief, their motivations were far more personal and far less for the public good. The main difference, however, is this. A whistle blower sees corruption and reports it. They don't have time to worry about potential problems this will cause themselves. In the case of both Landis and Moncrief, they saw corruption and said nothing. They only reported on this corruption after harm was done to them. Does anyone really think that Landis would have reported on doping if he hadn't been caught himself? Does anyone really think that Moncrief would have reported on Project Vote corruption if she hadn't been caught stealing and fired? That's what Pat McDonough did. He reported on the corruption as soon as he saw it and at great peril to himself. That's not what Landis did at all. Instead, Landis, like Moncrief, waited until it was beneficial to themselves to report on the corruption.

The Explosive ACORN Video

Here's Bertha Lewis, chief organizer at ACORN, speaking at a conference of Young Democratic Socialists.



What is the Young Democratic Socialists? They're the youth arm of Democratic Socialists of America. It's a group that's looking to bring social justice and European style social democracy to America.

This speech is from a conference held at Norman Thomas High School in New York. Thomas was a self avowed socialist that took over the mantle from Eugene V. Debs. Here's how this group describes socialism.

Socialism is one of the most misused words in the American political vocabulary. Contrary to misrepresentations by both conservatives and liberals, socialism is not about breadlines, fur hats, or police states. Rather, we fight for the extension of democracy into all aspects of social life, including the economy. We are proud of the relative democratic freedoms enjoyed by US citizens. But without economic democracy, this political liberty is weak and incomplete. People must have a voice in the economic decisions which affect their lives. Democratic socialism also means fighting non-economic inequalities of power- including racism, sexism and heterosexism in all their forms. A radical democracy is the only way to ensure a world in which class, race, and gender do not decide our futures.

We'll see how this story progresses.

The ISSA Report: ACORN Rebranding

A shell game designed to conceal illegal activities, to use tax payer and tax exempt dollars for partisan purposes, and to distract investigators.

That's how a previous Issa Report described the activities of ACORN's management. Similarly, the so called shutting down of ACORN is nothing more than a way to "distract" and "dupe" investigators.

Recently, we've heard about ACORN and ACORN affiliated chapters shutting down. They've been changing their names. According to this latest report, that's all nonsense. The report states that much of this is happening because factions from the New York, Louisiana and California branches are involved in a power struggle.

The report further states that Bertha Lewis has taken control of some 800 bank accounts worth in the neighborhood of $20 million. Furthermore, according to an internal ACORN document, ACORN has been selling assets from its California office to the Alliance of California for Community Empowerment. That was the previous ACORN California branch. Both the previous and current have Liz Schur as their chief. They maintain the same address, same employees, and even the same tax identification number. Now, they also have the same assets. The only thing that's changed is the name.

In fact, according to the report, the tax identification number has not changed in any of the cases of name changes of ACORN affiliates. For instance, ACORN Housing is now called Affordable Housing Centers of America. Yet, Michael Shea runs the new organization in the same way he ran ACORN Housing. It's in the same address, has the same employees, and still has the same tax id number. Nothing has changed but the name.

This, according to the report, is nothing more than rebranding and a way to run away from the ACORN name.

Here is the first and second report analysis.

ACORN Closing?

There is some irony in ACORN stating they will close on April 1st.

Republicans say they know an ACORN when they see it, and just because the community activist organization says it's disbanding, that doesn't mean it's gone.

"Just as criminals change their aliases, ACORN is changing its name," California Rep. Darrell Issa, the top Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said in a written statement. "But make no mistake about it, just because they change their name, doesn't mean anything has really changed at all."

Issa led an investigation into the group, which announced on Monday that it is closing after a series of undercover videos last year showed its employees offering tax advice to a couple posing as a pimp and prostitute, tarnishing the group's reputation and crippling its source of funding.

When I asked Matt Vadum, of the Capital Research Center, if ACORN really is closing, he sent me this picture.

ACORN Virtually in Bankruptcy

This news isn't nearly as important as it sounds.

The community organizing group Acorn, battered politically from the right and suffering from mismanagement along with a severe loss of government and other
funds, is on the verge of filing for bankruptcy, officials of the group said Friday.

Acorn is holding a teleconference this weekend to discuss plans for a bankruptcy filing, two officials of the group said. They asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak to the news media.

Over the last six months, at least 15 of the group’s 30 state chapters have disbanded and have no plans of re-forming, Acorn officials said. The California and New York chapters, two of the largest, have severed their ties to the national group and have independently reconstituted themselves with new names. Several other state groups are also re-forming outside the Acorn umbrella, and will not be affected if the national organization files for bankruptcy.

In fact, ACORN is disintegrating and at the same time all its parts are morphing and changing their names. So, in fact, ACORN will disintegrate but its parts will morph. This is all part of the process.

The New ACORN Housing Corporation

ACORN Housing recently changed its name to Affordable Housing Centers of America. That continues a trend of former ACORN affiliates changing their name.

More interestingly, the new organizations shows as one of its chief supporters, Henry Cisneros. That's the same Cisneros that's the former HUD secretary. Here's what Cisneros says about the organization on their front page.

Organizations come and go and times change, but commitment to helping our fellow citizens should never fade. It is this commitment to helping our fellow citizens that is the true character of those who have been in this fight. It is the character of Affordable Housing Centers of America helping people who need it most. As Mayor of San Antonio, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and a private developer, I have seen the benefits of this work up close, and I look forward to working with you.

A picture of Michael Shea is right above a photo of Cisneros. Shea is of course the former head of ACORN Housing and now he leads the new organization.

ACORN Investigation Killed According to Judicial Watch

The watch dog group, Judicial Watch, says that an investigation into ACORN was killed by President Obama's justice department.

The Obama Justice Department administration shut down an investigation into ACORN last year, ignoring evidence of fraud at the community group, a government
watchdog claimed Thursday, citing investigative documents it obtained.

The watchdog, Judicial Watch, in releasing the documents, accused ACORN of "evident criminal conduct" and suggested that Obama's past ties to ACORN played a role in the investigation's conclusion.

ACORN responded by emphasizing that it was cleared of wrongdoing, though the federal investigation found problems with how the organization hires and trains employees.

This is disappointing if not surprising. It also means that the investigation in Louisiana lead by Democratic Attorney General, Buddy Caldwell, continues to be the investigation with the most promise as far as uncovering potential criminal activities. That investigation continues and last fall there was a raid of an ACORN office as part of that investigation.

More Voter Registration Fraud Charges for ACORN

Once again, however, voter registration fraud has been confused with voter fraud.

Five Wisconsin residents, including two who worked for community organizing group ACORN, were charged Monday with election fraud relating to the 2008 presidential election.

State Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen announced felony charges against Maria Miles, Kevin Clancy, Michael Henderson, Herbert Gunka and Suzanne Gunka.

Miles and Clancy worked for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now and are accused of submitting multiple voter registration applications for the same individuals, including each other, to meet voter registration quotas imposed by the community organizing group.

Henderson is charged with one count of voting by a disqualified person and providing false information to election officials. The allegation claims he was on a felony probation and prohibited from voting at the time.

While the crimes described here are crimes of voter registration fraud, the headline was ACORN Registration Workers Charged With Felony Voter Fraud. There's a huge difference. In this case, voter registration forms were submitted fraudulently. People that didn't exist were registered to vote. Of course, since they didn't exist, they weren't going to vote. The most famous case is of course of Mickey Mouse but Mickey Mouse didn't vote either.

In these cases, no one voted fraudulently either. That doesn't mean, however, there wasn't fraud. These folks defrauded whoever paid them to register people to vote and that's the crime.

The Issa ACORN/SEIU Report

I finally had a chance to read the most recent Issa Report in it's entirety. While this report claims to focus on the connection between ACORN and the SEIU, it was mostly a rehash of the previous Issa report last July. It again went over the myriad of inter connections between ACORN and it's hundreds of affiliates. It even claimed that many of the current investigations like this Louisiana and Indiana have been helped along by the information revealed in the previous report.

As for this report, one significant revelation are the schemes known as Muscle for Money. In such schemes, corporation like the Carlyle group and H&R Block were strong armed into giving concessions to ACORN. I described one such scheme like this in February of 2009.

One such campaign involved H&R Block. ACORN showed up at the home of then CEO, Mark Ernst. The relentlessly harrassed him all over his neighborhood. They showed up everywhere he frequented until he became a pariah in his own neighborhood. They finally got concessions. They teamed up to provide free tax service in low income areas. ACORN got a piece of H&R Block's Emerald Cards. Of course, that's what the media knows about. What's almost certain is that ACORN also received, and likely continues to receive, cash payments directly from H&R Block. Of course, we'll never know how much, if any, cash payments were transferred. That's because all cash that ACORN receives starts in their so called accounting firm, Citizen's Consulting Inc. Because both H&R Block and CCI are both private companies, seeing their books is next to impossible. As such any payments are hidden in the books of two companies that aren't sharing them.

Often, these sort of strong armed tactics were then by ACORN members at the behest of the SEIU. It's also been widely reported that the local New Orleans SEIU 100 is run by Wade Rathke, the founder and former long time chief organizer at ACORN. Rathke recently confirmed this as well to me. Though, it's now being called the United Labor Union 100 as the name has been changed since last fall. His brother Dale was also a long time higher up at the local SEIU 100.

The report also showed that union dues were often a significant source of money into ACORN.

The most starting revelation is about the Americians Social Institute for Justice. ASIJ, according to the report, is nothing more than a shell organization used to launder money, government and otherwise. Often, according to the report, government funds would transfer seemlessly from the government to ASIJ and into the political arm of ACORN and then be used for political purposes, a major federal violation.

Issa's report also spends a great deal of time trying to tie ACORN to the Community Reinvestment Act and all of it to the current mortgage crisis. Last July, the same Darrell Issa completed a report detailing how the Community Reinvestment Act played a major role in creating the crisis. The CRA has become a Republican boogeyman in the crisis because it's a great way to blame liberal policies on our current situation. In Issa's own report, however, he states that at it's height the CRA only accounted for 3% of all mortgages. It only applied to banks and not brokers. It didn't apply to sub prime itself. I refuted it then, and I won't go over the same arguments again.

Issa's report spends more than twenty of the sixty eight pages on this topic. There's no doubt that ACORN used the CRA for serious campaigns against banks like Wells Fargo however then the report tries to claim that these campaigns had a substantial effect on the crisis. The first is accurate and the second is absurd. The full report is here.

Here is analysis of the first and third ACORN/Issa report.

The Obama/ACORN Video

The conservatives are having a field day with this one.


In reality, the president isn't saying much here that is all that shocking. Of course, he has worked on campaigns that ACORN also worked on. They both were part of the same radical area in Hyde Park in Chicago. Of course, they worked on the same campaigns. They all worked on the same campaigns.

I always said that ACORN was a piece of a largely far left/radical puzzle that defined Obama's political and professional upbringing. I just always felt that there wasn't a smoking gun for a nefarious relationship. This video certainly isn't that.

Still, the optics here look terrible. First, Obama has downplayed his own involvement with ACORN. Second, ACORN's brand is worse than the Tiger Woods' brand right now. So, for those reasons, this video will have some staying power. Watch for this video to become part of a loop on Beck.

The ACORN Rebranding

A few weeks back, I passed along this story about the California chapter of ACORN.

The new entity will be called Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE). It will, on paper at least, be entirely separate now from ACORN. The relationship will be what Wade Rathke characterized the relationship between ACORN and ACORN Housing. ACORN is its own entity and ACCE is its own entity and the two are fighting for common goals.

It's becoming an epidemic. Matt Vadum picks up the story.

As part of the radical group’s fraudulent rebranding scheme, ACORN has renamed its New York chapter New York Communities for Change. Unlike on the West coast where ACORN is at least pretending its renamed California chapter (Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment or ACCE) is not part of the ACORN network, New York Communities for Change shares the same Nevins Street address as ACORN’s Brooklyn office.

A March 4 fundraiser for New York Communities for Change is being hosted by Debra Cooper.

Meanwhile, the Massachusetts branch of ACORN has been renamed New England United for Justice.

More state-level name changes are expected soon while the basic structure of ACORN, which is controlled from the top using interlocking directorates, remains essentially intact.

Norman Oder also has the latest.

The New York Communities for Change web site cites an address and fax number (left), which are the same as the Brooklyn ACORN address and fax number (right, below), as indicated on a now-defunct web page preserved by the Internet Archive.

That address is responsible for much more political activity.

As City Hall News reported 11/30/09, that same address houses the Working Families Party, formed in 1998 by ACORN and two unions, now with more than 60 affiliate organizations. And it also houses the nonprofit lobby group the Working Families Organization, Data & Field Services, the political consulting company founded in 2007 by the Working Families Party, and the nonprofit Progressive America Fund.

This rebranding allows local chapters to ditch the ACORN name. It also means that ACORN will stop the top down structure and be structured much like Wade Rathke's Community Organizers International. By that, it's a confederation structure where locals control their own funds.

MGM Building Up By Tearing Down

Anita Moncrief took some time off from attending CPAC to write her latest investigative piece on ACORN 8. She published the piece on Michelle Malkin's Hot Air and quoted Michael Gaynor in the piece.

The piece is several thousand words long so let's sum up. ACORN 8 is corrupt because several of its board members are on other boards together and also more than one of these other groups lists as its main address the home address of a main principle of ACORN 8, Marcel Reid.

If this seems curious, here's the backdrop. Among ACORN and its 200 or so affiliates, often the board members overlap. Furthermore, most of these ACORN affiliates listed either an Elysian Fields address or an Erie Street address in New Orleans. So, according to Moncrief, ACORN 8 is engaging in exactly the same behavior that ACORN engaged in.

There are however some important differences between ACORN and ACORN 8. First, often the board members of ACORN affiliates were unaware that they were on the board of many of these affiliates. For instance, last summer Matt Vadum ran a story about Ron Sykes, who was registered as a lobbyist by ACORN financial arm, Citizen's Consulting Inc. When contacted by Vadum, Sykes said he was not only unaware that he was a lobbyist but a part of CCI altogether.

Second, the relationship weren't merely common board members and addresses, but common bank accounts, or at least, multiple bank accounts all located at one bank. (whether or not these bank accounts were all controlled by one person is still unclear)

Moncrief never proves either of these points. In fact, it's unclear that any of these groups have much money or bank accounts. Furthermore, there's no evidence that anyone was put on a board without their knowledge. It's not at all uncommon for people to serve on multiple boards. Serving on a board is mostly a matter of prestige. The work often amounts to a few days of intense work ever quarter. Yet, Moncrief makes this a very nefarious activity. For instance, Michael McCray, ACORN 8 board member, also serves on the board of the International Association of Whistleblowers, which is,...if I have to explain that you may as well stop reading.

An Internet search of one of the progressive ACORN 8 organizations reveals that the The International Association of Whistle-blowers (IAW) was established in 2007, and was founded by Michael McCray, Esq, Dr. James J. Murtagh MD and Zena Crenshaw, Esq. Amazingly, the initial meeting of the IAW was held the week of May 11-18 2008, just as the ACORN embezzlement scandal broke.

Back at Glenn Beck’s chalkboard. It appears that a group of friends may have established a network in direct competition with ACORN while serving as board members and used this same network to, among other things, boost their credibility with awards and sham conferences while using the ACORN scandal as a spring board into the national spotlight.

I wrote about McCray's whistleblowing here. James Murtagh was a player in my first investigative expose on Emory University and Grady Hospital. Ms. Crenshaw I am not aware of however all three consider themselves whistleblowers. Marcel Reid also considers herself a whistleblower and so all four are on the board of IAW.

Moncrief also continues to hammer a common theme which is that ACORN 8 dismissed corruption on the part of President Obama because they were sympathetic to his agenda.

One of the ACORN 8 affiliates, Power Over Poverty Under Laws of AmericaRestored (POPULAR) has even started an “Obama Lights the Way” campaign in order to push their agenda on Capitol Hill.

In fact, "Obama's Light the Way" is a campaign by POPULAR to raise awareness of complaints made to the Department of Justice that have gone uninvestigatied. Moncrief never explains what it is and in fact, it's unclear that she even knows what it is. One could say that Moncrief merely wants to attach ACORN 8 to Obama in any way possible no matter how innocuous the situation really is.

Moncrief then gets to the heart of the matter.

Conveniently for America, at the very moment that ACORN was imploding, a group materialized and offered a solution to “save America.” The group appeared non-threatening and often exclaimed shock at the very mob protest activities that ACORN had engaged in for decades. With the help of several well placed Republicans and Conservatives whom they used for credibility, the ACORN 8, offered a revisionist history of ACORN while peppering stories with innuendos of danger. In a op-ed piece published in 2009, the co-founder of McCray’s IAW posted this prepackaged ACORN 8 statement (emphasis mine).

That's at the heart of the dispute between Anita Moncrief and ACORN 8. Moncrief once worked for ACORN affiliate Project Vote. She readily admits that she was a true believer and even called herself a "radical". She's "seen the light" and now professes to be a conservative. She views any community organization as a tool of radicals. (she's not yet explained how the Tea Parties, also a community organization, is different) Meanwhile, ACORN 8 all believe there's a place for community organizing but see ACORN as having been corrupted and now no longer working on behalf of the people it professes to serve. They want to build a community organization that would get back to ACORN's original mission. That would seem to be a debate on policy not an investigative piece, but Moncrief has instead built a long investigative series that so far has uncovered that members of ACORN 8 also serve on other boards and that sometimes these groups use as their main address the address of Marcel Reid's property.

Moncrief also attempts to brand Marcel Reid a radical by tying her to Ron Karenga.

Before Election day 2008 Fox News was the only major media outlet willing to take on the Obama Campaign machine, but as a frightened radical, I listened to Marcel Reid, a women who was mentored by the radical Ron Karenga and she discouraged me from working with Fox by citing racism, bias and a hatred for Obama. Documents show that Reid, who was still negotiating with ACORN to retain her position on the board, agreed to signed a joint defense agreement with ACORN and, it was decided to not “go after Wade” until AFTER the last presidential election:

Karenga is a former Black Panther, started Kwanzaa, and an overall radical. When Marcel Reid was in college, she took a class taught by Karenga. That's the only evidence of ties between the two. Yet, Moncrief makes the claim that this makes Karenga her "mentor". The link on the document goes nowhere, at least now.

Moncrief also relies on dubious evidence.

The situation is almost too convenient and according to ACORN insiders with knowledge of the events that led to the formation of the ACORN 8, it is. Insiders paint a tale that began with an alliance among Marcel Reid, Karen Innman, Carol Hemingway and most importantly, Bertha Lewis. According to reliable evidence,

Reid, Innman and Hemingway provided Lewis with the crucial votes to elect her as interim Chief Organizer of ACORN after founder Wade Rathke was removed from the organization. Apparently Lewis agreed to help elect the trio to the ACORN interim management committee, with substantial perks like trips, computers and hotel stays.

Huh!?!?!? I've used anonymous sources, but this is ridiculous. If you're going to use an anonymous source, their information must be specific. Here Moncrief references vague"insiders" that make even vaguer claims of "alliances" and "reliable evidence". What does any of this mean? What is this reliable evidence? It's not at all clear. If the evidence is reliable, it needs to be stated. All Moncrief does is reference unknown people, making unknown charges, and the sum total is nothing more than a smear campaign against Reid, Karen Inman, and the rest of ACORN 8. That's exactly the sort of journalism that Hot Air proprietor Michelle Malkin would condemn if it were targeted at Conservatives.

Worst of all is that Moncrief, Michael Gaynor, and Michelle Malkin, continue their entirely conflicted and unacceptable relationship without disclosing it. Anita Moncrief readily uses Michelle Malkin's bandwith and quotes from Michael Gaynor without fully disclosing what is going on. Michael Gaynor has spent more than a year writing about a hundred articles lionizing Anita Moncrief. Anita Moncrief was Michelle Malkin's one and only source for the seven most explosive pages in her book, Culture of Corruption. Isn't it appropriate of all three to disclose this when writing about each other, which each do regularly? Yet, Anita Moncrief has absolutely no problem going on Michelle Malkin's web site after she made Malkin by providing her with explosive charges. She has no problem quoting Gaynor as though he's impartial knowing full well that he's run somethin akin to a public relations campaign on her behalf for more than a year. While all of this is going, Moncrief writes an investigative piece in which we're supposed to believe that there's something nefarious going on because the same people serve on more than one board and one address is used as the main address for more than one organization.

Finally, for full disclosure, I use members of ACORN 8 as sources on matters related to ACORN. I've also communicated with journalists like Matt Vadum and I've interviewed Wade Rathke himself four times. I've reached out to Moncrief, Gaynor and Malkin numerous times with no response. So, you can speculate on my motivations but to say I haven't tried to get the whole story is unfair.

ACORN, SEIU, Follow the Money

The Republicans on the House Oversight Committee have come out with a second report on ACORN. This one details the connection between ACORN and SEIU. Insiders have told me that ACORN and SEIU are often indistinguishable. We all know that Wade Rathke also started the local SEIU 100 in New Orleans. Often, members of each are members of both.

Here's the report. When I have a chance to read it, I will comment. So far, the biggest news is just how under the radar this report is. Two former ACORN insiders were unaware of it when contacted and one is mentioned in the report. A reporter that often writes about ACORN was also unaware of the report when contacted.

Some Thoughts On O'Keefe and ACORN

I have been weary of writing about the affair of James O'Keefe because I wasn't there. Without being there and knowing his intent, it's hard to make a judgment on the situation. There are a few things that are clear. First, James O'Keefe handed ACORN a gift. ACORN can now dismiss most of what O'Keefe uncovered as the investigation of a "criminal",


Wade Rathke himself summed up the attacks best.

Now in a twist, and you just can’t make this stuff up, this yahoo and a couple of other dim lights from the right, were all caught redhanded by the FBI on Monday morning trying to scam their way into Senator Mary Landrieu’s office in the Hale Boggs Federal Building in the city. Seems they were tricked out with fluorescent vests and tried to talk their way into the phone system. O’Keefe in clownish fashion seems to have been easily observed filming his buddies on this Watergate bumblers expedition with his cell phone, although I’m betting it was a flip camera, but we’ll soon see. Once Landreiu’s office staff showed them the main GAO phone system, it seems like the secretary called the feds on their stupid butts.

ACORN will do everything they can to marginalize O'Keefe and they will largely be successful.

Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.), who led a congressional push to cut off federal funds for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, said the credibility of the conservative filmmaker who targeted the group has been badly damaged in the wake of federal charges against him.


James O'Keefe, the filmmaker, and three other men in their mid-20s, were arrested Monday for allegedly attempting to tamper with Sen. Mary Landrieu's (D-La.) phones by pretending to be telephone repairmen. The four men each face up to 10 years in prison — and a $250,000 fine — for allegedly entering federal property under false pretenses.

O'Keefe says he went into Landrieu's office because he received information that Landrieu was ignoring phone calls and claiming the phone wasn't working. Whatever the reason, there's overwhelming evidence that he entered Landrieu's office under false pretense. He'll have to deal with the consequences.

For conservatives, they put their stock in O'Keefe himself and not merely the videos. Because they lionized him as they did, they invested in him. As such, any failings are now their own. The videos spoke for themselves and that should have been the story. O'Keefe himself became nearly as much of a story.

Tiger Woods is uniquely gifted golfer. Because he is, there were many that invested in his entire persona. The public at large knew little about his life outside the golf course. That's why we were shocked when his personal life spilled out. In this same way, O'Keefe made a great piece of investigative journalism. He is not infallable. None of us are. Some treated him as though he was. As such, it's not merely his own credibility that takes a hit. In fact, his investigative piece on ACORN is hit as well.

ACORN and the Black Panthers: Coming to an Illinois Polling Place Near you?

John Bambenek, who's leading the charge for the Putback Amendment here in Illinois, penned this piece.

When ACORN was caught stacking voter rolls with fake names leading up to the 2008 election, we stood up and took notice. It may be that an aberration is a part of a plan to undermine our system of elections. On Election Day, Black Panthers were inside a Pennsylvania polling station intimidating voters. They ultimately got off and the prosecutor who went after them was assigned. Still, maybe it is simply coincidence.

What if a high-profile state attorney general argued that voters have no right to vote in secret? I’m not talking about Card Check. I’m talking about the voting all of us do in every election.

Consider the following words argued in Champaign County Court in Illinois by the Illinois Attorney General’s office headed by Lisa Madigan:

While plaintiff attempts to suggest to the Court that there is a fundamental right to a secret ballot, no such right exists.

(bottom of Page 11 of pleading)

The Attorney General’s office argues that the United States Constitution, nor any fundamental right, protect a voter from being able to vote in secret. In effect, this means that it is only out of mere courtesy that the government doesn’t simply sit in the voting booth with you making sure you are making a fully informed decision. The words need no parsing, read them for your self.

Lisa Madigan is no outsider. She is the daughter of the immensely politically powerful House Speaker, Michael Madigan. Michael Madigan is also chair of the Democratic Party of Illinois. When Blagojevich became a liability (after he was arrested), Michael Madigan saw him run out of town on a rail. The Madigans are the political power family of Illinois. If they are pushing for something, you take it seriously. They’re pushing to take away your right to a secret ballot in Illinois.

The matter at hand was created by a seemingly innocuous piece of legislation passed in 2007. The bill, SB 662, clocked in at almost 200 pages. A few clauses require error checking of a ballot. If you didn’t vote in all the races on a ballot, the voting machine will reject your ballot. There are many legitimate reasons to under vote, first and foremost, because it’s your ballot and you should be able to vote however you darn well please.

The law requires the machine to reject the ballot and an election judge to come down and talk to you. At first, they’ll ask you to vote in all the races or to destroy the ballot and go home. At the election judge’s ultimate discretion, they can override the machine and process the vote anyway. But if you don’t vote in a way the establishment likes, you have an election judge standing over you (and your ballot) talking to you about it. Seems minor, but the Attorney General isn’t saying this interaction violates the secret ballot. The Attorney General argues you have no right to a secret ballot in the first place.

This issue came to light because a reform-minded Republican candidate for Governor in Illinois stood up to the Chicago-machine Democrats, Adam Andrzejewski. One of his Republican competitors voted FOR this legislation, Senator Dillard. Another was too busy to vote, Senator Brady. Yet another was working for a city government last year who put armed mercenaries in a polling station themselves.

Technically, the regulations (not the law) require the election judge to not look at a voter’s ballot. Of course, there are no real penalties if they do. With Chicago’s storied history of voter fraud, that regulation is a bit like asking a teenage boy to go to a strip club but not look at any of the girls.

The one things separating the United States from the many banana republics of the world that do have a voting rightis that our elections have secret ballots free of voter intimidation. This statement by the Illinois Attorney General taken to its conclusion would allow ACORN workers helpvoters inside the voting booth to make sure they didn’t make mistakes. Or worse, Black Panthers could handle poll security.

It is unfathomable that in a modern society, an attorney general in the United States could argue with a straight face that a secret ballot is not a fundamental right. What’s shocking is that the Illinois Republican Party, save one reform candidate (Adam Andrzejewski) is quiet on the issue.

The integrity of our elections is paramount and must be free and fair. Our very Republic is at stake.

ACORN in California Splits

H/T to the folks at ACORN 8 for giving me this tip.

The California chapter of ACORN has split from the group and changed its name.

Thousands of Californians who live in or close to poverty in the state have worked hard for decades to score victories that level the playing field. They've passed laws that increase affordable housing and raise the minimum wage, so they can provide for their families. They've also spent their personal time, which is in chronically short supply, pushing for better teachers and textbooks so the kids in their neighborhoods can have better opportunities. On these and other issues the odds have been against them, but these Californians leveraged their significant numbers with coordinated grassroots organizing to achieve victory.

Until now, they carried out this work as a chapter of the national organization ACORN. Until now, governance and financial management resided at the national level. In recent months it has become increasingly clear to the leadership, staff and members in California that the serious challenges ACORN is facing are jeopardizing the important work we are doing here in California.

The new entity will be called Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE). It will, on paper at least, be entirely separate now from ACORN. The relationship will be what Wade Rathke characterized the relationship between ACORN and ACORN Housing. ACORN is its own entity and ACCE is its own entity and the two are fighting for common goals.

It's important to note that most, if not all, of the staff and board of ACORN in California will be kept on with the new company. In fact, at the bottom of the press release the contact person is Amy Schur. Schur, according to a source, was privvy to the knowledge that Dale Rathke had been involved in embezzlement from ACORN and kept that knowledge from the board.

This continues the slow and painful to watch disintegration of ACORN. Last month, I did a similar story centered in Connecticut.

Its political allies fled. And with its national organization fighting for its life and unable to give any money, ACORN of Bridgeport is doing what other chapters have been doing across the nation, going independent, sort of.

This month, the group began a campaign to raise money and create two local nonprofits, one to concentrate on social issues, the other on political action. To be clear, the plan is to continue to work with other chapters on national issues through a federation, according to Emeline Bravo-Blackwood, a small business owner who is leading the effort to transform the group in Bridgeport.

This is slightly different for a few reasons. In that case, the name didn't change and the local chapter turned itself into a federation of ACORN. In this case, the California chapter is not only changing its name but cutting ties with national, at least visibly.

The most interesting dynamic to watch going forward is what the relationship will be between Gubernatorial candidate, Jerry Brown, and the new organization. ACORN is a voter registration force and that organization contributed heavily to helping Brown get elected as he was moving up the political ranks. He's now in the uncomfortable position of having to investigate ACORN. Of course, ACORN in California is no longer. (that's no small thing since California was their biggest chapter in terms of members)

The people at ACCE are the same as those at the former ACORN in California only with the name change there's likely to be less scrutiny. Will there be folks out in full force wearing ACCE shirts signing up voters? Will the media notice that those folks are really from ACORN? Only time will tell that.

ACORN, Wade Rathke, and the Media Culture

Everywhere you look in the conservative media, you'll find that a story missed by the MSM is the ACORN story. Specifically, conservatives mean the "pimp" and "prostitute" videos first published on Andrew Breitbart's Big Government. In general, conservatives mean all of the embarrassing things that have happened to ACORN in the last half of the year.

Let's face it. When the conservatives say that the MSM media is ignoring the ACORN story, they have a point, and you also have to read between the lines. The MSM has ignored the story. Charlie Gibson famously didn't know about the videos when asked on talk radio about it and then proclaimed that such a story was better left to "cable news". The MSM has needed to be dragged to this story kicking, scratching, and screaming. Even then, they've still done everything to ignore it.

It's been driven, carried, and broken entirely by the conservative media. Of course, the only reason that conservatives are fixated on the ACORN story is because of the symbolism it has toward President Obama and the Democrats in general. That's why only certain things about ACORN are fixated by the conservative media. For instance, ACORN's relationship with Bruce Ratner, owner of the Nets, is virtually ignored. ACORN Housing's relationship with the city of St. Louis is virtually ignored. Yet, their relationship with the SEIU is given primary coverage. The first two have virtually no relationship to Obama and the Democrats, while the third is intertwined with Obama and the Democrats.

That brings me to Wade Rathke. If ACORN is the story, then where is Wade Rathke? After all, he founded ACORN. He grew it from an organization of one to an organization of several hundred thousand. If ACORN is the scourge of the right, then what does the right make of Wade Rathke? Virtually nothing that's what.

That's because Wade Rathke is extricated from ACORN now. He's got his own organization going. That organization is trying to organize in the world. If Wade Rathke grew ACORN into a power domestically, what do you think he can do in the rest of the world? Yet, you're unlikely to see virtually anyone do a story on what Wade Rathke is up to now. If media asks anything of Rathke, it will be in relation to ACORN's current troubles.

The key here is that Rathke is organizing in the WORLD and not so much internally. His current story has nothing to do with President Obama or the Democrats. One would think that if ACORN is the scourge and a symbol of everything that's wrong in America, then the story of what its founder is doing now would be news. It isn't and that's because the ACORN story is all about symbolism. What Wade Rathke is doing now doesn't fit into that symbolism.

The ACORN Judicial Watch Forum

Yesterday, the conservative watchdog group, Judicial Watch, held a forum on ACORN entitled, ACORN Scandals, What's Next. The panel included Hans Von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation. Spakovsky is a former corporate lawyer and he's been following the legal maneuvers of ACORN very closely. The second panelist was Matthew Vadum of the Capital Research Center. Vadum is a journalist who's been tracking ACORN closely for more than a year now. He's made a name for himself regarding ACORN doing a lot of detailed analysis and investigation of the multiple affiliates, their tax returns, and attempting to follow the money as it travels through the ACORN universe. The final panelist was Marcel Reid, former ACORN board member, current ACORN D.C. board member, and one of the founders of ACORN 8.

I had a chance to speak briefly with both Vadum and Reid following the event. This was a much more wonky ACORN discussion than most. I spoke with Reid before the event and she was worried about being a part of an ACORN forum that would diffuse into some sort of an anti Obama event that would get off track. Both Vadum and Reid told me that this was not that type of event.

Perhaps, that's why the media largely ignored the event. While several hundred people attended, there was a relatively small number of media there. Unlike the forum held by the Republicans earlier this month, there are very few news reports that came out of this event.

Therein lies the rub. Vadum told me that when he first broke the news that former ACORN staffer, Pat Gaspard, was now a White House staffer, he was immediately in great demand for interviews by conservatives like Laura Ingraham and the like. That's the sort of explosive ACORN charge that will get you noticed.

At it's core though, the ACORN story is actually somewhat boring. After all, much of their criminality is buried in layers upon layers of accounting laws, financial statements, and classifications of tax codes. To try and uncover ACORN's criminality, one needs to know the difference between a 501 (C)3 and a 501 (C)4. Most people don't know the difference and even few care. Yet, that's where most of their criminality lies. It's about what an organization is allowed to do with funds and what ACORN actually does with those funds. If you're going to investigate that, it's likely most people will yawn. If you make a charge linking Obama to ACORN, then you get on every television show in D.C.

A lot of the discussion spent time analyzing the recent Judge Gershon decision that called the ban on federal funds for ACORN unconstitutional. Mr. Von Spakovsky went so far as to characterize the legal argument that made up this decision as something akin to a first year law school student. The decision in fact has ramifications for anyone that receives federal funds. It's probably too simplistic to say that this decision essentially makes receiving federal funds a constitutional right. Still, this decision does put into doubt just how much power of the purse the Congress has. If this decision isn't reversed, then it will be set into precedent and all sorts of folks will argue that it's unconstitutional when their own federal funds are cut off.

The most interesting question was asked about whether not employees knew that they were on projects that were using funds that were comingled and what responsibility an employee has to monitor that. So, for example, let's say that ACORN receives federal funds from the government to work on health care for the poor in New York City, and then, that money winds up going to a radio station that ACORN is working on. Did those working at the station know and do they have a responsibility to know. Reid told me that any and all criminality, in her opinion, was always centered in a small group of top people at ACORN.

To truly understand ACORN, it's exactly these sorts of issues that the individual must understand. ACORN and its affiliates occupy all sorts of parts of the non profit tax sphere. Each part of this sphere, be it a 501 (C)3, 4, etc., has a different set of privileges, responsibilities, and standards of disclosure. Now, the fact that there are all these affiliates with all these different tax codes is itself troubling and problematic. Understanding how each functions and whether or not there's malfeasance going on between them all is difficult and tiresome. In fact, it's dry. It's the sort of thing we normally associate with people with thick glasses and pocket protectors. It was, however, the heart of this recent ACORN forum and it's likely why this forum received scant media attention.