Ohio — Bertha Lewis, former CEO of ACORN has called Fox News television personality, Glenn Beck and other right wing pundits  “political necrophiliacs” for their harsh criticism of ACORN after it had officially disbanded. The Huffington Post reports:

“[After] beating us to death, right now, it’s not enough that ‘we won, we beat ACORN, we beat them down, the largest community group’…now, we’ve become political necrophiliacs. Not only did we kill this organization, but we’re going to dig them up, and we’re going to have all kinds of congress with the corpse, over and over again. So political necrophiliacs like Beck, like Murdoch, like Fox, like Limbaugh, like Mr. Breitbart,they should be called out for what they really are. They’re carrion eaters, they’re nasty, they’re evil, they’re liars, thieves and cheaters.”

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Top 5 Fake Fox News Racist Scandals

ACORN Disbands Amid Financial Problems

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James O’Keefe, best known for hitting the community organizing group ACORN with an undercover video sting, hoped to get CNN Investigative Correspondent Abbie Boudreau onto a boat filled with sexually explicit props and then record the session, those documents show.

The plan apparently was thwarted after Boudreau was warned minutes before it was supposed to happen.

“I never intended to become part of the story,” Boudreau said. “But things suddenly took a very strange turn.”

O’Keefe is best known for making a series of undercover videos inside ACORN offices around the country in 2009. The 40-year-old liberal group was crippled by scandal after O’Keefe and fellow activist Hannah Giles allegedly solicited advice from ACORN workers on setting up a brothel and evading taxes.

ACORN STING VIDEO:

The videos led to some of the employees being fired and contributed to the disbanding of ACORN, which advocated for low- and middle-income and worked to register voters.

But prosecutors in New York and California eventually found no evidence of wrongdoing by the group, and the California probe found the videos had been heavily and selectively edited.

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During and after the election of Barack Obama, Fox News has created several scandals through unethical journalism, to paint Barack Obama as a scary black man out to get white people. They have done so by taking quotes and videos out of context and ramming their so-called scandals down their easily influenced viewers throats. Here are there worst “scandals” of the past few years.

5. Shirley Sherrod

Rather than address the charges of racism that the NAACP brought to the Tea Party, the right wing media decided to try and dig up some dirt on the NAACP. What they found was a 2 minute clip of Shirley Sherrod talking about an incident with a white farmer from decades ago, who later would go on to become a close family friend. Rather than putting the clip in context, they branded it as racist and she was subsequently fired. When the full tape came out, it was revealed that the story was one of overcoming prejudices and reconciliation, not racism.

How Fox And The Right Wing Media Twisted The Shirley Sherrod Story

4. The New Black Panther Party

During the 2008 election a member of the New Black Panther Party King Samir Shabazz was carrying a nightstick outside a Philadelphia polling center. Former DOJ lawyer, and right wing activist J. Christian Adams has said that the case was squashed to protect minorities. Despite the fact that no voters claimed they were intimidated and that the Bush Administration, not the Obama Administration decided not to pursue criminal charges, Fox News has tried to make the incident a scandal for the Obama administration.

Pundit Claims Fox News Uses “Scary Black Man Thing” For Black Panther “Scandal”

3. Van Jones

Van Jones, the former Director of Green Jobs for the White House, signed a petition to investigate what happened on 9/11. He claims he didn’t know it was from a 9/11 Truther organization and he was just convinced into signing a petition under false pretenses. Glenn Beck went on a tirade against him which lead to his ultimate resignation. It is ironic that the right wing icon, Glen Beck who so thoroughly supports the Tea Party, which is full of 9/11 Truthers, criticized Van Jones for being a Truther. Right wing darlings Ron and Rand Paul regularly appear on top 9/11 Truther, Alex Jones’ show, yet have not received any criticism from Beck or Fox.

Van Jones Tells Tavis He’s Not A 9/11 “Truther”

2. ACORN

Once again Andrew Breibart decided to use a small amount of footage out of context to demonize an agency that works for the interests of poor and minority populations. James O’Keefe pretended to be a pimp and went to several ACORN offices asking for advice and recorded the visits. The videos were edited to only show the negative responses and made it seem as if O’Keefe was actually dressed as a pimp in the interviews. James O’Keefe has since been arrested and convicted of breaking into a government office on false pretenses and is being sued by ACORN employee, Juan Carlos Vera, for being falsely portrayed in a heavily edited video to be conspiring with O’Kefe to transport illegal aliens as prostitutes.

1. Reverend Wright

Fox News took small clips of Reverend Wright’s sermons and twisted them into making him to be an anti-American, anti-white mad man. Reverend Wright was giving an impassioned speech on 9/11. He referenced comments from former U.S. Ambassador Edward Peck on Fox News who referred to 9/11 as chickens coming home to roost, a phrase made popular by Malcolm X, which Fox made to seem like he was an Al-Qaeda supporter.

In his sermons, Wright would criticize the U.S. on several fronts, including the nuclear bomb on Japan, the Vietnam War, support of apartheid, the Tuskeegee experiment, Iran-Contra, the Iraq war and AIDS. All of Wright’s claims (except for the one about the government starting AIDS) are thoroughly backed up. Unlike most of the pundits at Fox News and GOP politicians, Reverend Wright served his country as a Marine. While someone may say that Wright was unpatriotic to criticize America, Henry David Thoreaud would write in his book “Walden,”

A patriot will readily and passionately criticize her or his government when it is evil, corrupt, and infamous; refusing to do so is treason. It is the duty of every citizen to criticize, censure and scourge the political fiends who pretend to serve the public when those villainous brutes serve only tyranny, greed, hatred, and prejudice.

So while Fox News champions the Tea Party’s write to criticize the government, they claim Reverend Wright was anti-American to do so.

NEW ORLEANS — Four conservative activists accused of trying to tamper with the phones in Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office pleaded guilty Wednesday to misdemeanor charges of entering federal property under false pretenses.

James O’Keefe, 25, famous for wearing a pimp costume in a video that embarrassed the ACORN, was sentenced to three years probation, 100 hours of community service and a $1,500 fine.

The FBI has said O’Keefe used his cell phone to try to capture video of two others who posed as telephone repairmen and asked to see the phones at Landrieu’s office. The fourth allegedly waited outside in a car with a listening device.

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O’Keefe has said the group was trying to investigate complaints that constituents calling Landrieu’s office couldn’t get through to criticize the Democrat’s support of a health care reform bill.

Magistrate Daniel Knowles III sentenced the three other suspects to two years probation, 75 hours of community service and $1,500 fines.

O’Keefe, Stan Dai, Joseph Basel and Robert Flanagan were arrested Jan. 25 on felony charges, but federal prosecutors later reduced the charges.

Protesters marched in front of Landrieu’s office in Baton Rouge last December to criticize her support for Senate health care legislation and complain they couldn’t get through on her office phones. Landrieu said at the time that her office was receiving a high volume of calls and apologized.

After sentencing Wednesday, O’Keefe and the others were taken to a probation office for processing. O’Keefe said he might release a statement later in the day.

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CHICAGO— A spokesman for the once mighty community activist group ACORN says the group is disbanding.

National ACORN spokesman Kevin Whelan said Monday that the organization’s board decided to close remaining state affiliates and field offices by April 1 because of falling revenues. Some other national operations will continue operating for at least several weeks before shutting for good.

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Scandal enveloped the organization six months ago when video footage emerged showing ACORN workers giving tax tips to conservative activists posing as a pimp and prostitute.

Several big affiliates, including ACORN New York and California, broke away this year and changed their names in a bid to ditch the tarnished image of their parent organization and restore funding that ran dry in the wake of the video scandal.

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Congress’ Decision To Cut ACORN’s Funding Ruled Unconstitutional

NEW YORK — A federal judge who found it unconstitutional that Congress tried to cut funding to the activist group ACORN has rejected a government request to change her mind and has ordered government agencies to make it clear the funding isn’t blocked.

In a written ruling Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Nina Gershon made permanent her conclusion last year that the cutoff of funding was unconstitutional. She ordered all federal agencies to put the word out about it.

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The Brooklyn judge said ACORN was punished by Congress without the enactment of administrative processes to decide if money had been handled inappropriately. She said the harm to ACORN’s reputation continues because the government never rescinded its advice to withhold funding after it was distributed to “hundreds, if not thousands, of recipients.”

RELATED: ACORN Dissolves Its National Organization

ACORN, or the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, describes itself as an advocate for low-income and minority home buyers and residents.

Critics of the group say it has engaged in voter registration fraud and embezzlement and has violated the tax-exempt status of some of its affiliates by engaging in partisan political activities.

Last year, a series of videos filmed at ACORN offices around the country sparked a national scandal and helped drive the organization to near ruin. In one video, ACORN employees were shown apparently advising a couple posing as a prostitute and her boyfriend to lie about her profession and launder her earnings; Brooklyn prosecutors said they did not commit a crime.

In asking the judge to reconsider her December ruling, the government cited a Dec. 7 report written by Scott Harshbarger, former attorney general for Massachusetts. It said the report “reinforces Congress’ purpose in preventing fraud, waste and abuse” by describing ACORN’s long-standing management problems.

The report concluded that ACORN leadership at every level was thin, the government noted.

RELATED: Fake GOP Pimp Who Made ACORN Tapes Arrested By The FBI

The judge, however, wrote that it was “unmistakable that Congress determined ACORN’s guilt before defunding it.” She said Congress is entitled to investigate ACORN but cannot “rely on the negative results of a congressional or executive report as a rationale to impose a broad, punitive funding ban on a specific, named organization.”

She said the Code of Federal Regulations establishes a formal process for deciding when federal contractors can be suspended or debarred. She added that “the existence of these regulations militates against the need for draconian, emergency action by Congress.”

The government planned to review the judge’s ruling and consider whether to appeal, spokesman Robert Nardoza said.

The legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which says it’s dedicated to protecting the rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, welcomed Wednesday’s decision.

“The judge’s ruling is a complete rebuke to the right wing’s smear tactics that unfortunately Congress fell for,” legal director Bill Quigley said. “This is why we have a system of checks and balances.”

From Politico:

The embattled liberal group ACORN is in the process of dissolving its national structure, with state and local-chapters splitting off from the underfunded, controversial national group, an official close to the group confirmed.

“ACORN has dissolved as a national structure of state organizations,” said a senior official close to the group, who declined to be identified by name because of the fierce conservative attacks on the group that began when a conservative filmmaker caught some staffers of its tax advisory arms on tape appearing to offer advice on incorporating a prostitution business.

The videos proved a rallying point for conservatives who had long accused the group of fomenting voting fraud. Though the videos did not produce criminal charges, they appear to have been fatal to the national organization.

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“Consistent with what the internal recommendations have been, each of the states are developing plans for reconstitution independence and self-sufficiency,” said the official, citing ACORN’s “diminished resources, damage to the brand, unprecedented attacks.”

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Max Blumenthal has an article in the Daily Beast that reveals that James O’Keefe, the man who posed as a Pimp to smear ACORN,  has a strong connection to white supremacists. Here is an excerpt.

His right-wing admirers don’t seem to mind that O’Keefe’s short but storied career has been defined by a series of political stunts shot through with racial resentment. Now an activist organization that monitors hate groups has produced a photo of O’Keefe at a 2006 conference on “Race and Conservatism” that featured leading white nationalists. The photo, first published Jan. 30  on the Web site of the anti-racism group One People’s Project, shows O’Keefe at the gathering, which was so controversial even the ultra-right Leadership Institute, which employed O’Keefe at the time, withdrew its backing. But O’Keefe and fellow young conservative provocateur Marcus Epstein soldiered on to give anti-Semites, professional racists and proponents of Aryanism an opportunity to share their grievances and plans to make inroads in the GOP.

Blumenthal also shows the OK’eefe’s history of racism goes back to his college days.

The new roommate complained to a residential administrator that O’Keefe had called his neighbors “niggers,” prompting the school to expel him from the dorm. He rejected the accusation as a “complete lie,” writing, “I was lead out of the room crying and screaming at him and my situation, no friends, no one one [sic] to talk to, forced to go in front of a black man, Dean Tolbert, to defend myself and help explain that I did not call anyone any names.”

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Fake GOP Pimp Who Made ACORN Tapes Arrested By The FBI

ACORN Sues Maker Of “Pimp” Video

From NOLA.com

Alleging a plot to tamper with phones in Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office in the Hale Boggs Federal Building in downtown New Orleans, the FBI arrested four people Monday, including James O’Keefe, 25, a conservative filmmaker whose undercover videos at ACORN field offices severely damaged the advocacy group’s credibility.

Also arrested were Joseph Basel, Stan Dai and Robert Flanagan, all 24. Flanagan is the son of William Flanagan, who is the acting U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, the office confirmed. All four were charged with entering federal property under false pretenses with the intent of committing a felony.

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ACORN Sues Maker Of “Pimp” Video

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VIDEO: ACORN Allegedly Gave Tax-Evasion Advice To Pimp and Prostitute

NEW YORK – The government has asked a federal judge to let it cut ACORN’s funding, saying a report commissioned by the embattled community activist reinforces Congress’ concern about misuse of federal funds.

In papers filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, government lawyers sought a reversal of Judge Nina Gershon’s ruling last week that the government’s cutoff of ACORN funding was unconstitutional.

Gershon said ACORN was punished by Congress without “judicial, or even administrative, process adjudicating guilt.”

ACORN, or the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, describes itself as an advocate for low-income and minority homebuyers and residents.
Critics of the group say it has engaged in voter-registration fraud and embezzlement and has violated the tax-exempt status of some of its affiliates by engaging in partisan political activities.

In asking Gershon to reconsider her ruling, the government cited the Dec. 7 report written by Scott Harshbarger, former attorney general for Massachusetts. It said the report “reinforces Congress’ purpose in preventing fraud, waste and abuse” by describing ACORN’s long-standing management problems.
The report concluded that ACORN leadership at every level was thin, the government noted.

Meanwhile, ACORN lawyers filed an amended lawsuit Thursday and said they will ask Gershon to make sure the government knows that the judge’s ruling applies to a budget bill signed this week.

Bill Quigley, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, said the bill contains the same language Gershon found unconstitutional.
“We are asking that she just make it absolutely clear that new budget or old budget, you can’t violate the Constitution in this way,” said Quigley, who is representing ACORN in its court fight.

Quigley said he expects money will resume flowing to the group again soon but that permanent damage has been done by slander.

“Congress essentially said: `We are going to convict you of fraud and mismanagement and turn off all your funds because of complaints we have received. We don’t have time to give you a trial, due process, or a chance to defend yourself,’” he said.

The judge scheduled a hearing for Tuesday to address the government’s motion to reconsider her ruling and to discuss ACORN’s updated lawsuit.

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From The Atlantic:

Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman has seen his chances slip away of overtaking Democrat Bill Owens in the vote tallies in New York’s 23rd congressional district, but he’s now circulating an email to supporters announcing he’s revoked his concession and that “ACORN and the unions” tampered with election results to prevent him from winning.

The email, which is pretty long for a campaign fundraising note, lists all the regularities Hoffman has counted, and it reads sort of like a manifesto of all that’s fishy about the election results, according to him.

The Washington Independent’s David Weigel thinks this isn’t the type of behavior that will help Hoffman in a potential 2010 rematch against Owens, who will have only served one year in Congress by then. (Weigel also reports that ACORN has said it had no volunteers in the district.) Nonetheless, Hoffman is blasting ACORN and trying to raise money for a re-canvass of the district.

At the end of the email, Hoffman alleges: “P.S. I ran a different kind of campaign, one where Conservatives, Republicans, Libertarians, Tea Party and 9/12 activists rallied around. ACORN, the unions and Democratic Party were scared, and that’s why they tampered with the ballots of voters in NY-23…”

Click here to read more.

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NEW YORK (AP) — ACORN has filed a lawsuit claiming that Congress crossed the Constitution when it passed a law cutting off federal funding to the organization.

The Center for Constitutional Rights filed the lawsuit on ACORN’s behalf Thursday in Brooklyn federal court. It claims the law was unconstitutional because it punitively targeted an individual organization.

Messages for comment left at the White House and the federal agencies named in the suit were not immediately returned.

ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis says in the lawsuit that she first thought the organization could survive, but she underestimated the impact of the Congressional action. She says state, local and most private funds have been cut off as well.

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Bank of America Corp. is suspending its work with the housing affiliate of embattled community organizing group ACORN. The decision comes as three Republicans in Congress ask Bank of America and 13 other financial institutions to give Congress a complete accounting of their dealings with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now or its affiliates.

In a statement, Bank of America said it would not enter into any further agreements with ACORN Housing Corp. until the bank is satisfied all issues have been resolved. ACORN Housing Corp. and Bank of America have worked together for years on mortgage foreclosure issues.

“We completely understand why our lending partners like Bank of America want assurances that the recent allegations against us won’t happen again,” ACORN Housing Corp. said Monday. “We are taking a number of steps to ensure this, including providing ethics training to all of our staff.”

Long a target of conservative critics, ACORN employees were caught on videotape recently giving advice to a woman posing as a prostitute and to a man posing as her pimp about cheating on taxes and operating a brothel with underage immigrant girls.

The Wall Street Journal first reported on Bank of America pulling back from working with ACORN Housing Corp.

On Friday, GOP Reps. Spencer Bachus of Alabama, Darrell Issa of California and Lamar Smith of Texas sent a letter to 14 banks requesting disclosure to the House Financial Services Committee of all financial arrangements with ACORN and its subsidiaries or affiliates.

Each of the three congressmen is the ranking Republican on a House panel: Bachus on the House Financial Services Committee, Issa on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee and Smith on the Judiciary Committee.

“The Republicans are trying to intimidate banks that have stepped up to help stop the foreclosure crisis,” said ACORN chief executive Bertha Lewis. “These same Republicans ignored ACORN’s warnings about predatory lending and the foreclosure crisis, then gave Wall Street free rein and are now obstructing efforts to help families.”

Citibank, another bank receiving the letter from the three House Republicans, said in a statement that “we are deeply concerned about the recently released videos of frontline ACORN staff.” Citibank said it looks forward to the findings of an independent auditor and a timely resolution of the matter.

Al Sharpton Stands Up For ACORN

Stand Up For ACORN, Cut Blackwater And Halliburton

It was the 1960s, and after decades following the abolishment of slavery, African Americans were still vying for simple fundamental human rights including the most basic form of involvement in society – voting.  Routinely disenfranchised from the process via underhanded tactics such as literacy tests, and more blatant intimidation methods like outright murder and violence, the Black community found itself intricately excluded from actively participating in any discourse that may have altered their lives for the better.  Following the murder of voting-rights activists in places like Mississippi and Alabama, the President and Congress finally passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that aimed to ensure equality in our election process.  Though we may not be physically attacked at voting stations or forced to pay fees at the ballot box, people of color are once again being excluded from the process in much more underhanded and disturbing ways.  And the campaign to end ACORN is the clearest, prime example before our eyes.

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, better known by its acronym ACORN, was established in 1970 and through the years has worked diligently to register individuals from disenfranchised neighborhoods, help construct schools, find affordable housing for the poor and more. It is in fact the largest membership organization of low and medium income people, and it has itself employed more than 13,000 registration assistance workers throughout the country.  Its housing corporation has assisted over 50,000 families facing foreclosure, and its tax and benefit centers have helped over 150,000 low-income families receive over $190 million in Earned Income Tax Credits and other refunds.  But perhaps most impressive under ACORN’s extensive accolades has been its ability to register some 1.3 million to vote – and hence help give a voice to those who have been silenced for much too long.

For the past few weeks, the media has been fixated on a video that depicts ACORN workers allegedly giving advice to a man and a woman posing as a pimp and prostitute.  While the authenticity of this tape is still being investigated, let’s not underscore the fact that the man behind the footage, James O’Keefe, is a longtime right-wing agitator and instigator who has a lengthy history of targeting reform institutions.  Let’s not forget that FOX News, upset over its dwindling viewership and simultaneous dwindling advertising dollars, has made it a point to attack anything that may have helped the first Black President win office.  And let’s not dismiss the persistent and consistent efforts of conservatives to take down ACORN throughout the years, with trumped up voter fraud charges and more.

Even if we were to pretend that the footage of this tape has been authenticated, it still does not justify a cease of Federal funds to this vital organization.  In no way am I condoning the behavior of these ACORN employees if they were in fact violating legal and ethical rules.  But a few bad employees cannot account for the elimination of an entire institution that is so integral in our most underserved communities.  Without grants from the Housing and Urban Development Department, ACORN would not be able to provide counseling on housing, education and outreach.  And without governmental funds, it could no longer work with partners like Health Care for America Now to win the campaign on health reform.

It’s time to be brutally honest about the ACORN debacle.  It’s about politics; it’s about the 2010 mid-term election; it’s about power and maintenance of the status quo; it’s about the right to vote; and it’s about the continued oppression of an already suppressed group.  I haven’t forgotten about the attempts to juxtapose President Obama with ACORN during the campaign.  I don’t ignore the fact that ACORN has consistently been depicted as a Black institution, when in fact it is not.  And I shudder to think what would happen if we continue down this dangerous course of eliminating any individual or group that fights for the empowerment of the weak.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was established to level the playing field and remind everyone of our constitutional guarantees.  Let us not regress now.

BALTIMORE — Community activist group ACORN is suing the makers of a hidden-camera video that showed employees of its Baltimore office giving tax advice to a man posing as a pimp and a woman posing as a prostitute.

The liberal group contends that the audio portion of the video was obtained illegally because Maryland requires two-party consent to create sound recordings.

The two employees seen in the video were fired after it was posted online. The lawsuit says the employees, Tonja Thompson and Shera Williams, suffered “extreme emotional distress.”

The multimillion-dollar lawsuit seeks damages from James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles, who played the pimp and prostitute in the videos, and from conservative columnist Andrew Breitbart, who posted the videos on his Web site.

OPINION: Stand Up For ACORN, Cut Blackwater And HalliburtonHouse Votes To Deny ACORN Federal Funding
ACORN Defends Itself Against “Bogus” Video
VIDEO: ACORN Allegedly Gave Tax-Evasion Advice To Pimp and Prostitute

The right wing is launching an attack on ACORN. Not because ACORN is a corrupt or a negative organization, but because ACORN stands for things that they oppose. ACORN involves itself in issues such as making housing affordable for working class people, living wages for poor and working class people, education, voter’s rights and gun control.
ACORN is an organization that represents the interests of poor and minority communities. These are interests that the Republicans have traditionally voted against.

The right wing made an enemy of ACORN during the election, because it registered minority voters in urban areas (voters who typically vote democrat) and has continued its smear campaign against the organization.

The filmmakers who made the YouTube videos “exposing” ACORN are James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles. Giles’ father is conservative Christian commentator Doug Giles and she interned at the National Journalism Center, a training center for conservative journalists.

The L.A. Times reported that O’Keefe said he targeted ACORN for the same reasons that the political right does: its massive voter registration drives that turn out poor African Americans and Latinos to cast ballots against Republicans.

What O’Keefe and Giles did was clearly an attempt to slander ACORN. Their videos are heavily edited and only reflect the character of a few low level employees. Despite the fact that they said that every ACORN office they visited played along with them, the Philadelphia ACORN office filed a police report against them.

Another ACORN worker in California said she quickly saw through O’Keefe and Giles act and decided to play along with them, even making up a fake story about how she killed her husband.

Prosecutors in Maryland are even considering prosecuting O’Keefe and Giles for illegally taping ACORN employees.

In what world does a politically motivated, possibly illegal investigation that was edited to make an organization look bad force congress to stop funding an organization that helps the poorest people in the nation?

If the GOP wants to let a few low level employees’ statements taken out of context decide on public funding for organizations, they need to answer for their support of Halliburton and Blackwater.

Blackwater employees have killed numerous innocent civilians in Iraq. They have also been charged with child prostitution in Iraq for bringing in child prostitutes to the green zone. A former United States Marine reportedly filed allegations in a federal court in Virginia that Blackwater CEO, Erik Prince, murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals cooperating in a federal investigation of Blackwater. He also said that Prince “‘views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe,” and that Blackwater encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life.’”

Overall, Blackwater has received over $1 billion in government contracts, which accounts for 90% of their revenue.

Another favorite right wing company, Halliburton, has their own scandals from both low and high level employees. Jamie Leigh Jones, a contractor for Halliburton claimed she was gang-raped by Halliburton employees and then imprisoned in a shipping container after she reported the incident. After years of Halliburton trying to seep the incident under the rug, the case is finally going to trial.

Halliburton’s former chairman has been convicted of bribing Nigerian officials. Halliburton has also been accused of defrauding the U.S. government. Still, Halliburton has been given upwards of 9.6 billion dollars for work in Iraq and Afghanistan.

While ACORN and Blackwater are multi billion dollar companies, who have received billions from the government, ACORN has a budget of 25 million dollars a year, of which, only 2.5 million comes from the government. While a few low level ACORN employees have made bad judgments in giving advice to a right wingers posing as a pimp and a prostitute (some in jest, some to keep a white pimp out of jail), Blackwater and Halliburton employees have killed innocent civilians and have been accused of child prostitution and defrauding their own government.

ACORN is a good organization that does good work for America’s poorest. It is guilty of having low level employees with bad judgment. None of its workers have been convicted, or even accused of a crime. They are victims of a right wing media onslaught being led by Fox News. If the government decides to cut funding of organizations due to the actions of low level employees, they must apply the same rules to the GOP’s favorite government funded organizations. Blackwater owes the government 55 million dollars, which is enough to fund ACORN for 25 years.

The right wing’s attack on ACORN has nothing to do with morality and everything to do with votes. If the right was concerned with funding “immoral” organizations, they would’ve have abandoned Blackwater and Halliburton years ago. Blackwater is still getting money from the government under the name Xe and Halliburton still is receiving money from government contracts. The government funding and the crimes of Halliburton and Blackwater by far eclipse those of ACORN. I propose we use the funding from Blackwater and Halliburton to fund ACORN and other agencies with similar agendas.

OPINION: Stand Up For ACORN, Cut Blackwater And HalliburtonHouse Votes To Deny ACORN Federal Funding
ACORN Defends Itself Against “Bogus” Video

VIDEO: ACORN Allegedly Gave Tax-Evasion Advice To Pimp and ProstituteACORN Sues Maker Of “Pimp” Video

The House voted Thursday to deny all federal funds for ACORN in a GOP-led strike against the scandal-tainted community organizing group that comes just three days after the Senate took similar action. “ACORN has violated serious federal laws, and today the House voted to ensure that taxpayer dollars would no longer be used to fund this corrupt organization,” said second-ranked House Republican Eric Cantor of Virginia.

The vote, on a provision attached to a student aid bill, was 345-75, with Democrats supplying all the “no” votes.

On Monday the Senate voted 83-7 to deny housing and community grant funding to ACORN, which stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

Republicans accelerated their attacks on the liberal-leaning group a year ago when ACORN, in conducting a massive voter registration drive, was accused of submitting some false registration forms.

On a hidden-camera video released on Monday, two ACORN employees are seen apparently advising a couple that was posing as a prostitute and her pimp to lie about her profession and launder her earnings. The video was the latest in a series that has already led to the firing of four ACORN employees in Baltimore and Washington. It was created by James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles and posted on BigGovernment.com, where O’Keefe identifies himself as an activist filmmaker.

ACORN spokesman Scott Levenson blasted the video shot at the organization’s Brooklyn office, saying the group believes the voices of the couple were dubbed over to alter the conversation and make the interaction appear more objectionable than it may have been.

ACORN said Wednesday that it is ordering its own independent investigation of the incidents, while stressing that they were isolated cases.

The Census Bureau, meanwhile, also has severed its ties with the group for the 2010 national census.

Republicans have urged federal officials to go further by launching a comprehensive investigation of how ACORN spends and manages federal money.

“As long as taxpayers are subsidizing ACORN and its affiliates, we need to use every measure possible to ensure that those dollars are being spent and managed appropriately,” said Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., sponsor of the measure that passed the House.

The Senate and House initiatives to cut funding for ACORN won’t take effect until the bills to which they are attached clear Congress and are signed by President Barack Obama. The Senate measure is attached to a fiscal 2010 spending bill.

“President Obama needs to indicate whether he’ll sign this bill and join us in ending all taxpayer funds for this corrupt organization,” House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said after the vote.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs on Wednesday said the conduct seen on the tapes “is completely unacceptable.” He said the Obama administration “takes accountability extremely seriously” and noted that the Census Bureau had determined that ACORN could not meet its goal for conducting a fair and accurate count next year.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in a conference call with reporters, called the latest allegations against ACORN “horrible.” However, she pointed out that ACORN has many honest employees and was conducting an internal investigation, and that it was up to House-Senate negotiators to determine whether the provision to cut funding would be in the final version of the bill.

From BlackAmericaWeb

Undercover videographer James O’Keefe’s hidden camera “interview” with San Bernardino ACORN organizer Tresa Kaelke – airing on the Fox News Channel, including the Glenn Beck show, and on BigGovernment.com – has been caught in an obvious set of lies and manipulations.

Kaelke, who was approached by O’Keefe, posing as a law student with a prostitute girlfriend, at the entrance to the small, one-person ACORN says she immediately felt uneasy and at a loss.

With their provocative costuming and outlandish scenario, she could not take them seriously. So she met their outrageousness with her own personal style of outrageousness. She matched their false scenario with her own false scenarios.

“They were not believable,” said Kaelke of the two actors. “Somewhat entertaining, but they weren’t even good actors. I didn’t know what to make of them. They were clearly playing with me. I decided to shock them as much as they were shocking me. Like Stephen Colbert does – saying the most outrageous things with a straight face.”

While her sense of humor might not be funny to many people, the fact is that she spun false scenario after false scenario – and the videographer ate them up.

For example, in response to the set-up by the filmmakers in which they say they are trying get the young woman away from her abusive pimp, she responds that she was abused by her former husband as well (true) and that she shot and killed him (false). He is very much alive and living near Barstow, California.

Read The Whole Story

From the HuffingtonPost

RNC Chairman Michael Steele is teaming up with Rep. Michele Bachmann, asking Republicans for their help blocking public funding for ACORN, the progressive community organizing group.

“Over $50 million in federal funding money has found its way into the hands of ACORN’s leftist activists over the last several years, but now the Democrats are about to make $8.5 billion more in tax-payer funds available to this radical group,” Steele wrote to supporters.

Steele urged Republicans to talk to their legislators.

“It’s time we told Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, and Barack Obama that we won’t tolerate using our tax dollars to pay off their electoral support machine. That’s why I hope you’ll take this opportunity to send Barney and Nancy an eCard to let them know that the Democrats’ assault against our free election right to “One Person, One Vote” and the Rule of Law will not be tolerated.”

Read the Whole Story

From uspoverty.change.org:

Yesterday, President Obama announced a $75 billion program to address the challenge that foreclosures pose to our collective economic future with an orientation towards helping families stay in their homes. But the provisions in the President’s proposals won’t be implemented for weeks and months. Between now and then there are still 2.3 million families in the country facing foreclosure proceedings. And one new family joins them every 13 seconds. The reality is that everyone is affected by this crisis; the foreclosure epidemic is at the heart of our economic meltdown.

So, today, Thursday Feb 19, ACORN members and community activists in seven cities are formally launching the HomeStaying Campaign, in which families facing eviction for foreclosure will announce plans to stay in their homes, and Home Defender teams will stand in solidarity with those homeowners.

The Home Defender Teams are local neighbors and community activists prepared to mobilize on short notice to peacefully help defend a family’s right to stay in their homes until a fair solution to the crisis is put into place by the new Administration. Over the coming weeks, people in 24 cities are going to be taking part in this campaign. The New York Times did a great story yesterday about a Home Defenders training session in New York City over the weekend.

Homeowners who live in neighborhoods with one foreclosure see their housing values drop by 2%. For homeowners in communities hit hard by this crisis it is much worse. The abandoned homes become magnets for crime and vagrants, further destabilizing communities, to say nothing of what happens to the families that have to go through the process of losing their homes.

In many cases the people facing foreclosure are hard-working people who played by the rules their entire lives, but were caught up in circumstances beyond their control or were taken advantage of by their lender.

The Obama Administration’s proposal contains five key ingredients without which any proposal will not succeed.

• Lifts the unfair ban on judicial modifications for primary residences
• Requires foreclosure prevention protocols from recipients of taxpayer assistance
• Fixes the “Hope for Homeowners” program by streamlining and broadening eligibility requirements
• Utilizes $75 billion to facilitate mortgage modifications to keep homeowners in their homes
• Strengthens Fannie and Freddie to expand access to affordable refinancing

It is inevitable that elements of Wall Street and their enablers in Congress will try to weaken or gut provisions that subscribe to these principles. We cannot let that happen.

You can help people like Debra by telling Congress to support the five key elements of the Obama plan to keep families in their homes.

ACORN’s Foreclosure Campaign is fundamentally about saving the American Dream, about living up to our best visions of ourselves as Americans, about reaching out to stand in solidarity with each other, and, inch by inch, making this a stronger nation.

The organization ACORN, the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now, has a video clip in which they defend themselves from right wing attacks, suggesting that they are perpetrating voter fraud.

Watch the Video After the Jump

Obama stressed that ACORN is not advising his campaign and is no way affiliated with the Obama camp.

“We’ve got the best voter registration and turnout and volunteer operation in politics right now, and we don’t need ACORN’s help,” he told reporters in Toledo, where he will be until tonight’s debate at Hofstra University.

The controversy began when the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) allegedly falsified voter registrations. The group is responsible for registering low-income, minority voters. Because many of the voters are Democrats, Republicans are seeking to link Obama to these allegations.

In fact, Obama’s association with ACORN began in the 90s when he represented them in a lawsuit and he has had interactions with the Chicago branch. Obama insisted that, “they are not advising our campaign.”

The McCain campaign has called for an investigation of Obama’s ties to ACORN.

“Obama has a responsibility to rein in ACORN,” said VP nominee Sarah Palin, during an interview with Rush Limbaugh.

Obama suggested that the alleged fraud was likely a result of a few bad eggs and that it shouldn’t be used as a ploy to deter voters from casting ballots on Election Day.
“My understanding in terms of the voter fraud – because having run a voter registration drive, I know how problems arise – this is typically a situation where ACORN probably paid people to get registrations, and these folks, not wanting to actually register people because that’s actually hard work, just went into a phone book or made up names and submitted false registrations to get paid,” he said.

Obama minimized the import of such controversy as “one of these distractions that gets stirred up in the course of a campaign.”

“But, what I want to make sure of is that this is not used as an excuse for the kind of voter suppression strategies and tactics that we’ve seen in the past. Let’s just make sure everybody is voting, everybody’s registered. Let’s make sure that everybody’s doing it in a lawful way,” he concluded.

As of recently FOX News, Right Wing talk radio and the right wing blogosphere have made a concerted effort to discredit and demonize ACORN (Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now). They have accused ACORN of voter fraud and of changing voter logs and made ACORN to seem like a radical untrustworthy organization. However, McCain attended an ACORN convention just two years ago. If ACORN was such a bad organization, why did McCain attend their convention?

Here’s a Video of McCain’s Address to ACORN

ACORN has defended itself from right wing attacks. With the following statement.

Fact: ACORN has implemented the most sophisticated quality-control system in the voter engagement field but in almost every state we are required to turn in ALL completed applications, even the ones we know to be problematic.Fact: ACORN flags in writing incomplete, problem, or suspicious cards when we turn them in,. Unfortunately, some of these same officials then come back weeks or months later and accuse us of deliberately turning in phony cards. In many cases, we can actually prove that these are the same cards we called to their attention.

Fact: Our canvassers are paid by the hour, not by the card . ACORN has a zero-tolerance policy for deliberately falsifying registrations, and in the cases where our internal quality controls have identified this happening we have fired the workers involved and turned them in to election officials and law-enforcement.

Fact: No criminal charges related to voter registration have ever been brought against ACORN or partner organizations. Convictions against individual former ACORN workers have been accomplished with our full cooperation, using the evidence obtained through our quality control and verification processes – evidence which in most cases WE called to the attention of authorities

Fact: Most election officials have recognized ACORN’s good work and praised our quality control systems. Even in the cities where election officials have complained about ACORN, the applications in question represent less than 1% of the thousands and thousands of registrations ACORN has collected.

Fact: Our accusers not only fail to provide any evidence, they fail to suggest a motive: there is virtually no chance anyone would be able to vote fraudulently, so there is no reason to deliberately submit phony registrations. ACORN is committed to ensuring that the greatest possible numbers of people are registered

ACORN will not be intimidated, we will not be provoked, and in this important moment in history we will not allow anyone to distract us from these vital efforts to empower our constituencies and our communities to speak for themselves.