When some folks went on a mission to expose ACORN (Barack Obama’s former employer and legal client) for the fraudulent and corrupt organization they are, ACORN fought back… often using allies in the mainstream media to carry its water.
In addition to the networks, other liberal organizations came to ACORN’s defense, relying solely on what ACORN told them…
In recent days, Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe, the conservative filmmakers who made the widely circulated ACORN videos, as well as Andrew Breitbart and Mike Flynn, who have been promoting the videos for BigGovernment.com, have claimed that the filmmakers were never rebuffed by any of the ACORN offices they visited in their attempts to get ACORN to assist them in improper activities. However, in a newly released video, ACORN Housing Corp.’s Katherine Conway Russell directly rebuts those claims, citing a police report ACORN filed as evidence that she asked the filmmakers to leave the ACORN office in Philadelphia and called the police after the filmmakers asked suspicious questions.
Oops.
According to MediaMatters’ website:
Using the website mediamatters.org as the principal vehicle for disseminating research and information, Media Matters posts rapid-response items as well as longer research and analytic reports documenting conservative misinformation throughout the media. Additionally, Media Matters works daily to notify activists, journalists, pundits, and the general public about instances of misinformation, providing them with the resources to rebut false claims and to take direct action against offending media institutions.
So now the real question is, will MediaMatters respond to their own dissemination of misinformation? I’m not holding my breath.
It’s probably time for Barack Obama to start worrying about 2012. Looks like his campaign machine is finally falling apart. First, his former employer and legal client was busted offering advice on child prostitution and human trafficking along with helpful tips on tax evasion… and now this.
On the second floor of an old building in South Oklahoma City “Little Mexico” neighborhood, there is a room that until recently, housed a branch of ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), a low-income advocacy organization known for left-wing activism, rabble-rousing and – shockingly – voter registration fraud.
Left hurriedly and in a shambles, the small office, coated in a layer of plaster dust, still housed computers, documents, registration forms, I-9 employment info and boxes with an IRS return address and others with a return address for an ACORN office in New Orleans.
ACORN, which receives millions in federal dollars for voter registration, cannot legally support one party. However, internal documents show ACORN “targeted” state legislative districts in 2007 and 2008, leading up to the presidential election.
ACORN always lamely claimed to be “non-partisan”, but you’d have to be braindead to believe they actually were. (Of course, if you’re braindead, you probably worked for or supported them at some point anyway)
The documents read like a combination of Obama campaign strategy memos and chapters straight from Marxist Saul Alinsky’s book Rules for Radicals. (It’s not really a coincidence the two would sound similar)
One section is termed “a five-year plan to obtain power” (remember, Chapter 1 in Alinksy’s Rules states, “In this book we are concerned with how to create mass organizations to seize power…”). And community organizing is key to this strategy… surprise, surprise.
Therefore, the route to power is twofold: First, build powerful city organizations in Oklahoma City and Tulsa that can control these municipalities. Second, become an influential organization by shaping a handful of strategic legislative districts that, by themselves, can change who controls the state legislature.
…
(W)e will be seen as the force that is making Oklahoma a progressive state in the way that it was 100 years ago.
Under a subsection titled “Politics and Elections,” in 2007 and 2008, ACORN was looking to take over State Senate District 43, which they referred to as “the biggest prize,” in hopes of unseating Republican Sen. Jim Reynolds. And then there’s this…
Those internal documents include a sheet titled “Canvass recruitment rap,” a “script,” directed towards ACORN activists in Houston which says: “Hi, my name is ____. We are hiring Outreach Workers to remind people to get out and vote for Barack Obama in the upcoming election. One of our team members spoke to you today and you signed up for our intake tomorrow. You are interested in working with us on this important election, correct? … We’re hiring for people to go door to door talking to registered voters in Houston to get out the vote for Barack.”
So basically, if you paid your taxes last year, you helped fund Barack Obama’s campaign. That ought to give you a tingle up your leg.
No wonder they’re so anxious to raise taxes. To them, it’s just campaign fundraising.
The scenario we posed the ACORN Housing employees in Baltimore is due to the application of similar power tactics. We gave ACORN a taste of its own medicine. ACORN was alleged to be thug-like, criminal, and nefarious. This criminal behavior was evidenced by a video of Baltimore ACORN community organizers breaking the locks on foreclosed homes. Instead of railing against their radicalism, it is best to bring out this type of radicalism. Hannah Giles and I took advantage of ACORN’s regard for thug criminality by posing the most ridiculous criminal scenario we could think of and seeing if they would comply–which they did without hesitation.
Additionally, instead of focusing on foreclosure itself, which has become seemingly as politicized as abortion, we focused on crimes more difficult for the left to defend: trafficking of young helpless girls and tax evasion. The first group represents the severely disadvantaged, the second a threat to the distribution of wealth.
While manipulation or entrapment occurs when people are encouraged to do things they otherwise wouldn’t, the pre-set trap is their own. These tactics allow the viewer to see ACORN’s soul; their playing field and their morality, out in the open. Their system is based on conflict and change for its own sake. This system is based on totalitarian principles and class war techniques. These people understand pressure, power and self-interest. When the Baltimore employees saw we were shady dealers, their instincts clicked in, as we were prime recruits.
ACORN has ascended. They elect our politicians and receive billions in tax money. Their world is a revolutionary, socialistic, atheistic world, where all means are justifiable. And they create chaos, again, for it’s own sake. It is time for us to be studying and applying their tactics, many of which are ideologically neutral. It is time, as Hannah said as we walked out of the ACORN facility, for conservative activists to “create chaos for glory.”
So why is this story important? Aside from the obvious illegalities being advocated and advised upon in these videos, remember this is the same group that stormed conferences and government offices back in 1995 to intimidate legislators who were trying to investigate and reform the Community Reinvestment Act, a law that allows groups like ACORN to force banks into making high-risk loans to low-credit customers.
That March, House Speaker Newt Gingrich was scheduled to address a meeting of county commissioners at the Washington Hilton. But, first, some 500 protesters from the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) poured into the ballroom from both the kitchen and the main entrance.
Hotel staffers who tried to block them were quickly overwhelmed by demonstrators chanting, “Nuke Newt!” and “We want Newt!” Jamming the aisles, carrying bullhorns and taunting the assembled county commissioners, demonstrators swiftly took over the head table and commandeered the microphone, sending two members of Congress scurrying.
The demonstrators’ target, Gingrich, hadn’t yet arrived - and his speech was cancelled. When the cancellation was announced, ACORN’s foot soldiers cheered.
…
Yet ACORN had only just begun. Two days later, 50 to 100 of the same protesters hit their main target - a House Banking subcommittee considering changes to the Community Reinvestment Act…
And this is the same group that Barack Obama held a role of “leadership trainer” as well as represented as legal counsel…
And to bring the above undercover video scandal, the thuggery to prevent change in the CRA that could’ve mitigated the financial collapse and all the voter registration fraud and intimidation tactics full circle… remember that this is the same group that Barack Obama promised would “help shape his administration“…
How’s that hope and change feel now?
UPDATE:
As expected, I have the usual emails flooding in from leftwing crybabies defending ACORN and saying this is an isolated event. And, as expected, they’re wrong as usual. Here’s undercover video of similar “advice” being given in ACORN’s Washington, DC office:
The ACORN workers in question have denied the conversations took place, and ACORN’s attorneys subsequently sent letters to Roger Ailes, President of Fox News, on September 10th and September 11th. You can read both letters here.
In the September 10th letter, the attorneys stated in no uncertain terms that the videotape had been doctored, and demanded that Fox “cease publication of these tapes unless it can produce proof that the conversations actually took place.”
Only liberals could stare at “proof that the conversations actually took place” and deny the “conversations actually took place”. Perhaps it depends on the definition of “is”.
The letter also asks Fox to “take your responsibility as a news gathering organization seriously.” I have seen no evidence that Fox has honored either of these requests.
The irony of the century. Someone finally does the job the MSM should be doing and suddenly the Left doesn’t like it. I guess “serious news gathering” just deals with the First Lady’s arms and the President’s basketball picks.
But even better is that despite denying that the “conversation actually took place”, ACORN is threatening to sue the makers of the video as well as FoxNews.
In the letter sent to Ailes on September 11th, ACORN’s attorneys notified Fox of their conclusion that the “filming and broadcast of the conversations at the Baltimore ACORN offices violates §10-402 of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article of the Maryland Code, which makes it unlawful to wilfully intercept, endeavor to intercept, or procure any other person to intercept any oral conversation unless all parties to the communication consent.”
So to sum up ACORN’s defense… it was illegal for the film makers to records the conversations that never took place.
The Senate dealt a blow to ACORN Monday evening, voting to deny the Department of Housing and Urban Development from granting funds to the community organization.
Sen. Mike Johanns’s (R-Neb.) amendment to the appropriations bill providing funding to the department passed in a bipartisan, 83-7 vote.
Thank you, Senator Johanns!
Be sure to contact the HUD Inspector General and request an investigation into how this criminal organization was misusing your tax dollars.
You can call us toll-free at - 1-800-347-3735
You can fax us at - (202) 708-4829
You can e-mail us at - hotline@hudoig.gov
The OIG is tasked with independently investigating claims of fraud, waste, abuse, and serious mismanagement in HUD-funded programs.
UPDATE 3:
Another “isolated event”… this time at ACORN offices in California. Adding to the basic prostitution, fraud and child abuse advice, this ACORN worker proudly brags about murdering her own husband and threatening the lives of neighbors. Hope and change, baby, hope and change.
UPDATE 4:
And yet one more… from San Diego. This time the ACORN worker is offering much needed advice on the best border location across which to smuggle underage sex slaves. Your tax dollars at work.
