ACORN Again: Now With New York Times Editors Killing Unfavorable Obama Stories–UPDATED
March 19, 2009 / 3:11 pm • By Dr. Melissa ClouthierThe New York Times killed a story connecting ACORN (Association for Community Organizations for Reform Now) with the Barack Obama campaign in late October asserts Republican National Lawyers Association Vice President Heather Heidelbaugh in a blogger conference call following her testimony before the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. NYT writer Stephanie Strom’s last report about ACORN was issued October 22, 2008 and the source for her stories was Anita MonCrief, a former ACORN employee and whistleblower.
The damaging story written by Ms. Strom connected Barack Obama’s campaign with ACORN. Obama gave ACORN leaders a list of maxed out donors and suggested that ACORN contact them and tell them to donate to ACORN instead, says Ms. Heidelbaugh. Stephen Rhodes notes this back on October 30, 2008:
During her court appearance, Ms. MonCrief testified that in 2007 Project Vote development director Karyn Gillette informed her that she had direct contact with the Obama campaign and had obtained their donor lists; she also added that she was given a spreadsheet for use in soliciting potential donors who had spent the maximum on donations already made to the candidate but who could contribute to the voter registrations. As expected, Project Vote denied the charges. Ms. MonCrief added that when she had difficulty with what appeared to be duplicate names on the list, Ms. Gillette told her that she would get a revised copy from the Obama campaign.
Ms. MonCrief sought out Ms. Heidelbaugh after the story was killed because she wanted to go under subpoena and give testimony as to ACORN’s illegal actions. (Ms. Heidelbaugh brought suit against the Pennsylvania chapter of ACORN for irregularities during the Obama campaign.)
Ms. Heidelbaugh listed ten ACORN issues ranging from ACORN encouraging duplicate registrations as a fund raiser because every registration, duplicate or not, got ACORN $17 to ACORN destroying documents in New Orleans to the “Money for Muscle” program also known internally as the “Protection Program”. This latter problem is described by the Washington Times as “Mob Tactics“:
The prepared testimony described two facets of the “muscle for the money” program, an official and unofficial program.
The “official” program is the name of the ACORN voter-registration drives. The Obama campaign paid an ACORN affiliate group more than $800,000 for these get-out-the-vote services during the primary race, though the expenditure was initially misrepresented to the Federal Election Commission as for “sound and lighting equipment,” but later corrected.
The “unofficial” program collected payments to organize protests. For example, the Service Employees International Union hired ACORN to harass the Carlyle Group, a global private equity firm. Other paid protests targeted Sherwin-Williams, H&R Block, Jackson Hewitt and Money Mart, according to the testimony.
The protests then became a way to extract corporate donations.
“The protesting was used to get companies to negotiate. The companies would pay money to get the protesting to stop,” Ms. Heidelbaugh said, quoting Ms. Moncrief’s court testimony. “In addition to calling this activity ‘Muscle for the Money,’ the insiders at ACORN called it ‘protection.’ ”
The testimony elicited dismay from Representative John Conyers (D-MI), especially when the sub-committee chairman indicated that no further investigation would be forthcoming.
Within ACORN, the board has been unhappy with the accounting methods and general accountability after it was discovered that ACORN Founder Wade Rathke’s brother Dale had stolen $1 million in ACORN funds. The behind-the-scenes outrage continues.
Even still ACORN marches on. In February, the group received federal funds (tax payer dollars) to work with the Census Bureau. Fox News reports:
But ACORN’s partnership with the 2010 Census is worrisome to lawmakers who say past allegations of fraud should raise concerns about the organization.
“It’s a concern, especially when you look at all the different charges of voter fraud. And it’s not just the lawmakers’ concern. It should be the concern of every citizen in the country,” Rep. Lynn A. Westmoreland, R-Ga., vice ranking member of the subcommittee for the U.S. Census, told FOXNews.com. “We want an enumeration. We don’t want to have any false numbers.”
ACORN, which claims to be a non-partisan grassroots community organization of low- and moderate-income people, came under fire in 2007 when Washington State filed felony charges against several paid ACORN employees and supervisors for more than 1,700 fraudulent voter registrations. In March 2008, an ACORN worker in Pennsylvania was sentenced for making 29 phony voter registration forms. The group’s activities were frequently questioned in the 2008 presidential election.
Will the worriers just worry — or will they do something about it? The Bush White House kept the taxpayer pipeline open for eight years. John McCain spoke at an ACORN/shamnesty event. Hoping for change? Not bloody likely.
So ACORN will carry out official state business, conduct illegal operations at Barack Obama’s behest, and the paper of record cannot be counted on to report the dirty dealings. Who will keep account of those meant to keep government officials accountable? Or have the press and the Left become one and the same?
UPDATE:
Marathon Pundit has much more:
Heidelbaugh told us she asked the House subcommittee to provide oversight over ACORN, “in regards to to the numerous violations of law, because they continue to seek and receive federal tax dollars.”
Powerful stuff. In fact, so much so that Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, repeatedly requested that Nadler hold an ACORN oversight hearing. Nadler was noncommital.
The ranking Republican on Nadler’s subcommittee, Jim Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, issued a press release about today’s hearing:
Vote fraud is an extremely serious issue, and must be dealt with using a firm hand to ensure the sanctity of our Constitution and the integrity of our elections are upheld.
The allegations brought forth against the practices of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, better known as ACORN, during and after the 2008 presidential campaign, as well as the testimony we heard today about ACORN’s sketchy accounting practices, potential voter fraud and coordination with the Obama campaign deserve to be examined closely.
I am in complete agreement with Judiciary Chairman Conyers repeated requests that we should hold an oversight hearing dedicated to examining ACORN’s activities. Constitution Subcommittee Chairman Nadler made no commitments during the hearing. If he is unwilling to hold a subcommittee hearing, then we should have a full committee hearing on ACORN to start getting to the bottom of these issues and ensure vote fraud plays no part in our elections process.
6 Responses to “ACORN Again: Now With New York Times Editors Killing Unfavorable Obama Stories–UPDATED”
May 1 2009 / 4:24 pm
Reply
Sensenbrenner is typical of the blind wimps in the Republican Congress. Democrats steal billions of dollars a year to politick at their opponents’ expense, and Sensenbrenner et al. hope a corrupt Uncle Tom like John Conyers, whose wife uses taxpayer-provided congressional staffers for housework and who himself uses congressional staffers for his campaigns, to investigate his own party and himself? Get serious.
The Democrat party is a criminal enterprise. They are in violation of the 13th amendment which outlaws slavery. They are violent, their leaders are all implicated in Bill Clinton’s high treason during the 1990’s, and there is no way they will be stopped until Republicans grow the guts to force them to account for every single vote in every single election.
Show courage for once, and the People will respond.