Whoops: Anti-ACORN Bill Ropes In Defense Contractors and Others Charged With Fraud

This one is for the ages, this is so rich, I'm laughing at the thoughts of how the Repugnicans, Beck, Savage, Limbaugh, Ins-Hannity, et al, will look backpedaling on this one, it will be some show and the good part of it is that admission is free - Poetic Justice, LOL.

However, there is a wrinkle to it:

Reps. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Barney Frank (D-Mass.) sent a letter to the Congressional Research Service on Tuesday asking it to clarify, among other things, if the Defund ACORN Act is constitutional.

Also at the Huffington Post
Ryan Grim is the author of This Is Your Country On Drugs: The Secret History of Getting High in America

Obviously I have mixed feelings about it, but in any event, he, he, he...
(Alert by R. Haaland)

Aurora

They Want To Punish ACORN? Two Can Play This Game

FROM: Daily Kos by Adam B

Tue Sep 22, 2009 at 12:42:33 PM PDT

I noticed something funny when I looked at the text of John Boehner's "Defund ACORN" bill. In order to not look like an unconstitutional bill of attainder, look how broadly the bolded language sweeps:

SEC. 2. PROHIBITIONS ON FEDERAL FUNDS AND OTHER ACTIVITIES WITH RESPECT TO CERTAIN INDICTED ORGANIZATIONS.

(a) Prohibitions- With respect to any covered organization, the following prohibitions apply:

(1) No Federal contract, grant, cooperative agreement, or any other form of agreement (including a memorandum of understanding) may be awarded to or entered into with the organization.

(2) No Federal funds in any other form may be provided to the organization.

(3) No Federal employee or contractor may promote in any way (including recommending to a person or referring to a person for any purpose) the organization.

(b) Covered Organization- In this section, the term `covered organization' means any of the following:

(1) Any organization that has been indicted for a violation under any Federal or State law governing the financing of a campaign for election for public office or any law governing the administration of an election for public office, including a law relating to voter registration.

(2) Any organization that had its State corporate charter terminated due to its failure to comply with Federal or State lobbying disclosure requirements.

(3) Any organization that has filed a fraudulent form with any Federal or State regulatory agency.

(4) Any organization that--

(A) employs any applicable individual, in a permanent or temporary capacity;

(B) has under contract or retains any applicable individual; or

(C) has any applicable individual acting on the organization's behalf or with the express or apparent authority of the organization....

(3) The term `applicable individual' means an individual who has been indicted for a violation under Federal or State law relating to an election for Federal or State office.

Really? "Any organization that has filed a fraudlulent form with any Federal or State regulatory agency" can no longer receive federal funds? (And individuals who've merely been indicted for election law violations, whether or not the charges were proven?) The bill further defines "organization" as including ACORN and its affiliates, but it doesn't say it only includes ACORN-related entities. So, gosh, I imagined, there's a lot of entities that suddenly qualify.

As Ryan Grim reports on HuffPo today, Rep. Alan Grayson had the same thought:

The congressional legislation intended to defund ACORN, passed with broad bipartisan support, is written so broadly that it applies to "any organization" that has been charged with breaking federal or state election laws, lobbying disclosure laws, campaign finance laws or filing fraudulent paperwork with any federal or state agency. It also applies to any of the employees, contractors or other folks affiliated with a group charged with any of those things.

In other words, the bill could plausibly defund the entire military-industrial complex. Whoops.

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) picked up on the legislative overreach and asked the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) to sift through its database to find which contractors might be caught in the ACORN net.

Lockheed Martin and Northrop Gumman both popped up quickly, with 20 fraud cases between them, and the longer list is a Who's Who of weapons manufacturers and defense contractors.

The bill -- crafted as a motion to recommit -- has already cleared the Senate and House, so what Rep. Grayson intends is to file a list of all applicable entities in the legislative history that goes along with the bill so that judges can reference it when determining whether a company should be denied federal funds.

Help build the list. As Rep. Grayson suggests, we can't leave anyone out:

You see, regardless of what you think of ACORN, it is laudable to stop taxpayer money from going to organizations that commit fraud against the government. So as per the bill's text, I'm going to put into the Congressional record a list of organizations who have committed fraud against the government or employs anyone who has.

Now, I'm just one person, and I can't possibly find and list all of the organizations that fit this bill. So I need your help. Please nominate organizations and show me that they need to be in the record. To help, send me the name of the organization and proof in the form of a link to evidence that this organization should be in the Congressional record. I will also need your email address so I can follow-up with you if necessary. The proof you send needs to be easily verifiable, as in credible media reports, legal documents, government data, or otherwise.

An example might work as follows. Let's say that you were nominating 'Blackwater,' the controversial mercenary outfit which showed fraud in its contracts for Iraq in 2005. You could include a link like this one.

Help build the list.

• Adam B's diary :: ::

Media Matters' weekly wrap-up on misinformation and irresponsibility in the Media.

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MEDIA MATTERS FOR AMERICA
NEWSLETTER:

Media Matters: Fox News' incomplete, misleading ACORN coverage is just nuts

If you get your news from right-wing talk radio and Fox News, you probably think America is being overrun by a hyper-corrupt organized prostitution ring headquartered in the White House.

In case you missed this story: Two conservative activists, Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe, visited a host of ACORN offices around the country posing as a pimp and prostitute. They asked for help establishing a brothel, and even stated that underage girls would be working for them. They had a surveillance camera and recorded at least four interactions with ACORN employees and claimed these employees provided them with assistance. All of the employees implicated have now been fired, and federal aid to ACORN has been cut off.

Still, the story at this point really has a lot more to do with Fox News and conservative media activism than with ACORN. The undercover videos first appeared on BigGovernment.com, founded by Andrew Breitbart, a protégé of Matt Drudge and a conservative with a long record of highly partisan and inflammatory statements. Giles, daughter of conservative blogger Doug Giles, attended the National Journalism Center in Washington, one of the many right-wing institutions conservatives have established to flood the field with young, motivated, and rabidly partisan "reporters." For his part, O'Keefe has been a far-right activist since college.

Breitbart has developed a direct line to Glenn Beck, and so it wasn't long before the videos were being presented breathlessly on his TV and radio programs. This week, following his 9/12 rally, Beck escalated the attacks over ACORN. "But good God almighty, what is wrong with us," he said on Tuesday, "that we don't right now get into the cars and drive back to Washington, and surround the Capitol and say, 'What the hell is wrong with you people? Are you soulless? Are you dead inside?' "

It was just the beginning. "Obama is Van Jones, Obama is ACORN," right-wing pundit Monica Crowley said on Wednesday. "Just as he is ACORN, just as he is Van Jones, he is racism," Rush Limbaugh parroted the sentiment on Thursday. Radio host Jim Quinn said that we were all living in the "United States of ACORN," and Fox News' Megyn Kelly had Karl Rove on to talk about the tapes exposing what was now a "remarkable criminal enterprise." The stakes couldn't be higher. ACORN, after all, was on tap to receive "eight and a half trillion dollars of stimulus money," according to Sean Hannity -- a number that was a thousand times greater than the equally fictitious billions that Beck had accorded to the organization on behalf of the government. ACORN had suddenly ballooned from an organization which had received $53 million in federal funds over 15 years to representing 67 percent of America's gross domestic product.

Fox was running so wild with the story that they were willing to lower their already dubious standards. The first problem was one of logic. Four videos were being promoted as unimpeachable proof that all of ACORN is equally corrupt -- all 1,200 chapters and hundreds of ACORN employees. It was the opposite of how a credible investigation is supposed to function, in which conclusions are withheld until after all the facts are in. By comparison, here, the conservative media had a few isolated facts but were willing to extrapolate an entire thesis from them.

More important, Fox News failed to vet the tapes. This was made painfully clear with the case of the San Bernardino ACORN office, which was featured in the fourth video to be released. In the footage, ACORN employee Tresa Kaelke claimed that she had murdered her former husband following a period of domestic abuse. On September 15, Beck and Sean Hannity both broadcast Kaelke's assertion. Beck, who had reported on the supposed confession during his radio program, added on Fox, "She never spanked her kids, but she did shoot her husband dead." Later that night, Hannity played the same clip, and in a rare moment of intellectual curiosity, asked about the veracity of the murder claim. "We're working on it," Giles said, which was enough for Hannity. The following morning, on September 16, Fox News' Gretchen Carlson repeated the allegation, saying, "She killed somebody? Despite this, some lawmakers want to keep funding the group."

But Kaelke's ex-husbands are alive. The San Bernardino Police Department confirmed this simple fact on September 15, releasing a statement that read: "Investigators have been in contact with the involved party's known former husbands, who are alive and well." (Kaelke was soon quoted in an ACORN press release saying that she had made the claim because she was seeking to mislead the undercover videographers, whom she was suspicious of.) In spite of these developments, the next day, Hannity was still treating the San Bernardino tape as fully credible. He even hosted Giles again but failed to ask her about her own investigation into the truth of the claim. (Here's a full timeline of the attention the San Bernardino video received.)

In the meantime, another pivotal hole in the story began to present itself. During interviews, Breitbart, Giles, and O'Keefe had all asserted that the undercover team had never been kicked out of an ACORN office. Bertha Lewis, ACORN's CEO and chief organizer, had already said this was a falsehood by the time a Philadelphia ACORN employee, Katherine Conway Russell, publicly claimed to have done just that, adding that she had filed a police report after a visit from the conservative pair. The police report was soon produced, raising further serious questions about the credibility of the entire ACORN exposé. It was another major side of the story that Fox News simply hadn't cared to look into.

On the offense, Breitbart has lashed out at the mainstream media for supposedly burying the story. "The behavior of Jonathan Klein, the president of CNN," he said on Friday, "has been despicable during this." Many mainstream reporters were indeed worthy of criticism, but for the opposite reason that Breitbart cited. Their real failure was discussing the ACORN issue on Fox News' terms and ignoring the network's role in pushing the smears.

The New York Times covered up conservatives' well-documented ACORN obsession in its reporting. In their reports, all three network evening news broadcasts -- ABC's World News, NBC's Nightly News, and the CBS Evening News -- left out substantive facts about the incidents that mitigate the accusations, exonerate ACORN employees, or undermine the credibility of the filmmakers. Moreover, none reported that Fox News, in its aggressive promotion of this story, had made false accusations.

On MSNBC, Chris Matthews was content to report that the right had simply "claimed another victim," as if the campaign had been entirely legitimate. "They know what they are doing because they are getting an audience from this," he added, uncritically. And MSNBC's Dylan Rattigan allowed conservative activist Carter Clews of Americans for Limited Government to ask Bertha Lewis, "How much money did Barack Obama funnel to you ... with his buddy-boy Bill Ayers?" David Shuster and Juan Williams provided some of the week's few media bright spots by focusing on Fox News itself and providing the story with some perspective.

Fox News is already teasing its next round of ACORN attacks. If credible journalists don't stand up for their craft, then Fox News will keep enjoying its position in the driver's seat.

Other major stories this week:

Dropping Lou Dobbs

After years of Lou Dobbs using his CNN platform to promote the work of hate groups, spread racially charged conspiracy theories, and engage in hate speech, Media Matters joined more than 15 national organizations (including NDN, Southern Poverty Law Center, and the National Council of La Raza, among others) this week in launching the Drop Dobbs campaign.

The coalition also launched DropDobbs.com, a new website that demonstrates Dobbs' history of xenophobia and nativism and will monitor his misinformation in the days and weeks to come. Those visiting the site are encouraged to take action by signing a petition telling Dobbs' advertisers to stop sponsoring his hate.

Watch this compelling video to learn more about why dropping Dobbs is so important.

Dobbs obviously isn't taking news of the campaign well. He went on the attack this week by targeting many of the groups in the coalition, calling Media Matters "fleas" and claiming that "Hispanic activist groups" "brand" him a "racist" because he "opposes illegal immigration." Dobbs also slammed various groups for "denigrating the United States for not being sufficiently welcoming" to undocumented immigrants and told what he characterized as a "pretty good joke": that calling him a racist "would make you likely a member of La Raza."

On September 15 and 16, Dobbs appeared at the "Hold Their Feet to the Fire" rally and legislative advocacy event in the nation's capital held by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) -- an organization labeled a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center. More on FAIR, its racist founder, its ties to eugenicists, and the racially charged comments of some of its staff can be found here.

Media Matters' Eric Burns sent an open letter to Klein, the CNN president, noting, "Mr. Dobbs represents an ongoing threat to CNN's credibility as a serious news organization, in no small part because of his polemical coverage of immigration issues and his continued use of his CNN show to lend prominence to groups such as FAIR. The attention and legitimacy he gave to the 'birther' movement -- and CNN's condoning of his actions -- did real damage to that credibility. His participation in the upcoming FAIR rally would do further, serious damage."

In the end, Dobbs promoted a "very special broadcast" from the FAIR event, going so far as to thank the anti-immigrant organization for hosting a "great town hall event" on "amnesty." During his broadcast from the FAIR event, Dobbs embraced discredited birther Jerome Corsi, whom he called a "pretty good guy to talk to" about immigration. He also hosted KHOW's Peter Boyles, a man who once said of a Hispanic accused rapist: "It's, you know, jobs Americans won't do." During his stint as Dobbs' guest, Boyles said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi "looks like Lady Macbeth."

Though Dobbs claimed that "CNN has no role" at FAIR, "it's me, it's this radio show," he and CNN correspondent Lisa Sylvester discussed the FAIR rally on CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight -- of course, they made no mention of Dobbs' involvement in the event. After Media Matters pointed out their lack of disclosure, Dobbs suggested that Media Matters was a "hate group" for calling attention to his FAIR ties.

While Dobbs remains a serious problem, Stephen Colbert, host of Comedy Central's The Colbert Report, had some fun at the CNN host's expense, claiming that he'd lost to Dobbs in his bid to set the "record for the most insults to Mexico in a single nightly news broadcast."

First the "birthers," now the "czar-ers"?

Media conservatives, particularly the folks at Fox News, have been on a crusade of late to rid the Obama administration of czars. You know, because the term sounds foreign ... perhaps Russian ... definitely commie. Of course, in order to fall in line behind their logic, one has to ignore the fact that Republican and Democratic presidents have used the term to identify top advisers for decades. As we noted last week, "In fact, 'czars' were such a non-issue at Fox News during the Bush years that Bill O'Reilly called for the appointment of several new 'czars' to handle immigration, charities, and disaster relief, and not once was he denounced by his colleagues for advocating a 'shadow government' with 'unchecked power.' "

Well, this week was no different. The czar hysteria continued.

Fox News actually set out to explain to viewers why Obama's use of czars was so much worse than President Bush's. The conservative network falsely claimed that The Washington Post reported that Bush had 16 "czars" and that Obama has "twice as many." In fact, in the article Fox News cited, the Post reported, "By one count, Bush had 36 czar positions filled by 46 people during his eight years as president."

Taking a page from the Fox News book, Dobbs also downplayed Bush's use of czars, stating that prior to the Obama administration, "the highest number of czars that we were able to document in our own reporting ... was during the Clinton administration, and he had only 10 czars." I guess Dobbs and his researchers don't read The Washington Post.

Dobbs' report did net the conspiracy-minded CNN host a new nickname, however. MSNBC's Keith Olbermann dubbed Dobbs a "czar-er" in designating him the "Worst Person in the World" for downplaying Bush's use of czars.

This week's media columns

This week's media columns from the Media Matters senior fellows: Eric Boehlert looks at Michelle Malkin and the anatomy of the 2 million protester lie, and Jamison Foser explains how Time magazine enables Glenn Beck's lies.

Greg Lewis tells us how Limbaugh takes race-baiting to puzzling extremes in The Friday Rush, a review of Limbaugh's radio shows over the past week.

This weekly wrap-up was compiled by Karl Frisch, a senior fellow at Media Matters for America. Frisch also contributes to County Fair, a media blog featuring links to progressive media criticism from around the Web as well as original commentary. You can follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube or sign up to receive his columns by email.

The Big "Leftist Voter Fraud" Lie Exposed

FROM:



Posted by Jill Hussein C., Brilliant at Breakfast at 7:00 AM on June 19, 2009.

Acorn, hunh?

Remember last fall, when ACORN was the new gay, or the new feminist, or the new Islamic terrorist, or whatever the wingnuts' boogeyman-of-the-month is? Remember the "concern" on the right about people being registered to vote who weren't eligible?

Well, well, well...take a look at what's happened in California, courtesy of Brad Friedman:

What's perhaps most interesting here is what isn't mentioned in this story, as written on the Los Angeles Times' "L.A. Now" blog. First, here's their entire blog item...

By Brad Friedman on 10/19/2008 9:34PM Breaks Report of CA GOP Voter Registration Arrest During Segment With Host Julie Banderas and the WSJ's John Fund... Well, that was fun. My first time on Fox. And I don't feel dirty at all! Hopefully, it'll not be my last. Hey, I was even honored to offer them a big scoop on air, in the form my very own "Fox News Alert", after which, I'm told, they ran the headline during top of the hour news and on the crawl. So we did some good, if only for that. You're welcome. Fox!UPDATE 6/17/09: Jacoby pleads guilty to voter registration fraud. Media hardly bothers to notice. Details here... Head of CA GOP Voter Registration Firm Pleads Guilty to Voter Registration Fraud Ssshhh...Don't tell Fox 'News'! FLASHBACK Brad covers arrest with 'Fox News Alert' on FNC last October amidst phony ACORN brouhaha... (Video above) What's perhaps most interesting here is what isn't mentioned in this story, as written on the Los Angeles Times' "L.A. Now" blog. First, here's their entire blog item... The owner of a voter-registration company pleaded guilty Tuesday to voter-registration fraud, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. Laguna Beach resident Mark Jacoby, who collects signatures for petition drives, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and was sentenced to three years' probation and 30 days of service with the California Department of Transportation. Jacoby, owner of Young Political Majors, registered to vote at Los Angeles addresses that were not his own. State law requires petition circulators to be qualified voters. Jacoby will also be required to show proof he is registered at his correct address. "

The owner of a voter-registration company pleaded guilty Tuesday to voter-registration fraud, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.

Laguna Beach resident Mark Jacoby, who collects signatures for petition drives, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and was sentenced to three years' probation and 30 days of service with the California Department of Transportation.

Jacoby, owner of Young Political Majors, registered to vote at Los Angeles addresses that were not his own. State law requires petition circulators to be qualified voters. Jacoby will also be required to show proof he is registered at his correct address.

And what they didn't bother to mention in that story?...Amongst other things, the fact that Jacoby and Young Political Majors were hired by the California Republican Party to head up their voter registration efforts in the state. Jacoby had been arrested for Voter Registration Fraud last October, smack dab during the media's orgasmic heights of last year's phony GOP ACORN "Voter Fraud" hoax, even as Fox "News" (and the other news outlets who similarly fell for the scam) were going wall-to-wall with their unsupported insinuations about voter fraud by ACORN, Democrats and Obama.

The news about the arrest of Jacoby, at the time, had occurred just as I was heading out for an appearance on Fox "News", so I was able to break the news on-air in my own "Fox 'News' Alert". (Video originally posted here, reposted at bottom of this item.)

Given the way the LA Times blog "covered" the story of Jacoby's plea --- not even mentioning the fact that this guy and his group were hired by the California state Republican Party --- I'd say it's a fair bet Fox wouldn't even have bothered to mention the original arrest at all had I not been on air and forcing them to do so myself. Much as they are unlikely to bother reporting Jacoby's plea today.

More here.

It's worth listening to right-wingers in the media and in government, if only because when you hear them decry something, whether it's marital infidelity, gay sex, fraudulent voter registration, Obama Administration intrusion into people's lives, or anything else, they're actually talking about themselves.

Tagged as: voter fraud

Jill Hussein C. blogs at Brilliant at Breakfast.

John Conyers to Hold Hearings on Sheriff Joe Arpaio's Abuses, and Video from Today's Arpaio Pile On in D.C.

By Stephen Lemons in Feathered Bastard

Wednesday, Mar. 11 2009 @ 5:17PM

One clip from today's media event denouncing Joe Arpaio, and heralding the investigation into him by the U.S. Department of Justice.

The big news out of D.C. for us here in Sand Land, of course, is that the Justice Department is investigating Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his office for civil rights violations. Now I've learned from Jonathan Godfrey, the Communications Director for the House Judiciary Committee, that Chairman John Conyers has indicated his committee will hold hearings on Arpaio's abuses in the near future.

Such hearings will be crucial if we have any hope of the feds fully investigating the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office's systemic corruption. And judging from the remarks made today in D.C. by Chairman Conyers and Rep. Jerrold Nadler, Chair of the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties, it sounds as if these men are prepared to see that Arpaio is held accountable for his misdeeds.

(Excerpts of the D.C. press conference have been posted to the House Judiciary's YouTube Channel, and you can watch all of them, here.)

Chairman Conyers (D-Michigan) opened the event by accepting a petition with 35,000 names asking for a probe into Arpaio, and noting that such a probe was now underway by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder's Justice Department. Conyers also denounced racial profiling, no matter what race or ethnicity is targeted.

"We think that in a lot of ways," stated Conyers, "our Hispanic brothers and sisters are becoming the new targets of discrimination [and] profiling that used to occur mostly to African-Americans...We're saying together, African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans and everyone else: No racial profiling when you're in law enforcement."

New York Democrat Jerry Nadler, went even further in his remarks to specifically lambaste Arpaio.

Read full story...

A Short - and Honest - History of Voter Registration Drives

"The GOP is going to question the legitimacy of this election based on this garbage?"



By Joe Trippi . Posted October 28, 2008.

A short history of how voter registration drives got to where they are today.

1. The GOP during the 70's, 80's and 90's employed a number of methods to register voters to insure the people they were registering were indeed Republican.

One method was to go through a neighborhood and register everyone who wasn't registered. Then they would throw out all the voter registration cards of those who had registered as "Democrats" - thereby building up Republican registration.

I am not saying that Democrats were saints. But Democrats did not have to employ this method. Democrats tended to go deep into poor and minority areas such as Watts, or Harlem and could register thousands, even millions, of new voters and only rarely find someone who registered as a Republican. So few that it wasn't worth disenfranchising them by throwing their registration cards in the trash.

With Democrats registering new voters by the millions in inner cities - Republicans had to keep up by mounting some kind of registration drive - they had to go into suburbs and places where voters were split and they had to find a way to come out of their drives with far more Republicans than Democrats to make it worth the effort. Throwing out registration cards of those who registered as Democrats became on way to do this.

BUT LAWS BEGAN TO BE PASSED TO PROHIBIT THIS PRACTICE - INCREASINGLY THESE LAWS REQUIRED THAT ALL REGISTRATION CARDS HAD TO BE TURNED IN. You could not simply turn in the registration cards that you wanted to turn in - you had to turn them all in.

This is exactly why ACORN had to turn in the "fraudulent" voter registrations cards for Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck.

2. In order to raise millions of dollars for these registration drives it became important for them to be non-partisan so that contributors would receive the appropriate tax deduction for their contribution to the effort. This meant that once such a drive went into a neighborhood it was required to register both Democrats and Republicans to maintain its charitable or non-profit tax status. Progressives again did not have to worry about this - they could mount non-partisan voter registration drives inner cities - register millions of new voters and vast majorities of them would be progressive.

Republicans had to go to the suburbs and other areas of America that were split in their political allegiances. So they developed a method called "bird-dogging" where a party volunteer would go door to door in a suburb and ask the unregistered if they sided with the GOP or the Democrats. In the early days of these efforts they would literally leave a "tale" such as a popsicle in the yard for a volunteer of the non-profit to find and they would register people in that household. This is how the GOP stayed within the law of registering everyone in an area - turning in all the cards - and still registered more new Republicans. These methods became more modern and targeted with the advent of computers and databases that allow for better targeting than the old "bird-dog" method.

3. How it was ACORN that was defrauded and not the American people (despite the GOP's cries to the contrary). Progressive organizations began to pay volunteers $1 per new voter registered. This was supposed to encourage these volunteers to stay in the field longer - register more voters and provide a small reward for their effort.

So here is what happened and the GOP knows it. Most of the ACORN workers did their jobs and went out and registered new voters. But some workers defrauded ACORN - simply sitting down at home or somewhere else and filling out cards to make $1 per card - someone could make $100 or $200 per day doing this. ACORN is absolutely correct that it has to turn every one of these cards in - why? Return to #1 above.

Mickey Mouse will not be showing up to vote on election day. A voter registration worker defrauded ACORN by turning in the phony card to make a buck.

All ACORN did was turn Mickey's card in as required by law.

The GOP is going to question the legitimacy of this election based on this garbage?

I have a prediction Barack Obama is going to win by more votes than ACORN registered.

You can problems with the way ACORN does things, or with the way both sides register voters. Or with how we got to where we are.

But get over it - watch the flood on Election Day - as the "Obama effect" takes hold and millions of Americans vote for change as looks likely from this vantage point.

Joe Trippi, former campaign manager for Howard Dean, has worked on over 100 political campaigns for Democrats, including seven presidential races. In addition to his work in politics, Trippi worked with a number of high-tech companies in the 1990's.

Justice Department Targets ACORN But Ignores GOP Voter Suppression

On the eve of the 2008 election, the Department leaks a FBI probe of ACORN but remains silent on widespread voter intimidation tactics.

From: AlterNet

By Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet. Posted October 23, 2008.

Partisan considerations still appear to be contributing to the Department of Justice's actions when it comes to enforcing the nation's voting rights laws.

With Election Day less than two weeks away, proponents of more tightly regulating the voting process -- this time led by congressional Republicans -- have gotten their desired response from the nation's guardian of civil rights' laws: a FBI investigation into ACORN, the low-income advocacy coalition that registered 1.3 million new voters in 2008.

Last week, two FBI officials told reporters an ACORN investigation was underway, violating Department rules for disclosing information on cases that could impact an election. The Obama campaign's response was to ask the Attorney General to include that leak in a special prosecutors' investigation of the U.S. attorney firing scandal. No response to that request has been forthcoming.

But more disturbing to civil rights attorneys is the Department's silence on what voting rights lawyers say are myriad voter suppression tactics by partisans in the campaign's final weeks. These efforts include attempts by Republicans to disqualify legal voter registrations, unlawfully purge voters, threaten individual voters with polling place challenges, fabricate barriers to student voting and abuse prosecutorial authority by investigating 2008's early voters.

"Voter suppression is not new. But this year has brought heightened efforts to disenfranchise and intimidate voters," said Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, in a Wednesday press conference. "We've seen legal challenges to registered, valid voters in Ohio; Fear tactics threatening that mortgage foreclosures or unpaid bills will thwart your right to vote or may even result in arrest; and massive attempts to confuse voters through robo-calls, official looking web sites and e-mails. These are targeted and insidious attempts to suppress the vote, particularly in communities of color."

The Justice Department did not respond to requests to comment.

What is most striking about the voting rights lawyers' criticism of the Department is that the agency does not have to wait until Election Day to act. Under Section 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act, the Department can move to stop voter intimidation schemes without having to prove the motive behind those actions. This section of the law does not require the government show any intent by partisans to discriminate, the lawyers say. Instead, if the result is intimidation or suppression of minority voters, it can act.

"We really need the Justice Department to get out there and make a pronouncement, publicly, that voter intimidation and voter suppression will not be tolerated because it violates federal law," said Gerry Hebert, executive director of the Campaign Legal Center and a former Department Voting Section Chief. "We have asked the Attorney General to do this and thus far there has been a deafening silence."

"I think the Department's response to these issues, at best, is tepid, and at worst ignores what we think is a serious problem and their responsibility to address it," Henderson said. "The Department of Justice often argues that its jurisdiction is limited. But we think the interpretation that they have given to their jurisdiction is exceedingly narrow and it certainly ignores the larger responsibility to use the bully pulpit of the Attorney General to make clear that the Department will vigorously prosecute where possible, under federal law, any attempt to suppress the right of duly registered American citizens."

Henderson said he and other voting rights advocates recently met with the Department's Civil Rights Division to discuss issues surrounding voting rights enforcement in the 2008 election. He and others civil rights attorneys said there are precedents for the Department to discuss their enforcement priorities -- as opposed to citing specific cases -- before an election.

"I spent 21 years in the Justice Department and there is precedent for the Department to issue a public statement about how they are going to interpret or enforce the law," Hebert said, giving the example of statements made on the eve of congressional elections that preceded federal redistricting.

Other election lawyers say the Department has "ramped down" from enforcing voting rights cases since the U.S. attorney firing scandal and Michael Mukasey became Attorney General. They did praise some recent cases or settlements where the Department acted on the behalf of voters, such as joining a suit in Georgia where local election officials wanted Latinos to present proof of citizenship as part of registering to vote -- which was not in their state's law, as well as fostering a settlement in Prairie View, Texas, where local election officials have repeatedly interfered attempts by university students to vote.

However, some recent campaign tactics by Republican partisans clearly have violated federal law and have drawn no Department response, the civil rights lawyers say.

Most notable in this regard in an investigation launched by Joe Deters, the county prosecutor in Hamilton County, Ohio, where Cincinnati is located, of several hundred people who registered to vote and then voted during a week-long window earlier this month. Even though Deters, who is the southwest Ohio McCain campaign chairman, this week handed the investigation to a "special prosecutor" after protests, a letter sent by the civil rights groups to that lawman, Michael O'Neill, compared Deters' investigation to intimidation by Alabama sheriffs who violated the 1957 Civil Rights Act "when they followed persons on their way home from a voter registration meeting and arrested them for traffic violations."

"Moreover, we believe that an investigation of persons based on nothing more than their exercise of their right to register and vote would also violate their constitutional rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution," the letter said, after detailing how Deters' investigation violated the voter intimidation sections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the National Voter Registration Act of 1993.

The groups singing the letter, which urged O'Neill to "suspend any investigation," include the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, ACLU Voting Rights Project, Demos, Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Project Vote and the Miami Valley Voter Protection Coalition and numerous Ohio law school professors. Letters were also sent to the Justice Department's Voting Section chief, and chief of the Criminal Section of the Department's Civil Rights Division.

"Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets. "
Napoleon Bonaparte

http://elrinconcitodeaurora.blogspot.com/

Fox News has Acorn on the brain

FROM: MEDIA MATTERS FOR AMERICA | COUNTY FAIR

FNC has gone all in on the Acorn voter registration story in recent days. Since Friday, Fox News has mentioned the community organizing group 342 times, according to TVeyes.com. (That's compared to the 61 mentions on CNN.)

Here's a glimpse of what Fox News' Acorn-mania looked like on Monday.

Published Mon, Oct 13, 2008 9:51pm ET by Eric Boehlert

Monday, October 13, 2008

SPECIAL COVERAGE: The GOP's ACORN 'Voter Fraud' Lie

The BRAD BLOG
Here are the most notable stories from that recently reignited scam...
10/7/08: 'Stunt' Raid at NV ACORN Office & the GOP ACORN Lie Revealed
10/8/08: RNC Issues Fox 'News' Transcript on ACORN 'Voter Fraud' as Press Release
10/9/08: GOP Election Official Claims ACORN 'Voter Fraud' in MO
10/9/08: GOP Sheriff Claims 'Voter Fraud' in Dem County in OH
10/12/08: FL's 'Voting-Rigging' Congressman Cries 'Voter Fraud' on Fox
10/12/08: 1.3 Million Reasons for the GOP 'Dixie-Chicking' of ACORN...

SPECIAL COVERAGE: The GOP's ACORN 'Voter Fraud' Lie

The BRAD BLOG
October 13th, 2008

The GOP's ACORN
'Voter Fraud' Lie

The seeds for this scam had been planted long ago. But by the GOP, not by ACORN. See our Special Coverage page of the GOP's "American Center for Voting Rights" front group, formed in early 2005 (just three days before they were called to testify to Congress on the '04 election) to begin the propaganda front for the 2008 election.

Also, see the Rosetta Stone for the modern day GOP "voter fraud" scam --- meant only to keep legal voters from being able to cast a vote at all --- in "Conservative Founding Father" Paul Weyrich's 1980 speech to 15,000 Baptist preachers in Dallas. The :40 second video is here, featuring Weyrich instructing his fellow rightwingers (including Ronald Reagan and Jerry Falwell, who were also there):

"I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people, they never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down."

And then, right on schedule, in the days prior to the 2008 election, the GOP again hauled out their bogus ACORN "voter fraud" scam, as the latest battle in the ongoing "Republican War on Democracy".

Here are the most notable stories from that recently reignited scam...

10/7/08: 'Stunt' Raid at NV ACORN Office & the GOP ACORN Lie Revealed
10/8/08: RNC Issues Fox 'News' Transcript on ACORN 'Voter Fraud' as Press Release
10/9/08: GOP Election Official Claims ACORN 'Voter Fraud' in MO
10/9/08: GOP Sheriff Claims 'Voter Fraud' in Dem County in OH
10/12/08: FL's 'Voting-Rigging' Congressman Cries 'Voter Fraud' on Fox
10/12/08: 1.3 Million Reasons for the GOP 'Dixie-Chicking' of ACORN...

...And the FACTS to Counter It...
10/13/08: McCain Was ACORN's Keynote Speaker in 2006!

Getting the picture? Please click the links above to learn what you aren't being told about this story by the clueless corporate media.

The BRAD BLOG covers your electoral system, fiercely and independently, like no other media outlet in the nation. Please support our work with a donation to help us keep going. If you like, we'll send you some great election integrity documentary films in return. Details on that right here...

McCain Hearts ACORN! Was Keynote Speaker at Group's 2006 Rally!

The BRAD BLOG
October 13th, 2008

(Were There Any Preconditions?)

Golly, for a group that's committed so much "voter fraud" for so long (if you're gullible enough to believe the lies that RNC/FNC has been telling you) it's mighty strange that, as News One notes, "McCain attended an ACORN convention just two years ago."

The once-honorable Republican's campaign has even seen fit to produce a video smear ad, attempting to tar Obama with "associations" to ACORN, and alleging the group has committed "massive voter fraud" to boot! (They've yet to produce any actual evidence for that, unfortunately.)

But more than just attending the ACORN-sponsored February 2006 rally, ACORN confirms in a statement today that McCain was actually the keynote speaker!

So now, they wonder, why it is that McCain seems to have "lost that loving feeling?"

"It has deeply saddened us to see Senator McCain abandon his historic support for ACORN and our efforts to support the goals of low-income Americans. Maybe it is out of desperation that Senator McCain has forgotten that he was for ACORN before he was against ACORN," noted Bertha Lewis, Chief Organizer of ACORN.

"We expected Senator McCain to support our efforts to give voice to millions of Americans who have never participated in an election before," she continued. "We are surprised at his efforts to vilify an organization that, until recently, he saw as an ally."

Hmmm...So, why was John McCain "palling around with" an organization that "has violated more Americans' civil rights to have their votes counted than any group since the KKK," as described by noted Florida 'vote-rigger' and McCain surrogate Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Abramoff)? Or was Feeney speaking out of school? If so, we've yet to hear McCain condemning the outrageous remarks, or distancing himself from Feeney, the three time winner of CREW's "Most Corrupt Members of Congress" Award.

Also, we can't help but wonder, in regard to McCain's meeting with ACORN...were there were any preconditions before he agreed to meet with them?

ACORN Rallies Its Troops

The Atlantic
Mark Ambinder

09 Oct 2008 07:04 pm

Republicans v ACORN has become a perennial early October antagonism, and tensions this year are particularly acute, with Republicans from the McCain campaign all the way down to House Republicans accusing the left-leaning community organizing group of a national conspiracy to flood secretaries of state with fraudulent voter registrations.

It's true, as Ben Smith notes, that Bugs Bunny and other imaginary voters can't imaginably show up at polling precincts and vote, but Republican complaints, to the extent that they are legitimate, are different. It's the rush of voter registrations at the end of the cycle, a rush which leaves election supervisors in the untenable position of having to very quickly decide whether applications are valid or not. Often, bad applications get through. Critics of ACORN wonder: why are fraudulent applications submitted in the first place? It's the system; you pay people to turn in as many voter registration cards as possible, you invite people who want more money to submit false forms. Critics also wonder: why aren't more people -- read the media -- covering this? After all, incidences of fraud are rampant, with official investigations launched in 12 states. Now -- "rampant" might not be the best adjective. Voter registration cards aren't the property of ACORN or any other group, and ACORN is required by law to turn in every completed form -- even if they're obviously fraudulent. ACORN insists it has procedures in place to flag these forms, but you can't blame supervisors of elections from throwing up their hands when they come in.

Even some Democratic groups are wary, not because they think ACORN's doing bad work, but because the sheer size of ACORN's operation lends itself to individuals who can easily game the system, and because the focus on ACORN increases the scrutiny of their own work. It's clear that there's extraordinary interest in this election, and huge amounts of new voters are entering the system, and, sorry Republicans, they're not...Republicans. These October protests seem like a logical place for conservative activists to hold and nurture their grievances about the political environment. Call it galling, for example, that ACORN's voter reg. projects are nominally non-partisan, when, in point of fact, the places they go and the things they do seem to help Democrats disproportionately. Galling, but conservative groups can set up voter reg. organizations like this if they want.

After the jump, read an internal memo from ACORN's directors, Bertha Lewis and Steve Kest, to its political allies, where the claim that ACORN has become a right-wing bogeyman is advanced.

Re: The Truth About ACORN's Voter Registration Drive

To: Interested Parties
From: Bertha Lewis and Steve Kest
Date: October 9, 2008
Re: The Truth About ACORN's Voter Registration Drive

Election Day is less than a month away, and our efforts to make sure that low-income and minority voters have a voice and vote on November 4th are in full swing. Unfortunately, just as we've seen in previous election cycles, the more success we have in empowering these voters, the more attacks we have to fend off from partisan forces making unfounded accusations to disparage our work and help maintain the status quo of an unbalanced electorate. We want to take this opportunity to separate the facts of our successes from the falsehoods of our attackers.

On Monday, October 6, as voter registration deadlines passed in most states, ACORN completed the largest, most successful nonpartisan voter registration drive in history. In partnership with the nonpartisan organization Project Vote, we helped register over 1.3 million low-income, minority, and young voters in a total of 21 states. Highlights of this success include:

We collected over 151,000 registrations in Florida, 153,000 in Pennsylvania, 215,000 in Michigan, and nearly 250,000 in Ohio.

An estimated 60-70 percent of our applicants are people of color.

At least HALF of all are registrations are from young people between 18-29.

We are proud of this unprecedented success, and grateful to everyone who supported us in this massive effort, from our funders and partners to the literally thousands of hardworking individuals across the country who dedicated themselves to the cause and conducted the difficult work of registering 1.3 million Americans, one voter at a time.

And this work is far from over: now begins our effort mobilize these new voters around local and national issues, getting them to the polls and helping to channel their commitment and conviction into an ongoing movement for change in our communities.

As The Nation pointed out recently, ACORN's success in registering millions of low-income and minority voters has made it "something of a right-wing bogeyman." Though ACORN believes that the right to vote is not, and should never be, a partisan issue, attacks from groups threatened by our historic success continue to come, motivated by partisan politics and often perpetuated by the media without full investigation of the facts. As a result, there have been a few recent stories about investigations of former ACORN workers for turning in incomplete, erroneous, or fraudulent voter registration applications. Predictably, partisan forces have tried to use these isolated incidents to incite fear of the "bogeyman" of "widespread voter fraud." But we want to take this opportunity to set the record straight and tell you a few facts to show how these incidents really exemplify everything that ACORN is doing right:

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 incomplete, problem, or suspicious cards when we turn them in, but these warnings are often ignored by election officials. Often these same officials then come back weeks or months later and accuse us of deliberately turning in phony cards.

Fact: Our canvassers are paid by the hour, not by the card, so there is NO incentive for them to falsify cards. ACORN has a zero-tolerance policy for deliberately falsifying registrations, and in the relatively rare 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 charges have ever been brought against ACORN itself. Convictions against individual former ACORN workers have been accomplished with our full cooperation, using the evidence obtained through our quality control and verification processes.

Fact: Voter fraud by individuals is extremely rare, and incredibly difficult. There has never been a single proven case of anyone, anywhere, casting an illegal vote as a result of a phony voter registration. Even if someone wanted to influence the election this way, it would not work.

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 and allowed to vote, so there is also NO incentive to "disrupt the system" with phony cards.

Fact: Similar accusations were made, and attacks launched, against ACORN and other voter registration organizations in 2004 and 2006. These attacks were not only groundless, they have since been exposed as part of the U.S. Attorneygate scandal and revealed to be part of a systematic partisan agenda of voter suppression.

These are the facts, and the truth is that a relatively small group of political operatives are trying to orchestrate hysteria about "voter fraud" and manufacture public outrage that they can use to further suppress the votes of millions of low-income and minority Americans.

These tactics are nothing new, and history has shown that they will come to nothing. We'll continue to weather the storm, as we've done for years, and we'll continue to share the truth about our work and express pride about our accomplishments.
Most importantly, we want to assure you that this good work continues, unabated and undeterred. 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. If the partisan political machines are afraid of low-income and minority voters, they're going to have to do a lot better than coming after ACORN.

After all, there are now at least 1.3 million more of them, and they will not be silenced. They're taking an interest, and taking a stand, and they'll be taking their concerns to the voting booth in November.

And ACORN will be here, to make sure that the voices of these Americans are heard, on Election Day and for every day to come.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Re: TPM Muckracker | A Dose of Reality on the ACORN Hysteria

By Zachary Roth - October 13, 2008, 1:09PM

It's worth taking a moment to step back from the slew of charges leveled over the last week at ACORN, the community-organizing group that Republicans and the McCain campaign have been trying to turn into a bogeyman for fears about vote fraud (and, of course, tie to Barack Obama).

The GOP has accused ACORN of submitting fraudulent voter registration forms numbering in the hundreds or thousands, in battleground states including Ohio, Indiana, Nevada, and Missouri.

But the most important point that's getting lost in the Fox-generated hysteria is that, according to voting experts, even when fraudulent voter registration forms are submitted, they virtually never lead to fraudulent votes being cast. Richard Hasen, a law professor at Loyola and an authority on voting law, wrote in a 2007 op-ed published last year in the Dallas Morning News and noted recently by TPM, that "the idea of massive polling-place fraud (through the use of inflated voter rolls) is inherently incredible," because of the sheer logistical challenges it would require to carry out on a large scale.

In many states, ACORN is required by law to turn in all the forms it collects, though the law differs from state to law, according to experts.

ACORN has consistently said that it flags suspicious forms for election officials. Indeed, in Nevada where last week an ACORN office was raided in an investigation headed by the Secretary of State, ACORN was already cooperating with authorities.

According to a statement from the group which has not been disputed by state officials, in July, ACORN set up a meeting with county elections officials and the Secretary of State's office to urge them to take action on information ACORN had provided. Since then, "ACORN has provided officials with copies and--in some cases--second copies of many of the personnel records and the 'problem card packages' and cover sheets with which we originally identified the problem cards."

It's also worth noting that similar allegations were made against ACORN in the last few election cycles, and several investigations were conducted, none of which found evidence of widespread voter fraud. Many of these were conducted by US attorneys, who were pressured by GOP political figures to investigate the issue, then fired after they failed to come up with sufficient evidence.

So as the GOP campaign to make an issue out of ACORN continues -- and we'll be keeping you posted as it does -- remember that the number of fraudulent votes that will be cast in November as a result of the group's voter-registration activities is close to zero. But the number of valid voters who could potentially have obstacles placed in their way of voting, as a result of the Republican campaign, is far larger.

Re: TPM Muckracker | Indiana and Ohio Spar Locally with ACORN

By Kate Klonick - October 13, 2008, 4:02PM

As the Republican furor over ACORN and voter fraud continues to heat up nationally, there are two local developments in Democratic counties in swing states that are worth noting.

In Indiana, where there have already been squabbles in heavily Democratic Lake County over early voting, the secretary of state has now asked the state attorney general and federal prosecutors to investigate ACORN for voter fraud.

Secretary of State Todd Rokita wrote a letter to fellow Republican, AG Steve Carter on Friday, stating that he had received "secured credible evidence" of voter fraud perpetuated by ACORN, the AP reports.

"There looks to be some felonious actions taken here," Rokita said to reporters. "I think the message to the voters and taxpayers of this state is that we're watching, and we're not going to tolerate the kind of behavior in the state."

ACORN responded on Friday saying that they themselves had "identified approximately 2,100 cards in Lake County that we believe were problematic."

"We are the victim here because we have identified the problem, and now certain interests are turning that information against us," Brian Kettenring, a spokesman for ACORN said.

And Lake County isn't the only Democratic stronghold in a swing state to be dogged by voter fraud accusations. The bipartisan Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, a county which contains Cleveland, held hearings today and voted unanimously to ask the county prosecutor to investigate multiple registrations of individuals registered by ACORN, the Columbus Dispatch reports.

Four people were subpoenaed in front of the board this morning, testifying that they had been asked to register multiple times by ACORN solicitors.

Katy Gall, the ACORN director for Ohio, said that they had cooperated with the investigation and would terminate the employment of anyone found soliciting multiple registrations.

No charges have been filed against ACORN in either state and in Indiana, the attorney general has yet to respond to Rokita's request Friday for an investigation.

ACORN Response to Senator McCain’s Smear Ad

ACORN

October 10, 2008

ACORN President Maude Hurd released the following statement today in response to the McCain campaign's new ad claiming that, among other things, ACORN is responsible for the mortgage crisis:

"For almost a decade, ACORN, a community organization of 400,000 families in neighborhoods across the country, has been fighting against the predatory lending practices that have robbed our members of their homes, destabilized neighborhoods, and roiled the global economy.

"In his newest ad, John McCain's campaign bizarrely claims, 'ACORN forced banks to issue risky home loans, the same types of loans that caused the financial crisis we're in today.' Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, ACORN has worked successfully to help working class families get good home loans on fair terms from legitimate banks and has fought vigorously against predatory lenders who have ripped off families in our communities. These predatory loans caused the crisis.

"For more than a decade, ACORN members have held protests, released reports, and advocated for regulations to protect homeowners from predatory lenders. ACORN organizers and volunteers have been working day and night to help victims of the GOP economic meltdown to save their homes from foreclosure. In fact, ACORN has brought class action lawsuits against several predatory lenders, and has lobbied the Federal Reserve and Congress in support of regulations against predatory lending. ACORN has even been successful in convincing many lenders to treat homeowners more fairly and help families be able to make their mortgage payments and save their homes.

"Unfortunately, the Bush administration and Congressional Republicans like John McCain have blocked the sensible regulations that ACORN and others proposed that would have averted the mortgage meltdown. If John McCain thinks that community organizers caused the foreclosure crisis, he knows even less about the economy than previously thought.

"John McCain and the Republicans are desperately trying to shift the blame for the economic crisis they caused with a philosophy of deregulation and indifference to homeowners. All the grainy footage and creepy music in the world can't cancel out some simple, basic facts, and the facts about the economy are not on John McCain's side."