Census Bureau Severs Ties With ACORN
 

September 11, 2009 - The Census Bureau Severs Ties With ACORN over videos and surfacing details regarding mass corruption of ACORN and it's nearly 300 shell corporations.

The videos are from an undercover investigation featuring prostitution, child sex trafficking, tax evasion, money laundering, and so much more...

Enjoy!

ACORN Baltimore Prostitution Investigation Part I


ACORN Baltimore Prostitution Investigation Part II


After denials, claims of an isolated incident, and accusations of a smear campaign, another video surfaced in Washington DC.

ACORN DC Prostitution Investigation Part I


ACORN DC Prostitution Investigation Part II

I think that there are two issues here:

1. Whether ACORN is a nefarious organization participating in a conspiracy to disenfranchise conservative causes (haven't seen any convincing evidence of this, but I imagine it brings in page visits on conservative leaning web sites).

2. Whether the occasional ACORN employee is willing to break the law while punched in. Seems like any organization of sufficient size will have employees willing to break the law on the clock.

That was fun to watch. I mean, I haven't done all the research I should have on ACORN, but come on, you gotta know you're going to get in shit for this.

*waiting for conservative accusations that Obama is a pimp*

So...nothing? I wanted shit to hit the fan in this thread.

ACORN's problem is similar to what many other non-profit organizations who depend on volunteers face: how to keep discipline and accountability when people work for little or no money. The idea that somehow they were part of a grand scheme to manipulate national elections is nothing more than a fantasy by some of the fringe right.

The cases cited last year in relation to voter registrations were actually cases where acorn was the victim: they paid people on the basis of people registered, people made up registrations and got the money, ACORN flagged those cases they suspected of fraud and turned them in to the govt. By law they couldnt simply toss them out, but all of the ones caught were actually caught by acorn itself, who turned them in themselves.


Now, the issues in the OP are more serious, but I doubt they will find any sort of direct acorn policy encouraging that. Supervision in those positions is so low, and compensation too, that there is really no way for an organization like that to prevent this from happening.

Now, Im not saying this to excuse acorn's problems. Im doing it to show that the real problem is that it is a crappy bureaucracy with significant problems with accountability and supervision at the low level. Not that different from other similar organizations. Half a mile from my home is a donation center for goodwill. They are supposed to check what you are donating, see if it works, and fill out the receipt. Instead, the guy just sits there, tells you to drop whatever you are dropping off at the end of the hallway, and gives you a blank receipt. I've seen him offering to sell blocks of receipts to people.


The idea that this bureaucracy would be the mastermind in a plan to manipulate elections and the census is nonsense.

I never said or implied either. Since posting the OP, another video has surfaced showing the same pattern of willing enabling of illicit activity. The very same scenario was portrayed at a Brookland office where the workers were again eagerly assisting in the facilitation of tax fraud and the creation of a brothel filled with foreign minors for child prostitution. They are establishing a pattern where it appears that ACORN low income housing offices frequently engage in this kind activity as proficiently demonstrated by their representatives. Apparrently, they've saved the most damaging evidence for last. They will unveil a forth video tomorrow. It's billed as a major expose'. We'll see...

The video tapes show some nasty shit going on and ACORN has some major damage control. But in the end it is political theater. ACORN is red meat for the right.

There is absolutely nothing that I have seen to suggest any institutional policies that go beyond poorly trained or renegade employees, making ACORN guilty of sloppy and incompetent management that absolutely needs to be corrected or replaced ASAP....not just firing the employees who participated.

The Republicans in Congress will demand hearings...the right wing blogs will have a field day or week or two.
And Acorn's constituency, low income minorities, will see Beck/Limbaugh/Republicans as the enemy behind this incident and rally behind ACORN. Charges by the right of voter registration/election fraud will be a common theme in the 2012 election, further alienating those minority voters from he Republican party.

I think the general tfp additude would be to play this down or iignore, claiming it a non-issue. The third video was released Saturday... tomorrow they are supposed to be releasing the most damaging evidence. The mainstream press has been strangly silent on the evidence to date... perhaps that will all change tomorrow.

This is just one of many acorn scandals that has come out in the past year.

Maybe no one is paying attention because it's low level corruption in a relatively low level organization...

As for the "mainstream media" ignoring it, I found stories on this in all major networks' websites, as well as the washington post, wsj and so on. And the latest "damning" videos are actually milder than the stuff that was released before. And they claim that the latest videos contains evidence of acorn trying to help set up underage prostitutes, but the video itself contains the undercover videomakers asking the question about it, but edited out the response. Just as they won't release the tape of the interview in the acorn office where they were thrown out and reported to the police.

And of course, "down playing" it is in the eye of the beholder. The damning videos are of low level employees giving advice on how to illegally get loans and hide illegal activities. Is that damning for acorn? Sure. Does that mean that the organization needs major changes? Sure.

But would this even get the time of day if the fringe right wasn't trying to tie them to Obama and some wacko grand plan to manipulate elections and the census? Not at all.

How ever factions rationalize the outcome, ACORN will only have it's own deeds and actions to blame. This is some really seedy behavior conducted at the expence of the tax payer and those who really need legitimate assistance. ACORN seems less interested in cleaning up their own act, instead they claim foul or racism. The people of ACORN are the ones being exploited and thrown under the bus by their own leadership at the top... mostly rich white guys getting richer by the minute. ACORN is a shell game that will resurface under one of their hundreds of shell corporations. Leaving the disposable army of worker bees to take the fall... these are the people that should be pissed at the corruption of an institution now wrapped in phony compassion. They're back on the plantation and don't even know it.

This I agree with, with the exception of the taxpayer part.

The ACORN foundation that receives federal grant has little do with the ACORN politcal advocacy side. If you know anything about non-profit 501 (c)(3)s and 501 (c)(4), there are thousands of non-profits out there that have both like ACORN and structured in a similar manner, with shared facilities, shared administrative services, etc, but with separate staffing and payrolls.

Here is where we part ways.

Despite these ugly incidents, ACORN's voter registration drives have resulted in millions of first-time voters feeling a sense of not being disenfranchised for the first time in their lives....and that is the driving force behind the vilification of ACORN.

I dont know how registering millions of voters is a bad thing, unless perhaps, from some perspectives, these folks are overwhelming likely to vote Democrat.

I have a suspicion