ACORN Target Of GOP Lies Because They Registered Voters

The greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream. The oak sleeps in the acorn, the bird waits in the egg, and in the highest vision of the soul a waking angel stirs. Dreams are the seedlings of realities ~ James Allen (11/28/1864 to 1/241912) a British philosophical writer known for his inspirational books and poetry and as a pioneer of the self-help movement.

Remember the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, and all the flap surrounding this organization that concluded with Congress defunding them, resulting in them closing their doors (they went out of business and no longer exist)?

It was a number of lies that brought down ACORN, all of them emanating from the Right. Seems the Right was desperate to get rid of this organization. Why? Because, ACORN "advocated for low and moderate-income families by working on neighborhood safety, voter registration, health care, affordable housing, and other social issues".

So... because ACORN advocated on behalf of people who usually vote Democratic, the Rightwing decided ACORN was the enemy, and that getting rid of ACORN would mean less poor and moderate-income voters registered and therefore fewer votes for Democratic candidates. (Although, of course, some of the people they registered voted Republican).

Paul Weyrich, the head GOP election-cheating guru (prior to his death near the end of 2008) conveyed the Repub strategy for winning elections when he said, "I don't want people to vote... In fact, our leverage goes up as the voting populace goes down". (see video below). Knocking as many legitimate voters off the rolls as possible (who might vote Democrat) explains why ACORN was a target.

ACORN, in fact, did absolutely nothing wrong. Nothing wrong except register people who were more likely to vote for Democrats than Republicans, that is. (Although they did some issues with hirelings who decided they wanted to be paid for doing no work and stupid employees who took the bait thrown out by GOP operatives. But that is on a small number of bad employees, not ACORN).

Lie #1: ACORN was involved in Election Fraud (2008)

Factcheck.org, in their article "The Whoppers of 2008 - The Sequel", refers to the charge of "election fraud" as "breathtakingly inaccurate" (under the heading "ACORN Fables").

FactCheck: There's a huge difference between voter fraud and voter registration fraud. And while ACORN, which hires part-time, $8-an-hour canvassers to go door-to-door and register people to vote, has had widespread problems with phony registrations invented by employees who don't want to work, the problem has never been that it sent people to the polls using bogus identities or to vote in any other fraudulent manner. Even the Republican prosecutor of the largest ACORN case to date said the shenanigans of ACORN workers were "not intended to permit illegal voting". (10/31/2008).

These were the hirelings who wanted to collect a paycheck and not actually do the work of collecting the voter registrations from real people. So they (on their own, in an effort to defraud ACORN) filled out the registrations themselves (by making up fake people). ACORN never directed their workers to do this. In fact, ACORN was a victim in these instances (of the lazy cheating individuals they hired to do ACTUAL work... as opposed to pretend work).

Lie #2: ACORN employees engaged in criminal activity (2009)

These charges came about as a result of "under cover" videos filmed by James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles. O'Keefe dressed as a pimp and Giles dressed as a prostitute... outside ACORN offices. Then they removed their costumes and entered ACORN offices. While inside they did not appear on camera (as the cameras were hidden on their bodies). The LIE was that they went into the ACORN offices in their ridiculous pimp and a prostitute costumes and ACORN employees interacted with them dressed that way... which is something that did not happen.

ACORN suffered an extremely damaging nationwide controversy beginning in the fall of 2009 after two conservative activists secretly made and released videos of staged interactions with low-level ACORN personnel in several offices, portraying them as encouraging criminal behavior. Some media publicized the videos without investigation. These videos were later found in several independent law enforcement investigations to have been partially falsified and selectively edited... (source: Wikipedia).

Unfortunately "the California Attorney General granted immunity to O'Keefe and Giles in exchange for their raw videos shot at three California ACORN offices"... which is why the lying fraudsters were not prosecuted. Although O'Keefe agreed to pay fired ACORN employee, Juan Carlos Vera, $100k and issued a public apology as part of a lawsuit settlement. (O'Keefe inquired if Vera could help "help get underage girls across the border". Vera said he could, but called the police after O'Keefe left).

Some other employees went along (thinking it was a joke), and others tried to help the "pimp and prostitute" because... who know? Perhaps because they're idiots? Or perhaps they actually were inclined to help O'Keefe and Giles commit criminal acts? Whatever the reasoning of these individual employees, they were fired by ACORN.

The ACORN verdict

ACORN (the organization), in regards to ALL these charges... of "election fraud" and of helping pimps and hos commit criminal acts... was found to be completely innocent.

The Seattle Times: The Congressional Research Service says in a new report that it couldn't find any instances in which people improperly registered to vote by the activist group known as ACORN showed up at the polls on Election Day. The report also found no instances in the past five years of the group misusing federal funds. Both houses of Congress voted to cut off money to the group after the release of videotapes showing employees advising two conservative activists posing as a pimp and prostitute. (Congressional report clears ACORN of voter fraud by Jonathan D. Salant, 12/24/2009).

Although this investigation confirming ACORN's innocence came AFTER the Right demanded a vote to defund the organization. And a number of chickenshit Democrats joined with Republicans to pass the Defund ACORN Act (DAA). As a result of this legislation pulling federal funding (10 percent of ACORN's budget) they also lost private donations and were forced to file for bankruptcy.

"That 20-minute video ruined 40 years of good work", said Sonja Merchant-Jones, former co-chairwoman of ACORN's recently closed Maryland chapter. Although ACORN did have some of it's own problems that contributed to it's downfall. (Acorn on Brink of Bankruptcy, Officials Say, 3/19/2010).

In any case, the GOP got it's way and stopped the evil ACORN from continuing to perform it's evil task of registering citizens legally entitled to vote, thus increasing citizen participation in the election process. Because when more people vote it's bad for the GOP and good for Democrats.

Republicans want fewer people to vote (and will cheat and scheme to achieve their dishonest agenda), whereas Democrats want more people to vote (although they will often wuss out in pursuance of their honest agenda of expanding participation). It's that simple.

Note: The final vote tally for the DAA was 345-75 in The House (with 2 "present" votes) and 85-11 in the Senate. Although, as Fox Nooz points out, "Democrats offered overwhelming support to the ACORN measure because they didn't want to derail the student aid bill" (which the DAA was attached to).

Video: Paul Weyrich, the founder of ALEC (The American Legislative Exchange Council), giving a speech in which he said "I don't want people to vote... In fact, our leverage goes up as the voting populace goes down". YouTube Publish Date: 4/6/2012. (0:38).

SWTD #300