19 thoughts on “The ACORN Episode”

1. Hey Maha: Your suspicion about ACORN’s true motives may be right on the money. To the extent that the unedited tapes still exist, Breibart et al. may now be obligated to preserve them. If they do not, they could open themselves up to sanctions and/or adverse negative inferences. (I am not sure of the rule in Maryland, which is where ACORN filed suit).

   What will probably happen, though, is that by the time these tapes come out – in 2 to 3 months (and probably longer) – our ADD culture will ensure that no one cares enough about this story to print any follow-up. And Congress will not want to touch it. (On the plus side, have you been following what Grayson is doing [http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/radio/2009/09/23/grayson/] — I doubt it will make much of a difference, but it sure throws egg on the face of the House and exposes their hypocrisy).

2. “One strongly expects that an organization catering to wealthy white people that was caught in the same sting would have been treated differently.”

   Ya think? Imaginary pimps and hookers caught in an imaginary discussion with ACORN employees? Who knew the wing-nuts had such good imaginations, must be the home schooling! I predict these tapes will be exposed as edited out of context con jobs, hey FAUX does it everyday right out in the open.

3. A very funny satire of Glenn Beck and ACORN at http://www.bfranky.blogspot.com. Is this going to be the “scandal” that the right uses to delegitimatize Obama? And no Democrats are fighting back? This is becoming more and more like Kerry and the Swift Boaters.

4. They’ll destroy the tapes, if they have any brains (yeah, I know the problem with that premise…).
   I’m tired of the Democrats reacting to this crap by doing what the right wants. I’m also sick of the media picking up these BS stories and running with them, no questions asked.
   I suppose we should all be thankful that McKenzie Phillips (or whatever her name is) slept with her father (there’s a “Mama’s and Papa’s” joke there, but I’ll leave it alone). It may give enough cover for this ACORN BS to blow over and something useful to get done with health care.
   It would help if other mini-celebrities stepped forward with their own sleeping with their father memories. Anything you care to share with us William Kristol? Glenn Beck? Ann Coulter? Something has to explain why you became what you are.*

   *maha, I don’t blame you if you pull this last paragraph. It’s a rotten thing to say. But no worse than some of what’s been said by them about us.

5. I think some of them genuinely believe that ACORN is the only reason their candidates crashed and burned in the last couple of elections.

   True that. The surprise will be that the Right’s troubles aren’t going to vanish after they’ve brought down that mighty mighty organization, ACORN.

   Anything you care to share with us William Kristol? Glenn Beck? Ann Coulter? Something has to explain why you became what you are.

   Also true, never mind the asterisks. Perfectly valid questions. We already know Billy K had some daddy issues.

6. Thanks for the breitbart.com website. I sent them my favorite bible quote about Rupert Murdoch. :^)

   You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. (John 8:44)

7. On a related– and very much not funny– note, there’s this story:

   http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/24/census-worker-death-very_n_298433.html

   I suppose the Right will blame Hannibal Lecter for this one, even though the poor gentleman in question wasn’t “eated.” No anti-government terrorism here, nosiree.

8. bfranky – “…and no Democrats are fighting back?” Sort of after-the-fact since a democratically controlled Congress voted to defund the organization.

   {And then there’s Delay who by rights should be serving time and instead is befouling my livingroom every time I turn on the news (?)}

9. The left has been appallingly slow in responding in kind to the right’s constant mud-throwing. We meander around as though we don’t know how to fight. Clearly the fight has to take place out here and not anywhere near the White House. But it has to happen. And we really have to vet Congressional candidates in our primaries with much greater care. Meanwhile, let’s get off the defensive and on the offensive.

10. I don’t remember where I saw it, but one writer made this point about the ACORN controversy: the “outrage” over ACORN – an organization with a small budget but is effective at registering poor voters – compared to the more or less silent looting of this country by the wealthy, involving moneys that are hundreds or thousands of times greater than anything ACORN deals with, is telling. It’s not enough that the rich own this country and this government outright, they have to also quash some tiny ant of an organization like ACORN, all because it mobilizes the poor and gets them to vote.

    On a personal note, I walked onto the UCLA campus last week, and was stunned to see a spray painted sign on one of those telephone utility cabinets you see next to sidewalks in any city. The sign prominently featured the ACORN logo and read “ACORN PROSTITUTION ZONE”, indicating the entire UCLA campus. I couldn’t believe it.

11. And then, of course, there is the fact that the ACORN worker caught in the “sting”, that was later fired, had in fact reported the conversation to the authorities, so what little there WAS to the story, even that actually WASN’T.

    -me

12. So, what’s the next step? (1) Somebody drastically edits a video showing Obama giving a speech to the American Communist Party. (2) Repugs introduce articles of impeachment. (3) 3/4 of the Democrats vote for them because they don’t want to look soft on International Communism.

    When will these assholes (excuse my French) grow a pair, for cryin’ out loud?

13. Its too bad the U.S. Government didn’t disassociate itself from Blackwater as quickly as it did from ACORN. Of course, all Blackwater did was slaughter a few dozen innocent, brown-skinned Iraqis, whereas the ACORN employees may have facilitated prostitution. We all know conservatives are much more squeamish about human sexual behavior than mass murder.

14. Glenzilla, in The Distracting Benefits of ACORN Hysteria:

    Earlier this week, I wrote about how the Fox-News/Glenn-Beck/Rush-Limbaugh leadership trains its protesting followers to focus the vast bulk of their resentment and anxieties on largely powerless and downtrodden factions, while ignoring, and even revering, the outright pillaging by virtually omnipotent corporate interests that own and control their Government (and, not coincidentally, Fox News). It’s hard to imagine a more perfectly illustrative example of all of that than the hysterical furor over ACORN.

    ACORN has received a grand total of $53 million in federal funds over the last 15 years — an average of $3.5 million per year. Meanwhile, not millions, not billions, but trillions of dollars of public funds have been, in the last year alone, transferred to or otherwise used for the benefit of Wall Street. Billions of dollars in American taxpayer money vanished into thin air, eaten by private contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, led by Halliburton subsidiary KBR. All of those corporate interests employ armies of lobbyists and bottomless donor activities that ensure they dominate our legislative and regulatory processes, and to be extra certain, the revolving door between industry and government is more prolific than ever, with key corporate officials constantly ending up occupying the government positions with the most influence over those industries.

    Exactly as one would expect, the prime beneficiaries of all of that pillaging continue to grow. The banks that almost brought the world economy to collapse but then received massive public largesse because they were “too big to fail” are now bigger than ever; as The Washington Post delicately put it: “The crisis may be turning out very well for many of the behemoths that dominate U.S. finance.” Everything involving the government turns out well for these “behemoths” because they own and control the U.S. Government.

    …But rather than focus their anger on these folks, conservatives choose to go after an organization composed almost entirely of low-paid community organizers, an organization that could never hope to have even a small fraction of the clout or the ability to affect the overall direction of the country that Wall Street bankers have. ACORN’s relative lack of political influence was on full display yesterday, when the U.S. Senate (in which Democrats have a supermajority) not only entertained a vote to defund ACORN, but approved it by a huge margin (with only seven Democrats opposing).

    If one were to watch Fox News or listen to Rush Limbaugh — as millions do — one would believe that the burden of the ordinary American taxpayer, and the unfair plight of America’s rich, is that their money is being stolen by the poorest and most powerless sectors of the society. An organization whose constituencies are often-unregistered inner-city minorities, the homeless and the dispossesed is depicted as though it’s Goldman Sachs, Blackwater, and Haillburton combined, as though Washington officials are in thrall to those living in poverty rather than those who fund their campaigns. It’s not the nice men in the suits doing the stealing but the very people, often minorities or illegal immigrants, with no political or financial power who nonetheless somehow dominate the government and get everything for themselves. The poorer and weaker one is, the more one is demonized in right-wing mythology as all-powerful receipients of ill-gotten gains; conversely, the stronger and more powerful one is, the more one is depicted as an oppressed and put-upon victim…

15. Although I’m sympathetic to ACORN, the Maryland law they are using in their lawsuit is ridiculous and should be unconstitutional. When you think about those videos that PETA shot in slaughter houses, those too would be illegal under this type of legislation. The recent documentary movie, The Cove, would be illegal. Such laws were written so that, for example, if you’re being defrauded by your health insurance company or your mortgage broker, you can’t record conversations to prove it. You can’t record Karl Rove asking you to rig Diebold voting machines so that only Republicans get elected. You can’t even record obscene phone calls to get evidence to have the caller prosecuted.

    These types of censorship laws exist only to protect wealthy fraudsters and other criminals, not “the little people” at ACORN.

16. On a totally unrelated note, Barbara I sent you a picture via e mail I wanted you to see… it comes from ckoneforu, but it is from me(justme) .. I thought of you when I saw it… I hope you get a chance to see it! 🙂

    • I saw. Buddha-shaped pears! Yummy.

17. Sam Simple

    “whereas the ACORN employees may have facilitated prostitution”

    There was no fucking prostitution it was all made up imaginary bullshit. Acorn is on tape talking about prostitution that never really happened to a pimp and a ho who were really neither (not in the literal sense anyway) geeze your as bad as FAUX, don’t conflate a right-wing setup job with an actual crime.

    I sit at my desk regularly daydreaming about how I could silence all the right wing boobleheads, it is a fantasy of mine, its in my imagination, its not illegal, nobody has fucking arrested me yet!

18. Here is an accurate example of what the wing-nut racists have done with the word Acorn. Notice how the word Acorn replaces the word nigger. This looks like a scene out of Mississippi 1953, better camera, not as obvious, just way better code, dam near acceptable. And this was at the 9-12 dimwit party, before our government decided to acquiesce. Nothing makes a phony democratic politician sweat like them colored pimps and ho’s!.

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