Did anyone see the FOX interview of ACORN founder?
 

Last night on Fox a pre-recorded interview was aired and it was very interesting. Very honest in the questions asked and answered. Even about the guys brother who stole all that money. The money trail is too long to actually try to follow. Acorn is actually made up of thousands of some big but mostly small entities that all get money from you and me. Next time its on I'll have to watch it in its entirety.

Yes, I watched it.

It was about the grass roots of how that person started to legally scam the government up to and including today.

Until recently they have done a pretty good job of scaming the government, also the public.

I watched most of it.

Here's the net...Acorn has had a number of issues for sure, and has also done some good to help the inner city. They deserve to be investigated for a number of claims against them.

But at the end of the day, the amount of taxpayer money at play here is peanuts compared to other industries.

How much taxpayer money has been wasted in the defense industry over the decades? Hell, how much just in the Iraq reconstruction? We're not talking the few millions Acorn has received, we're talking hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.

Yet, listening to Right wing talk radio or FOX News you'd think that ACORN was a bigger threat to the US than alQaida.

-spence

My big issue with Acorn is they are using taxpayer$$ to elect folks they want.

Have you been waterboarded? Nobody thinks that Acorn is a bigger threat. They must be held accountable for their illegal actions. And it would have been billions not millions that they were going to get.

And haliburton charges $100 do do one small load of laundry in Iraq...;)
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Have they?

I've seen a number of complaints against individual Acorn members, but never any credible argument that they have been able to actually influence elections. This was the assertion of the McCain campaign in 2008 and it's been thoroughly debunked. Registration of false voters isn't nearly the same thing as casting illegal votes.

Hell, the inner city probably votes Dem 98% of the time and do you think Acorn's reach extends beyond that?

-spence

There are a few Acorn big players on trial for fraudulently registering voters. If someone is not legally eligible to vote, and then they end up voting because they were fraudulently registered, is that vote not cast illegally? May not be the same, but it's still wrong and can influence an election.

Show me where Acorn has actually influenced the number of votes cast, I've not seen it.

Voter registration, while certainly illegal, doesn't do anything but potentially line the pockets of those paid to register voters.

-spence

If someone is being paid to register voters, the person who is paying must have a reason. I can't think of a reason to pay someone to register voters unless it is that those so registered will vote. And if the votes thus cast are totally random (quantum theory votes?), is the philanthropist who is paying for the votes just making sure that citizens, who might not do so, are exercising their civic duty? Or is the "philanthropist" specifically requiring registration of voters in specific areas (inner city) who vote 98% Democrat and might not otherwise be inclined to vote? And how do you measure if the bought and paid for votes were cast? Of course, there is the possibility that the "philanthropist" is just giving the vote registerer some busy work to justify "lining his pocket."

Yes, the charter for the organization is to help low income people.

How about difficulty sourcing volunteers.

I don't think the charter is towards low income because they are more likely to vote democratic, it's just a natural product of the system.

There are no votes "bought and paid for."

Additionally, I'd note that voter registration is but one thing that Acorn has done for the inner city, and I don't believe any federal money has gone towards voter registration activities. I do think they need to provide more transparency of their books though...

-spence

The government should give them the authority to throw away any registration that they think is fraudulant.:rotf2:

You don't BELIEVE(?) any federal money has gone into registration "activities?" What other money do they have? And what BELIEFS(?) can be founded on books that need more transparency?

What else has ACORN done? Is it another one of those groups that are supposed to "empower?" Like those housing scams in Chicago? I live in a Democrat city that has empowered itself into the dust. One teeny ray of hope is that (maybe out of some desparate moment of empowered hoplessness) it has elected a businesss man, of sorts, as mayor. Whether he can successfully fight the empowerment crowd remains to be determined. Another small ray is the influx of latinos (legal or otherwise) who are, without waiting for empowerment, actually working, revitalizing their neighborhood while the rest of the city continues to decay into the dust of empowerment. They create small businesses, do manual labor at prices people can afford to pay, work hard, fix and improve and spruce up their houses, have lots of children, are productive in the worst economy in the country while their empowered natural born fellow "citizens" can't find jobs, let their neighborhoods deteriorate and infest with crime and wait for the next empowerment group or next check to arrive.

I don't think Acorn is telling them how to vote, but I would agree that statistics indicate lower income urban areas don't tend to vote for the GOP.

It's really about participation and the sense of empowerment.

Because low income areas are more dependent on others. A simple and common expression of this is found in the soup kitchen which are usually driven by religious rather than political beliefs. The Democratic platform certainly tends to share more of this "village" mentality.

Don't know...but I don't know of too many low income urban areas that vote Republican.

This is from what know...

I think voter registration is a small part of what the group has done. Their website lists a number of issues where they believe they've benefited the low income community.

I'm not sure how it's all funded, although what's clear is that they get a small amount of money from taxpayers, and even that has to go through a competitive bid process.

My position on this has been pretty simple. I'm not an Acorn supporter, but I think the GOP rhetoric on Acorn has been very misleading, if not simply dishonest.

-spence