Acorn Loses Bank Of America As Corporate Partner

Wall Street Journal:

Already facing the loss of federal government funding, the community-organizing group Acorn also has run afoul of one of its big corporate partners, Bank of America Corp.

In response to questions from The Wall Street Journal, a spokesman for the banking company said it has "suspended current commitments" to Acorn Housing, an affiliated group, and "will not enter into any further agreements with Acorn or any of its affiliates," pending assessments by the bank of the organization's operations.

Read the whole story: Wall Street Journal

Comments

[CaptainStormfield]

http://www.alternet.org/media/21192
The Right-Wing Express
Worth reading in light of current events.

[Betsy]

I learned a little about ACORN when Bertha Lewis their current CEO appeared on C-Span on the morning of September 18th, 2009. ACORN is a 40 year old organization and 99% of their clients are black or brown.

The previous CEO was let go due to an embezzelment situatuon. ACORN recouped all of the money that was stolen. They took on dishonest lenders and beat their a@@es in court. 20,000 people were able to stay in their homes in 2008 due to their intervention.

Wall Street and lenders across this nation duped millions of people out of billions of dollars and none of it has been recouped. I now understand why the right wing is so intent on destroying this organization. ACORN makes them look bad and they don't want black and brown people to have the same rights they enjoy themselves.

[TSAQ]

(ACORN) is going to be just fine. (Good) always wins out over (bad), (truth) over (lies) and (LOVE) over (hate).

[itsallcomingapart]

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/61519432.html?elr=KArksc8P:Pc:Ug8P:Pc:UiD3aPc:_Yyc:aULPQL7PQLanchO7DiUr

[ladybug7]

Blackwater has 5 employees charged with murder. KBR is being investigated for the deaths of 16 American soldiers electrocuted in Iraq by crappy construction by its employees. Why is nobody cutting their funding? I think murder trumps prostitution.

[ladybug7]

I wonder if ACORN could pull a Blackwater and change it's name and reemerge. Rachel Maddow, on Friday night did a good piece and asks why funding is not stopped on the contractors that have actually had indictments against them. She thinks this ban will be unconstitutional.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#33027963

[tompoe]

Bank of America lost Acorn as a partner. Acorn has suspended doing further business with BofA, pending outcome of criminal investigation of the bank's practices.

[Donnat]

BOA, a cabal of criminals, thinks its name could be further sullied by being linked to ACORN? I'd rather support ACORN any day than have my money in BOA. ACORN may have a few bad apples (or seeds) but they could never cause a global financial meltdown.

[daultman463]

How`s that boycott of beck going?Guess BOA boycotted the wrong people. I guess they heard beck always talking about acorn .

[PDXTransplant]

The Irony...BOA are bigger crooks than Acorn. Ha!

[DimBulb2]

Not ironic at all

"Acorn" is not a crook
a few members did things illegal
the organization as whole does much good and needed work

[Jezreel]

Agreed.

[Torsin]

ACORN is a fine institution. Granted there was a few bad apples but all organizations have some. Get over it.

[AnnfromCA]

ACORN bragged about defying legal foreclosures, helping people break in and become squatters. I can only imagine that BofA is happy to dump them as "partners." That's a kind of partnership that is akin to "partnering" with your local gang for "protection."

[whitenoise007]

the audacity! helping homeless find shelter, denying the corporations of the pennies that line their coffers. oh, the injustice! who will protect the victimized corporations?

[zippy01]

Those "acts" are wrong....doesn't matter if it makes you feel good, it is still wrong. Of course on the left it only matters if you feel good.

[Donnat]

Yeah, and BoA is a real friend of the people...

[lauram]

Acorn needs to take a page from Philip Morris and just rename themselves. Their name has become toxic to their mission. Acorn, clean house and change name!

[Jezreel]

Agreed. I was just thinking the same thing.

[biabouman41]

Everyone jumped on the backs of Acorn, but apparently there was a great deal of fraudulent reporting of the accusations. Rachel Maddow is on the case so we will get a quality assessment of Acorn. We should not be in a rush to condemn.

[xtiangodloki]

Sheesh, I think people are forgetting the fact that ACORN actually does a lot of good for the poor people who are looking for information on housing amid this crazy market. However, voting irregularities aside (though this seem to be the biggest issue coming from the right wingnuts), ACORN simply was not managed well. The organization has terrible accounting and some people at the top appear to abuse their expense accounts.

I can only hope that at the end of this whole fiasco ACORN can find a new management and implement sound reforms. It would be sad for some communities to lose this type of service.

[Jayk4444]

ACORN should focus on the 'good' it does for communities and the poor and stay out of politics. I don't believe there would be taxpayer funding issues if it were a non-partisan group working for the homeless and citizens. The involvement with SEIU and politics should revoke the federal funding - our tax payer dollars.
ACORN management should have sticked to their core programs. Poor decisions have consequences.

[RnR]

They don't suggest who to vote for, they just get them registered. That does become a problem for the right, corporations and a lot of congresspeople. You know, kinda the moment of reckoning.

[KellyKay]

I agree with you, but part of the problem when supporting ACORN is to remember that the problem was with false applications during voter registration (which ACORN caught and notified the gov), not voting irregulairites.

[whitenoise007]

i'd argue that people aren't "forgetting" their productivity; it's that very productivity that makes the right wing see red.

[CaptainStormfield]

http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/village-voice-independent-filmmaker-j
":As I thought, "independent" ACORN filmmaker James O'Keefe has a right-wing sugar daddy - Peter Thiel, one of the founders of PayPal. Via the Village Voice"

Thanks to Crooks and Liars.. and Gawker.. So the scrappy little conservative college student is being
bankrolled by a rich gay millionaire from San Francisco??? Please push this around the web.

[ProudNeoCon]

Even if that is true, how does it change his videos and Acorn's crimes?

[Donnat]

Makes me wonder about editing for a start.

[Jezreel]

ACORN did not commit crimes. Instead, ACORN has a perception problem. It's a perception problem resulting from ACORN's own faulty management system and a right wing conspiracy campaign.

[CaptainStormfield]

What crime did they commit? They registered no illegal voters. They have been investigated several times. When they get voter registration forms from their field workers that have fake information, they are required by law to turn them in, and they did. So then the right wing media trumpets that "Accorn is faking voter registrations".
Accorns crime was taking down a big Mortgage company in the 90's. The Corporado's dont like that. They registered a lot of Democratic voters. The Right Wing and the Old Money Rich that they represent dont like that.

Congress cant get off its ass and investigate the billions handed to the "contractors" used in the Iraq war. Why are they going after Accorn so hard?
For example, KBR ignored common sense electrical codes and electrocuted 5 or 6 soldiers in Iraq. Where is the hue and cry from you "Neocons" about that? 90 dollars for a bag of laundry that the grunts said came back dirtier than it was. Of course they were ordered not to do thier own laundry. All you have to do is read some of the soldiers blogs and emails. Jeeezzzzus­ssssssssss­s
I hate Neocons...

[selma]

It doesnt matter who funded whom...these employees were caught aiding the prostitution of under-age girls and pointing fingers is not going to help.

[Jezreel]

The employees contacted the police after the visit. They did not aid the prostitution of under-aged girls.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2345518/posts

[rjohns3]

ACORN will be fine w/o BoA.