Sometimes, in my copious spare time, I like to peruse what various folks in the media, both new and traditional, are saying about ACORN. Sometimes this makes me happy, for example when I see Ben Ehrenreich's well done article on what people are doing to combat the foreclosure crisis at the heart of the economic meltdown. And sometimes it leaves me perplexed. Like now, watching the right-wing blogs and then right-wing traditional media outlets pick up the ridiculous talking points from the GOP leadership attacking Obama's stimulus package by claiming that it gives ACORN a $4.19 billion bailout.
Puh-lease, people! When we heard that we fell over ourselves to see the language in the bill that would make us the richest organization of poor people in world history. We scrambled to set-up a direct deposit account. We wondered if check cashing outlets would take government checks. Turns out, though, that this $4 billion is pretty much like the last billion we read about in GOP press releases: a complete fabrication of overheated partisan fever dreams.
At this point I'm not sure what is more amusing: watching respectable elected officials parrot zombie talking points from the party that brought us the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression or watching so-called journalists mimic the charges without asking for proof. Or calling us for our comment.
So let's be clear. ACORN isn't getting any of this money. Since it is set aside for non-profit housing developers to help purchase, rehab, and resell foreclosed properties, we aren't eligible for it in the first place.
But wait. National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) spokesman Ken Spain goes one better, "It's hard to decipher which is the most fraudulent notion -- the fact that ACORN is a law-abiding entity worthy of a $4.2 billion bailout or that $1.1 trillion in out-of-control government spending is going to defy the experts and have some sort of immediate effect on the economy."
Oh my. All this invective for a group of 450,000 low- and moderate-income families living in 110 cities in the United States. This year we are definitely going to go as ourselves for Halloween. Clearly nothing is scarier - not the 2.3 million families facing foreclosure in 2008, not the nearly 70,000 layoffs so far this month, not the loss of over 2 million jobs in 2008, not the fact that over 50 million people lack health insurance.
But those are the reasons why ACORN supports President Obama's call for a stimulus package that creates 3-4 million new jobs. And those are the reasons why we are bemused by the tired partisan talking points being trotted by conservatives in their desperate attempts to continue with the catastrophic economic policies of the Bush years.
ACORN members won't be stopped by this petty partisan back-biting. We are ready to do what it takes to help America get back on its feet and get Americans back to work. We've been doing this for years. For the past decade ACORN worked hard to warn about the impending foreclosure crisis caused by unchecked predatory lending. Since 1996 ACORN worked hard to pass living wage and minimum wage laws at the local and state levels to close the wage and wealth gap. And in 2008 we ran one of the largest non-partisan voter registration drives in United States history. We helped over 1.3 million low-income people, young people, and people of color complete voter registration applications, one of the most patriotic activities in which any organization can engage.
Come to think of it, maybe those are the reasons conservatives have their panties in a bunch when they think of ACORN. But we think the time has come for the GOP leadership to pull their pants up, roll their sleeves up, and work together with the new Administration to put America back to work.
Because the consequences of the failure of our political leadership at this crisis point in our nation's history are much much scarier than anything contained in a GOP press release.
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GOP Rep: We Can't Be "The Party Of No"
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Dems Play Hardball: Target Republican Senators For Stimulus Support (VIDEO)
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Just When You Think You Can't Be Shocked By GOP Hypocrisy
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GOP Demands the Right to Keep Screwing Up the Economy
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The 200 Million Dollar Question
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Obama Had To Try Bipartisanship This Time -- Next Time Will Be Different
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34 GOP Senators Oppose the Recovery Plan, Caving to Their Demands is Useless
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Food for Thought for Next RNC Chairman
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Rush: 177, Obama: 0
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House GOP Tries to Raise Money Off Opposing Economic Help for Everyone Else
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I do agree with you, I have read through the Senate Bill Appropriation and did not see where ACORN would receive any funding.
http://thegrenade.wordpress.com/2009/01/05/2008-stewie-of-the-year-winner/
Are we talking http://www.acornhousing.org/index.php
Isn't this the nonsense that birthed a mortgage crisis?
"ACORN Housing Corporation launches non-profit mortgage brokerage with CitiMortgage, Bank of
If you are adept at internet research you will start asking...who is ACORN? There are a lot of 501(c)3 ACORNs. Then on the Form 990 it shows one ACORN paying another ACORN. Example, One ACORN shows ACORN Services as a paid third party contractor.
The organization hierarchy is as complicated as any mega corporation. There are many benefits to the 501(c)3 schemes and it isn't all money.
It isn't just ACORN, the 501(c)3 concept has been bastardized You can stick a myriad of things on the 990 under costs associated with running.
Come out of the matrix, do your own research.
From the NY TImes:
An internal report by a lawyer for the community organizing group Acorn raises questions about whether the web of relationships among its 174 affiliates may have led to violations of federal laws.
The June 18 report, written by Elizabeth Kingsley, a Washington lawyer, spells out her concerns about potentially improper use of charitable dollars for political purposes; money transfers among the affiliates; and potential conflicts created by employees working for multiple affiliates, among other things.
ACORN Housing Corporation is not ACORN. It is a widely-respect organization that helps low and moderate income people buy homes and avoid foreclosure. If you knew anything about how AHC's brokerage was set up you would know that it is NOT how we got in this mess and is, in fact, one of the answers to how we avoid future messes. Just check out their website: www.acornhousing.org
I find it interesting that you choose not to engage in a discussion of the work that ACORN does to benefit working families. Are you afraid of an organization of regular people that can raise the minimum wage in Florida, Ohio, Missouri, Colorado, and Arizona? That can help gut and renovate over 6500 homes ravaged by Hurricane Katrina? That can help families keep their homes in the face of the worst foreclosure crisis since the Great Depression?
I'm sensing someone who needs to pull up their pants and get to work helping America get back on its feet.
"We have not received neighborhood stabilization funds, have no plans to apply for such funds, and didn't weigh in on the pending rule changes.
http://www.acorn.org/index.php?id=12439&L=1%26tx_ttnews[pointer]%3D3%26cHash&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=22503&tx_ttnews[backPid]=12386&cHash=611d31dce1
http://www.opensecrets.org/parties/index.php
2008
Rep
Securities & Investment $27,704,250
Commercial Banks $4,493,914
Total $32,198,164
Dems
Securities & Investment $36,825,523
Commercial Banks $3,855,865
Total $40,681,388
Darn...don't ya just hate numbers as a factual basis for an argument. What say ye now?
What is the status of the several employees who've been prosecuted for voter fraud?
Why does ACORN have the highest rate of voter registration errors of all the big registration non-profits?
http://www.acorn.org/
The line that is being posted and attributed to funding ACORN is not actually from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, but lifted and twisted from the Press Summary posted on the House site.
It reads:
Neighborhood Stabilization: $4.2 billion to help communities purchase and rehabilitate foreclosed, vacant properties in order to create more affordable housing and reduce neighborhood blight.
(This sounds like a Shaun Donovan project under HUD, similar to some of the projects he undertook while Housing Commissioner in NYC)
What the right wing Bureau of Misinformation is posting is:
$4.2B for neighborhood stabilization activities including non-profit organizations, to include ACORN.
Please respond quicker, and faster with this type of defense to the lies and misinformation.
Don't let them win on any level.
‘‘Community Development Fund’’, $4,190,000,000, to be used for neighborhood stabilization activities related to emergency assistance for the redevelopment of abandoned and foreclosed homes as authorized under division B, title III of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (Public14 Law 110–289)
Typical right wing pretzel logic.
Anyone who actually thinks that, in one check, that they could get away with funding ACORN for the next 10,000 years is an i d i o t! Sad really, I even take many of the Dems numbers and statistics to task before climbing aboard any of their initiatives. To bad the typical repub believes everything they read or hear....
HERE IS THE PROOF -
Glass-Steagall was passed under the Roosevelt administration in 1933 in direct response to the Wall Street shenanigans that ushered in the Great Depression where banks shoved their own depositors into buying the stocks the banks were dealing.
The basic idea was to keep banks from speculating with the savings that American citizens were entrusting within their vaults. Its repeal, under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, drafted and passed by a REPUBLICAN congress, allowed commercial banks to merge with investment banks.
Source: http://consumerist.com/381032/blame-the-subprime-meltdown-on-the-repeal-of-glass+steagall
Here is a 1999 video of Senator Dorgan (D) warning congress not to pass the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvnO_SH-4WU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veAOoQEy0PI
The banks were throwing a lot of money at the Reps and Dems to kill Glass-Steagall. The economists argued that Glass-Steagall did not allow banks to use their economies of scale to bring services to the public. To me, I envisioned banks doing things they should not do. Well, I was right. Chalk one up for me.
Currently the SEC has passed 151A. Again 151A is to benefit Wall Street. There was an insurance product out there that allowed people to have returns based on the DJIA and S&P. You lost nothing when the market dropped. Wall Street witnessed $trillions leaving their hands. FINRA (look it up) was feathering their bed, using a Dateline piece helped push the SEC decision. Dateline is know for speculative, edited TV shows and should not be used to make law. The big wirehouses sit on the FINRA board and helped push FINRA.
In 2011 Wall Street controls the product and will leave it die on the vine, keeping it hidden deep within their desks. Wall street can't make money on non-liquid products.
it is interesting the way the GOP and banks use ACORN for their purposes