The Rachel Maddow Show: The Truth About the Lies About ACORN
Rachel Maddow breaks down who is behind the smears against ACORN and why, and how dishonest the reporting has been by the right wing media on the topic.
MADDOW: It may seem like the only thing happening in Congress these days is the never-ending fight over and of health reform. But if you happen to be watching the House floor at 3:00 this afternoon, this is what you would have seen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. STEVE KING ®, IOWA: Who has consistently called for the clean-
up of the corrupt ACORN, the criminal enterprise ACORN and all of their affiliates? It‘s been people on the Republican side of the aisle that have done that. This is the star of ACORN. He is—he is the lead chief organizer. He is the—he is the person who told the people at ACORN, “I will invite you into the—and we will be setting the agenda for America,” even before he is inaugurated as president of the United States. This is the man who worked for ACORN.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: This is the star of ACORN!
That was paranoid Republican Congressman Steve King of Iowa, today, railing against the community organizing group ACORN, and falsely accusing President Obama of being ACORN‘s lead chief organizer. This sort of animus toward ACORN is something that‘s been percolating on the right for a really long time, but it‘s broken open recently as even Democrats in Congress have decided to go along with efforts to defund and demonize ACORN, and some Republican governors have even enthusiastically defunded ACORN as well, despite the fact that those governors didn‘t fund them in the first place.
Thanks for the right-wing crusade against it. ACORN has become a household acronym, and Republican America‘s most reliable trumped up bogeyman. It was the sixth most covered story in the country last week. ACORN has been caricatured by people, like Congressman King, as a corrupt, criminal enterprise that steals elections and turns a blind eye to prostitution. That‘s the story line the mainstream media has latched on to, as well.
What you might not know from all of the breathless ACORN damnation coverage is what ACORN actually does. They do things like advocating for a higher minimum wage. They do things like helping low-income families file their taxes. They do things like helping low-income families find jobs. They do things like registering people to vote.
That sort of work, as you might expect, has the tendency to rile up the kinds of industries that really don‘t want minimum wage to go up and really aren‘t that psyched about lots of poor people being registered to vote.
And as we discovered most recently in the healthcare debate, when industries sense a threat to their profits, they go into kill mode. They create corporate-funded purportedly grassroots organizations to derail and destroy whomever they believe to be the source of that threat.
Well, in the case of ACORN, I‘d like you to meet Richard Berman. He‘s a Washington, D.C.-based lobbyist who is essentially a hired gun for corporations.
Say you‘re a company that doesn‘t really want the minimum wage to be raised. But you also don‘t want to be seen fighting ACORN yourself. What you do is you hire Richard Berman. And what you get is “RottenACORN.com,” a grassroots-ish looking Web site dedicated to destroying ACORN and its, quote, “political thugs for hire.”
If you go to the bottom of that Web site, you‘ll see that “RottenACORN.com” is run by something called the Employment Policies Institute, a nonprofit think-tank that happens to be run by Richard Berman, who also happens to be the man behind grassroots-ish Web sites like the anti-labor one, “UnionFacts.com.” Also, “MercuryFacts.org.” which assures people that there really isn‘t that much mercury in that fish. Go ahead.
Because Mr. Berman‘s organizations are nonprofit, it‘s almost impossible to find out who pays him for his services. Luckily for us, Richard Berman is a bit of a chatty Cathy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICHARD BERMAN, LOBBYIST: Businesses themselves don‘t find it convenient to take on causes that might seem politically incorrect. And I‘m not afraid to do that. You‘re not going to get a lot of companies who want to say that “I‘m funding Rick Berman to go after you.” They‘re just not going to do it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: But go after them, he does. Richard Berman heads a laundry list of more than a dozen front groups that take on causes for business interests, like, say, the food and beverage industry. And of course, it‘s perfectly fine for him to head up all of these nonprofit, purportedly grassroots organizations.
Anyone in America has the right to lobby on anything they want to the all. The problem in the case of ACORN is that the effect of corporate-funded PR efforts like “RottenACORN.com” has been a jihad launched against ACORN by the right-wing media, which has since been joined by the mainstream media, minus any sort of real fact-checking of these corporate-organized facts about them.
A new study just released by a pair of university professors reveals the embarrassing extent to which the media has gotten the ACORN story really, really wrong. As groups like “RottenACORN.com” bought full-page ads in the “New York Times” to hype ACORN‘s voter registration scandal, news outlets picked up the storyline and ran with it.
According to this new study, about 80 percent of stories about ACORN voter fraud failed to mention that ACORN was the group that reported the irregularities in the first place.
About 72 percent of stories about ACORN failed to quote anyone from the organization at all responding to the charges against them. And 11 percent of the stories made the blatantly false claim that Barack Obama once worked for ACORN, a claim repeated on the House floor today by Congressman Steve King, a claim that is not true.
The media coverage of ACORN has been driven by a right wing campaign against it, a corporate-funded grassroots-ish PR effort to plant the idea that ACORN is somehow a cancer on the democracy. And it‘s an effort that is working.
Last week, Congress voted to cut off all federal funding for the group. Yesterday, the IRS severed ties with them all together. Today, ACORN laid off all eight employees that it had in the great state of North Carolina.
The people who are paying Rick Berman for his work, those people who think that their profits are threatened by what ACORN does, they‘re getting way more than their money‘s worth, whatever they‘re paying Rick Berman.
ACORN!!!
Nope; no racism here. I am totally fooled....
uh-huh
Time to practice what I preach. I can't afford much, but it's time that I donate to ACORN.
If a can of worms is being opened, they will still need to get themselves some fishing tackle to land these sharks.
Go ACORN!
ridiculous...
They don't want poor people raising the minimum wage... poor people come in all colors... Stop shooting from the hip.
You are either naive or stupid.
Though judging by the fact that most of your previous entries are snarky replies to people with whom you do not agree -
mean spirited might be a better answer.
I guess that behavior is safer here than in public.
I'd say both...
Also, this "chaking" might be a member of the Angry Group specifically paid to do fly-by blogs such as the one herein above. I suspect this is true because he/she hasn't responded further. Probably moved on to the next site.
Speaking of which, let's not forget that the inordinate time and energy spent vilifying ACORN is a massive red herring--a very effective one. Who is paying attention to the economy, health insurance reform, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran and myriad other pressing issues when attacking and dismantling ACORN dominates the news?!?
We The People should do whatever we can to help ACORN survive this hateful, spiteful, mean-spirited and deceitful attack. EVERY individual or agency targeted by the Angry Group needs our help and support.
The actual number of poor people who are white is the highest
But the relative size of poor minorities as a percentage of their demographic is highest of all.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
All about stopping the progressive and minorities from voting and having a say in ?our? government policies...
None of the elected officials give a d... about you or me... They have run for office for their own and family member's wealth , power and fame..
NO elected official ,, democrat or republican is stupid to the fact that American citizens are being screwed by them everyday and policy they pass..
They have access to every statistic there is about the lack of care , money , jobs for Americans and do not give a d......
We see the enormous amount of political and other goodies given to these elected officials and then how they vote...They are fooling no one , but the problem is the corporate news media which is playing the corporate song which is deceit , BS and propaganda..
The corporate news media is so bias for corporations and republicans that when they occasionally publish the truth they are called liberally and they pull back into the bias mode..
None
One more important factoid: SOOOOOOOO many of our adult population is functionally illiterate. Rather than have the embarrassing experience of revealing such ignorance to others, these poor souls depend on whatever 'news' source most successfully legitimizes their fears and resentments.
Enter FOX and other M$M shills for the corporate puppet masters...
As I watched Rachel's show last night, I was filled with joy at the prospects for what may be forthcoming. As she pointed out the hypocricy and and lack of spine by many of the Dems who voted to with defund ACORN but, have not noticed what this could mean for the Military Complex, I couldn't wipe the smile off my face. If ACORN is defunded, this will open up the can of worms. Perhaps the ACLU will file a suit against Congress for this double standard. Or, perhaps a suit against Black Water, KBR, and the rest who have committed the very violations ACORN is accused of. After all, ACORN didn't really sign up the fake hooker and pimp. What ACORN should do is file an injunction against Congress to halt this attempt to defund them until the investigation has been completed. The best outcome would be if Congress is found to be guilty of this double standard and forced to restore ACORN's funding. This would be a complete smackdown to faux news who would also be responsible for bringing this double standard to everyone's attention. This would kill them!
ACORN was at the center of the so-called “prosecutor-gate” scandal, when the Bush administration pressured U.S. Attorneys to bring indictments over the grassroots group’s voter-registration drives and then fired some prosecutors who resisted what they viewed as a partisan strategy not supported by solid evidence.
The GOP made fun of community organizers at their convention. Why? Any attempts by the people to organize against crony capitalism and corporations attempts to exploit lower income people must be stopped. Big Business and Wall Street want the workforce make just enough to eat and pay rent. Cheap-labor conservatives don't want too much progress or increase in the middle class.
So the pimp and hooker were plants; could it be that the ACORN employees were plants as well. It seems plausible.
Okeefe showed up at several ACORN locations across the country pulling the same crap. ACORN even filed police reports on him.
If you want to see a the police report and several other stories from various locations head on over to Media Matters.
http://mediamatters.org/research/200909240037
the first office to discover the ruse shouldve memo'd everyone else to be aware
they didnt
an American people who don't trust the Republicans. If I was a Republican I'd be working real hard to wash these idiots out of the party.
The idiots have spent the last how many years making statements and having them not be challenged because they owned the house and senate and white house. And because of that they basically owned the media. Well they don't anymore. So, every tactic to make democrats and liberals in general look bad is going to be challenged and they have nothing to back up these challenges because it's bullshit. And now the media is feeling a little freer to investigate and it makes good story. The challenges are going to be aired.
Jeanne
This is a story of how 50 people took direct action demanding that President Bush release money for energy assistance and not slash funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP).
"While 50 ACORN members were in the Illinois Republican Party headquarters, the phone rang, and an ACORN member answered it "ACORN, Can I help you?"
On the other end, they said, "What, ACORN? Wait a minute, this is the Republican Party in D.C. calling the Republican Party in Illinois."
The ACORN member said, "ACORN has taken over the Republican Party in Illinois. Can I help you?"
The response: "Oh my God."
Read the whole story here:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/ACORN-Took...
These freaks, who are too cowardly to say the word they really want to say, the "N" word, can now substitue ACORN as their dog-whistle word.
And moonsha, you hit the nail on the head!
And that's why corporations and corporatists are against health care for everyone. Who will work for their shitty wages if health care is no longer the tie that binds them to their shitty jobs? As long as there's no national health care, we are all slaves to the corporations who "beneficently" pay for it. And that's the way they want to keep it.
What would you do if you were free to pursue something you love rather than report to work for 40+ hours to a job that you hate, for a corporation you loathe, for low wages, merely to have health care for you and your family in case you get sick?
Then go to rallies for say...Tim Pawlenty and when he makes false statements call him on it with facts in hand. If somebody "running" for president is going to insinuate and lie about an issue it has to be brought out in the open. Just the facts ma'am.
Jeanne
Ahh.. what would we do in this country without rag journalism. Right up there with Swamp Thing's baby and Alien abductions, we have the nonsense about ACORN. What is really sad is that a lot of innocent people are going to lose their support and rights because of this flap.
What seems to be the difficulty with checking facts in stories? Why do reporters write a story or ad without checking with the company in question? Don't you think it's odd that recording and film artists have stalkarazzi but we don't even try to get a sentence from an accused firm?
I am getting very tired of the right-wing hysteria and bald faced lies. It is becoming paramount that this stuff gets stopped in it's tracks as quickly as it starts. If honest people do not stand up for what is right, the wrong will prevail. "Evil succeeds when good men fail to act."
due to their rotten product. I am hoping their offices and equipment will be auctioned off to some Sane Americans, or Liberals, and we'll get some REAL reporting.
Last year I was unemployed, and I went to them to do my taxes because they were on an IRS list of organizations that offered free tax preparation. I never got my taxes dove there because the Acorn agent kept trying to sign me up for an Acorn subscription, for a regular donation. I kept telling her that I was unemployed, but she wouldn't take no for an answer and kept asking me for money. Eventually she left the desk to get something, and that's when I decided to leave. Are these people on commission?
I think that the current Acorn thing is a witchhunt.
would have been to ask for a supervisor. I don't know about the commission thing, probably not, but they might have had an incentive contest for getting the most people signed up. I find that asking if there is a contest going on, people who are being pushy will back the fuck off. Asking for a supervisor does the same, usually.
You can go to the IRS directly for help. Before I was disabled, I always filed in person at the IRS office in town.
me-oww!
Good reporting and good journalism never shows any bias toward any side of anything.
Sometimes the facts are hard to swallow but lies betray the confidence needed for continuing the conversation.
The media outlets that offer lies and hot air have to fail. That is why I can't understand how Faux has stayed in business for as long as they have.
"I know that there are people who do not love their fellow
man, and I hate people like that! " ~ Tom Lehrer (1928 - )
Don't forget to abuse your family, degrade friends and associates through your poorly thought out plans these are the value of the Wacko Right Wing Racist Nazi Christian and the Goofy Opposition Party. Larry Craig gets applauded in the House by these phonies for trying g to pick up a male Prostitute, Foley gets protected for Pedophilia because they like teenage boys. Sanford governor of SC illicit sexual conduct and misappropriations of Government funds he is lauded as a hero,pawlenty gov. of MN and Gindal gov. of LA stopping non existence funds from nonexistence State funded Organizations Hey Stupid ACORN is FERERALLY FUNDED not State.
This is what these Slim ball Cowards want us to believe, yes the bush Crime Family the American Traitor cheney and rove, addington libby all COWARDS all CRIMINALS not counting the demand on the torture and VIOLATION of the Constitution by the RAPIST NAZI republican Party.
These Idiots want me to believe ACORN a organization set out to help people is crime ridden if that is TRUE than the republican party needs ALL Investigations into its CRIME FAMILY to go forward with OUT any HINDERANCE from them as they say if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to be afraid of so do you Racist Nazi Christians concur or the Goofy Opposition Party concur is that chicken cackling I here.
DiggsJeremy Scahill: ACORN Got Pennies Compared to War Contracting Firms- Their Crimes Pale in Comparison
I would have missed this segment as I did not see if come across the main C&L page. This one is some damn good reporting on other contractors who need to be called to account if the right-wing nutjobs are going to go after ACORN.
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/j...
we should wipe out the whole party.
republicanism is a mental illness!
Therefore, all the people "on the Republican side" who have been calling for "the clean-up of the corrupt ACORN, the criminal enterprise ACORN and all of their affiliates" are a bunch of lying assholes who should be run out of government the next cycle.
They want ACORN and similar organization gone. They don't want poor people to vote since poor people rarely vote Republican. They figure the reason they lost in 2008 wasn't because they mess up but because too many poor people voted. No ACORN, no poor people voting and the Repulicans are back in power.
The sad thing? They are wrong. They can get rid of ACORN, but it won't change a damn thing when election time comes around again. Republicans are just misguided on every level, and more and more people are bringing them to task about their wrong-headed ideas and beliefs. Until they start caring about every section of our nation, or start pretending they do *convincingly* they aren't going anywhere. They might as well get comfortable screaming their bile in exile.
I don't think I've ever seen Ms. Maddow so angry. It was beautiful to behold. And bless her for getting to the very heart of the witch hunt the right is waging against ACORN.
Why do we do anything, anything…it’s to profit, no? Are you profiting by stating your opinions on some blog somewhere? No? Then why do you do it? To ease your mind, maybe you have nothing better to do and you feel like supporting or defending your cause(s)? Isn’t somebody profiting even if it’s simply a self-help exorcise? As I attempt to understand people by their words and actions, I often recall that thread, promoting that book… [The Death of “Why?” by Andrea Batista Schlessinger]… the thread composed by Nicole Belle back on June 17th. → http://crooksandliars.com/nicole-belle/cl-boo...
I recently became confused with the Roosevelt name, just as I had recently with the Nelson name. Roosevelt because of the much talked about “New Deal” and Nelson because of C-street and healthcare talk. In my self-help approach to ease my mind, I looked up a lot a shit to get help clearing my confusion and I feel I profited from the aforementioned exorcises, up to and throughout my blabber here.
Without going into detail, partly due to laziness and partly due to the fear of having this comment truncated by admin, for it’s scope, I’ll try to bring it to a close, the best that my wandering mind will allow. As far as Acorn is concerned, I’d never heard of them until this past election cycle. What’s the premise behind a Democracy and a Republic? Why would an individual prefer one to the other?
“Democracy is a system of government in which either the actual governing is carried out by the people governed (direct democracy), or the power to do so is granted by them (as in representative democracy).”
"A Republic is a form of government in which the head of state is not a monarch and the people (or at least a part of its people) have an impact on its government."
It’s been said that there is power in numbers and that sounds fairly logical to me, absent a specific example and a well-armed entity. Organizing, ah that’s it, organizing!**
Throughout the 1920s, Abram directed Seattle's division of Goodwill Industries. He didn't just open stores for used clothes; he organized 49,000 housewives into thirty-seven districts and set them to work salvaging goods for the poor. In 1932, Franklin Roosevelt, governor of New York, invited Abram to his office to discuss his organizing system. Later he'd come to see Russian red running through out Roosevelt's New Deal, but at the time Abram was captivated by another man summoned to advise the governor, James Augustine Farrell, president of the United States Steel Corporation. (THE FAMILY: By JEFF SHARLET)
Hence my “Roosevelt” reference; granted I simply looked at wiki, but the allegations often seemed at odds and come to find out… rightfully so, there was in fact a rift in the Roosevelt family. Complete with a mild form of inbreeding. (Roosevelt, aged 20, married Franklin Roosevelt, aged 23, her fifth-cousin once removed).
As far as the Nelson name, one “Bill Nelson” is a (D) thumper from FL. and reported fellow member of “The Family” of C-street fame. The other “Ben Nelson” is a (D) thumper “Blue Dog” from Nebraska whom (IMO) seems to be against a true public option for one reason or another. In a Democracy where majority rules, how is a minority suppose to become a majority. Organize baby… Organize! Do ya think the RNC selected Steele because of his intellect? Do ya think they would be attacking ACORN if it were predominately a republican dominated group? By the way, getting back to that Roosevelt thing. Anna Eleanor Roosevelt (preferring her middle name) seemed to reflect an independent, progressive attitude supported and described by “FRANK SCHAEFFER” in his book, “Crazy for God”.
"By the 1920s, the modernists were taking over the seminaries and the bureaucracies of the big denominations. New York's most prominent Baptist minister, Harry Emerson Fosdick, converted to a new kind of orthodoxy --the belief in a liberal progressive vision of mankind. And he began to preach that the Bible was not literally true, but that God would save the world through human progress." --FRANK SCHAEFFER
I just found this stuff out last night and what I’ve yet to investigate was a specific rift in one of Eleanor’s famous accomplishments, specifically “Freedom House”. The Freedom House is a nonprofit organization. It is predominantly funded by the U.S. government, and is headquartered in Washington, D.C. and appears to have and had many an ideology. Of my particular interest is why a former affiliate (The Center for Religious Freedom) a division of Freedom House for 11 years, In December 2006, decided to move to the Hudson Institute, where it is now housed.?
Basically they envy ACORN for many reasons, some black and white,(pun intended) and in general they dislike the “organization” as a whole.(pun intended)
Here goes → → → Submit :)
Study the symptoms not the virus...
ACORN changes its name bare with me on this. Same concept different name I know what your thinking but at this point its the name that gets people mad.
Acorn has been in existence for 40 years, and they are just now in trouble for something, please. Republicans do more everyday that breaks the law then they ever thought of.
Seems like you turn on the news and you've got the majority slamming ACORN, while you've got Rachel or one of the other few reporting the truth about it.
Why don't we do what the Republicans do and start putting them on the defense?
Why don't we make huge scandals, and I'm talking guys who are willing to step up on the floor of Congress and rip to shreds certain organizations and people. People who are willing to NAME AND SHAME.
Call out these super-rich funded conspiracy mills and their super-rich benefactors, on the floor, as part of public record. The news will run with it, because they need something to fill up 24 hours with.
The other thing is, if a non-profit becomes politically active, kill their non-profit status. Non-profits aren't supposed to take political stances, anymore than churches are. Where's the IRS going after these people? And where are the feds requiring transparency? Where's the FEC?
If corporations are funneling money into political speech via illegal means, plug the holes.
Maybe there should be a little stricter Oath of Office, so Reps like Berman can be held responsible for telling outright lies.
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