So you’re not willing to admit your were wrong? One might come to believe that you aren’t arguing in good faith.
But I suppose if you want to parrot partisan misinformation that’s your business. I imagine it’s a lot less work than keeping informed.
If you’re going to quack like a duck…
Also, if you’d read my post, you’d have noticed that I did mention people who think they’re coming at this from a neutral or even liberal standpoint.
Agreed that this is unfortunately becoming the modus operandi of the RW
Why would an organization whose mission is to try to get poor people to vote also be in the business of giving tax-evading advice to these people, and why are they instructed to turn a blind eye to the legality of the job of the person they are advising? (as some have suggested)
BTW, have the “filmmakers” explained why the video was so heavily edited? That looks very fishy to me.
It should concern you because your tax dollars are going to ACORN. And, maybe if Conyers et. al. had investigated ACORN we would know more about whether or not there was institutional fraud.
I think there are valid points about this kind of ‘gotcha’ journalism being a bit misleading. If these guys kept trying ACORN offices over and over again, and kept at it until they found someone stupid enough to play along, then it does skew the result a bit.
However, that said, ACORN has a long history of being prosecuted for various misdeeds. In 1986 12 members were convicted of voter fraud. In 2004, six ACORN volunteers plead guilty to multiple counts of election law violations. In 2005, another ACORN member was convicted of voter fraud. In 2006, 1492 voter registration cards in St. Louis were found to be fraudulently filed by various ACORN volunteers. In 2007 four ACORN employees were indicted on fraud charges. This year, eight more ACORN members in St. Louis pleaded guilty to election fraud.
All of this just in Missouri. So far this year, FOURTEEN states have launched investigations into voter fraud, voter intimidation, and other violations of the law by ACORN employees.
Just yesterday, 11 more ACORN workers in Florida were arrested on vote fraud charges.
ACORN has a problem with controllership. Anyone who has worked for a large private corporation knows how much effort they undertake to make sure their employees stay within the law. In my company, we get mandatory ethics training every year. We have to sign documents that outline our legal responsibilities and we certify that we understand them and follow them. We have internal ombudsmen set up to investigate concerns about ethics violations. We have a ‘no retaliation’ policy for employees who blow the whistle on unethical behavior by their bosses. We have anonymous reporting facilities for employees who don’t feel comfortable exposing themselves even with the assurances of non-retaliation.
Private companies do this because the courts have repeatedly held companies liable for the actions of its employees. And major punitive damages can be laid down if it is determined that the company fostered a ‘culture of corruption’ by looking the other way or by putting procedures in place that made it easy for employees to skirt the law.
ACORN intentionally sets up procedures that encourage its volunteers to cheat and commit fraud. For example, it pays workers by the number of voter registration cards turned in, regardless of whether or not they are valid.
If Acorn has a ‘don’t ask’ policy regarding illegal workers seeking home loans, and this is what lead these particular employees to accept such a blatant and egregious case, then ACORN itself should be held responsible. It has the responsibility to make sure its employees follow the letter of the law. It should have plans in place to spot-check applications accepted by employees, or even have its own ‘undercover’ teams going around trying scams just like the one that caught these guys, to verify that its own people are following the law. It is NOT acceptable for ACORN to let its employees run amok and then claim innocence because it didn’t know about it.
In other words, anyone who questions anything that happens at ACORN is “quacking like a duck”? Are you serious? Your worldview is so based on the labels Democrat and Republican that anyone who doesn’t march in step to the party line must be one of the other side?
It’s hardly surprising. That seems to be SOP from both sides of the aisle on this board.
In order to determine if this indicates anything bad about ACORN specifically, we need to find an equivalent example about another organization.
When was the last time a left-winger went to dozens of offices of a right wing organization, attempted to entrap low-level employees, and then selectively edited the heck out of the video in an attempt to make it as outrageous as possible?
The closest example I can think of is Michael Moore, but even he focused on elected officials and didn’t pose as anyone except himself.
Where the holy fuck did you get *that *idea? Er, rather, Cite? :dubious:
To add fuel to the fire, video was just released where James O’Keefe (the guy behind all this) tried this in Wasington DC and had the same results. http://biggovernment.com/2009/09/11/washington-dc-acorn-video-child-prostitution-investigation/
I think this is an especially good point. It’s not that ACORN workers are just breaking the law. It’s that they are breaking the law while in their official capacity as an ACORN employee.
Only the ones with no credibility. The Washington Times, Fox News, and the Wall Street Journal opinion section are the primary ones for which citing for factual content will gain you only scorn from the reality-based community.
Are you serious? You didn’t know that?!? Here’s one link…you should have no trouble finding more.
I suppose some people think you can tell all you need to know about a huge organization from a couple rule breakers. These two people were playing the system a bit, therefore ACORN is guilty and is a corrupt organization. Of course that would damn every large organization in the world.
Lets disband our government. There have been endless illegal incidents involving politicians. Corporations cheat and break laws. We must disband them too.
This is again, much smoke ,no fire.
John Boehner*? You’re serious? :D:D:D
Bad example. They will cheerfully help you tabulate jews.
Sam, I think it’s fair to say that ACORN can be somewhat lax in its employee management. But the way you describe implies ACORN is getting some kind of implicit benefit by turning a blind eye. Most of the vote fraud cases are employees trying to get out of doing their work for ACORN.
For instance, the 14 workers in Florida. They were reported by ACORN to Florida prosecutors because they were filling out fake registrations with the intent of defrauding ACORN.
Which only supports your point, of course. But the people who should be mad at ACORN aren’t Republicans who are getting screwed because ACORN is turning a blind eye to its employees in order to get fake votes racked up. The people who should be mad are people who donate to it and, more importantly, donors to Democratic campaigns who’re having their money funneled to an organization that is wearing an ass for a hat.
I think they’re a crappy-ass paper, but I don’t know of any instances where they have invented a quote out of whole cloth and attributed it to a public official.
This is not an op-ed piece. Did you even open the link? Are you suggesting the Washington Times is not to be trusted as a source of news?
I was unaware that it suddenly became 60 years ago.
ACORN does a lot of things other than voter registration drives. They just came to national attention because of them, specifically there was an effort to find anything fishy with anything to do with the election so that fraud could be alleged. IAN a right wing strategist, but I suspect the point was to bolster the claims that we need to tighten voting requirements (ID laws and only such) with specter of many people voting illegally.
Jonathan