# Thank You, Glenn Beck; Buh Bye, ACORN! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 11, 2009, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thank-you-glenn-beck-buh-bye-acorn/509754 "2009-09-11T23:10:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 17
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2009, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thank-you-glenn-beck-buh-bye-acorn/509754/321 "2009-09-17T03:13:39Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > CETA was a program cooked up by Jimmy Carter and the Democratic congress of the time to lower unemployment figures by putting people on the federal payroll and paying them whether they worked or not. Asshole (is that an okay word?), I took some classes under CETA and I paid back my minimum-wage-per-hour-of-classtime several dollars a week within a couple months of graduating and getting a job that used the skills I was taught. Thirty years later I’m still paying taxes based on those skills. No, the program wasn’t perfect, but it helped a lot of people to move up. ---
**Author:** ![Pazu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pazu/32/15522_2.png) [@Pazu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pazu)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2009, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thank-you-glenn-beck-buh-bye-acorn/509754/322 "2009-09-17T19:02:27Z")
> [@El\_Kabong](#): > > BTW, where and when was it that you got **your** head knock, **Carol**? Enquiring minds want to know. **Carol** ’s head is well-padded by the surrounding buttocks. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2009, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thank-you-glenn-beck-buh-bye-acorn/509754/323 "2009-09-17T20:12:37Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Jeffrey\_Lebowski](#): > > A valid point, but the (part time) employees were fired, were they not? I would substitute the word ACORN in your post with the words AIG, or Blackwater, or what’s the company, Countrywide. Even better would be if I put in the word society for ACORN and swapped the word employees with citizens. > If anyone here were to try a similar stunt, to goad someone into offering advice on cheating the system, but were to target a different group, say auto mechanics, or wall street traders, or mortgage brokers, would the hue and cry be as great? ACORN grows very large with temps during elections. They are not all well trained. but the employees are paid by the hour, not the applications filled. I would not be surprised if someone screwed around all day and tried to fake names to look like they were working all day. But they did not vote because they did not exist. So it is not voter fraud. I still wait for the full tapes before I make a judgment. Much of this is due to people who came in hating ACORN being ready to believe something evil about them. This is still a big nothing. I had the feeling the worker was playing with them. I assure you they were not carrying out ACORN policy. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2009, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thank-you-glenn-beck-buh-bye-acorn/509754/324 "2009-09-17T20:23:22Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > That is fine, but based on the latest revelations of the “murderess” tape from California, I’m leaning towards the idea that the “intrepid reporter” made so many leading requests to ACORN workers that eventually he got the answers that he wanted. Well, sure. A great hoax from little ACORN grows. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2009, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thank-you-glenn-beck-buh-bye-acorn/509754/325 "2009-09-17T22:56:42Z")
You know, that goes on your permanent record. ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2009, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thank-you-glenn-beck-buh-bye-acorn/509754/326 "2009-09-17T23:35:31Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > Well, sure. A great hoax from little ACORN grows. Beautiful! ---
**Author:** ![LeeshaJoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e8cbc/32.png) [@LeeshaJoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LeeshaJoy)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thank-you-glenn-beck-buh-bye-acorn/509754/327 "2009-09-18T00:53:34Z")
Thread over. **Vinyl Turnip** wins. ---
**Author:** ![Klaatu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Klaatu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Klaatu)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thank-you-glenn-beck-buh-bye-acorn/509754/328 "2009-09-18T01:07:17Z")
Yeah, but today both the House and Senate voted overwhelmingly to strip them of federal funds in a couple of different bills. Why would they do that? Are the Dems distancing themselves from ACORN now? It’s on the front page of Google News. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thank-you-glenn-beck-buh-bye-acorn/509754/329 "2009-09-18T01:19:09Z")
> [@Klaatu](#): > > Why would they do that? Are the Dems distancing themselves from ACORN now? To resurrect a tired phrase, my guess is they’re throwing ACORN, ah, under the bus. If the Dems judged that ACORN’s not important to them politically, they may be trying to get the issue over and done with so they can get back to more important things. “Yeah, sure, whatever, you caught 'em, let’s move on. :rolleyes:” ---
**Author:** ![Klaatu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Klaatu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Klaatu)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thank-you-glenn-beck-buh-bye-acorn/509754/330 "2009-09-18T01:31:55Z")
> [@Bosstone](#): > > To resurrect a tired phrase, my guess is they’re throwing ACORN, ah, under the bus. If the Dems judged that ACORN’s not important to them politically, they may be trying to get the issue over and done with so they can get back to more important things. “Yeah, sure, whatever, you caught 'em, let’s move on. :rolleyes:” Exactly! Which shows that all parties will use an organization that is politically valuable to them until they don’t need it anymore. I will remind you of how important ACORN seemed to be to the Dems before the election. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thank-you-glenn-beck-buh-bye-acorn/509754/331 "2009-09-18T02:26:10Z")
> [@Klaatu](#): > > I will remind you of how important ACORN seemed to be to the Dems before the election. Only inasmuch as ACORN was registering voters, and increased voter registration and turnout has usually been good for the Democrats. I always find it a bit ironic that because of this, Republicans have been forced to take the position that registration drives and increased voter interest and turnout is bad. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thank-you-glenn-beck-buh-bye-acorn/509754/332 "2009-09-18T02:46:20Z")
They don’t, of course they don’t! Its only that we must vigilant in our wariness of voter fraud, and sternly refuse any process that might make registration easier and less troublesome. Press them for money to make voting places more uniform and equitable, so that poor folks don’t stand in line for hours to vote while their privileged fellow citizens work it in between picking up the dry cleaning and dropping off the cleaning lady. Go ahead, see what happens, but stand back a ways, they tend to thrash around a bit when they go ape-shit. If it is not perfectly obvious to you that such intrusion into local government is socialisic, you have no future on the right. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thank-you-glenn-beck-buh-bye-acorn/509754/333 "2009-09-18T12:44:54Z")
> [@Klaatu](#): > > Yeah, but today both the House and Senate voted overwhelmingly to strip them of federal funds in a couple of different bills. > > Why would they do that? Are the Dems distancing themselves from ACORN now? Because - and I hope this doesn’t come as a shock to you - the Congressional Dems are, at heart, a bunch of frightened rabbits. ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thank-you-glenn-beck-buh-bye-acorn/509754/334 "2009-09-18T14:15:52Z")
> [@Klaatu](#): > > I will remind you of how important ACORN seemed to be to the Dems before the election. As I and others have mentioned… ACORN who? I, for one, never even heard of ACORN until just before the election- when the Republicans started making such a huge stink about it. I suspect that ACORN is more important to the Pubs (as a boogeyman) than to the Dems. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thank-you-glenn-beck-buh-bye-acorn/509754/335 "2009-09-18T14:55:38Z")
ACORN was not important to the Dems. ACORN has no affiliation with the Democratic party at all. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_One](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/45deac/32.png) [@Evil\_One](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_One)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2009, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thank-you-glenn-beck-buh-bye-acorn/509754/336 "2009-09-19T00:50:31Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > ACORN has no affiliation with the Democratic party at all. Umm-hmm. I was amused by your assertion earlier in the thread that the tapes had somehow been “edited” and dubbed". Video shooting and editing happens to be an area that I have some expertise in, so allow me to address that. First, O’Keefe was smart enough to put a visible timecode at the top left of the tapes. That’s 30 frames per second visibly ticking by one frame at a time. If the individual portions shown on youtube and FOX were edited to somehow insert or remove individual shots within the video clips shown, it would appear in the timecode which would then be out of sequence. Since it runs from start to finish from the beginning of the clip to the end, no video editing has taken place. Second, you can watch the lips of the people speaking and see that no audio overdubbing has taken place. With a non-linear editing system, it would be possible to eliminate all audio from the video and replace it…but you cannot edit ambient sound and the spoken words separately without recording them on separate audio channels to begin with. Since the audio from the ACORN workers is heard along with the ambient sound and the speaking voices of Giles and O’Keefe, that means one mic was used…the one attached to the hidden camera. If all the audio is recorded on one mic, it can’t be separated in post-production. It’s all mixed together at the recording source. Some people have asserted that the ACORN workers were answering harmless questions and that the “child prostitution” language was somehow “dubbed in later”. With a visible time code and one audio source, the only way for this to happen would be to somehow record the ambient sound without anyone talking. Then they would have to lay it down as a base track (at exactly the same audio level as the original, with perfect timing about what was going on in the background so it would sound the same) and then carefully substitute in the alternate dialogue…making sure that the timing is correct as far as the number of seconds it would take to speak both the “real” and “fake” questions. The timing would have to be the same to avoid either too much silence at both ends of the edit or stepping on the original audio at the beginning or the end. Oh, and make sure the audio levels of both sets of dialogue is exactly the same. This procedure would have to be repeated for each instance of “overdubbing”. Even the one and two word answers. Or you could get out Occam’s Razor and face the fact that they are guilty of aiding someone they thought were actual child sex ring leaders. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2009, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thank-you-glenn-beck-buh-bye-acorn/509754/337 "2009-09-19T00:58:27Z")
Why, **Evil** , we had no idea you had such profound expertise in this stuff! We would have consulted you right away, if we had. I bet if Fox Gnaws put all their best tech people on the case, they sure wouldn’t fool a clever guy like you. Nosir! They tried any of those fancy tricks on ol’ **Evil** , he’s sure to catch on. What with years of experience and all that specialized equipment. And definitely not the sort of fellow tends to believe whatever fits neatly into his expectations, not like the rest of us. Got that about right, have I, **Evil**? ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_One](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/45deac/32.png) [@Evil\_One](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_One)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2009, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thank-you-glenn-beck-buh-bye-acorn/509754/338 "2009-09-19T01:02:00Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > They tried any of those fancy tricks on ol’ **Evil** , he’s sure to catch on. Pretty much, Luci. I know what I’m doing with video and audio editing, so I know what to look for. I’m sure you have an area or two where you have more expertise than others. Because of my nearly 30 years of broadcasting experience in radio and television news, I know how to edit and how to recognize editing when I see it. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2009, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thank-you-glenn-beck-buh-bye-acorn/509754/339 "2009-09-19T01:11:36Z")
Fair enough, but you didn’t bring your expertise into evidence, hence it is entirely fair for me to question it. I don’t know you well enough to insult you on purpose, so I accept that you have the expertise that you claim, and your opinion has more weight than **Dio** ’s. Until someone comes along and says different, of course. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_One](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/45deac/32.png) [@Evil\_One](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_One)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2009, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thank-you-glenn-beck-buh-bye-acorn/509754/340 "2009-09-19T03:16:26Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Until someone comes along and says different, of course. Oh, that will happen post-haste. Whether they know what they’re talking about or not. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thank-you-glenn-beck-buh-bye-acorn/509754.md?page=16) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thank-you-glenn-beck-buh-bye-acorn/509754.md?page=18)