“This is our house now:” ACORN mob begins breaking into homes - Page 7 - Big Big Forums

Jolie Rouge · 09-14-2009, 05:58 PM

ACORN Watch: “Honesty is not going to get you the house”
By Michelle Malkin • September 14, 2009

James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles visited one of ACORN’s New York offices in August, where they picked up handy tips on how to lie on housing forms to cover up a prositution business (”Honesty is not going to get you the house,” one ACORN official advises) and how to hide cash from their illicit business (”When you buy the house with the backyard, you get a tin…and you bury it down in there…cover it…and put the grass over it…”).

Watch the whole thing at Big Government. http://biggovernment.com/2009/09/14/...n-new-york-ny/ This is now the third videotaped sting exposing the ACORN racket’s law-undermining, truth-sabotaging counseling sessions.

If the Census Bureau no longer trusts ACORN to collect data as a result of these videotapes, why is Congress still allowing taxpayer money to be funneled to the ACORN Housing Corporation?

AHC has received an estimated $16 million in taxpayer funds between 1997-2007, according to the Employment Policies Institute.

Last week I noted that ACORN is now managing apartments in Bedford-Stuyvesant for the newly completed Atlantic Avenue Apartments.

In April, I noted that the bone-headed Bush administration shoved another $1.6 million into AHC’s pockets to subsidize the left-wing mortgage counseling racket.

AHC has a long history of abusing federal housing funds and Americorps grants for political activities. Thanks to the Consumer Rights League and brave ACORN whistleblowers, we also know their shady practices include working to obtain mortgages for illegal aliens and relying on undocumented income, “under the table” money, that may not be reported to the Internal Revenue Service.

And thanks to the Employment Policies Institute, we know the stench goes back decades. Just one infamous episode from 1994: http://www.rottenacorn.com/

Quote:

AmeriCorps

In 1994 the ACORN Housing Corporation (AHC) was awarded a $1.1 million grant by AmeriCorps, a program of the Corporation for National Service (CNS). The money was intended to fund the training of 42 AmeriCorps members in 13 cities. The workers were expected to identify low-income families hoping to purchase a ﬁrst home, to assist them in ﬁnding suitable housing, and to advise them in securing the necessary ﬁnancing.

During the grant-making process, AHC was asked about its relationship to ACORN, because political advocates were ineligible for the grant. At the time, AHC maintained that it was a completely separate entity from ACORN, and CNS awarded the grant based on this understanding.

Evidence uncovered by Luise Jordan, the Inspector General for AmeriCorps, suggests that this promised separation was simply not true. In testimony before a house subcommittee, Jordan stated:

Our preliminary research determined that AHC was part of a number of ACORN-related organizations.

… Not only did we ﬁnd references to ACORN having “created” AHC to serve purposes common to both organizations, we noted numerous transactions and activities involving AHC and other “fraternal” ACORN-related corporations. These transactions included costs charged to AHC, and thus to the CNS grant, by ACORN or other ACORN-related entities. … Charges of this nature were made to our grant for the AHC locations where AHC and ACORN (or other ACORN-related activities) were co-located.

AHC’s initial subterfuge pales in comparison to the illegal fundraising scheme it subsequently operated, using its AmeriCorps grant to increase ACORN’s membership.

According to Jordan, one ACORN member in the Dallas regional ofﬁce stated that “the only reason for having the AmeriCorps program was to gain new ACORN members, and that if AmeriCorps loan counseling clients did not start becoming ACORN members, she could and would halt the AmeriCorps project.” Jordan found that this understanding was not limited to the Dallas ofﬁce. Using government funds to solicit membership in an organization that— like ACORN—participates in direct political advocacy is a violation of federal guidelines

AHC also utilized its government-funded loan counseling program to steer low-income families toward ACORN memberships. Jordan found that AHC had distributed leaﬂets stating that low income, ﬁrst-time homebuyers were required to join ACORN, at an annual cost of $60, in order to receive the government-subsidized counseling. “An AHC loan counseling client in New Orleans (who is a retired high school business teacher),” she explained, “was escorted by an AmeriCorps member to an ACORN organizer who solicited membership in ACORN. The client felt like she was not going to be allowed to leave until she gave the ACORN organizer a $60 check, or authorized a $5 per month automatic bank draft for ACORN membership dues.” And as with ACORN’s own employees who attempted to unionize, AmeriCorps members who refused to participate in this illegal fundraising scheme faced the threat of immediate termination.

The Inspector General’s ofﬁce (IG) was lucky to ﬁnd out as much about the improper relationship between AHC and ACORN as it did. And AHC made every effort to obstruct the investigation. The IG issued subpoenas to AHC and ACORN, whose response “did not include several documents, or parts of documents that we had obtained from our other sources.” Jordan later wrote, “Our subpoena clearly called for these documents, and they were critical in supporting the conclusions of our investigation.” Withholding required documentation was only the beginning of AHC’s attempt to hinder the investigation. AHC also limited the ability of investigators to interview AmeriCorps members in private. This greatly hampered the IG’s ability to obtain reliable information regarding the activities of AmeriCorps members. Eventually, in response to a torrent of red ﬂags raised by the IG, the Corporation for National Service terminated AHC’s grant…

• Tax forms show that the ACORN Housing Corporation has received more than $11,230,000 in public funds since ﬁscal year 1997. More than $5,100,000 was paid in fees or grants to ACORN entities.

I’ll ask again: If the Census Bureau no longer trusts ACORN to collect data as a result of these videotapes, why is Congress still allowing taxpayer money to be funneled to the ACORN Housing Corporation?

It’s all about the coordinated corruption.

Call your congressional representatives (202-224-3121) and say it louder:

ACORN is a criminal enterprise.

Not one more taxpayer dime.

http://michellemalkin.com/2009/09/14...you-the-house/

gmyers · 09-14-2009, 06:04 PM

The good thing that came out of all this is maybe they can't do the census.

littlebuggy · 09-14-2009, 08:03 PM

I think they need to be flat shut down. They were going along with criminal activity, the least of which, to me, was tax fraud. But the fact that they were seemingly ok with underage girls being smuggled from other countries to "turn tricks" is disgusting, and criminal. People all over the world are outraged at sex smuggling of young girls, but these "women"; I use the term loosley because no real woman would be ok with 13 year old girls being forced into prostitution; seem to have no problem with it. Disgusting!!

Jolie Rouge · 10-14-2009, 02:03 PM

See also Bachmann Calls on Congress to Block Funds to ACORN

Beth Butler, longtime director of Louisiana ACORN, fired in wake of Obama flap
By Gordon Russell
October 13, 2009, 6:49AM

Beth Butler, the longtime executive director of Lousiana ACORN, was terminated by the organization's national leadership Monday amid a power struggle at the embattled advocacy group.

Butler's sacking came two days after local ACORN leaders criticized President Barack Obama's planned itinerary for a trip to New Orleans this week -- comments that drew an immediate rebuke from ACORN's national leaders.

The Associated PressBeth Butler, longtime executive director of Louisiana ACORN
On Sunday, ACORN Chief Executive Bertha Lewis said the remarks, which were not uttered by Butler, were "without authority and do not reflect the position of the national leadership." Lewis said she would "be personally going to New Orleans to deal with the individual involved."

Less than 24 hours later, Butler was fired. An angry Butler said Monday that the real reason for her firing was not the flap over Obama's visit, but a simmering tussle over assets that ACORN's Louisiana affiliate controls and that the national group covets.

In particular, Butler said headquarters has its eye on a land trust set up by the Louisiana branch. The trust owns five relatively modest houses, she said, and has a bank account of perhaps $60,000 intended for rehabilitation work -- nothing to sneeze at, she said, "in the nonprofit world."

As it happens, ACORN officials agree with Butler that her termination was not carried out only as retribution for the Obama critique. Rather, according to an ACORN official who would speak only on background, the episode was "reflective of a lack of accountability to process" on Butler's part.

Butler had repeatedly breached ACORN protocol, and this was the most recent instance, he said.

"Normally, the theory is that locals can speak for themselves, " said the official. "But this is in a time of severe challenge for us, and they were criticizing the president of the United States. If they had criticized Ray Nagin, we'd have nothing to say about it."

The "severe challenge" he described is an effort to recover from a series of scandals that have rocked the organization and threaten its survival. The most devastating was a series of videos in which two guerrilla journalists posed as a prostitute and a pimp, and received counseling from ACORN employees on how to avoid paying taxes on brothel income.

That scandal was preceded by revelations that ACORN employees had registered dozens of phony voters before the last election. And before that, it emerged that Dale Rathke, brother of ACORN's founder, New Orleans-bred Wade Rathke, had embezzled nearly $1 million from the group. Instead of announcing he'd been caught, selected group leaders allowed him to quietly repay the money over a period of years.

The last scandal resulted in the ouster of Wade Rathke, who also happens to be the longtime companion of Butler. The two have lived together for decades and raised two children together, Butler said.

Butler, who has worked for ACORN for 37 years, said her real sin in the eyes of the national organization's leaders was a failure to concede to their demands. In particular, she said, she had led resistance to a demand to turn over the land trust, called the ACORN Community Land Association of Louisiana, to the national group.

"We were told by national ACORN that we had to give it up to them, " she said. "We got e-mails threatening our jobs because we didn't push the land trust people to hand over property and money to the New York people who took over ACORN."

Butler passed along an e-mail message from Lewis calling Butler's behavior regarding the land trust "unacceptable."

The national entity is also making a play for roughly $90,000 in hurricane relief money controlled by the local group, Butler said.

"It's hardball here, " she said. "Our local resources are being spirited to New York. ACORN Louisiana is the most lucrative chapter in the country, and we knew they were aiming to take us over. There's a major meltdown in ACORN. They're trying to scramble all of us who would fight them."

ACORN's criticism of Obama's original itinerary -- essentially, that it was too short and did not include a stop in the Lower 9th Ward -- was voiced by Vanessa Gueringer, an unpaid volunteer who heads the group's Lower 9th Ward chapter.

"I'm thrilled that he's coming, " Gueringer said of the president on Saturday. "But, " she added, "we want to see that change that you ran your platform on. We want to see the hope that symbolized your campaign in our neighborhood."

The day after Gueringer's remarks, the Obama administration announced it was adding a stop in the Lower 9th, at Martin Luther King Jr. Charter School.

Gueringer said Monday that she has not received a phone call or an e-mail message from the White House expressing any vexation with her comments.

She said the episode simply provided a convenient smokescreen for ACORN leaders to fire Butler.

"It all goes back to Wade, " she said. "They're angry at Wade, even though Wade's money was paid back. There's been a relentless campaign to destroy the New Orleans chapter of ACORN. Wade founded this organization. They would not have jobs today if Wade hadn't done that. This is all a lie, it's all a smear campaign."

The ACORN official, speaking on background, said Butler was not terminated because of her ties to Rathke. In fact, he said, the organization took pains "to give her a chance to earn her stripes and show she was not part of the legacy Wade left" in the wake of his ouster last year.

The official also disputed Butler's claim that the national group is covetous of Louisiana ACORN's assets. He said the assets were minimal and "not worth fighting over."

As for the land trust, he said, the national group had decided to "set it free" by cutting ties with it. "We have no intention nor desire to control its assets, " he said.

He said Butler was fired for "strict personnel reasons."

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.s..._director.html

Jolie Rouge · 10-14-2009, 02:04 PM

Residents call on Obama to tour progress as White House defends plan for quick visit
By Katy Reckdahl, The Times-Picayune
October 10, 2009, 8:02PM

The controversy over President Barack Obama's planned quickie visit to New Orleans this week continued Saturday, with members of the community group ACORN calling on the president to meet with Lower 9th Ward residents during his visit and the White House insisting that Obama already is familiar with local conditions because of five post-Katrina visits he made to the city as a senator.

During the past few days, Louisiana's U.S. senators and other officials expressed unhappiness about Obama's plans for a visit that according to initial reports was to include only one event. They said he needs to spend enough time on the ground to get a better understanding of the status of the city's and region's recovery.
On Saturday, a group of Lower 9th Ward residents added their voice to the debate. Standing near the site of the critical 2005 rupture in the Industrial Canal, they asked Obama to visit their still mostly empty neighborhood.

And they don't want just a windshield tour from inside a chartered bus, they said.

In New Orleans, meaningful conversations must be conducted in a certain way, ACORN leader Vanessa Gueringer said.

"Here, we want to talk, we want you to listen, and then we want to hear what you think," she said. "And you need to take time for that type of conversation with people from this neighborhood and others like it," she said, her red ACORN shirt standing out against the sea of green weeds and grass behind her.

A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the president visited many New Orleans destinations during his previous trips, including the Lower 9th Ward, Musicians Village and Gentilly Woods.

What was missing then, the official said, was a chance to hear directly from a broad cross section of the community, and that is why Obama chose to make a town hall meeting a centerpiece of this trip.

The official said the White House always intended for the trip to include another stop in addition to the town hall. The second destination, as well as information on the time and place of the town hall meeting and how to secure tickets for it, has yet to be announced.

The Lower 9th Ward is familiar with the police-escorted fleets of buses that often have carried high-ranking visitors through the neighborhood as local officials pointed out the wreckage that the post-Katrina levee breaks caused, the ACORN members said.

For a while it seemed that the attention would pay off in terms of money coming back to the community, they said, so residents tolerated being stared at and pointed at as they picked through their sodden belongings and put silk flowers in yards where neighbors had perished.

Gueringer remembers the route that most of the buses took. "They rode down Claiborne Avenue from downtown, over the bridge and maybe took a quick turn down Caffin (Avenue) before going on to St. Bernard Parish and New Orleans East," she said.

Afterward, officials would mention the Lower 9th Ward in speeches and pledge that, with their help, it would recover.

But now it seems to many that the only progress being made in the neighborhood is in the cluster of modern homes built by Brad Pitt's Make It Right project, said the ACORN members.

ACORN has been under assault at the state and federal levels in recent days because of a series of scandals involving allegations of embezzlement, voter registration fraud, failure to pay wage taxes and embarrassing undercover videos of employees advising a fake pimp and prostitute on how to run a brothel.

The 39-year-old nonprofit group has been trying to fight back by doing what it does best: mobilizing low-income people -- in this case, to restore the organization's credibility through news conferences and other events pointing up good things the group allegedly has done.

ACORN is still thought of fondly by many Lower 9th Ward residents because of its outspoken "No Bulldozing" campaign and others post-Katrina efforts on their behalf.

How far much of the neighborhood's recovery still has to go is clear to anyone walking its streets, said Robert Richardson, 55, who has lived in the community since he was 7, losing one house to Hurricane Betsy and another one to Katrina.

On Saturday, Richardson wore an Obama T-shirt. "I believe in him," he said.

But Richardson said he doesn't think the president can understand how little recovery there has been in the "Lower 9" until he has walked through its empty lots overgrown with grass full of cicadas that buzz so loudly they impede conversation, and viewed the lonely cement stoops that now stand alone in neatly manicured lawns that Richardson's neighbors still mow every week.

At this point, the neighborhood has no active city recovery projects, Gueringer said, asking when construction will begin on a new fire station and a replacement for the Andrew "Pete" Sanchez Multi-Service Center Complex.

But most important, what about flood protection, asked Gwen Adams, 57, as she ran her finger down a hairline crack in the newly repaired levee that overlooks the tan house she just moved back into last month.

At this point, residents have been told the levees they need won't be completed until 2011, Gueringer said.

Until Obama can stand at Adams' house or a neighbor's lot and look up at the floodwall, he won't understand the Lower 9th Ward's real needs, the residents said.

"I'm thrilled that he's coming," Gueringer said. "But," she added, addressing the absent Obama directly, "we want to see that change that you ran your platform on. We want to see the hope that symbolized your campaign in our neighborhood."

The White House released this list of Obama's past trips to New Orleans:

On July 21, 2006, he attended a FEMA briefing with Mayor Ray Nagin and Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., visited Musicians Village and helped paint a house, met with small business owners and attended St. Peter Claver Church.

On Aug. 12, 2006, he gave the commencement address at Xavier University, receiving an honorary degree.

On Jan. 29, 2007, he attended a Senate committee hearing and took a bus tour that went through the Lower 9th Ward and stopped at Jackson Barracks.

On Aug. 26, 2007, he attended a service at First Emanuel Baptist Church on Carondelet Street, toured the Gentilly Woods subdivision and announced a Katrina recovery plan, which included creating a national catastrophic insurance pool and directing federal resources to local health care, education and law enforcement agencies.

On Feb. 6, 2008, he spoke at a campaign rally at Tulane University, toured Carver Elementary School and ate gumbo at Dooky Chase's restaurant with Xavier President Norman Francis.

Not on the list was any visit to the state's threatened wetlands, but the White House official said Nancy Sutley, chairwoman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality and principal environmental policy adviser to the president, will join Obama on Thursday and she will be touring the wetlands.

Sutley will be one of several administration officials accompanying the president on the trip and fanning out to inspect different aspects of the recovery. The entourage also will include Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Housing Shaun Donovan and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.s...ents_want.html

I suggest reading the comments posted after the above article... most are from NO residents and can be ... enlightening ...

Jolie Rouge · 11-07-2009, 01:15 AM

Computers, records seized at ACORN offices in La.
Cain Burdeau, Associated Press Writer
2 hrs 31 mins ago

NEW ORLEANS – State investigators raided ACORN offices on Friday, taking away computer hard drives and documents as part of a probe into alleged embezzlement and tax fraud when the organization's national headquarters was based in New Orleans.

"This is an investigation of everything — ACORN, the national organization, the local organization and all of its affiliated entities, specifically as it relates to any potential violations of Louisiana law," Assistant Attorney General David Caldwell said.

ACORN staff on the scene declined to comment, but an attorney for the group said in a statement the raid was prompted by allegations that former ACORN employees had removed or altered electronic documents and may do so in the future.

Attorney Pamela Marple said ACORN was cooperating and called the raid exhaustive, saying investigators wanted "virtually every document in the possession of ACORN and any related entity."

The raid was the latest development for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Videotapes released recently showed ACORN employees offering tax advice to two people in Baltimore posing as a prostitute and her pimp. The videos led Congress and state governments to cut funding for ACORN.

State prosecutors said their probe into the New Orleans offices stemmed from allegations made last year by board members involving embezzlement at ACORN nearly a decade ago.

ACORN last year settled an internal dispute and a lawsuit involving accusations that Dale Rathke, the brother of the group's founder, Wade Rathke, made around $948,000 in improper credit card charges in 1999 and 2000. The Rathke family and a donor repaid the money and no charges were ever brought.

Last month, Attorney General Buddy Caldwell, the father of David Caldwell, said he would step up an investigation into allegations that the embezzlement may have been as high as $5 million.

ACORN said the $5 million figure was "a worst-case scenario" for what the embezzlement potentially could cost the group.

For 33 years, ACORN's national headquarters was based in New Orleans after Wade Rathke moved here in the 1970s from Little Rock, Ark., where he started the organization. The embezzlement scandal led the organization to move its headquarters to Washington, D.C., earlier this year, a move that allowed the national organization to distance itself from the Rathkes.

David Caldwell said he did not know which former ACORN employees removed the computers.

"We're going to grab the stuff, make copies," he said, "and get it all back to them so whatever entities are doing business with them are able to do so."

___

Associated Press writer Janet McConnaughey contributed to this report.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091107/...B1dGVyc3JlYw--

Jolie Rouge · Yesterday, 11:25 AM

LA ACORN Busted! Let Me Do Research to Help You Set Up International Underage Sex Business
Posted on November 20, 2009

Update: Uh oh! More tapes! Brietbart says more tapes will be released if Holder doesn’t start an investigation of ACORN. There are LOTS more tapes and it isn’t JUST ACORN!
http://biggovernment.com/2009/11/20/...2010-election/

Meet Lavelle Stewart. http://biggovernment.com/2009/11/19/...rture-victims/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UciAe...layer_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bg0Hw...layer_embedded

http://www.stoptheaclu.com/2009/11/2...-sex-business/