Prayer And Action

FBI report: ACORN ‘poverty pimpin” for Democrats

FBI investigation notes reveal ACORN was working for the Democratic Party and told employees not to talk to the FBI, to cause confusion on Election Day and to go "poverty pimpin’" for votes.

Read the latest now on WND.com.

Plus!

Top Democratic Party consultants connected to the Obama White House have profited from advising politicians in South America who have long-term economic ties to British Petroleum.

Click here for details.

ACORN’s New York operations are looking forward to a potential new flow of federal dollars, thanks to the New York State Senate and New York Governor Paterson.

Together they applied the Van Jones’ Apollo doctrine to tap into federal stimulus money allocated to New York.

Governor Paterson recently signed into law something called the “Green Jobs – Green New York Act of 2009″. The new law provides for the creation of a massive slush fund of federal stimulus dollars to be set aside for “green jobs”.

Those green jobs include but will not be limited to “Energy Auditors”, certified green contractors, green financing services to help pay for property upgrades, and more.

There are a number of places in the legislation where ACORN, SEIU, and their affiliates stand to gain access to this new green slush fund. Below is but one excerpt which must make them very happy:

How much money are we talking about? Hundreds of millions of dollars. From the legislation:

*Provides $112 million of capital funding from the Regional Greenhouse
Gas Initiative (RGGI), $70 million of which will be for a Green
Jobs-Green New York revolving loan fund designed to commit resources
fully during this phase with no less than 50 percent of capital monies
going to residential retrofits.

*Provides $2-4 million of RGGI funds to be used to establish green job
training throughout the state to establish a green workforce for the
2151 century and requires the NYS Department of Labor to work with
NYSERDA to development additional training resources.

Don’t worry, because the legislation calls for an advisory board to monitor all of the projects and how the cash is being distributed. That shouldn’t pose much of a threat to ACORN’s access to the cash though, because, almost every sponsor of the legislation just signed into law are card carrying members of President Obama’s Working Families Party, aka ACORN.

Their names are listed below, WFP members are in red:

Introduced by Sens. AUBERTINE, BRESLIN, FOLEY, HUNTLEY, C. JOHNSON, LAVALLE, MAZIARZ, MONSERRATE, MORAHAN, ONORATO, OPPENHEIMER, PARKER, PERKINS, SAMPSON, SAVINO, SCHNEIDERMAN, SERRANO, STACHOWSKI, STEWART-COUSINS, THOMPSON, VALESKY, VOLKER, WINNER

One concerned lawmaker tried to force the ACORN issue when the bill was being debated:

A group calling itself Lawyers 4 Green Jobs authored the legislation with help from the following:

Lawyers for Green Jobs was formed in 2008 by a group of young environmental attorneys who met while attending the New York City Environmental Law Leadership Institute (NYCELLI) and shared a strong passion for the economic implications of environmental and social issues. Their idea to propose green jobs legislation for New York State grew in part from their coursework in NYCELLI and in part due to the fact that there currently exists no such law. Since that time, L4GJ has been engaging national and New York-based green jobs advocacy organizations, such as Green For All, the New York Apollo Alliance, and several environmental justice groups, to foster a statewide policy for green jobs in New York.

Green For All was founded by Van Jones. Now we all know what green he was talking about. Yours and mine.

Working Families Party Director Dan Cantor is crowing about this victory:

Together with Governor Paterson and legislative leaders (both Democrats and Republicans), that coalition helped put together innovative legislation that we hope will be a model for other states.

It’s funny to see Dan Cantor praising Governor Paterson, since it wasn’t that long ago the Working Families Party was slamming Governor Paterson, and his “Right-wing allies in the senate”

While I know it doesn’t rise to the journalistic importance of the “Balloon Boy” story, I would have thought yesterday’s press conference at the National Press Club featuring Hannah Giles, James O’Keefe, Andrew Breitbart and the latest video featuring the Philadelphia office of ACORN would have gathered a little more main-stream media attention.

This past Sunday, David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel made unprecedented statements on the Sunday morning shows.  They both echoed the same two talking points which were essentially: 

1.  Fox News is not really a legitimate news source because it has a ‘point of view’ and

2.  We encourage all legitimate news networks to stop treating them as if they are legitimate.

The ACORN press conference and new video have been news for over 24 hours, and as of now, the networks’ coverage is as follows:

Fox News – ran a story within an hour of the press conference and duplicated coverage on their web page

NBC – nothing
MSNBC – nothing
CNN – nothing
AP ran a story late yesterday.
CBS – has only re-run the AP story
ABC – has only re-run the AP story

I’m just wondering…  do you think the networks got the White House’s message?

The new ACORN video released today clearly disputes most of the claims made by Ms. Katherine Conway Russell in her September video that eerily resembles a hostage message. Russell is the ACORN employee featured in O’Keefe’s video.  The footage clearly disputes claims that they were not dressed in any strange way, that they never mentioned prostitution, etc. In the latest attack/defence from ACORN apologist and George Soros-funded Media Matters, none of these points are addressed in any way whatsoever.  They seem to simply fall back on the fact that the Philadelphia ACORN office had filed a police report and that the mere existence of that report proves all of their other claims:

“O’Keefe did not dispute the authenticity of the police report ACORN filed with Philadelphia police following their visit. The filing of the police report by ACORN — Russell can be seen holding a copy of it in O’Keefe’s video — indicates the Philadelphia ACORN office had no intention of helping O’Keefe and Giles conduct any illegal activities, and ACORN said the police report “proves our clear understanding of this scam that was being portrayed.

So, about that police report…

1.  The video clearly shows Giles mentioning prostitution, wouldn’t this have been something to mention to the police if you go to the trouble of filing a report?

2.  The copy of the police report also makes no mention of the under-age girls from El Salvador that Ms. Russell herself admits were a subject of discussion with Giles and O’Keefe.  Again, wouldn’t it make logical sense to mention this point to the police as well?

3.  The name of the “Complainant” on the police report is “Keith Crosby” not Katherine Conway Russell.  If Ms. Russell was the person who witnessed the “Verbal Disturbance” then why didn’t she file the complaint?  Russell was so busy that day at ACORN that she delegated the duty of relaying this “Verbal Disturbance” to Mr. Crosby?

4.  In the police report, under the heading of “Offender Information” only O’Keefe’s name is listed, not even mention of a second party whose name was unavailable.  Only O’Keefe.  But, in Russell’s video message, she continues to refer to “them” and details Giles’ contributions to the conversation.

5.  According to the Media Matters web site’s description of the police report:

Fox News cites Philadelphia police report posted by Media Matters. In his October 21 report on the press conference and video released by O’Keefe and Breitbart, Shawn stated that Media Matters for America, “a group that has been very critical of coverage of ACORN, released this police report. It’s from the Philadelphia Police Department. It shows, they say … basically James O’Keefe was in that office causing a ‘verbal disturbance.’ “

Look again…  that is not what the report says… it can’t possibly say that because this is not a first hand account from the police.  This is merely a recording of the claims made by Mr. Keith Crosby who, himself was not a witness to the encounter, Ms. Russell was.

All the incident report can claim is:  “Mr. Crosby says that Ms. Russell says that Mr. O’Keefe caused a verbal disturbance.”  That is a far cry from Media Matters’ position.

The mainstream media were complicit in their coverage of the ACORN scandal. Their behavior was and continues to be an insult to democracy and journalistic responsibility as the Fourth Estate has ignored facts, engaged in one-sided sourcing, and avoided basic and inherently important journalistic questioning.

First, there was avoidance. Some media outlets simply ignored the story. On Sept. 15, five days after the Maryland tape was released, ABC’s Charlie Gibson said, “I don’t even know about it… so you’ve got me at a loss” and said that the story might be “just one you leave to the cables.” But, Gibson was not alone in his lack of knowledge. The New York Times did not cover the story for nearly a week. On Sept. 26, Clark Hoyt, The Times’ Public Editor, acknowledged the paper’s tardiness, but insinuated that the story was lacking in facts:

But for days, as more videos were posted and government authorities rushed to distance themselves from Acorn, The Times stood still.  Some stories, lacking facts, never catch fire…But others do, and a newspaper like The Times needs to be alert to them or wind up looking clueless or, worse, partisan itself.

Then, there were cases of gratuitously sloppy journalism.  Some of the outlets that did cover the story simply skipped over basic interview questions. In several instances, Bertha Lewis made the false claim that the filmmakers were turned away in “dozens of cities.” In a CNN interview with Rick Sanchez, Lewis said, “…the filmmakers went to dozens of offices. They were turned away.” In a more flagrant example of corroborating untruths, Lewis reiterated her “dozens” on MSNBC, stating, “…They were thrown out of dozens of offices. And, in fact, in Philadelphia, we called the police, filed a police report.”

Similarly, Wolf Blitzer, failed to adequately question Lewis. While on his show, Lewis made the following statement: “This sort of notorious crew went around to dozens of our offices. What you don’t see are the offices that threw them out… offices that filed police complaints.”

The lack of depth of these interviews with Lewis has been egregious. Upon hearing of the “dozens,” even the most unseasoned journalist would know to ask, “What were the cities where filmmakers were thrown out?” And, what about the police reports (plural) that were filed by multiple “offices”? Like Sanchez’s treatment of the “dozens,” Blitzer failed to ask for a list of cities that took such action. Lewis was granted a free pass, as no probing questions were asked about the issues in question.

On Sept. 12, just two days after the Maryland tape was made public, Lewis released a statement on ACORN’s Web site, writing, “This recent scam, which was attempted in San Diego, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia to name a few places, had failed for months before the results we’ve all recently seen.”

Following subsequent video releases, New York and San Diego were dropped from ACORN’s list of cities where the filmmakers were allegedly “turned away” and the aforementioned statement was removed from ACORN’s Web site, thus erasing evidence of inconsistency.  Big Government copied her statement and posted it in it’s entirety at the time of it’s release (notice the broken link to the ACORN website in the Big Government post). This change can also be viewed in a story published on Sept. 17 by The Washington Post. According to the Post, “An ACORN spokesman said they were turned away in Miami, Los Angeles and Philadelphia, where workers called police and filed a report.”  Notice the missing cities.

Where were the media to catch this glaring glitch in ACORN’s own reporting? The answer: Nowhere to be found. And, it was on the same day (Sept. 17), that Lewis appeared on MSNBC to discuss the fact that “dozens” of cities turned the filmmakers away.

And who could forget the glaring corrections that were issued by The Associated Press and The Washington Post. Both the AP and the Post published stories that attributed an incorrect, racially-driven motive for O’Keefe’s decision to conduct the ACORN investigation . Fortunately, the outlets were forced to correct their journalistic faux pas. Here is the Post’s correction:

A Sept. 18 Page One article about the community organizing group ACORN incorrectly said that a conservative journalist targeted the organization for hidden-camera videos partly because its voter-registration drives bring Latinos and African Americans to the polls. Although ACORN registers people mostly from those groups, the maker of the videos, James E. O’Keefe, did not specifically mention them.

Despite the fact that Bertha Lewis’ credibility had been completely compromised on September 14th with with the release of the New York ACORN investigation (not to mention the San Diego videos released on Sept. 17), she was granted a forum with The National Press Club on Oct. 6; the conference was broadcast on C-SPAN. In that presser, Lewis used the debunked information from the Associated Press and Washington Post articles that had since been corrected. Yes, the NPC gave her a platform to continue touting untruths that were previously purveyed by the supine media. She said, “O’Keefe, himself, told The Washington Post, ‘They’re registering too many minorities. They usually vote Democratic. Somebody’s got to stop them’…”

Perhaps the most perplexing media coverage – or lack thereof – surrounds a video that ACORN Housing’s Philadelphia office released back in September. On Sept. 16, a YouTube account was created and on Sept. 17, a video featuring Philadelphia Office Director Katherine Conway Russell was released. The video, which is intended to respond to O’Keefe and Giles while defending the Philadelphia office’s handling of the filmmakers went largely unnoticed by the mainstream media.

In the video, Russell describes a July meeting with O’Keefe and Giles and uses a police report filed after the filmmakers left the office as evidence that the Philadelphia office was taken aback by the prostitution story line. Aside from the fact that the series of events that lead up to the police filing described in the video lead to more questions, the police report itself does not mention anything about discussion content; the report merely claims that O’Keefe was responsible for a verbal “disturbance.”

While the media vastly ignored this important video, many outlets did delve into the police report. According to The Washington Post, “ACORN emailed a copy of a Philadelphia police report dated July 24 to The Post to verify its account that police were called and the couple was shown the door.” And concerning the Philadelphia office’s involvement, WPVI Philadelphia wrote, “…by every account, the Philadelphia office is not part of the problem.” And, WBUR-FM wrote, “…in ACORN Housing’s North Philadelphia office, the scene is far from the one seen in the videos, which were made by a conservative activist”

Here, the media takes sides without interviewing or speaking with O’Keefe and Giles. Aside from the issue of ignoring ACORN’s own video, such selective sourcing is disturbing. Nowhere in the police report is ACORN’s rejection of any subject matter mentioned, therefore the report, in itself, does not prove wholeheartedly what ACORN’s officials in that city have said.

And finally: The insinuation that the videos were creatively edited was repeated in a plethora of mainstream news media. In an opinion piece for True/Slant, Allison Kilkenny wrote,

The videos are edited very creatively — if I’m being generous — to show only the ACORN employees who engaged in shady behavior, and not the dozens of other ACORN offices from which O’Keefe and Company were ejected, and in a few cases, ACORN employees called the police on the duo.

Aside from the fact that the videos weren’t edited in any way to deceive the viewers, that dozens of offices did not dispel O’Keefe and Giles, and only one office has come forward with a report, entire audio and transcript versions of the investigations are available on BigGovernment.com, right at the top of the homepage. This falsehood (that full versions are not available) has been repeated by Lewis herself on CNN and in other mainstream outlets (and, surprise, virtually no journalist has corrected her).

The ACORN story has, once again, shown the media’s inability to fulfill its duties. The media should adequately inform the public while asking the questions needed to provide a full and robust picture of what is occurring. ACORN coverage has been biased, incomplete, and sloppily mishandled. Let’s hope the aforementioned examples help to set the record straight.

Did ACORN chief organizer Bertha Lewis say anything that was true in her recent speech at the National Press Club?

The embattled ACORN CEO deserved an Academy Award nomination for her virtuoso performance in which she not only depicted ACORN as an innocent victim but also as a whistleblower that tried to nip the subprime mortgage crisis in the bud.

She blamed everyone but herself: “We’ve seen this play before, whether it was the civil rights movement or whatever, when you organize poor people to have real power, what you do is often turned against you.”

She blamed Republicans: “The RNC…because we’ve been inflated as the boogeyman, raises almost $2 million a day, every day, and this form of modern-day ACORN McCarthyism has got to stop.”

Lewis’s statement about the Republican National Committee was immediately torpedoed by RNC chairman Michael Steele who defended ACORN.

In a video of Steele from a Sept. 21 speech that surfaced on a left-wing website the day of Lewis’s speech, Steele praised Lewis. “The current head of the organization, she’s done a phenomenal job getting out in front of it,” Steele said. “I applaud her. I take her at her word that she wants to work to make sure that the bad apples are thrown out.”

Steele said he respects ACORN’s history of “working in the community and helping the poor.”

So much for the Republican boogeyman.

Lewis said little about her own role in covering up the nearly $1 million embezzlement perpetrated by founder Wade Rathke’s brother. After news of the theft broke, Lewis forced out honest ACORN national board members who dared to demand accountability.

Lewis, who has high-level contacts within the Marxist governments of Venezuela and Bolivia, also glossed over her ties to the radical Working Families Party in New York state and to President Obama’s political director Patrick Gaspard.

I spotted eight major lies in the Lewis speech.

Here are just two of them:

LIE #1: Lewis claimed no one voted fraudulently in 2008 presidential election “because of an ACORN registration.” She added, “This voter fraud or the allegations of voter fraud was to have hung a shadow over the presidential election. And it proved to be an utter fabrication and a work of fiction that was created by the people who wrote it.”

In fact, vote fraud happened in Ohio in 2008 and ACORN was smack dab in the middle of it.

Darnell Nash of Cleveland, Ohio, was registered to vote by ACORN nine times for last year’s election. Nash cast a fraudulent ballot and was convicted of vote fraud and voter registration fraud. He’s currently serving a six-month prison term.

A spokesman for Cleveland’s Democratic prosecutor Bill Mason told me earlier this month that a local investigation of ACORN remains wide open.

The conviction of Nash, a cross-dressing prostitute known by several aliases, is hugely significant for several reasons, not least of which is the fact that ACORN has long maintained that vote fraud, as opposed to the lesser crime of voter registration fraud, essentially never happens.

LIE #7: Following an anti-Karl Rove rant, Lewis deliberately smeared undercover sting video filmmaker James O’Keefe. O’Keefe and Hannah Giles posed as a pimp and prostitute in the videos seeking help from ACORN. ACORN workers across the nation are shown in the videos counseling the pair on how to evade taxes, make fraudulent applications for government aid, and disguise a planned brothel.

Lewis said O’Keefe told the Washington Post, “They’re registering too many minorities that usually vote Democratic. Somebody’s got to stop them.”

In fact after the newspaper ran the Sept. 18 cover story to which Lewis refers, the newspaper ran a correction because O’Keefe said no such thing.

Does anyone believe the CEO of ACORN wouldn’t have known this?

It was an obvious smear and Lewis knows it.

For the full article, go to American Spectator.

When we read about the firing of Louisiana ACORN head Beth Butler, wife (”longtime companion”?) of ACORN founder Wade Rathke, we knew ACORN was still girding its loins.

It all came about when a local ACORN volunteer, Vanessa Gueringer, remarked to the Times-Picayune that President Obama should spend more time in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans when he was going to visit there last week.  The Lower 9th, of course, was hardest hit during Hurricane Katrina 4 years ago.

It seemed like a fairly harmless request, and one that would certainly expect to read from ACORN in a newspaper.

Well, it appears Bertha Lewis and ACORN national still are a bit touchy (and powerhungry?).  Lewis was supposedly coincidentally flying down to New Orleans the very next day.

Lo and behold, Lewis cited “a lack of accountability to process” in figuratively lopping off Butler’s head, who apparently failed in her duty to keep her minions quiet.  From the Times-Picayune:

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.”

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review issued a correct analysis:

The firing of Beth Butler, a 37-year ACORN veteran, from her post as executive director of Louisiana ACORN by national ACORN leaders has sparked infighting that confirms that the group’s real agenda — at any level — is more about power than about helping the downtrodden.

Now comes word that ACORN national has taken over the Louisiana chapter, further distancing itself from the Rathkes and attempting to secure that chapter’s assets.

And the Rathkes/Butlers are responding in-kind:

Yet local ACORN leaders, including the recently deposed Beth Butler, say they are nearing completion of a long-planned separation from the national organization, setting up shop in new offices but under the same name.

…

Gueringer said local ACORN figures are willing to go to court to gain control of the Louisiana ACORN resources, including membership dues, property and recovery grants that are now in control of the national organization.

Gueringer said she has not talked with local staff members but believes they will be welcomed in the new organization. “I assume, like everybody, that those people need a job,” she said. “Those folks have a tough decision to make about what organization they will be a part of.”

It certainly didn’t take long for the ACORN dandelion seeds to take flight, landing elsewhere to take root and continue its work.

Lastly, we wanted to bring attention to the t-shirt Vanessa Gueringer wore to the Wade Rathke book signing in New Orleans back in late July, to dispel any myth about ACORN’s true agenda.

Two Republican lawmakers on Wednesday will appear alongside two filmmakers who secretly shot footage of ACORN workers, sparking a Congress to strip the group’s federal funding.

Reps. Steve King (R-Iowa) and Thad McCotter (R-Mich.) are scheduled offer brief remarks at a Washington, D.C. press conference featuring James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles — two conservative activists who posed as a pimp and prostitute — to whom ACORN officials offered financial advice.

McCotter and King have both been outspoken opponents of the organization. The couple’s video became public last month.

{mosads}ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) brought a lawsuit against O’Keefe, Giles, and conservative journalist Andrew Breitbart for unlawful surveillance for filming then publishing footage of inside the community group’s Baltimore office.

The group also issued a statement denying any wrongdoing during the couple’s visit to its Philadelphia office, saying ACORN workers declined to help O’Keefe and Giles after which they became belligerent.

"James and Hannah will be joining me to set the record straight," said Breitbart — who is hosting the conference — in a release. "After Wednesday, everyone will know what really happened in Philly."

Last month, Congress overwhelmingly voted to strip funding from the group in the wake of the video footage. Several government agencies also cut ties with the organization.

In the wake of a series of embarrassing hidden-camera exposes and mounting congressional pressure to cut off its federal funding, Bertha Lewis, CEO of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now announced that ACORN will seek independent review.  However, the ACORN review which followed the million dollar Rathke embezzlement was merely a smokescreen; eight former ACORN board members previously sought a complete forensic examination of ACORN and its related entities followed by an independent audit from a Big Four accounting firm.

Lewis noted that ACORN’s advisory council would assist her in choosing an outside auditor, former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger. The ACORN advisory council includes John Podesta, head of the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank; Andrew Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union; and former Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend.

“As a result of the indefensible action of a handful of our employees,” Lewis said in a statement, “I am, in consultation with ACORN’s Executive Committee, immediately ordering a halt to any new intakes into ACORN’s service programs until completion of an independent review.” Mind you, these are the same senior staff and executive committee members who concealed and covered up a million dollar embezzlement, but who themselves were never terminated.

Besides, ACORN already had its chance to do the right thing following the Rathke embezzlement when the board of directors appointed an interim management committee to investigate this fraud and reorganize ACORN. So what happened the last time that ACORN claimed to put in place its own internal management committee?

Last year, the national board of directors installed an Interim Management Committee (IMC) following a million dollar embezzlement by Dale Rathke and subsequent cover up by the ACORN executive committee, senior staff and co-founder Wade Rathke. The national board appointed Karen Inman (Legal Affairs), Carol Hemmingway (Financial Affairs) and Marcel Reid (Governance) to the IMC.

The national board authorized the IMC to hire independent professionals to investigate and reorganize ACORN following the million dollar Rathke embezzlement. While the ACORN board of directors took prompt corrective action after learning about the misappropriations, the IMC desired to take even more definitive remedial actions, including a complete accounting of all ACORN assets, a forensic examination of the known embezzlement and an independent audit of ACORN and it related entities.

These were all professionally prudent recommendations under the circumstances; unfortunately, 38 of 50 board members were swayed by the executive committee and ACORN insiders into condoning the cover up and removing the IMC board members who attempted to exercise their fiduciary obligations. Nevertheless, eight courageous board members banded together and formed the ACORN 8, LLC to reform the once venerable organization.

The ACORN 8 were the first to identify the nebulous Citizen’s Consulting Inc. (CCI) and attempted to “follow the money” at ACORN; the first to seek a forensic examination and independent audit of ACORN and its related organizations; the first to seek injunctions against ACORN, the Rathkes and CCI; the first to call for a national boycott of all charitable donations, federal funding and member dues; and the first to file Civil Rights and RICO complaints against ACORN’s corrupt management. Consequently, Louisiana Attorney General James “Buddy” Caldwell issued subpoenas and is investigating ACORN and Rathke.

Lewis also said that ACORN would name an independent auditor and investigator to conduct a wide-ranging “top to bottom” review of the organization.

Really?!? We’ve heard that one before; the IMC objected to ACORN’s duplicitous assertion that an “independent auditor” would be engaged following the Rathke embezzlement.  When ACORN senior staff hired Mesirow Financial Services (not a licensed CPA firm) to conduct a review of ACORN’s financial controls, ACORN insiders presented this review as an “independent audit” to the board. Don’t be fooled: a review is not a forensic examination or an independent audit.

Worse still, the senior staff and executive committee members who were implicated by the embezzlement and continuing fraud cannot be the same individuals who hire the “independent auditors” to investigate – it is an inherent conflict of interest. If ACORN hopes to survive then the know nothing, see nothing, do nothing board of directors must by replaced by individuals with the strength, courage and capabilities to fulfill their fiduciary obligations. ACORN needs a qualified audit committee to formally engage truly independent outside auditors.

“ACORN has a long history of serving those who most need help, and giving voice to those who have been left behind.” Townsend said in a statement. “We will take the necessary steps to ensure that ACORN functions with the highest levels of ethical standards and competence.”  But how is that possible when ACORN won’t terminate ACORN senior staff and executive board members who concealed a million dollar embezzlement and then ousted the board members who attempted to investigate the fraud?

Even now after the undercover sting videos shown on the “Glenn Beck Program” and BigGovernment.com exposed the radical activist group ACORN as the crime syndicate it really is, the character assassins at George Soros’s Media Matters for America continue shilling for ACORN.

They’re doing so to protect ACORN, which is a key part of the left’s voter registration and get-out-the-vote operations every election. To the liberal establishment, ACORN is too big to be allowed to fail, so it must be defended at all costs.

In a column about how the media is wrong to pay attention to the growing ACORN scandal, Media Matters attack dog Jamison Foser (pictured above) writes

That’s what happened when, after years of making absurd claims about ACORN — remember the lie that ACORN was going to get billions of stimulus dollars? — some conservative activists induced a statistically insignificant number of the organization’s low-level employees to behave badly. The rest of the media rushed to cover the “scandal” — and to beat themselves up for not having taken their cues from Beck & Co. sooner. The ombudsmen for the The Washington Post and The New York Times, for example, scolded their papers for being too slow to report on Beck-generated controversies and gave credence to conservative claims that the delay was the result of liberal bias.

It really shouldn’t be all that surprising that Foser, formerly research director at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), sees the ACORN scandal this way.

Foser is so far left that he thinks “Hardball” host Chris Matthews is a rabid right-winger. He refers to the TV talk show host as the “Clinton-hating, liberal-bashing misogynist Chris Matthews.”

Anybody who watches Matthews knows he’s a hardcore liberal. He professed feeling “a thrill” up his leg when listening to President Obama speak. Matthews was also a top aide to Democratic Speaker of the House Thomas “Tip” O’Neill during 1980s, a White House speechwriter for Democratic President Jimmy Carter, and worked for Ralph Nader in 1973.

Here’s another example of Foser’s strange beliefs. He chastised another TV host for not sharing the view of leftists that welfare spending is a boon for the economy.

He accused the host of “demonizing ‘welfare spending’ without any regard for the simple truth that such spending not only helps those Americans who are struggling the most feed their families, it also does more to stimulate the economy than anything else you can think of.”

Then after decades of a multi-trillion dollar War on Poverty shouldn’t all Americans be wealthy?

Read the original story at NewsReal Blog.