ACORN Changing Name, Disbursing Money to SEIU, Other Groups

The crime syndicate known as ACORN is on the run, but is getting plenty of cover from the Democrats, which comes as no surprise since they're an arm of the Democratic Party. Now since their name is radioactive they figure changing it will bamboozle an unwitting public while they work hand-in-hand with the goons from SEIU to funnel money away from themselves. How clever. Consider it one giant slush fund, all designed to aid the Democrats.

ACORN, the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now, is in the process of changing its name and has already transferred many of its resources to several other left-wing advocacy and political groups, according to a report released Tuesday by Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

While the Justice Department has said that federal housing funds should continue to flow to ACORN, several congressmen, in a joint hearing of the House Oversight Committee and the Judiciary Committee, said they want a special prosecutor to investigate the group's use of taxpayer dollars.

Several weeks back, Congress included in the Continuing Appropriations Resolution for 2010 a provision that bars federal funds to ACORN and its “affiliates, subsidiaries or allied organizations.”

President Obama signed the resolution. But the Justice Department’s opinion issued last week cleared the way for funds from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to continue going to the organization, a group that many House Republicans have called a “criminal enterprise.”

Which indeed it is. Now Obama may be playing it cute by signing that resolution but make no mistake. Obama is ACORN, ACORN is Obama and and Eric Holder answers to Obama. Just imagine if there was so much financial chicanery going on with the GOP. Why, the media might even be inclined to investigate.

CNSNews.com could not reach an ACORN spokesman on Tuesday for comment after attempts by phone and e-mail. But ACORN spokesmen in the past have said that any illegal or unethical incidents were isolated and that the organization is dedicated to helping the poor.

However, the House Oversight report claimed otherwise, saying, “ACORN’s own training manual reflects a business model in which money is taken from poor people and then funneled into partisan political efforts.”

“ACORN is currently in the process of changing its name and has already transferred resources to several chapters of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and possibly Data and Field Services, the Working Families Party, Change to Win and the Council for Unity,” said Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee.

The GOP damn well better make ACORN and their affiliates a big issue in the midterm elections. Of course they'll be accused of being raaaaacist, but then again, that's nothing new. They're already whining about a partisan witch-hunt.

ACORN is in the midst of its own investigation of the undercover videos, led by former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger, but has also railed against what it calls a partisan witch hunt by Republicans.

“Allegations against ACORN continue to pour in—now it appears that the organization actively targeted incumbent Republican members of Congress in the 2008 election," Representative Lamar Smith, the ranking Republican on the judiciary committee, said in a statement. "This kind of political activity is a clear violation of ACORN’s nonprofit status. With more than a dozen investigations nationwide, federal law enforcement agencies can no longer ignore the shady actions of ACORN. Until then, not a single penny of taxpayer dollars should go to fund an organization that time and again has abused federal funds and the American people’s trust.”

Issa, meanwhile, pulls no punches.

"The current administration is fast becoming, in reality, the war room of ACORN's political machine," said Rep. Darrell Issa, California Republican. "I am concerned that the era of corruption promulgated by ACORN and protected by the White House is just the beginning."

The top Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said ACORN has engaged in "illegal, partisan activities designed to help individual Democratic members."

"This (action) goes from city councilmen to state assemblymen all the way to President Barack Obama," he said.

Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, said Mr. Obama's past ties to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) will "taint any conclusions" by any Justice Department probe into the group.

While these reports don't indicate any name change, here are some suggestions.

ACORN Hires John Edwards Fundraiser to Investigate Itself

More hijinks from the criminal enterprise at ACORN. They've hired an allegedly "independent" investigator to look into all their shady activities, namely former Massachusetts Attorney general Scott Harshbarger.

Former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger has been hired by ACORN to conduct an inquiry into the organization on the heels of a video that appears to show employees advising a couple posing as a prostitute and pimp to lie about the source of their income to get housing assistance.

Harshbarger, an attorney at Proskauer Rose LLP, is also the former president and chief executive of Common Cause, the good government organization.

“I have been asked by the leadership of ACORN to conduct an independent and comprehensive inquiry and review of the management of its service delivery to communities,” Harshbarger said in a statement. “The CEO and board have also asked me to make a full report, including recommendations for restoring ACORN’s full capacities to carry out its mission on behalf of low- and moderate-income families.”

Sorry, but a guy who was a chief fundraiser for the slimy John Edwards and who donated money to ACORN's pal Barack Obama doesn't exactly strike me as someone who's independent.

Harshbarger currently is an attorney in Boston with the law firm Proskauer Rose LLP, where his specialties include corporate governance and corporate defense and investigations. He was a fundraiser for former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards' 2008 presidential campaign, and donated $2,800 to Obama's campaign after Edwards left the race.

Seems to me Common Cause isn't quite up to their mantle of being a good government organization either, since they're in the business of making excuses for ACORN's phony voter registrations.

Accusations of stolen votes have a long history in presidential elections. In the 2000 recount debacle that led to George W. Bush winning the presidency, Republicans claimed illegal ballots were cast. Democrats contended that legal ballots were thrown out. In 2004, when the presidential vote came down to Ohio in the state-by-state process of the U.S. presidential election, Democrats charged that long lines and malfunctioning machines in that state led to an inaccurate count.

But in this contest, involving the first African-American in American history with a real chance at becoming president, the vitriol is particularly pointed.

"This is all just one big head-fake," said Tova Wang of the government watchdog group Common Cause. "What silliness this is, at this point. It's all about creating this perception that there is a tremendous problem with voter fraud in this country, and it's not true."

Maybe Wang can explain the arrests earlier this month of 11 ACORN workers in Florida for falsifying hundreds of voter registration forms.

Funny, isn't it, that the man Harshbarger was a fundraiser for last year addressed ACORN's convention.

Former senator and presidential candidate John Edwards called it a "moral shame" that 37 million Americans live in poverty, but committed to lifting them out by working with ACORN to raise wages and supporting Sen. Barack Obama for president.

"We can walk together and end the great shame of poverty in the United States," Edwards told nearly 2,000 ACORN members Monday, June 23, the final day of the group's National Convention at the Cobo Center. Edwards serves as chair of the ACORN-affiliated "Half in Ten" campaign to cut poverty in half in the U.S. within 10 years.

Edwards called the upcoming presidential election one of the most important elections in American history, telling ACORN members that "everything we believe in is at stake this fall." To the organizers in the crowd, he said, "There's one person who's been an organizer and who needs you to organize for him now, and that person is Barack Obama."

Maybe when the independent Harshbarger is done "investigating" ACORN he can get around to independently investigating John Edwards funneling campaign money to Rielle Hunter and why Edwards is still spending campaign money.

Nothing short of a special prosecutor investigating ACORN is going to engender the public trust. ACORN appointing their own hand-picked man is a joke and should rightly be seen as such.