READER COMMENTS ON
"ACORN Sues Congress Over Defunding Legislation"
(16 Responses so far...)
COMMENT #1 [Permalink]
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NYCartist
said on 11/16/2009 @ 2:33 pm PT...
Nice piece/article. I read the story of the millionaires in Congress too, and the list. I heard Dem.Now as linked above. I often go back are read the transcripts,too. Bill Quigley is great - his history in recent years is wonderful and he has had articles online,too. I first heard him on DemNow in re Haiti, then Katrina, NOLA housing.
On Chris Hedges:I'm not much interested in his views since he was so ...negative? on atheists. (I'm an atheist Jew.) It was so dogmatic (pun intended).
COMMENT #2 [Permalink]
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Big Dan
said on 11/16/2009 @ 4:29 pm PT...
All I can say is, Brietbart and two young Republican stooges are now our judge and jury, ACORN was tried and convicted by them and the media. And then we have KBR and so many other companies actually convicted of defrauding the government out of millions and billions, and they still get funding. This is how far the right's media power has gotten, out of control. And part of their game is to still act like they have no power and the media is "liberal", it's part of their genius game. Still cry about the "liberal media" when they get their way with everything by continually whining about it. And the Democrats go along with it, that's even worse!
COMMENT #3 [Permalink]
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Lora
said on 11/16/2009 @ 5:04 pm PT...
I wish the Acorn vote could be linked to Democrat millionaire status. Perhaps it can, but here's my take:
Sadly, I think it boils down to our love of a sordid sex scandal.
America loves to be scandalized. Even better, America loves to punish those public figures who are associated with a sordid sex scandal. Even better than that, the Republicans and the Republican-influenced Mouth Piece Media love to punish Democrats who are associated with a sordid sex scandal. When the media are done with them, they are gone from the political arena.
I believe it is no accident that the theme of the sting operation that brought ACORN down featured child prostitution by foreign children brought illegally into the country. That's about as sordid as you can get. The Repubs have been trying to bring ACORN down for a while now without success, and they needed a new tack.
I bet someone in a think tank somewhere came up with this type of sting as just about a sure bet, if they could pull it off. And they did.
If the Democrats had not stood with the Republicans in punishing ACORN, they would have been portrayed as immoral, decadent and lax, allowing evil to flourish unchecked. They would not have wanted to be the party associated with accepting sexual exploitation of undocumented immigrant children. Facts would not have gotten in the way of this portrayal, and a possibliy significant percentage of the public would not have understood nor forgiven.
The Dems did not want to risk it and figured they could throw ACORN under the bus so as to be seen as upholding what is moral and right.
COMMENT #4 [Permalink]
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Agent 99
said on 11/16/2009 @ 5:19 pm PT...
Indeed. Being seen as upholding what is moral and right trumps upholding what is moral and right every time, doesn't it.... That's what makes our laws. That's what wields the power to conduct wars, to slaughter millions... it would be pathetic if it were not so filthy.
COMMENT #5 [Permalink]
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Lora
said on 11/16/2009 @ 6:41 pm PT...
Well, it seems that Hannah Giles, the pretend prostitute in the video, came up with the idea all on her own, after happening to jog past an ACORN office one day. Anyway, Giles and O'Keffe are apparently well-connected with right wingers.
From My Way News:
But as far back as 2006 - well before the videos became a national sensation and conservative rallying cry - the fresh-faced O'Keefe and Giles connected with a pair of Washington conservative institutions that boast programs training ideological journalists.
COMMENT #6 [Permalink]
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Ernest A. Canning
said on 11/16/2009 @ 7:44 pm PT...
I don't believe, Lora, that you can explain away either the corporate media's obsession with the out-of-context video of a few ACORN employees purportedly giving advice to a pimp and a prostitute or the disparity with which Congressional Democrats leaped at the opportunity to throw ACORN under the bus even as Congress continues to fund corporate criminals on the basis of "sex scandals" being irresistible.
Recall the observation I made about how the corporate media failed to cover the serious allegations made in sworn affidavits about Blackwater in Blackwater = Murder, Inc?, which entailed murder, gun running and:
a salacious element that usually drives the corporate media to 24/7 coverage --- sex scandals! Specifically, as recounted by Olbermann during an Aug. 6 segment of Countdown, allegations that [Eric] Prince operated a wife-swapping sex ring here in the US, and that, in Iraq, Blackwater had “young girls provide oral sex to Enterprise members in the 'Blackwater Man Camp' in exchange for one American dollar." John Doe 2 alleges that Prince visited the Man Camp but “failed to stop the use of prostitutes, including child prostitutes, by his men…”
The corporate-owned media ignored those allegations. The same Congressional Democrats who passed this Bill of Attainder know full well that Blackwater continues to receive enormous contracts to protect State Department officials in Afghanistan, yet they do nothing!
No, sex doesn't explain it, and even fear of the Reich-wing echo chamber doesn't fully explain it. The explanation for the disparity of treatment can be found in the consistency of action by corporate Democrats in shielding the interests of those whose campaign funds they so depend upon, not to mention class affinity.
COMMENT #7 [Permalink]
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Michael
said on 11/17/2009 @ 1:37 am PT...
"out of context videos" I love it! LOL This organization is so corrupt it is unconstitutional that they should have been getting any taxpayer funds to begin with. Period! And frankly, while I wasn't at all surprised by the behavior of these 'few' employees at EVERY location visited across the country, I WAS surprised that their already established track record of fraud and embezzlement wasn't enough to get them de-funded to begin with. Defend an organization worth defending. It is a benefit to the integrity of the Democratic party to disassociate from Acorn.
COMMENT #8 [Permalink]
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BetterThanNoSN
said on 11/17/2009 @ 8:29 am PT...
And we thank you for your genuine concern for the Democratic party Michael. Ahhhh, compassionate conservatives, aren't they special????
COMMENT #9 [Permalink]
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Brad Friedman
said on 11/17/2009 @ 9:32 am PT...
Michael said:
I wasn't at all surprised by the behavior of these 'few' employees at EVERY location visited across the country
Ah, but you see, that wasn't the behavior of the employees at "EVERY location visited across the country". Just the ones that Fox "News", Breitbart and Drudge decided to allow you to see. (Eg. the ones where the ACORN employees call the police on these two rubes wasn't shown for some odd reason on Fox "News").
Defend an organization worth defending.
I believe they are worth defending, particularly as ACORN themselves have been charged and convicted of nothing. (Even while federal contractors such as Halliburton/KBR, Blackwater and scores of others have been charged and convicted of murderous crimes and extraordinary fraud, but still enjoy billions in tax-payer contracts from the federal government, without one Fox "News" wingnut calling for them to be defunded. Odd, isn't it?)
It is a benefit to the integrity of the Democratic party to disassociate from Acorn.
Glad you're worried about "the integrity of the Democratic party". Of course, I'm not. I'm happy to call them out when they're idiots, as they have been in the case of their cowardly defunding of ACORN.
(NOTE: I realize Ernie Canning feels there's a more insidious reason for the Dems actions here, and there well could be. But, so far, all I see is evidence of the usual Dem cowardice, as opposed to a nefarious corporatism --- at least in this specific instance.)
COMMENT #10 [Permalink]
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Ralph Dratman
said on 11/17/2009 @ 3:01 pm PT...
This is just so disturbing. Thanks, Brad, for bringing it into consciousness again. I keep hoping Obama has plans to do better than this, if he can get a health care bill passed and signed. I can't believe he meant to get in office and then betray what seems to be good organization, one that has significantly helped the black community. It just doesn't make sense!
COMMENT #11 [Permalink]
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Lora
said on 11/17/2009 @ 5:39 pm PT...
Ernest,
You do have an interesting take on Acorn's demise. You may be right.
As to not doing anything about Blackwater and sex (not to mention murder), it's boys will be boys, unless the boys are Democrats.
I don't disagree that the Democrats are supporting their financial backers.
I'm not sure I buy the class issue however. The ACORN-registered voters helped put the Democrats in office. Whatever the elected Democrats might think privately of the class differences, that wouldn't be a big enough factor for them to join with the Repubs to illegally defund them.
I think you may be underestimating the power of sexual scandal when wielded by the corporate media-backed Republicans against Democrats. Consider that all the hue and cry the Republicans brought against ACORN for so-called voter fraud did not bring them down. They were adequately defended against the bogus allegations. Now maybe if there had been an undercover sting operation and there were ACORN workers videotaped filling out obviously bogus registration forms --- maybe that would have worked. Somehow I think there would have been hearings and a lot of fuss and bother and still they might have escaped Congressional wrath.
I think it took the illicit child sex angle to bring them down as rapidly as it did.
Bill Clinton, John Edwards, Eliot Spitzer --- they were done. So now is ACORN.
COMMENT #12 [Permalink]
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Ernest A. Canning
said on 11/17/2009 @ 7:19 pm PT...
Lora, the corporate media does not limit its coverage of sex scandals to Dems. Consider, for example, Gov. Mark Sanford. His little trips to Argentina on the state's dime did him in, just as Edwards and Spitzer were done in.
I'm not underestimating the corporate media's obsession with sex scandals; merely suggesting that you cannot explain away the disparate treatment by Congressional Dems and the corporate press as between say Blackwater and ACORN on sex alone.
I don't disagree with Brad's take that there is an element of cowardice on the part of the corporate Dems, but I disagree with his take that my assessment is more insidious. To the contrary, I believe a class-based analysis is a structural analysis, which includes both conscious and subconscious decision-making on the part of corporate Democrats; that the influence on their decision making is even greater than they know.
Consider Hightower's observation in Thieves in High Places:
Not only do members tend to descend into Congress from economic heights, but they also spend practically all of their substantive and social time with others from those heights.
Hightower continues:
Perhaps this gaping economic chasm between those on the inside and all the rest of us on the outside explains why our strumpets of state never get around to dealing with little matters like assuring health care for all families, passing living-wage legislation, and making sure everyone gets a decent retirement. Members of the Congressional club feel no urgency because, hey, it's not them--they have no personal anxiety about such matters, because (one) they're well off and (two) they're covered on all this by us taxpayers.
The folks over at KBR and Blackwater may have done some naughty things, but they're still part of the club--wealth being the price of admission. ACORN represents poor folks. They're not in the club; never will be, so why look out for them?
COMMENT #13 [Permalink]
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Ernest A. Canning
said on 11/17/2009 @ 7:35 pm PT...
As an addendum to my last comment, Lora, if the corporate media cannot resist exposing a sex scandal involving Democrats, how do you explain the corporate media veil of silence that prevents most Americans from learning about Sibel Edmonds' credible account that entails not only questions of corruption and espionage by members and former members of Congress, and high placed government officials and also entails an alleged effort by a female Turkish agent to engage in a sexual relationship with a Democratic Congresswoman with an eye toward blackmailing that Congresswoman over their lesbian affair?
As to the hypocrisy of the ACORN "Bill of Attainder," if members of Congress are truly concerned with eliminating corruption, they should start by looking in the mirror.
COMMENT #14 [Permalink]
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Ernest A. Canning
said on 11/17/2009 @ 7:52 pm PT...
Michael said on 11/17/2009
"This organization is so corrupt it is unconstitutional that they should have been getting any taxpayer funds to begin with."
He added that ACORN has an "established track record of fraud and embezzlement..."
__________________
Kindly direct readers to the source of your allegations.
Was ACORN, as an organization, convicted of fraud or embezzlement in a court of law? If so, please name the court, the date of the conviction or other source.
Or are you, Michael, simply repeating the unsubstantiated allegation you heard from Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck or some other propagandist at Fox News?
If you have any "facts" to back up these allegations, provide the source of the facts. If you do not, then your comment must be regarded as scurrilous and defamatory.
COMMENT #15 [Permalink]
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Lora
said on 11/18/2009 @ 6:37 am PT...
Ernest,
I don't disagree with anything you've said, really, except as to the suddenness that Acorn was brought down and why.
The Sibel Edmonds silence is easy to explain. First of all the Corporate Republican Complex does not want to give credence to anything Edmonds says for fear of what she might reveal about them. They want her discredited entirely.
Second of all, the Congresswoman did the "politically" correct thing under the circumstances: she immediately repudiated and disassociated herself from all things Sibel in very strong terms, putting Sibel in the "extreme wingnut" category. Plus if she is indeed looking out for interests other than the U.S., that puts her at least temporarily in the same class as the Republicans who have been accused of doing the same thing.
Sibel has no air time on any subject in the corporate media.
You're right, the media will run with sex scandals of any politician if they can, and Repubs are brought down along with Dems. I have a theory that the Repubs can sometimes make a comeback where Dems can't, but it's only a theory and I haven't looked into it yet. I'm thinking of the right-wing members of Congress who've been in the media a lot with various sex allegations --- many of them homosexual ones. Aren't they mostly still running around with relatively little damage done?
COMMENT #16 [Permalink]
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Conservative New York
said on 11/29/2009 @ 4:56 pm PT...
Crimes were committed by ACORN staff (lying to the government, illegal use of government funds, aiding customers to defraud the government, etc). I find it funny that ACORN wants to keep funding coming since they weren't found guilty in court (yet). Do they really want their crimes to be brought to court?