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Taking out ACORN: Who is sponsoring this ad on BMG?

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Tell President Obama to Cut Off ACORN Now!

The petition

It seems that every time ACORN makes the headlines, it’s for scandalous activities and criminal investigations. As if the investigations, indictments, and consent decrees related criminal voter registration fraud activities in more than a dozen states wasn’t enough, recent videos show ACORN employees in three cities giving advice to a couple for evading tax laws and getting federal grants to establish a prostitution ring.

Enough is enough!

Read the whole thing here  It is signed by Rep. Michele Bachmann and it says the petition is sponsored by Bachmann for Congress but how do we verify who is funding the ad?

President Obama, I urge you to immediately suspend all federal agencies from doing business with ACORN and using our hard-earned tax dollars to perpetuate their scandalous work. The Senate voted overwhelmingly to cut off ACORN. The House voted overwhelmingly to cut off ACORN. And, now individual states are taking this action as well. We want to know when you will use the authority you have to suspend and bar ACORN from federal funding.

Paid for by Bachmann for Congress

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Comments

    • Are you afraid because the sponsor GOTV initiatives in low-income and minority communities? Can you offer any substantiated links not from RW websites that point to some larger ACORN conspiracy?  

      • Yes, he’s probably buying the hysteria to some extent, and he has previously given us ample reason to believe that he is quite unsympathetic to the socio-economic constituencies that ACORN seeks to help.

      • ACORN’s problem is it lives in a glass house.  Dale Rathke stole $948,000 from ACORN and its chief organizer, Wade Rathke, spent eight years covering it up.  

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        ACORN’s board learned about the stolen money in June, about eight years after Wade Rathke learned that Dale Rathke, who was in charge of keeping ACORN’s books, misappropriated the money. Wade Rathke negotiated a settlement with top ACORN managers, agreeing that the Rathke family would restore $30,000 a year until the money was repaid.

        Dale Rathke was fired from ACORN in May. Directors in June voted to fire Wade Rathke, although he negotiated a deal to remain chief organizer of ACORN International, an affiliate organization then based in the same New Orleans office with ACORN and its many subsidiaries.

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        p>Much (if not most) of the work ACORN does is fantastic, but there’s a culture of corruption, evidenced by the videos, the theft and Wade Rathke’s clinging onto power.  ACORN made the right move by hiring Scott Harshbarger to review its internal books, but at least eight years too late.  

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        p>I don’t discount all of the work ACORN has done because of the actions of its leadership, and the good work that ACORN is doing doesn’t deserve this treatment (although given the culture the brothers Rathke have fostered, it needs the spotlight).  But the fact that we can’t simply refute Glen Beck or Michelle Bachmann as liars, means we’ve got a problem.  

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        p>The left has got to own this problem and deal with it head on.  Blind loyalty to corrupt leadership is counterproductive.  This behavior is traitorous and should be dealt with firmly, there’s plenty of places on the right to get rich by stealing from poor people, there shouldn’t be a place on the left.  

        • But you’ll notice the problem you cite are not the ones motivating the right and Congress to try and defund ACORN, so where’s the disconnect?

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          The irony of all of this is that the Congress is attempting to accomplish an unconstitutional act:  singling out and punishing ACORN, which is clearly a “bill of attainder” that the Constitution explicitly prohibits — i.e., an act aimed at punishing a single party without a trial.  The only way to overcome that problem is by pretending that the de-funding of ACORN is really about a general policy judgment (that no corrupt organizations should receive federal funding).  But the broader they make the law in order to avoid the Constitutional problem, the more it encompasses the large corrupt corporations that own the Congress (and whom they obviously don’t want to de-fund).  The narrower they make it in order to include only ACORN, the more blatantly unconstitutional it is.  Now that they have embraced this general principle that no corrupt organizations should receive federal funding, how is anyone going to justify applying that only to ACORN while continuing to fund the corporations whose fraud and corruption is vastly greater (not to mention established by actual courts of law)?
          MORE

      • Census Bureau Drops Acorn

        Internal Revenue Service announced it is severing its ties with ACORN

        House voted  345-75 to deny all federal funds for ACORN

        Senate voted 85-11 to deny funds to ACORN

        Obama: investigate ACORN

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        p>Bye, bye ACORN.

  4. is that media coverage given to corruption issues at ACORN versus other  government contract corruption stories.

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    “The amount of money that ACORN has received in the past 20 years altogether is roughly equal to what the taxpayer paid to Halliburton each day during the war in Iraq.”

  5. Bank of America, a long-time supporter of Acorn and its efforts to assist low-income communities, told the Wall Street Journal Monday that it has “suspended current commitments” to Acorn Housing.

  6. Jon Stewart takes the GOP hypocrites to task for wanting ACORN investigated while defending the likes of Karl Rove and refusing to investigate torture, and for freaking out over a video of school children praising President Obama.

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    p>VIDEO

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