Michael Gaynor
The truth about ACORN will prevail SOON
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By Michael Gaynor
May 7, 2009

This coming Mother's Day should be especially memorable.

ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) has been riding high with its allies in control of the White House and Congress.

ACORN has been made a partner in the upcoming census by the Obama administration.

Proud Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.)is even pleading personal carelessness and working to remove an anti-ACORN provision Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) succeeded in inserting in the proposed Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act. Congressman Frank, the committee chairman, insisted that his committee's approval of the Bachmann amendment was a mistake.

The Bachmann amendment was unanimously approved in a voice vote in committee last week. It would block organizations that have been indicted for voter registration or vote fraud from receiving housing counseling grants and legal assistance grants and apply only to the proposed mortgage reform legislation. (It would not change ACORN's ability to receive funds under either the stimulus program or 2010 budget.)

What happened to make Congressman Frank flip flop?

Last Monday, the Nevada Attorney General (a Democrat) indicted ACORN itself.

ACORN released this typical ACORN statement on the criminal indictments in Nevada:

"This recent attack by the Nevada Secretary of State and Attorney General is the latest in an ongoing assault designed to blame the victim and prioritize media grandstanding above the pursuit of justice.

"From the time ACORN first suspected that some of its employees had tried to defraud ACORN by turning in bogus forms, ACORN repeatedly called its suspicions to the attention of election officials and requested that they investigate immediately.

"Our policy all along has been to pay workers at an hourly rate and to not pay employees based on any bonus or incentive program. When it was discovered that an employee was offering bonuses linked to superior performance, that employee was ordered to stop immediately.

"It is unfortunate that the Secretary of State can't distinguish the victim from the villain."

ACORN's problem is that Nevada's Secretary of State and Attorney General can distinguish and could not be cowed by ACORN and its powerful allies.

ACORN reflexively plays the racist card as well as the victim card, but yesterday playing the racist card boomeranged big time.

ACORN National Spokesman Scott Levenson was ejected from a Fox News studio Wednesday following an off-camera altercation with host Glenn Beck that involved racially charged comments.

Beck: "I threw him out of the studio, get the hell out of my studio."

Why?

Because Levenson had accused Beck of being racist and "afraid of black people" during a break.

Levenson had been invited to respond to the criminal charges filed against ACORN and ACORN employees in Nevada last Monday.

Levenson argued that individual employees were responsible for the violations but not the national organization.

An unpersuaded Beck persisted in his questioning during the break.

Tomorrow Beck will have the ACORN 8 as guests on his show.

It's NOT what a (white) racist afraid of black people would do.

The group known as the ACORN 8 includes two former board members of the national ACORN group. It has called for federal agents to probe into an embezzlement scheme that involves Dale Rathke, who was once the chief financial officer and is the brother of ACORN founder Wade Rathke.

Last March, after Heather Heidelbaugh, Esq. testified before him at a Congressional hearing on voter fraud allegations and questionable financial transactions connected with ACORN, John Conyers (D.-Mich.), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, called the accusations "a pretty serious matter" and called for investigation.

"I think that it would be something that would be worth our time," Chairman Conyers said. "We've never had one person representing ACORN before the committee. ...I think in all fairness we ought to really examine it."

Some were very surprised when Chairman Conyers called for investigation, since he had received a 100 percent rating from ACORN in its 2006 legislative scorecard.

Matthew Vadum, senior analyst and editor with Capital Research Center: "It is startling that someone like Conyers, who is very sympathetic to ACORN's policy goals and who has defended the group in the past, is now suddenly considering examining the many wrongdoings of ACORN."

It's no surprise that ACORN ally Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D.-N.Y.) ardently opposed an investigation. See ACORN whistleblower's fact-filled article titled "Nadler, ACORN and the Working Families Party: No Credible Evidence? " at her website, www.anitamoncrief.blogspot.com.

In response into inquiries about a possible investigation Conyers' office released the following statement read on CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight" last Monday: "Based on my review of the information regarding the complaints against ACORN, I have concluded that a hearing on this matter appears unwarranted at this time."

Is Chairman Conyers now afraid to investigate ACORN?

That's not certain, but if Chairman Conyers is not supporting an ACORN investigation again after Mother's Day, there should be an investigation, by Beck, as to why not.

This coming Mother's Day should be especially memorable.

© Michael Gaynor

 

The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
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Michael Gaynor

Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member... (more)

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