ACORN lives on: Obama's support group mobilizing for 2012 elections -Jim Kouri

While the Democrats and their news media echo chamber are telling
Americans that the notorious and disgraced activist group, the Association of
Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), is a thing of the past, a
Washington, D.C.-based public-interest organization blew the lid off that myth.
Truth be told, ACORN still exists under the guise of new names doing business
in new locations.

Judicial Watch, a well-known non-profit that investigates and
prosecutes government corruption, yesterday released “The Rebranding of ACORN,”
a special report regarding the "ACORN network," following an extensive
investigation of the organization’s transformation into various “spinoffs” and
affiliated organizations.

After several scandals involving ACORN staff, including a case
covered by this writer for Accuracy
in Media, ACORN -- which until that time boasted about Barack Obama
working with and for them -- quickly dissolved, or so Americans were told.

In this writer's AIM column, in November 2010 "a supervisor for the now defunct political
advocacy group ACORN, has entered into a plea bargain with prosecutors in a case
alleging that canvassers were illegally paid to register Nevada voters during
the 2008 presidential campaign."

"Amy
Busefink, 28, pleaded no-contest in a Nevada court to two misdemeanor counts of
conspiracy to commit the crime of compensation for registration of voters. Her
nolo contendere plea acknowledged the state had sufficient evidence for a
conviction if the case went to trial."

Obama’s
spokespersons claimed he had a limited relationship with ACORN. However, the
record shows that “[Obama] says he is drawn to politics, despite its
superficialities, as a means to advance his real passion and calling: community
organization. In 1992, Obama took time off to direct Project Vote, an ACORN
program said to be the most successful grass-roots voter-registration campaign
in recent [Chicago] history.”

ACORN
officials admitted to submitting fraudulent voter registration forms in Ohio and
press reports confirmed that ACORN submitted hundreds of fraudulent voter
registration forms in Kansas City, forcing local officials to wade through
fraudulent voter registrations, potentially disenfranchising legitimate
voters.

The ACORN-affiliated groups existing today are ACORN in all but
name. These groups tend to occupy ACORN’s former offices, are staffed in many
cases with former ACORN employees, and remain committed to ACORN’s mission.
Overall, Judicial Watch attorneys have documented 17 ACORN-affiliated
organizations in the following states/regions: Arizona,
Arkansas, California, District of Columbia, Florida, Louisiana, Minnesota,
Missouri, New England, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania,
Texas, and Washington.

Among the conclusions of Judicial Watch’s special report:

• ACORN
  lives on in the form of numerous state entities and in such affiliated
  organizations as Affordable Housing Centers of America (AHCOA), The Advance
  Group, The Black Institute, and Project Vote. In the words of Bertha Lewis,
  former chief executive officer of ACORN, “… these entities are carrying on
  ACORN’s work of organizing low- and moderate-income folks… [We have created]
  bullet-proof community-organizing Frankensteins that they’re going to have a
  very hard time attacking.”
• Tens
  of millions of dollars in ACORN’s funds and other assets are still unaccounted
  for. The attorney general’s office for the state of Louisiana and the U.S.
  Bankruptcy Court, as well as Judicial Watch, continue to investigate what
  happened to these missing resources.
• Judicial
  Watch discovered that the Obama administration continues to bankroll ACORN and
  its affiliates in defiance of the federal government’s funding ban. For example,
  on March 1, 2011, ACORN Housing Corporation - renamed Affordable Housing Centers
  of America (though it retained the same headquarters and many of the ACORN
  officers) - received a $79,819 grant from the Obama Department of Housing and
  Development (HUD).
• ACORN’s
  Project Vote, President Obama’s former employer, remains active in trying to
  register
  a “Food Stamp Army” of voters on public assistance to re-elect Obama
  and other leftist candidates. In Colorado, for instance, Judicial Watch
  uncovered documents proving that ACORN/Project Vote successfully pressured
  Colorado officials into implementing new policies for increasing the
  registration of public assistance recipients during the 2008 and 2010 election
  seasons. After the policy changes, the
  percentage of fraudulent voter registration forms from Colorado public
  assistance agencies was four times the national average. Evidence suggests
  the Obama Justice Department might be partnering with Project Vote in this
  campaign.

At
its peak, ACORN had upwards of 400,000 members and 1,200 chapters in more
than 100 cities. Linked to serious scandals involving misuse of taxpayer funds,
embezzlement, intimidation tactics, employee abuse, questionable hiring tactics,
and fraudulent voter registrations, ACORN’s corrupt activities finally caught
the attention of the American public and members of Congress, the final blow
coming after explosive journalists' videos were released showing ACORN employees
advising undercover reporters on how to evade immigration, housing, and child
prostitution laws, as well as taxes.

The
videos were the product of two young journalists James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles,
the daughter of talk radio host Doug Giles.

After
the videos created a media feeding frenzy in October 2009, Congress passed and
President Obama signed into law the Defund
ACORN Act which effectively
prohibited the federal government from funding “ACORN and any ACORN-related
affiliate.”

ACORN
subsequently filed for bankruptcy on November 2, 2010. However, long before its
bankruptcy filing, ACORN’s leadership implemented a plan to ensure the survival
of ACORN as independent state corporations and affiliated organizations. The
Judicial Watch report provides details on the individual organizations and their
officers.

“As
this report clearly shows, rumors of ACORN’s demise are vastly overstated. ACORN
and its partner in crime Project Vote are both alive and well and operating
across the country,” said Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton. “Given the
corrupt activities of these organizations, there is no question they pose a
threat to clean and fair elections in 2012. And the fact that the Obama Justice
Department will take no action to address the corrupt activities of ACORN and
its thinly disguised spinoffs is a scandal in and of itself.”

Barack
Obama served as the Illinois executive director of the ACORN partner Project
Vote in 1992. His campaign paid more than $800,000 to an ACORN organization to
help “get out the vote” in his successful primary campaign against then-Sen.
Hillary Clinton in 2008. In November 2007, then-Senator Obama addressed ACORN
and thanked the organization for its work.

“I’ve
been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career," Obama
boasted.

“Even
before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote voter registration
drives in Illinois, ACORN was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate
your work,” he said.