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We're Sure the Right Wing is Funding the Effort to Destroy ACORN. Who Cares?
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flavor13
09/24/09

In reply to We're Sure the Right Wing is Funding the Effort to Destroy ACORN. Who Cares?
I love this story -- its like someone using the Colbert interview with Wexler to indict him of cocaine use.
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SalmanRushdie
09/24/09

In reply to We're Sure the Right Wing is Funding the Effort to Destroy ACORN. Who Cares?
The fact is that ACORN had provided much-needed services to very poor people, which now they cannot. Once again, the poors lose because of some idiotic political vendetta.
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CParis
09/24/09

@SalmanRushdie:
Ditto!

This situation is just the 21st century version of Reagan's Cadillac-driving welfare queen. God forbid an organization helping regular people (including some poor, brown folks) access their government's services screws up - meanwhile HalliburtonBlackwaterKBR continue to get $billions in federal contracts despite massive incompetence and illegal behavior (ya know, like raping/killing people).
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If_I_Had_a_Poodle
09/24/09

@CParis: amen. tell it.
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i'm a bottle
09/24/09

@CParis: Remember that story about $12bn in wrapped packs being sent to Iraq and disbursed to people who were in all likelihood giving the money directly to Iraqi insurgents?
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i'm a bottle
09/24/09

In reply to We're Sure the Right Wing is Funding the Effort to Destroy ACORN. Who Cares?
It's folly to equate some heavily redacted half-story about a few low-level people in the ACORN organization with a long investigative piece that targeted some very shrewd and legally savvy D.C. lobbyists. It's a case of apples and oranges.
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PontiusPirate
09/24/09

In reply to We're Sure the Right Wing is Funding the Effort to Destroy ACORN. Who Cares?
"Start setting up some stings of your own, and learn how the game is played!"

As opposed to "start acting ethically and be a role-model for community service organizations"
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pipetjockey
09/24/09

In reply to We're Sure the Right Wing is Funding the Effort to Destroy ACORN. Who Cares?
"trains people to be like Ann Coulter" ...scariest thing I've read all day
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onebadclam
09/24/09

@pipetjockey: As an aside, ersatz political pundit Rachel Marsden is also a National Journalism Center alumni. It appears the NJC trains journalists in the same sense the Miami Dolphins employs actual dolphins.
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i'm a bottle
09/24/09

@pipetjockey: The training would involve learning to recognize what medications react poorly with diet pills, blind tastings of supermarket white zinfandel and rote memorization of talking points.
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CaptainFantastic
09/24/09

In reply to We're Sure the Right Wing is Funding the Effort to Destroy ACORN. Who Cares?
Did you hear that Deep Throat once skipped a day of high school and then later in life got a speeding ticket?
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braak: You are, as usual, completely correct.
09/24/09

In reply to We're Sure the Right Wing is Funding the Effort to Destroy ACORN. Who Cares?
I guess the concern would be not that Republican funding somehow delegitimizes the tapes, but that politicized journalistic "attack dogs" may represent a kind of a problem for the future of journalism.
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braak: You are, as usual, completely correct.
09/24/09

@braak: The irony, of course, is that the liberals will cut ACORN loose--whether they've also done good work or not--because they broke the law and because an investigation is, in fact, the proper course of action.

It's hard to say for sure, but I really get the feeling that if the situation were reversed--or if someone had made extensive videos, for example, of Halliburton's egregious war-profiteering--the Republicans would just close up ranks and start complaining about how we're always persecuting them.
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i'm a bottle
09/24/09

@braak: It seems to me like these people were just playing along with their to keep them on the line. An ACORN rep contacted the police and the FBI was informed shortly thereafter.
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AndPreciousLittleofThat
09/24/09

In reply to We're Sure the Right Wing is Funding the Effort to Destroy ACORN. Who Cares?
On a related note, I've got this little fly that's been buzzing around me all afternoon. I also have this big sledgehammer, so....problem solved!
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Swifter
09/24/09

In reply to We're Sure the Right Wing is Funding the Effort to Destroy ACORN. Who Cares?
So, a couple of squirrels made a snack of an Acorn. So what? Happens every day. Come winter, those squirrels will be looking for something else to eat. Maybe a Frank?
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i'm a bottle
09/24/09

In reply to We're Sure the Right Wing is Funding the Effort to Destroy ACORN. Who Cares?
John, step back for a moment and consider the fact that one of the ACORN reps in the undercover video actually made a good faith effort to balance the interests of the two clients and the law. According to an article from the Fox News website, one of the ACORN reps in the video contacted the police two days after these two white-bred firebrands began their little chamber play. In response, the police contacted the FBI's human smuggling task force in response to the tip. The FBI then chose not to act without more information. The same ACORN employee was fired two days later

Let's let the courts decide who acted within the law and who didn't. It doesn't matter about public relations the PR battle at the moment. What matters is having the ammunition later, in the form of a legal decision, to lay in front of the Republicans in order to prove that ACORN acted responsibly and that they were duped.
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Swifter
09/24/09

@i'm a bottle: Proof positive that the DNC gets its future talking points from the bottom of a bottle.
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queenie
09/24/09

@i'm a bottle: Not to mention the fact that it is relevant that this was done by conservative operatives with an agenda. That fact relates directly to the airtime the tapes were given, the lack of hard questioning done on the back story, obvious editing, and any possible exculpatory information.
The Daily Show/Colbert can do interviews & craft them to make the subjects look criminally stupid (as can anyone with iMovie & a dream). It's completely relevant whether the creators of these tapes went in with a goal, edited the product to match their intended message, and used their allies in the hysterical media to raise outrage.
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bluebears
09/24/09

@queenie: exactly. How many ACORN employees kicked them out compared to the two who actually talked to them? What went on in these conversations that we're not seeing? It's all such bullshit.
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Edited by bluebears at 09/24/09 3:08 PM bluebears was starred bluebears was unstarred

momof3wildkids
09/24/09

In reply to We're Sure the Right Wing is Funding the Effort to Destroy ACORN. Who Cares?
Soros is the left's Andrew Breitbart.

The left needs the Breitbarts of the world to keep in check; and the right needs the Soroses of the world to keep them in line.
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i'm a bottle promoted this comment Edited by momof3wildkids at 09/24/09 2:48 PM momof3wildkids was starred momof3wildkids was unstarred

i'm a bottle
09/24/09

@momof3wildkids: Whatever.
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bluebears
09/24/09

In reply to We're Sure the Right Wing is Funding the Effort to Destroy ACORN. Who Cares?
The more I hear about O'Keefe and Giles the more my blood just boils. Two pampered rich assholes "exposing" an organization that exists to help the disadvantaged. Its just so vile.
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LA0811
09/24/09

@bluebears: agreed. Any why is no one discussing O'Keefe's comment that clearly he's not a real pimp, he's the whitest guy around. Um, pimping is a distinctly black profession?

He's an incredibly entitled, pompous jackass who has likely never faced any adversity in his life and considers his efforts to bring down an organization that truly helps disadvantaged Americans the equivalent of a fraternity prank. it's just gross.
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Richard Petty Bourgeoisie
09/24/09

In reply to We're Sure the Right Wing is Funding the Effort to Destroy ACORN. Who Cares?
Hannah knows she can stop wearing the hooker make-up, right?
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Chore Boy
09/24/09

@Richard Petty Bourgeoisie: Not if she wants to stay in the Republican party.
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If_I_Had_a_Poodle
09/24/09

In reply to We're Sure the Right Wing is Funding the Effort to Destroy ACORN. Who Cares?
the republicans have sitting us senators breaking the law -- craig, vitter -- and a governor -- sandford. where's the prosecution of them

the acorn tapes are bad.

where are the prosecutions of the criminal elected republican officials?
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momof3wildkids
09/24/09

@if_i_only_had_a_heart: While I agree that very few politicians (on both sides of the aisle) get prosecuted unless their crimes are pretty outrageous and flagrant, there is a difference between ACORN and the politicians.

Politicians will eventually have to be re-elected and therefore there is a bit of a check and balance. With ACORN and other community service orgs who receive fed funds, unless they are 'caught' doing something.... the money keeps coming in.
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olivia2.0
09/24/09

@momof3wildkids: Ummm, until it doesn't. Community services organizations and non-profits have very rigid reporting standards that have to be adhered to. The money doesn't just "come in". It has to be worked for, and since it's the government, if you make even a small clerical mistake, your whole grant/contract is bust for that year. Yeah, that money just comes flowing in, take it from a government grant writer at a non-profit.
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i'm a bottle
09/24/09

@olivia2.0: Very true. Unlike no-bid military contracts, money is not just thrown around with most non-profits. As someone who's written a few grants, I can say that they require a lot of paperwork and well-written proposals. The majority of organizations have a well-functioning bureaucracy in place when it comes to distributing money.
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La Cieca
09/24/09

@momof3wildkids: "As a former community service worker, three-term Senator from Rhode Island and convicted felon, I know what I'm talking about."

Remind me why this lying troll hasn't been executed yet?
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Astigmatism
09/24/09

@if_i_only_had_a_heart: Sorry but this annoys me no end. Notwithstanding that it's factually off-base - Craig pleaded down from lewd conduct to disorderly conduct (which is pretty standard) and lost his senate seat, Sanford is about to be impeached by bipartisan agreement - this sort of but-they-did-it-first BS never makes anyone look good. Does the fact that democrats objected to George HW Bush speaking to the nation's schoolchildren 20 years ago make the people who objected to Obama's address look any less retarded? Does the fact that John Edwards cheated on his wife mean that Newt Gingrich is any less of a sleazeball?

ACORN advocated for some very good causes. It was also, by all intents and purposes, corrupt and incompetent. Cutting them off and finding someone new to do their job will go a lot further toward advancing their stated goals than propping them up and arguing that a Republican did it first.
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olivia2.0
09/24/09

@i'm a bottle: From one grant writer to another - you're hearted! :)
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AliHajiSheik
09/24/09

In reply to We're Sure the Right Wing is Funding the Effort to Destroy ACORN. Who Cares?
Just because the right will unconditionally support its corrupt and incompetent right wing and military industrial supporters, doesn't mean the left should unconditionally support left leaning organizations.

At best, the Acorn offices are staffed by incompetent clownshoes, there are more worthy and effective left causes and organizations for liberals to back.
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braak: You are, as usual, completely correct.
09/24/09

@AliHajiSheik: Well, actually "at best" there are a handful of incompetents at a few ACORN office around the country.

I'm not saying that's what the case is--I'm just saying, if we're trying to ascertain a "best-case scenario" based entirely on the information provided for the tapes, it's probably a little better than "all ACORN staffers are idiots."
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