Going Nuts Over ACORN

(Too easy, sorry…also, posting may be even more sporadic for a little while after this – don’t know yet.)

I guess I’m coming in on the tail end of this, but it seems like the wingnutosphere is engaged in its usual gyrations all of a sudden over ACORN.

I say this because the editorial page of the Murdoch Street Journal (a lightning rod for this stuff, of course) waxed as follows today…

Acorn (sic) uses various affiliated groups to agitate for "a living wage," for "affordable housing," for "tax justice" and union and environmental goals, as well as against school choice and welfare reform. It was a major contributor to the subprime meltdown by pushing lenders to make home loans on easy terms, conducting "strikes" against banks so they'd lower credit standards.

That last sentence is garbage, along with their usage of quotes to demean what the group does; the Journal is trying to blame the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) once more for our financial crisis, a charge I already refuted here.

But the organization's real genius is getting American taxpayers to foot the bill. According to a 2006 report from the Employment Policies Institute (EPI), Acorn has been on the federal take since 1977. For instance, Acorn's American Institute for Social Justice claimed $240,000 in tax money between fiscal years 2002 and 2003. Its American Environmental Justice Project received 100% of its revenue from government grants in the same years. EPI estimates the Acorn Housing Corporation alone received some $16 million in federal dollars from 1997-2007. Only recently, Democrats tried and failed to stuff an "affordable housing" provision into the $700 billion bank rescue package that would have let politicians give even more to Acorn.

The Journal goes on to list allegations of ACORN malfeasance (calling the group “an operation with a history of fraud “) in Ohio (2004), Colorado (2005), Missouri (2006), among other locations (the ACORN charges were also “put out there” no doubt by an ideological journalistic kinsman – or woman – at this Dana Perino press briefing today…yes, she still has a job).

And by the way, charges have yet to be filed in these or other cases (something else the Journal chose to ignore).

Oh, and of course it’s Obama’s fault that he “served as a lawyer for Acorn in 1995” and channeled money to Project Vote, affiliated with ACORN, in 1992.

Oh brother…

This TPM Muckracker post tells us the following…

…by shrieking about voter fraud, the McCain camp hopes to make voting officials more willing to place restrictions in the path of voters on election day, potentially causing delays and confusion at the polls, and reducing overall turnout. And it seeks to discredit any Obama victory by raising the suggestion that it was aided by the votes of ineligible voters.

And in response, ACORN hit back as follows (noted in this post – the pic from the linked story appears above).

The Palin-McBush campaign is truly desperate if this is all they and their like-minded media ciphers have.

Oh, and by the way (as Wikipedia tells us)…

During investigations, ACORN has publicly supported the investigations of employees submitting fraudulent voter registration information, has fired them if evidence supports the charges, and has stated its concern with false information on registration forms.[47][48] Officials have stated that ACORN has been cooperative in these investigations.

So basically, absent any charges (though I’ll admit that ACORN needs to “tighten up” its procedures, to say the least, and I’m sure they will), the only “fraud” I see here is that which the Journal and their brethren seek to perpetrate on all of us just in time for the election (led by this guy in particular).

Update 1 10/16/08: Uh-huh...

Update 2 10/16/08: "The most trusted name in news" strikes again (h/t Atrios).

Update 10/17/08: Good Lord, this is tiresome (h/t Atrios).