Randy Turner at The Turner Report has a post up about focus group results released as part of the discovery in the Faux News Channel lawsuit against Robin Carnahan’s (D) 2010 senate campaign. There’s an interesting refrain about ACORN, showing that the rightwing’s assault based on fake charges and Congress’ capitulation with a bill of attainder did more damage than just shutting down the group which legitimately registered voters and provided other legitimate services.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Documents in Fox News lawsuit indicate why Robin Carnahan lost Senate election

Documents turned over to Fox News attorneys by a consulting firm provide evidence why Roy Blunt defeated Robin Carnahan in last year’s U. S. Senate race….

….Among the comments from people asked about their greatest concerns about Robin Carnahan:

-Why was she quiet about ACORN?….

-May have ignored problems with ACORN, whatever that is….

-She is too close to ACORN.

-I would want to know if there is any truth to those ACORN accusations….

-She supports ACORN.

-Too cheesy or fake with the farming. Too tied in with ACORN….

-She is too much a yes man for the president. She also caused too much money to given to the ACORN people.

-How closely is she tied to special interests like ACORN?….

-What is ACORN?….

Never mind that the rightwing and their Mighty Wurlitzer stooges beat their truthiness drum. As we can see, all they have to do is repeat the lie.

At Show Me Progress:

ACORN vindicated (March 2, 2010)

….Get that – the videos were “edited to meet their agenda.” In other words, these full-of-themselves rightwing echo chamber trainees, O’Keefe and  Giles, were running a scam.

The Brooklyn investigation is the third such to cast doubt on O’Keefe’s and Giles’ veracity. Investigations by the former Massachusetts Attorney, Scott Harshbarger, and the Congressional Research Service have found ACORN innocent of wrong doing….

At the Huffington Post:

John Atlas

Posted: June 15, 2010 02:41 AM

ACORN Vindicated of Wrongdoing by the Congressional Watchdog Office

On Monday, June 14, a preliminary probe by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO)of ACORN has found no evidence the association or related organizations mishandled the $40 million in federal money they received in recent years.

A review of grants by nine federal agencies found no problems with ACORN’s grants. In my book Seeds of Change I document how ACORN, the largest most successful national anti poverty organization in America, was forced to close its door….

….In fact the staff in most of ACORN’s offices turned the pair away, reported the couple to the police, refused to provide them any aid, and in one case tried to convince the phony prostitute to get counseling. In no ACORN office did employees file any paperwork or do anything illegal on the duo’s behalf.

But Fox News broadcasted the deceptive tapes nearly around the clock for several days defaming ACORN….

[emphasis added]

Ironic, eh? And they have a plan.

There have been numerous rumblings about possible voter caging exercises on the part of the GOP this election season – Clark, for instance, speculated about the possibility last September in a post here at SMP. Now that early voting is underway in several states, actual reports of possible voter intimidation efforts are beginning to surface. Additionally, TPM is reporting that in order to justify aggressive poll “monitoring,” groups like the Republican National Lawyers Association are attempting to scare the GOP kiddies with spurious claims that an ACORN  zombie has emerged from the grave just to trick-or-treat this election right out of their grubby little hands:

The community-organizing group ACORN has “absolutely” re-emerged since it was disbanded in the spring and there could be an “epidemic” of voter fraud problems this year to change the outcome of the midterm elections

Since Missouri does not have early voting, it is too early to know if we will see efforts to intimidate voters at the poll. We do know, however, that Ed Martin, who is running against Russ Carnahan for the 3rd district House seat, has attempted to ride the ACORN hobby horse in the past. At a How to Take Back America Conference workshop on “Voter Fraud, the Census, and ACORN,” held in St. Louis in September, 2009:

Martin bragged about taking on ACORN as chair of the St. Louis City Board of Elections and argued that voter fraud next year could be financed by federal stimulus money. One solution he offered was to get “tea party” activists to sign up as poll workers.

Federal stimulus money! What kind of idiots were at this workshop anyway? But I can just imagine that some of the belligerent, bellowing folks I have seen at Tea Party rallies would really relish the chance to throw their weight around at a polling site. One can only hope that the Missouri Democratic party has prepared for such eventualities – especially since the GOP scammers are about as bare-faced as they could possibly be about what they really want to accomplish with their monitoring activities. (And, let me be clear, I have no problem with legitimate monitoring activities as opposed to intimidation efforts.)

Of course, there is more going on here than possible intimidation of voters in the 2010 midterms. TPM quotes Slate’s Dave Weigel who posits more far-reaching effects:

Let’s say that no actual election fraud is captured, and no voters are scared away by aggressive Tea Partiers. The benefit of this sort of election-watching is enormous anyway, because it was exactly this — a videoblogger for the little-known Election Journal — that produced 23 months of scandal over two idiots from the New Black Panther Party skulking outside of a Philadelphia polling booth,” Weigel writes. “Expect numerous stories of “union thugs” or otherwise scary activists defrauding the vote on November 2; expect a new Republican Congress to investigate them.

And just like that, self-serving fantasy becomes the real story, unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud become the established narrative, and we have to dig ourselves out of another imaginary pit.  

Interesting news about ACORN today – according to Salon‘s Mike Madden:

Brooklyn district attorney announced the local ACORN office there hadn’t engaged in any criminal conduct — despite the hyperventilating by Breitbart and on Fox News. And in fact, a law enforcement source told the New York Daily News, the hidden-camera tapes James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles made of themselves posing as a prostitute and her boyfriend were “edited to meet their agenda.”

Get that – the videos were “edited to meet their agenda.” In other words, these full-of-themselves rightwing echo chamber trainees, O’Keefe and  Giles, were running a scam.

The Brooklyn investigation is the third such to cast doubt on O’Keefe’s and Giles’ veracity. Investigations by the former Massachusetts Attorney, Scott Harshbarger, and the Congressional Research Service have found ACORN innocent of wrong doing. These investigations also found:

…that O’Keefe likely the broke the law in at least two states by secretly recording the videos which had voice-overs deceptively edited into them later, “in some cases substantially,” according to Harshbarger’s report, so that it was “difficult to determine the questions to which ACORN employees are responding.

What I want to know is when will Blaine Luetkemeyer and Todd Akin take formal steps to disavow the resolution they sponsored to honor “the fact-finding reporting done by Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe III in their investigation in the fraudulent and illegal practices and misuse of taxpayer dollars by the Association of Community Organization for Reform Now (ACORN).”

And, because I am an equal opportunity scold, I also want to know when Claire McCaskill will apologize for unhesitatingly taking the unverified exposé at face value in her hurry to cover her backside, declaring:

It’ll have to make your blood boil to watch those tapes and realize that people are actually thinking of helping people by giving them advice on how to evade the law. I think you’ll see this organization continue to be marginalized.

Of course, I  really can’t wait until all the newspaper and TV reporters who gleefully delivered the ugly details of O’Keefe’s and Giles smear run the story about their “editing” practices just as prominently – it’ll happen any day now, don’t ya think?

From the Center for Constitutional Rights via They gave us a republic…

December 11, 2009. New York, NY – Today, U.S. District Judge Nina Gershon granted a preliminary injunction against the United States for unconstitutionally withholding funds from ACORN. In its decision, the court found that there is a likelihood the plaintiffs will be able to show that Congress’ targeted defunding of ACORN violates the Constitution’s prohibition against Bills of Attainder, legislative acts which single out a specific person or group for punishment….

What did we say (almost at the same instant) back in September?:

Too clever by half (Blue Girl)

ACORN’s revenge (Michael Bersin)

United States v. Lovett, 328 U.S. 303 (1946)

…[L]egislative acts, no matter what their form, that apply either to named individuals or to easily ascertainable members of a group in such a way as to inflict punishment on them without a judicial trial are bills of attainder prohibited by the Constitution…

You know, is it too much to ask of members of Congress that they actually read the Constitution and understand what precedent and stare decisis mean before they trample all over everything and themselves in order to pass a bill to suck up to the talking heads on the Faux News Channel?

The Missouri right wing is revving up its attack on Robin Carnahan by creating a website that attempts to tie her to (cue spooky music) ACORN. Dig that turned up collar on the second picture of her. Does she look like someone the CIA would target, or what?

But the conspiracy the website breathlessly proclaims doesn’t exist. The site yaps about close ties between Carnahan and ACORN:

Over the years, Robin Carnahan has maintained close ties with the embattled liberal organization ACORN – furthering their goals and whitewashing their record of corruption and fraud. So the Missouri GOP requested all email correspondence between Carnahan’s office and ACORN to determine just how cozy their relationship really is. We received more than 1,400 documents.

Ooh. What a shocking, hair-raising allegation, that the Secretary of State has been in frequent e-mail contact with a non-profit organization. But, as those who created the site must know, the correspondence mainly concerned ACORN’s  successful lawsuit against the Missouri Department of Social Services (DSS) for violating the 1993 National Voter Registration Act. That law requires state social service agencies to provide low income residents with the opportunity to register to vote or to change their registration address when they visit the agency’s office. The Missouri DSS had been failing to comply and, in a lawsuit that spanned more than a year, ACORN sued over that.

Since the Secretary of State’s office is the repository of voting records, including registration records, of course ACORN was constantly in touch there with records requests. Many of those 1,400 documents were something to the effect of “thanks for sending that document we requested.” You know, common civility in the course of everyday business dealings.

So duh. Of course there are 1,400 documents.

Here’s the bottom line on the reason for the new GOP Carnahan/ACORN conspiracy website: help Roy Blunt as well as the entire Republican ticket by going after the top of the ticket in an off year election.

Blunt started his campaign pitiably weak. (In the second first quarter, Carnahan doubled him up in fundraising.) But by now, national Republicans realize how important this seat will be, and they’ve got lobbyists forking it over big time for their boy. He’s leading Carnahan in fundraising, and the two are neck and neck in the polls.

The man who “guaranteed” he would come up with a health care alternative to what the Dems were offering (When? In the year 2525?) can’t exactly run on his record of achievement. So it’s time to stir up the frenzy in the base. He is stirring up their hatred, using ACORN as the poker. Never mind that there’s no substance to the charge. In off year elections, the commitment of the base is hugely important. The more committed they are, the higher their turnout at the polls and the greater their volunteer activities.

Thus the lame website with the lame name. Glenn Burleigh of St. Louis ACORN said it took him about three seconds to come up with a snazzier title for it: Acornahan. Anybody running that site up for a little plagiarism?  

There’s been lots of press about Congress cutting off funds to ACORN, but that money is so not the issue. Forgoing 53 million dollars over fifteen years is not going to break ACORN. What is hurting them is that local charitable organizations fear becoming radioactive if they give ACORN funds. Those charities are cautious about being tarred unjustly, though they may know very well how much good ACORN does in the community.

Some of them have had close ties with ACORN for years. For instance, the St. Vincent de Paul church runs a charity that dispenses money to help low income people, the disabled, and the elderly with clean up, painting, even some lawn mowing. ACORN, through its network of members, finds the folk who need and deserve these services and puts them in touch with St. Vincent de Paul. If that kind of cooperation stalls or if charities like the United Way cancel contributions to ACORN, people who are already having a rough go of it are going to face even tougher times. When Republicans hurt ACORN, they’re spitting on poor people.

I spent a couple of hours at the ACORN office recently, observing how the staff spends its time. In the (not so) luxurious digs pictured below the fold, they had a staff meeting, and afterwards, James Houston (pictured at right with Ann Chilson) and Roszina Jones-Williams (pictured above with Mike Green) began calling members. A large part of their job is to find out what the members need and help them organize to get it, as well as to educate them about the sorts of help that are available to low income people from the government and from various charities. They collect $10 monthly in dues from their members and provide a wealth of services.

Jones-Williams explained that homeowners might be concerned, say, about nearby nuisance properties. Perhaps someone is parking his car in his yard or there’s a vacant building that has become a gathering place. She counsels them on how to deal with that. Or perhaps she tells people who want to buy their first home or who have been in their first home less than three years about tax credits HUD offers worth ten percent of the amount of the home’s value. HUD also offers home improvement funds for low and moderate income people.  

People don’t even know that money is available without someone actively working to get the word out. And often, those programs require that long, sometimes puzzling application forms be filled out. Maybe Ann Chilson will be the one to help an applicant with his questions about the form. Or James may help residents organize ward meetings and invite Mayor Slay to attend and listen to their concerns, perhaps in the form of pleas for more money for home repairs. Sometimes Roszina’s job is to explain to residents who their aldermen are and how to contact them about various issues. Or, James may talk with a new homeowner about contributing to the neighborhood by taking good care of his property.

So much of what ACORN accomplishes in low income neighborhoods is aimed at keeping property values up and crime down, so that the people who live there will have safe, stable communities.

One crucial way to accomplish that is just to keep homeowners from foreclosure. ACORN staffer, Mike Green, has been advising people stuck with adjustable rate mortgages, where the rate may have soared from 3 percent to twelve percent, about how to get the mortgage refinanced to something manageable. Sadly, while the national organization is deliberating about how to deal with Republican attacks, that program has been put on hold. But people are still calling for help. People are still losing their homes. The most Green can do for them currently, though, is give them the name of another organization that might–despite long waiting lines–find time to counsel these desperate homeowners.

Another highly useful program, assistance with tax preparation, has been canceled for the coming year. The IRS says it initiated the cancellation and ACORN claims it made that decision and informed the IRS. Whatever. The point is, according to an ACORN representative:

“Acorn is now one of the I.R.S.’s largest free tax assistance providers, and we are disappointed that we won’t be able to serve the tens of thousands of families that would look to us this coming tax season.”

Despite the setbacks, though, Glenn Burleigh, Ann, Mike, James and Roszina–and ACORN workers all over the country–get on with their dogged help for those that need it. They continue to attend health care reform rallies and to demonstrate outside AmerenUE headquarters over Ameren’s outrageous 18 percent rate hike request. This winter, they’ll be explaining to people who can barely make the rent how to get some help with utility bills. Indeed, they’re training various volunteers throughout the metro area in helping people get utility bill assistance.

They stay sane–even good humored–in the face of the current demonization. When I was in the office, Ann was chuckling about the health reform lies. She’s a Brit, and she said that she kidded her mother: “You know that hip replacement you got last year, Mum? You didn’t get it. According to Republicans, it couldn’t have happened.”

You know what I think would help their mental health? I mean, besides Glenn Beck keeling over with a heart attack? A sudden infusion of cash. Feel free to cheer them up.

Brilliant, actually:

Whoops: Anti-ACORN Bill Ropes In Defense Contractors, Others Charged With Fraud

Going after ACORN may be like shooting fish in a barrel lately — but jumpy lawmakers used a bazooka to do it last week and may have blown up some of their longtime allies in the process.

The congressional legislation intended to defund ACORN, passed with broad bipartisan support, is written so broadly that it applies to “any organization” that has been charged with breaking federal or state election laws, lobbying disclosure laws, campaign finance laws or filing fraudulent paperwork with any federal or state agency. It also applies to any of the employees, contractors or other folks affiliated with a group charged with any of those things.

In other words, the bill could plausibly defund the entire military-industrial complex. Whoops…

Update: (via Digby)

…Congressman [Alan] Grayson [D – Florida] is reaching out to the netroots for help with this as well:

The House of Representatives just passed a law to prohibit Federal funds from going to organizations that commit fraud against the government, in the form of Section 2 of the ‘Defund ACORN Act’ (link). Congress has five days to put down a legislative history around this bill to help judges and lawyers interpret the law. This gives us an opportunity to make an impact with a deadline of this Friday (9/25). You see, regardless of what you think of ACORN, it is laudable to stop taxpayer money from going to organizations that commit fraud against the government. So as per the bill’s text, I’m going to put into the Congressional record a list of organizations who have committed fraud against the government or employs anyone who has.

Now, I’m just one person, and I can’t possibly find and list all of the organizations that fit this bill. So I need your help. Please nominate organizations and show me that they need to be in the record. To help, send me the name of the organization and proof in the form of a link to evidence that this organization should be in the Congressional record. I will also need your email address so I can follow-up with you if necessary. The proof you send needs to be easily verifiable, as in credible media reports, legal documents, government data, or otherwise.

An example might work as follows. Let’s say that you were nominating ‘Blackwater,’ the controversial mercenary outfit which showed fraud in its contracts for Iraq in 2005. You could include a link like this one

This link is to a credible news organization which sources its information with easily verifiable documents. You could also link directly to source documents.

You can see the current unverified list here

To nominate an organization, please go here to fill out a simple form…

Go. Read the list. (And the link to Congressman Grayson’s original request.)

Update II: I called Congressman Grayson’s office in Washington to confirm that he is indeed soliciting this information. He is.

[end update]

The bill:

Defund ACORN Act (Introduced in House)

HR 3571 IH

111th CONGRESS

1st Session

H. R. 3571

To prohibit the Federal Government from awarding contracts, grants, or other agreements to, providing any other Federal funds to, or engaging in activities that promote certain indicted organizations.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

September 15, 2009

Mr. BOEHNER (for himself, Mr. CANTOR, Mr. PENCE, Mr. ISSA, Mr. ADERHOLT, Mr. AKIN, Mr. ALEXANDER, Mrs. BACHMANN, Mr. BACHUS, Mr. BARRETT of South Carolina, Mr. BARTLETT, Mr. BILIRAKIS, Mr. BISHOP of Utah, Mrs. BLACKBURN, Mr. BLUNT, Mr. BONNER, Mrs. BONO MACK, Mr. BOOZMAN, Mr. BOUSTANY, Mr. BRADY of Texas, Mr. BROUN of Georgia, Mr. BROWN of South Carolina, Mr. BURTON of Indiana, Mr. BUYER, Mr. CALVERT, Mr. CAMP, Mrs. CAPITO, Mr. CARTER, Mr. CHAFFETZ, Mr. COFFMAN of Colorado, Mr. COLE, Mr. CONAWAY, Mr. CULBERSON, Mr. DAVIS of Kentucky, Mr. DENT, Mr. DREIER, Mr. DUNCAN, Mr. EHLERS, Ms. FALLIN, Ms. FOXX, Mr. FRANKS of Arizona, Mr. GALLEGLY, Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey, Mr. GERLACH, Mr. GOODLATTE, Ms. GRANGER, Mr. GRAVES, Mr. HARPER, Mr. HELLER, Mr. HENSARLING, Mr. HERGER, Mr. INGLIS, Mr. SAM JOHNSON of Texas, Mr. JONES, Mr. JORDAN of Ohio, Mr. KING of New York, Mr. KINGSTON, Mr. KLINE of Minnesota, Mr. LAMBORN, Mr. LANCE, Mr. LATOURETTE, Mr. LATTA, Mr. LEE of New York, Mr. LEWIS of California, Mr. LINDER, Mr. LOBIONDO, Mr. LUETKEMEYER, Mrs. LUMMIS, Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California, Mr. MACK, Mr. MARCHANT, Mr. MCCAUL, Mr. MCCARTHY of California, Mr. MCCOTTER, Mrs. MCMORRIS RODGERS, Mr. MCHENRY, Mr. MCKEON, Mr. MILLER of Florida, Mrs. MILLER of Michigan, Mr. MORAN of Kansas, Mrs. MYRICK, Mr. NEUGEBAUER, Mr. OLSON, Mr. PAUL, Mr. PETRI, Mr. PLATTS, Mr. POSEY, Mr. PUTNAM, Mr. RADANOVICH, Mr. ROGERS of Alabama, Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky, Mr. ROSKAM, Mr. ROYCE, Mr. SCALISE, Mr. SESSIONS, Mr. SHIMKUS, Mr. SHUSTER, Mr. SIMPSON, Mr. SMITH of Texas, Mr. SOUDER, Mr. SULLIVAN, Mr. TERRY, Mr. TIBERI, Mr. TIAHRT, Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania, Mr. TURNER, Mr. UPTON, Mr. WALDEN, Mr. WAMP, Mr. WESTMORELAND, Mr. WHITFIELD, Mr. WILSON of South Carolina, Mr. WOLF, Mr. YOUNG of Florida, and Mrs. BIGGERT) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

A BILL

To prohibit the Federal Government from awarding contracts, grants, or other agreements to, providing any other Federal funds to, or engaging in activities that promote certain indicted organizations.

     Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

     This Act may be cited as the `Defund ACORN Act’.

SEC. 2. PROHIBITIONS ON FEDERAL FUNDS AND OTHER ACTIVITIES WITH RESPECT TO CERTAIN INDICTED ORGANIZATIONS.

     (a) Prohibitions- With respect to any covered organization, the following prohibitions apply:

           (1) No Federal contract, grant, cooperative agreement, or any other form of agreement (including a memorandum of understanding) may be awarded to or entered into with the organization.

           (2) No Federal funds in any other form may be provided to the organization.

           (3) No Federal employee or contractor may promote in any way (including recommending to a person or referring to a person for any purpose) the organization.

     (b) Covered Organization- In this section, the term `covered organization’ means any of the following:

           (1) Any organization that has been indicted for a violation under any Federal or State law governing the financing of a campaign for election for public office or any law governing the administration of an election for public office, including a law relating to voter registration.

           (2) Any organization that had its State corporate charter terminated due to its failure to comply with Federal or State lobbying disclosure requirements.

           (3) Any org
anization that has filed a fraudulent form with any Federal or State regulatory agency.

           (4) Any organization that–

                 (A) employs any applicable individual, in a permanent or temporary capacity;

                 (B) has under contract or retains any applicable individual; or

                 (C) has any applicable individual acting on the organization’s behalf or with the express or apparent authority of the organization.

     (c) Additional Definitions- In this section:

           (1) The term `organization’ includes the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (in this subsection referred to as `ACORN’ ) and any ACORN -related affiliate.

           (2) The term `ACORN -related affiliate’ means any of the following:

                 (A) Any State chapter of ACORN registered with the Secretary of State’s office in that State.

                 (B) Any organization that shares directors, employees, or independent contractors with ACORN .

                 (C) Any organization that has a financial stake in ACORN .

                 (D) Any organization whose finances, whether federally funded, donor-funded, or raised through organizational goods and services, are shared or controlled by ACORN .

           (3) The term `applicable individual’ means an individual who has been indicted for a violation under Federal or State law relating to an election for Federal or State office.

     (d) Revision of Federal Acquisition Regulation- The Federal Acquisition Regulation shall be revised to carry out the provisions of this Act relating to contracts.

The bill names ACORN specifically, and punishes the organization via legislation. That would be a bill of attainder.

United States Constitution

Article I, Section 9.

…No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed…

United States v. Lovett, 328 U.S. 303 (1946)

…[L]egislative acts, no matter what their form, that apply either to named individuals or to easily ascertainable members of a group in such a way as to inflict punishment on them without a judicial trial are bills of attainder prohibited by the Constitution…

United States v. Brown, 381 U.S. 437 (1965)

…While history thus provides some guidelines, the wide variation in form, purpose and effect of ante-Constitution bills of attainder indicates that the proper scope of the Bill of Attainder Clause, and its relevance to contemporary problems, must ultimately be sought by attempting to discern the reasons for its inclusion in the Constitution, and the evils it was designed to eliminate. The best available evidence, the writings of the architects of our constitutional system, indicates that the Bill of Attainder Clause was intended not as a narrow, technical (and therefore soon to be outmoded) prohibition, but rather as an implementation of the separation of powers, a general safeguard against legislative exercise of the judicial function, or more simply – trial by legislature…

And the bill includes language that may preclude federal funds from going to “[a]ny organization that has filed a fraudulent form with any Federal or State regulatory agency.” That could include a number of defense contractors.

Perfect. Just freakin’ brilliant. It’s the stateroom scene from A Night at the Opera directed by Glenn Beck. Without the intentional humor.

It could take a while to sort this one out.

Update: And it’s getting really interesting.

An ACORN office in Arizon was vandalized Wednesday night. Staff arrived for work Thursday morning to find windows broken, computers stolen and files taken. Wait. What? The burglars took files? Your run of the mill burglar doesn’t burden himself with worthless paperwork about the doings of a non-profit. What is this? Grandson of Watergate?

So now the office will go into lockdown. People won’t any longer be able to stroll in off the street looking for help. They’ll have to be cleared before they get in. The incident is one small sign, on a local level, of the way ACORN is suffering these days. Both the House and the Senate have passed bills barring ACORN from receiving federal funds. It’s not much money. ACORN has only received about $53 million in federal funds since 1994. That’s less than a drop in the federal bucket. But it still burns me to see Democrats–out of ignorance or cowardice, or both–voting for these bills just because Republicans have brayed so loudly about community organizers.

The Democrats who voted yes are denigrating an organization that, here in eastern Missouri, for example, is working to prevent AmerenUE from gaining an 18 percent rate hike. Ameren rakes in fifty million a month in profits from its monopoly status as electricity distributor over a large chunk of Missouri. In this recession, the Ameren ghouls want to suck almost 20 percent more blood out of rate payers. ACORN is demonstrating against that and working to defeat it. That’s just one example of their worthwhile work.

Glenn Burleigh, the head field organizer for St. Louis, says that the Baltimore organizer has been fired who advised a woman posing as a prostitute about how to avoid paying taxes on her illegal income. Burleigh notes that a white glove standard is being applied that would never happen to the big money boys. Can you imagine Halliburton, with its legion of sins, being similarly persecuted or prosecuted for one employee who advocated fraud, without actually even committing it? Imagine away, because so far, in your mind is the only place you’ve seen even minimal accountability for corporations that screw us the people in the form of our government.

“This is journalistic malpractice, plain and simple.  A reporter right out of J-school would have taken the two minutes necessary to call the San Bernardino Police Department and verify Ms. Kaelke’s statements. But that never occurred to anyone at Fox News before the network ran with the story. This kind of shameful work raises serious questions about the legitimacy of the entire campaign currently being waged against ACORN.”

-Eric Burns, president of Media Matters

As Beck crusade against ACORN continues, regardless of truth or accuracy, Media Matters for America is thankfully trying to hold Beck and his Fox News comrades accountable.

On September 15, Fox News’ Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity both broadcast Tresa Kaelke’s assertion, recorded on a hidden camera, that she had killed a former husband.

Both made a point of highlighting the statement. On the September 15 edition of his show, Beck played the clip and then said, “She never spanked her kids, but she did shoot her husband dead.” Later that night, Hannity played the same clip before adding, “Specifically, now, she goes into this scenario about her husband and the killing of him.”

The following morning, on September 16, Fox News’ Gretchen Carlson repeated the allegation, saying, “She killed somebody? Despite this, some lawmakers want to keep funding the group.” She later claimed that the husband was still alive, “according to ACORN.”

However, the San Bernardino Police Department itself has now confirmed that Kaelke’s claim was untrue. A department statement released on September 15 reads:

“The San Bernardino Police Department is investigating the claims made regarding the homicide. From the initial investigation conducted, the claims do not appear to be factual. Investigators have been in contact with the involved party’s known former husbands, who are alive and well.”

Furthermore, Kaelke has said that when she made the claim, she was seeking to deliberately mislead the undercover videographers, Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe, of whom she was suspicious.

“They were not believable,” Kaelke is quoted as saying in an ACORN press release. “Somewhat entertaining, but they weren’t even good actors. I didn’t know what to make of them. They were clearly playing with me. I decided to shock them as much as they were shocking me.”

The Media Matters video is here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

ACORN had a few workers spending Friday afternoon in front of the Culture Cafe on Delmar in St. Louis, buttonholing passersby to see if they wanted to sign a petition in favor of the health care legislation. When I was there around three this afternoon, the owner of the cafe, who favors such reform, had a grill set up on the sidewalk and music was planned for later.

Glenn Burleigh, the St. Louis head organizer for ACORN, (bottom picture) set up the event to spread information and stymie teabaggers. He figured, how are they going to target us when we’re here from noon til seven, just a few of us? He said one teabagger showed up early on with a camcorder, apparently planning to kick up a fuss and post something on his angry blog, but he couldn’t drum up any friction. The workers just ignored him.

Burleigh told me what he wished Missouri congressmen would plan to promote health insurance reform. If they’re going to have town halls, he told me, they need to do it like Joe Sestak did in Pennsylvania: plan it far in advance so that H-CAN has time to organize a strong enough progressive presence that the naysayers are marginalized and just look foolish. That takes about three weeks.

What’s fast, though–and H-CAN people have been urging Claire to do it–is a teleconference call. It’s easy to organize and easy to control.

The most effective tool for making Americans understand what the legislation is about, according to Burleigh, would be a direct mailing. But that’s very expensive, and right now Democratic deep pockets are pretty well tapped out. They put their money into the election and then into funding H-CAN. Maybe the DNC could come up with the cash. The chain e-mail is a start, he thinks, but lots of people don’t get their news off the internet. Or if they do, they might not happen to get the e-mail anyway.

I think that if every voter read that chain e-mail, the teabagger’s lies and hoopla would sink like a barrel of stolen tea, because the e-mail succinctly explains what’s going on. That’s the nub of the problem, though: how do we get the word out?