PW: Tuesday night the board of ACORN Pennsylvania voted to dissolve the Keystone state chapter of the embattled community-service organization and re-invent itself as Pennsylvania Communities Organizing For Change, according to Craig Robbins, the former Head Organizer for ACORN PA, who will now serve as executive director of the newly formed PCOC. The board’s decision came in the wake of an announcement Monday from ACORN’s national leadership that it was ceasing operations and that state chapters would be given the option of closing up shop or re-branding themselves as standalone statewide community-service organizations. MORE PREVIOUSLY: Why The Right Hates ACORN, […]
JUDGE: Defunding Of ACORN Is Unconstitutional
ASSOCIATED PRESS: A federal judge who found it unconstitutional that Congress tried to cut funding to the activist group ACORN has rejected a government request to change her mind and has ordered government agencies to make it clear the funding isn’t blocked. In a written ruling Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Nina Gershon made permanent her conclusion last year that the cutoff of funding was unconstitutional. She ordered all federal agencies to put the word out about it. The Brooklyn judge said ACORN was punished by Congress without the enactment of administrative processes to decide if money had been handled inappropriately. […]
NO SHIT, SHERLOCK: Brooklyn DA Clears ACORN
[Illustration by ALEX FINE] NEW YORK DAILY NEWS: Brooklyn prosecutors on Monday cleared ACORN of criminal wrongdoing after a four-month probe that began when undercover conservative activists filmed workers giving what appeared to be illegal advice on how to hide money. While the video by James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles seemed to show three ACORN workers advising a prostitute how to hide ill-gotten gains, the unedited version was not as clear, according to a law enforcement source. “They edited the tape to meet their agenda,” said the source. “On Sept. 15, 2009, my office began an investigation into possible criminality […]
BREAKING: ‘Pimp’ From ACORN Sting Videos Arrested By FBI For Wiretapping Senator’s Phone
[Illustration by ALEX FINE] ASSOCIATED PRESS: A conservative activist who posed as a pimp to target the community-organizing group ACORN and the son of a federal prosecutor were among four people arrested by the FBI and accused of trying to interfere with phones at Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office. Activist James O’Keefe, 25, was already in Landrieu’s New Orleans office Monday when Robert Flanagan and Joseph Basel, both 24, showed up claiming to be telephone repairmen, U.S. Attorney Jim Letten’s office said Tuesday. Letten says O’Keefe recorded the two with his cell phone. Flanagan, the son of acting U.S. Attorney Bill […]
RUSH TO JUDGEMENT: Judge Rules That De-Funding Of ACORN By Congress Was Unconstitutional
GLENN GREENWALD: Yesterday, in a lawsuit brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights, Federal District Judge Nina Gershon of the Eastern District of New York found Congress’ de-funding of ACORN unconstitutional and enjoined its enforcement. This is a major victory not only for ACORN, but also for the Constitution. Judge Gershon’s opinion is a model of careful and dispassionate judicial reasoning. Rejecting the DOJ’s claim that Congress had merely exercised its funding discretion rather than “punished” ACORN, the court wrote: “Wholly apart from the vociferous comments by various members of Congress as to ACORN’s criminality and fraud . . . […]
TOUGH NUT TO CRACK: Harshbarger Report Clears ACORN Of Illegality In ‘Pimp & Hooker’ Gotcha Videos
SEIU: Today, former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger released his report on the Association of Community Organizations for Reform (ACORN) following an independent and aggressive review of the organization. Mr. Harshbarger deserves thanks for not only having the ability to see past the sensationalized headlines, but for recognizing and reporting on the steps that ACORN had already taken to address management weaknesses it had identified earlier. It is striking that despite the news coverage, Mr. Harshbarger found no pattern of illegal conduct by the staff of ACORN targeted in the ‘sting’ operation, even in cases that looked clear cut from […]
PW: Why The Right Hates ACORN, How They Took Them Down, And Why Philly Didn’t Take The Bait
[Illustration by ALEX FINE] BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY There’s an old joke that goes like this: A pimp and a prostitute walk into an ACORN office and ask for advice setting up a brothel and smuggling in underage Salvadoran girls to whore out for fun and profit. The punchline is the pimp and the prostitute were in fact a pair of twentysomething right-wing media provocateurs armed with a hidden camera. Over the summer James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles visited an undisclosed number of ACORN offices on the East and West coasts—including Philadelphia. While the Philly office didn’t […]