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.
...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)."
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?
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?:
...[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.
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...
...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.
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."
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?
The word "ACORN" drips off the tongue of a winger with scorn: ACORN, that (gasp!) registers people to vote; ACORN, that (horrors!) promotes health care reform; ACORN, that (disgusting!) pressures mortgage lenders not to screw over loan applicants. You'd think those ACORN troublemakers would be ashamed of such behavior, wouldn't you?
Really, though, to look on ACORN members as anything less than heroes is a sign of ignorance or delusion. Here's the latest proof. They applied pressure to the four major lenders who were still refusing to do their part to prevent foreclosures: the "home wreckers" weren't allowing people with adjustable rate mortgages to refinance so that their payments would be no more than 31 percent of their income.
Now, all four of the "Home Wreckers" have caved. All four have agreed to do what they should have done without having to be shamed into it, what they were refusing to do--until ACORN shone the light on their ugly actions. And ACORN is not done with these reprobates yet:
"ACORN is very pleased with the success of its "Home Wrecker Four" campaign launched on June 30, 2009. With HomEq's announcement that it has joined HAMP, more foreclosures will be averted and fewer families displaced. Despite this victory, ACORN efforts will continue to insure that servicers are compliant with all HAMP guidelines and to work with servicers in the development of "best practices" to achieve maximum results. Initial key concerns that ACORN must address include servicers continued foreclosure efforts against HAMP eligible borrowers and the poor implementation of modifications which was recently reported by Treasury as only 9% of the 2.7 million eligible loans," Said Bertha Lewis, ACORN CEO/Chief Organizer.
All I have to say to ACORN is "Keep on keepin' on."
ACORN's Wednesday protest about AmerenUE's proposed 18 percent rate hike was unusual in the attention it attracted. When the ACORN folks get out on the sidewalk to rant about mortgage scams or banks that use bailout money to lobby against their own regulation, cars cruise silently by. Not so when it comes to the rate hike. As thirty protesters hiked up and down Chouteau Avenue in front of AmerenUE headquarters, yelling themselves hoarse:
AmerenUE
Is tryin' to
Screw me.
and
Hell no, 18 percent!
motorists honked often, and lots of semis and trucks emitted deep, mellow blasts. You see, mortgage scams are complicated, but a rate hike--and for 18 ever lovin' percentage points--that's right in everybody's face. In the middle of this recession.
But ... but ... we need (or anyway want) more money, says Ameren. After two major storms knocked out power for extended periods in 2007, we had to actually start trimming trees to prevent corporate officers from being tarred and feathered if it happened again. That costs money, and we're only making about eight percent profit a year. Maybe some folks think that since we get to be a monopoly, we should be satisfied with a little less than that, but how are we going to trim the CEO's oriental rugs in ermine if we take less?
(Just kidding. I'm sure Thomas Voss knows that ermine would be tacky on his oriental rugs.)
At an ACORN rally in front of Wells Fargo (what used to be the Wachovia complex at Jefferson and Market), one of the members, Darryl Moore, talked to me about some of the shenanigans that the financial giants are up to. He pointed out, for instance, that major financial institutions are overseen by watchdogs. The problem with the watchdogs is that they are companies hired by the financial institutions themselves.
I wonder if Goldman Sachs or AIG actually writes into the contract which risky or unethical practices these watchdogs lapdogs are bound to overlook. Or is a wink and nod good enough?
Apparently the lapdogs do not forbid these institutions from taking billions in bailout money and then using tens of millions of it to fight the new Consumer Financial Protection Agency that President Obama is aiming to create. That's what ACORN members were doing in front of Wells Fargo on Tuesday, publicizing the fact that the big banks and mortgage lenders are going all out to kill reform. True, smothering the infant agency in its crib isn't likely to happen. But they would be satisfied if they could just weaken the legislation so that it never does more than totter around, presenting no real threat to them.
Roszina Jones had some harsh words about the banks achieving either one of those goals. Most of the protesters were into chants, like "We want a watchdog, not a lapdog." But Roszina, now, she rants. She started this riff by yelling about how Wells Fargo has taken her taxes and used it:
so you can fight and increase your pay and your money while we stand here in debt and don't have no money. I don't get to drive a Beemer. I don't live in no mansion. I work hard every day, work at minimum wage and you take my money to take it to the (inaudible) TV show to talk against Obama's financial reform. It's gonna help me get out of debt and you wanna keep me in debt. That's not justice. That's injustice.
A couple of weeks ago, ACORN put pressure on four large corporations it labeled "home wreckers" because these mortgage lenders continue to refuse to modify mortgages so that they take only 31 percent or less of a homeowner's monthly earnings. A scattering of ACORN volunteers showed up in front of the Federal Reserve Building in downtown St. Louis in support of a nationwide push by ACORN to get the four big corporate holdouts to sign on to the Making Homes Affordable Act that Congress passed last March. And one of the four targeted companies, OneWest in Pasadena, CA, caved. It was quite a victory for ACORN.
But now one of the other four "home wreckers", Wilbur Ross, with the help of Tim Geithner at Treasury, is thumbing his nose at ACORN and the American public in general. ... Did I say "thumbing?" I could be mistaken about which digit he's using.
Geithner has named Wilbur Ross as one of nine fund managers for the Public-Private Investment Program, or PPIP. Using a mixture of federal and privately raised funds, PPIP will buy $40 billion in toxic assets from financial institutions.
It's a sweetheart deal for this home wrecker.
ACORN is upset, for starters, with the hypocrisy of handing over a deal that screams conflict of interest to someone who won't even do the minimum, sign on to a program meant to keep people from losing their homes. The Obama administration claims to be trying to keep people in their homes and then tosses Wilbur Ross a multibillion dollar boondoggle.
Ross noted that his company has completed more than 64,000 loan modifications in the past year, with 86 percent of borrowers reaping a payment reduction.
Sorry, Wilbur, but modifying someone's mortgage from, say, 58 percent of their monthly earnings to maybe 45 percent is not the same as signing on to the act and reducing those payments to 31 percent or less.
More important, though, is the conflict of interest. A couple of years ago, Ross foresaw that the mortgage crisis might eventually deepen enough to force the federal government to step in and buy toxic mortgages at face value or, anyway, at more than their actual worth. So he started a company that bought huge swaths of toxic securitized investment vehicles. Now he'll be one of nine people deciding whose securitized investment vehicles the government will buy.
Obama is allowing Geithner to hand Wilbur Ross the keys to the candy store. Question: Does Ross deserve even a single M&M?
Update: Speaking of ACORN rallies, the group is holding one in front of Wells Fargo at Jefferson and Market on Tuesday, the 14th, at noon, to protest the massive public relations and lobbying campaign by big banks to stop real banking reform. ACORN's St. Louis Metro director, Glenn Burleigh says:
"When you buy a microwave oven or a toy for your child, you have the security of knowing that someone has checked to make sure those products are not going to explode in your face. We need the same security when we sign on the bottom line for a loan or a credit card," said Glenn Burleigh, St. Louis ACORN's Head Organizer. "For too long, the rules have been written and enforced for Wall Street, by Wall Street. Now groups funded by AIG and others are spending billions of dollars on a massive public relations and media campaign to keep things exactly the way they are. It's time for the Big Banks and brokers to call off the dogs and stop blocking real protection for ordinary Americans."
ACORN held a demonstration during the lunch hour on Tuesday in front of the Federal Reserve Bank in downtown St. Louis. There were only eight people--strolling in a circle, holding handmade signs and shouting--in front of that imposing building. It would be easy to judge the whole event as kinda pitiful, but that's only if you don't understand the big picture. In the big scheme, Tuesday's event was a resounding success. More about that later.
First, let me explain that the rally was aimed at putting pressure on four of the biggest mortgage servicers in the country--Litton (owned by Goldman Sachs), HomEq (owned by Barclays), American Home Mortgage (owned by Wilbur Ross), and OneWest, the new IndyMac. ACORN wants those four to allow their mortgage holders to refinance if they need to in order to avoid foreclosure. Eighty percent of the mortgage industry is voluntarily allowing people with adjustable rate mortgages that have exploded on them to refinance so that their payments will be no more than 31 percent of their earnings. In return for agreeing to help stop the wave of foreclosures in this way, companies were offered $75 billion in relief funds through the "Making Homes Affordable" act last March.
All the big mortgage servicers, when surveyed before the act passed, promised to help people in danger of losing their homes to refinance. So Congress did not deem it necessary to make such cooperation mandatory by law in return for the funds the banks would receive. Our lawmakers should have known better. Four of the biggest lenders--scum in $4,000 suits--took the money and thumbed their noses at the federal government and their own customers.
Helping out desperate homeowners is, one would think, the least these financial barons could do, considering how they've ravaged our economy. Here's what they did. Mortgage servicers used to offer fixed rate loans to people who were good financial bets, reserving adjustable rate loans only for riskier borrowers. But there's no law requiring they do it that way. So, since they could make more money from the adjustable rate loans, they began offering low teaser rates to borrowers, assuring them that the rates would only go up if interest rates went up (which was a lie). Often, they didn't even mention that a fixed rate was available to people who qualified for it. It was just a little a sin of omission.
Then, once the initial teaser period ended, usually in two years, the mortgage servicers could raise the rates for any reason whatsoever--or none. Oh, and did they ever, because higher payments for homeowners meant more commission for those servicing the loans.
A motley crew of ACORN activists showed up at Wachovia Securities at Jefferson and Market in St. Louis on Tuesday to present Wachovia with the Turkey of the Year award. Near as I could tell, the Wachovia Securities division in St. Louis takes up six city blocks. But the activists, all ... what? nine or ten? ... of them were undaunted. Like ACORN people in various cities, they wanted to get the word out to the local press that Wachovia, as well as American General, Yale Mortgage and Morgan Stanley, have yet to take any action to halt the mortgage crisis.
When the activists, trailed by two security guards, approached a building to deliver a letter outlining their complaints and requests, they were met by an amiable woman representing the company. She took the letter and the award. But while it's easy to present a civil PR face to what the corporation sees as a dozen or so powerless busybodies, what Wachovia plainly doesn't get is that we're all in this economy together. Barack Obama has called on mortgage companies to declare a ninety day moratorium on loan foreclosures. Wachovia has ignored that request, even as its "new corporate family [Wells Fargo] has received at least $50 billion in bailout cash and tax breaks."
What's the point of smearing ACORN if the valid registrations that ACORN turned in still count? That's what I've been asking myself as the orchestrated GOP smear spreads from one swing state to another.
Last Tuesday, Las Vegas police raided ACORN headquarters. It was a carnival sideshow, a photo op with no substance, meant to compete on the nightly news with the presidential debate. (How can you believe anything Obama says? He used to work with these crooks.)
The big lies about ACORN have started in Ohio now, and the Saturday Post-Dispatch chronicled the spread of the smear to our state. Republican 'voter fraud' allegations are absolutely bogus.
Here's the lowdown on ACORN. They screwed up in 2004 by not checking the registration cards their paid workers turned in. A few of those paid workers wanted to be paid more than they deserved, so they made up bogus cards. Now by the way, the only people who got screwed as far I can tell that year was ACORN itself--it paid those jackasses for work that was disallowed--because it's not as if anybody turned up to vote as a consequence of the faked cards. And even if they had, they'd have been disallowed since local boards of election check the info on the cards.
Some voter fraud. ACORN was out of pocket for registrations that did the Democrats no good. You'd think the Republicans would be cheering.
Acorn photo used under a Creative Commons license from Flickr user MartinLaBar.
Political Fix reported Tuesday that ACORN was planning to stop by Claire McCaskill's headquarters on Delmar with cardboard boxes: "'an award for helping Wall Street and forgetting about Main Street.'" ACORN proposes that she give the boxes to "'any of the 153 Missourians that lose their homes to foreclosure daily.'"
"ACORN members are incensed by Senator McCaskill's vote last week to kill a provision that could help 600,000 families facing foreclosure save their homes. The Durbin amendment, which was offered to the Foreclosure Prevention Act, would have allowed bankruptcy judges to modify the terms of the mortgages of primary residences to achieve an affordable monthly payment when mortgage servicers refuse to or are unable to make such modifications. Bankruptcy judges already have this power for second homes, vacation homes, yachts, and other major purchases, and the Durbin amendment would close the loophole preventing modifications on primary residences. Senator McCaskill voted to table, or kill, the amendment."
" 'We have always known Senator McCaskill to be on the side of working people. Frankly, we are shocked that she would side with Wall Street over the interests of her constituents, and we hope this is just an aberration," said Missouri ACORN board member Lynn Oldham.
ACORN is being haunted by the ghost of Bradley Schlozman.
Last week, ACORN and other groups sent a "letter of intent to sue" to the Missouri Department of Social Services for failing to enforce the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA). That law requires states to provide opportunity for voters to register at public assistance offices. But a report just released by Project Vote demonstrates that the voter registrations at public assistance agencies:
"have dropped from 143,000 in 1995-1996 to just 16,000 in 2005-2006." ...
"Although hundreds of thousands of citizens in Missouri remain unregistered, many of them low-income citizens, the number of people the state is registering in agencies is one-tenth what it once was."
As soon as their letter of intent was public came the refrain they expected: You're the scum that got sued last fall for faking registrations. The second half of Jo Mannies's article had to recapitulate that old news.
That refrain is part of the legacy that Schlozman left to the Missouri Republican Party, a gift that keeps on giving in the ongoing GOP effort to keep po' folks from voting.
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.
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.
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.
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.
ACORN's Wednesday protest about AmerenUE's proposed 18 percent rate hike was unusual in the attention it attracted. When the ACORN folks get out on the sidewalk to rant about mortgage scams or banks that use bailout money to lobby against their own regulation, cars cruise silently by. Not so when it comes to the rate hike. As thirty protesters hiked up and down Chouteau Avenue in front of AmerenUE headquarters, yelling themselves hoarse:
A couple of weeks ago, ACORN put pressure on four large corporations it labeled "home wreckers" because these mortgage lenders continue to refuse to modify mortgages so that they take only 31 percent or less of a homeowner's monthly earnings. A scattering of 
It's a sweetheart deal for this home wrecker.
Last Tuesday, Las Vegas police raided ACORN headquarters. It was a carnival sideshow, a photo op with no substance, meant to compete on the nightly news with the presidential debate. (How can you believe anything Obama says? He used to work with these crooks.)
