http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/12/acorn_report_finds_no_illegal_conduct.php

according to Harshbarger:

While some of the advice and counsel given by ACORN employees and volunteers was clearly inappropriate and unprofessional, we did not find a pattern of intentional, illegal conduct by ACORN staff; in fact, there is no evidence that action, illegal or otherwise, was taken by any ACORN employee on behalf of the videographers.

&

The videos that have been released appear to have been edited, in some cases substantially, including the insertion of a substitute voiceover for significant portions of Mr. O'Keefe's and Ms. Giles's comments, which makes it difficult to determine the questions to which ACORN employees are responding. A comparison of the publicly available transcripts to the released videos confirms that large portions of the original video have been omitted from the released versions.

Good thing Congress voted to strip them of funding before they could be properly investigated huh?  I'm sure using their voiceover technique, we could make just about anyone look bad.  I'm sure the right-wing blowhards on Fox will be leading with this part of the story tonight.

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/12/acorn_report_finds_no_illegal_conduct.php

according to Harshbarger:

While some of the advice and counsel given by ACORN employees and volunteers was clearly inappropriate and unprofessional, we did not find a pattern of intentional, illegal conduct by ACORN staff; in fact, there is no evidence that action, illegal or otherwise, was taken by any ACORN employee on behalf of the videographers.

&

The videos that have been released appear to have been edited, in some cases substantially, including the insertion of a substitute voiceover for significant portions of Mr. O'Keefe's and Ms. Giles's comments, which makes it difficult to determine the questions to which ACORN employees are responding. A comparison of the publicly available transcripts to the released videos confirms that large portions of the original video have been omitted from the released versions.

Good thing Congress voted to strip them of funding before they could be properly investigated huh?  I'm sure using their voiceover technique, we could make just about anyone look bad.  I'm sure the right-wing blowhards on Fox will be leading with this part of the story tonight.


Of course this study was done at the request of ACORN, and Mr. Harshbarger was therefore acting on behalf of them.  So the impartiality of this investigation must be called into question.

Mind you, I am making no accusation towards Mr. Harshbarger of impropriety.  Many years ago he wrote a very nice letter to my mother, who is a close friend of the Harshbargers, when a nice letter was what she needed.  So for that I am grateful to him.

My point is simply that, generally speaking, whan an organization sponsors an investigation of its internal behavior, it is usually the case that the investigation results are exonerative in nature.

Of course this study was done at the request of ACORN, and Mr. Harshbarger was therefore acting on behalf of them.  So the impartiality of this investigation must be called into question.

Mind you, I am making no accusation towards Mr. Harshbarger of impropriety.  Many years ago he wrote a very nice letter to my mother, who is a close friend of the Harshbargers, when a nice letter was what she needed.  So for that I am grateful to him.

My point is simply that, generally speaking, whan an organization sponsors an investigation of its internal behavior, it is usually the case that the investigation results are exonerative in nature.


Unfortunately that's going to be the standard argument no matter who conducts a report.  The findings won't be challenged (because they can't be), so it'll be the typical "smear the messenger" routine from the right wing.

The gov't isn't interested in conducting the report, ACORN was tried and convicted by the media already, so this is unfortunately the only option left at this point.

Yes, Acorn was convicted without trial or evan investigation, but so must be guilty.  Justice? we don't need no srtinkin justice!  Get the rope.

The world would be a better place without FOX News.  Seriously.

Of course this study was done at the request of ACORN, and Mr. Harshbarger was therefore acting on behalf of them.  So the impartiality of this investigation must be called into question.
Whether there was partiality on the part of the investigator or not, the conclusions he comes to are objectively measurable: it isn't a matter of Harshbarger's opinion that no action (illegal or otherwise) was taken  by ACORN on behalf of the stingers; it may show partiality to point out that the video editing may well have distorted the meaning, but if you're really trying to say that the meaning was undistorted and a literal transmission of what actually happened, please say so.

It has been blatantly, overtly obvious from five thousand miles away that the witch-hunt against ACORN is motivated by politics (and/or ratings on behalf of the media) and has raised a whole load of indignant hot air while being staggeringly low on actual facts.. depending on repeated allegations and assertions to try and make the "no smoke without fire" brigade convinced that the whole organization is corrupt.  When compared to the corruption in some other organizations receiving government monies, ACORN is a model of rectitude...

It has been blatantly, overtly obvious from five thousand miles away that the witch-hunt against ACORN is motivated by politics (and/or ratings on behalf of the media)

I don't think anybody would argue with that statement.

But if ACORN were a model of recitude (huhuhuhuh), its supporters would not have folded like a cheap card table when the accusations started to fly.  Instead it was pretty much kicked to the curb by conservatives and liberals alike.

I mean, look at how people are coming out of the woodwork to defend the scientists who wrote those "climategate" emails.  Nowhere near that scale of defense was raised for the ACORN scandal, which tells me that ACORN's supporters knew that there was fire behind all the smoke, or at least had strong reason to believe that things are amiss over there.

Besides, the Dems know that, at the end of the day, no matter how much they screw over ACORN, they can still count on ACORN to support them in the next election.  So their treatment of the ACORN scandal was a no-lose proposition for Democrat politicians.

I don't think anybody would argue with that statement.

But if ACORN were a model of recitude (huhuhuhuh), its supporters would not have folded like a cheap card table when the accusations started to fly.  Instead it was pretty much kicked to the curb by conservatives and liberals alike.

I mean, look at how people are coming out of the woodwork to defend the scientists who wrote those "climategate" emails.  Nowhere near that scale of defense was raised for the ACORN scandal, which tells me that ACORN's supporters knew that there was fire behind all the smoke, or at least had strong reason to believe that things are amiss over there.

Besides, the Dems know that, at the end of the day, no matter how much they screw over ACORN, they can still count on ACORN to support them in the next election.  So their treatment of the ACORN scandal was a no-lose proposition for Democrat politicians.


I don't think they folded. I think we have an organization that isn't used to these kinds of controversies and is ill equipped to respond to them.  We also didn't see a lot of supporters coming out for ACORN because I don't think the media wanted to show that.  Doesn't fit with the story if people point out the good they've done.  Easier to make them out to be demons.

I will agree the politicians were shameless in their attempts to score points off it.

But if ACORN were a model of recitude (huhuhuhuh), its supporters would not have folded like a cheap card table when the accusations started to fly.  Instead it was pretty much kicked to the kerb by conservatives and liberals alike.
I didn't say it was a model of rectitude, just that it is when compared to other recipients of government money that people aren't complaining about.

Having said that, your logic is screwy: lack of support does not prove lack of rectitude.  That's a bit like saying if nobody spoke up for those witches in Salem, they must have been witches.


I mean, look at how people are coming out of the woodwork to defend the scientists who wrote those "climategate" emails.  Nowhere near that scale of defense was raised for the ACORN scandal, which tells me that ACORN's supporters knew that there was fire behind all the smoke, or at least had strong reason to believe that things are amiss over there.
"No smoke without fire", eh?

I'd have thought proof might have been a bit more useful.  All the lack of defence shows is that people believed a lying media, and once the seed of doubt has been planted, proving it wrong simply doesn't have the same impact.  Reminds me of Republican tactics in the last three US presidential elections.

As Chucky says though, it does highlight the bandwagon-jumping spinelessness of the political class there.. (not that I'm saying things are that different over here)

Well, the fact that the powers that be in the so-called "liberal" political class and "liberal" media were not vocal and aggressive in pursuing the ham-fisted libeling of ACORN demonstrates the "liberal" establishment in the United States is a lapdog for the same plutocrats as the conservative establishment.

ACORN tries to help very poor people and that means kinds of people American liberals cross the street to avoid and American conservatives would just as soon ship to death camps.  ACORN's trouble came it when it demonstrated it could get those people to vote.  We can't have that, can we?

Remember, in America, if you steal $200, you go to jail.
If you steal, $200 billion, you're John Galt and our political class defers to you.

Remember, in America, if you steal $200, you go to jail.
If you steal, $200 billion, you're John Galt and our political class defers to you.


(A google for, say, atlas shrugged pdf, would produce 891 pages of ... well, I wouldn't call it joy.  I'd probably call it an infringement on intellectual property rights.  But one would have the entire novel without having to give her estate one red cent.)

To summarize 891 pages of Randroid prose, one of the biggest points of her novel was that stealing $200B through one's political connections made you a bad guy, not a good guy.  Galt was a(n idealized) hero (who couldn't really exist in real life) precisely because he refused to cooperate with the government, no matter how many sweetheart deals they offered him.

But you raise a pretty good point - Republitards are opposed to ACORN not because it's corrupt, but because it registers voters who, by dint of demographics and socioeconomics, are more likely to vote Democratic.  Likewise, asshats like Beck and Hannity hjacked the Tea Party movement, not because it reflects a desire for smaller government, but because it's less likely to vote Democratic, and because they wanted to make damn sure it never got to a point where it could be anything other than a puppet for the Republican wing of the Party.

I remember when the Tea Party got started - it was a rant on CNBC that wasn't supposed to be taken as anything other than a commentator blowing off steam.  It lasted all of about a week before being co-opted into the partisan machine.  All of these supposed grassroots organizations - from ACORN to the Tea Partiers - are just useful idiots, no matter which wing of the Party they claim to represent.

Flash.  A New York district  court judge has ruled the defunding of ACORN unconstitutional.

Flash.  A New York district  court judge has ruled the defunding of ACORN unconstitutional.


That's why we only want judges who graduated from Pat Roberson's and Jerry Falwell's law schools.  They would NEVER let such an egregious miscarriage of justice stand.  Where is Ken?  Somebody get Ken Starr on the honker!
>:(

I find Ayn Rand perverse per se.  I mention John Galt only to say the Wall Street crooks have become a perversity of a perversity.
::)

I find Ayn Rand perverse per se.  I mention John Galt only to say the Wall Street crooks have become a perversity of a perversity.
::)


Point taken - mine was merely that crony "capitalists" were a pet peeve of hers.  Geithner and Paulson are no different than the rest of the Soviet Nomenklatura against whom she railed.

(As for her kinks, I don't know whether to go with a Soft Cell reference, or just say that if I had a time machine, I'd have hit it like a fireplace mantle, or both... and I say that as a fan ;)

Point taken - mine was merely that crony "capitalists" were a pet peeve of hers.  Geithner and Paulson are no different than the rest of the Soviet Nomenklatura against whom she railed.

(As for her kinks, I don't know whether to go with a Soft Cell reference, or just say that if I had a time machine, I'd have hit it like a fireplace mantle, or both... and I say that as a fan ;)


"Free market" capitalism has always lead to "crony" capitalism.  That was true even before Ayn Rand was born. 

Also, that's a Soft Cell come-back reference, which I listened to a couple of times and found it lackluster, so I don't know t'what you are referring.
:P

"Free market" capitalism has always lead to "crony" capitalism.  That was true even before Ayn Rand was born. 

Also, that's a Soft Cell come-back reference, which I listened to a couple of times and found it lackluster, so I don't know t'what you are referring.
:P


Adam Smith, in The wealth of Nations observed that  capitalists hated the "free market" and were always conspiring to evade it.

Adam Smith, in The wealth of Nations observed that  capitalists hated the "free market" and were always conspiring to evade it.


Amen. 

How "free market" is it that Walmart gets taxpayer subsidies to open a store that can undercut the rest of the stores in town? 
::)