CNN fact-check: ‘This is looking like a fraud committed against ACORN.’»

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/10/18/cnn-acorn-fact-check/

CNN fact-check: ‘This is looking like a fraud committed against ACORN.’»

Tonight, CNN investigative reporter Drew Griffin fact-checked John McCain’s claim that the grassroots community organizing group ACORN is “destroying the fabric of democracy.” Conservatives have attacked ACORN’s voter registration efforts as “voter fraud” because they have resulted in the submission of a small number of faulty forms. As noted by DailyKos diarist ryeland, Griffin correctly reported, “Our research is showing — this more looks like a fraud perpetrated on ACORN,” not by ACORN. The people who ACORN paid by the hour to register voters committed fraudulent acts against the organization.

Watch it at link~

Griffin went on to explain to “viewers that it is very unlikely that the bogus registrations would actually lead to voter fraud.”

it's not altogether impossible that the people doing the false registrations were put up to it by Repugs, is it? Maybe there's more here than meets the eye.

If nothing else, the question itself could hurt the Repugs.

I'm feeling surprisingly evil for just having gotten home from church.

As far as I see it, some registrars realized they could make a quick buck by filling out thousands of bogus applications, took their checks, and moved on.

do NOT fill out bogus registration forms. First, they do not pay workers by the form, but instead by the hour - thus dramatically decreasing anyone's motivation to sit and fill out bogus forms.

ACORN is THE most responsible community organization in terms of registering voters. They are the only organization I have ever heard of that demands that their workers get the phone number of the new registrants and then has someone different in the office phone each new potential voter to double check that the registration is legit. The League of Women Voters does NOT do this - no one else is this careful. When ACORN has, in extremely rare cases, found suspicious forms they have fired the worker and offered to help local law enforcement prosecute that worker.

(also it would require coordination and organization that I don't think they're capable of anymore)

i have witnessed them being less than honest and even self-destructive.

they have a long, long history that is not all lollipops and good PR.

i think they are a great organization, but when they pull in so many local activists and hot heads... things happen.

2 weeks have been spent on acorn, and it's not helpful.

dems need to forget acorn, let them take care of themselves... and to go on the ATTACK.

NYT

Bob Bauer, general counsel for the Obama campaign, sent a letter to Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey and Special Prosecutor Nora R. Dannehy, who is investigating the attorney firings, requesting that Ms. Dannehy also look into the whether F.B.I. investigations of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or Acorn, were politically motivated.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/obama-campaign-seeks-special-prosecutor-inquiry/
>>>>>>>>>

Fox News

Bob Bauer, the campaign's general counsel, said on a conference call that it seemed law enforcement officials were in cahoots with the Republican operatives.


Bauer referred to the Associated Press report Thursday that quoted officials as saying the FBI had opened an investigation into ACORN. The report said the FBI was looking at recent raids on ACORN offices in several states for evidence of a national scam.

The campaign's letter to Mukasey suggested the "leaks" were allowed as part of a Justice Department "collusion."


ACORN says:


"We call on the McCain campaign to directly answer whether they, the Republican Party or their operatives have been conspiring with the Bush Administration to misuse the Justice Department in order to suppress voter turnout in 2008,"


http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/10/17/obama-gop-conspiracy/
>>>>>>>>>


CNN's Drew Griffin reversed his line of reporting right after the Obama campaign wrote to the DOJ. Prior to the Bob Bauer letter to the DOJ, Media Matters had cited 54 examples of CNN not telling the whole ACORN story,

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/10/18/191455/26/822/634805

http://mediamatters.org/items/200810160020
>>>>>>>


Now the AP decides to get its the facts right:


Tova Wang of Common Cause. "But it doesn't get reported that ACORN finds these registrations errors themselves. They flag them as being no good, but they have to turn them in anyway." "They don't get processed," she said. "And Mickey Mouse is not going to vote."


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081018/ap_on_el_ge/fraud_or_foolishness
>>>>>>>


I think there are those in the media that do not want to run afoul of the Obama Administration. One letter from Obama's lawyer, and Bush stenographers CNN, Fox News, and the Associated PRess reverse course and actually do something called.... journalism.


One can buy into the horseshit, or even spread the horseshit ones self, but one will be remebered by ones actions, and posts.

This is yet another one of those circumstantial tidbits that demonstrate how our mainstream media seems to be only a mouth piece for this Administration.

And now that we have a Democratic candidate who is not just a Gatekeeprer, but perhaps a citizen who truly concerned about this country, we have the FBI and DOJ being put on notice that their "re-organization" might still need looking into.

The response from the press is immediate - the ACORN story could lead to unravelling the ball of yarn all the way up to the Big Boy himself, and offer yet more problems for the Administration in keeping a lid on all of its nefarious dealings.

Rove tells the media to pipe down for a while, and immediately the media complies.

Orwell would have loved it!

put people up to the phony registration thing. Heck, they probably paid them very well to do it.

It would be interesting to track down the names of ACORN staff who put down phony information and see if they have previously registered as Republicans.

Of course they have to isolate this aberration in a "fact check zone" which is akin to the "free speech zones" that our first amendment rights have been relegated to.

Wouldn't it be nice if CNN could consider the WHOLE NETWORK a "fact check zone"?

nah.... too radical.

:)

"fights" amongst activists from various quarters of the Democratic party at the time.

:kick:

I am disappointed to still run into anti-ACORN people here at DU. People who say stuff like "ACORN can't be trusted" and "ACORN needs to stay out of registering voters." ACORN is THE most responsible community organization in terms of registering voters. They are the only organization I have ever heard of that demands that their workers get the phone number of the new registrants and then has someone different in the office phone each new potential voter to double check that the registration is legit. The League of Women Voters does NOT do this - no one else is this careful. When ACORN has, in extremely rare cases, found suspicious forms they have fired the worker and offered to help local law enforcement prosecute that worker.

ACORN is fighting for us all -- all of us who believe that everyone who is a citizens should participate in our democracy. All of us who believe that inclusion and respect are the right way forward for our nation and the world.

Hang in there ACORN!

http://www.acorn.org/

over a million turned in? That's what I think I heard.

Oh, yeah, bigtime fraud. :sarcasm:

guilty until proven innocent.

I forgot that the Bush Gang's Dept of Justice tried to fire many of those attorneys because they REFUSED TO TAKE ON TRUMPED UP CASES AGAINST ACORN !! They thought the cases had no evidence and shouldn't be heard and so they were fired !!

That makes it much more clear that the Republicans have been trying to discredit ACORN for a lot longer than this recent news splash indicates.

The whole DOJ Illegal Firings were about Anti-ACORN cases being pushed by the Republican administration !

this needs to be the preemptive strike.

every democrat on TV needs to be talking about this point in the next week... how they want to either steal it or discredit it.

constantly; I'm gratified to see CNN calling the rethugs on their lies.

acorn can take care of themselves.

we need to be on offense, esp given the GOP's obvious strategy plant seeds of doubt while caging, etc

respond? I disagree. If they hadn't, they'd look guilty of something. But I agree, time to move on. I just hope other media outlets pick up on this.

He drove me crazy the 1st week he started reporting on this. It was so biased I lost chunks of hair pulling it out. But he slowly started doing his job instead of spewing the "stealing the election" angle without even truly investigating it. I totally give him credit for finally reporting what was so obvious. What didn't help was that ACORN was so defensive from the beginning - don't blame them, they've been under relentless Republican seige for a decade - but it made it easier to make the "fraud" claim before anybody started talking sense. He must've been thoroughly convinced by all the rightwing screeching. I'm glad he's reporting the truth.

Special Prosecutor will tie them into the GOP scandal, as well they should be. They are as guilty as the GOP.

http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2008/10/14/republicans-acorn-schemed-to-sabotage-itself/

Lindsay Beyerstein:

"You would think the NRCC would be delighted to see people stealing from ACORN and ignoring real, unregistered poor people."

I have been looking for a fact check on this for a while now. This will come in very, very handy! :D

Way to go there, intrepid investigative reporter!

attachment to the rogues, after a spell posting to the now defunct Policy.com, creating mythical anecdotes about visiting their HQ. I liked to cast Larry King as Lee Van Cleef, and reported that he was leading an army of Amazons. Presumably ex-wives, now I think of it. Can't remember what the battle was supposed to be about. And Ralesa as having a "puppy love" crush on me. I should be so lucky. She has the most wonderful twinkle in her eyes sometimes, doesn't she?

The really exciting time was when they were reporting on the Clinton would-be impeachment and its lead-up; which was hilarious, because the public kept obstinately refusing to read the media's and the pollsters script!

Larry once interviewed Paula Jones, and he seemed to be in a state of mortal terror that he'd inadvertently ask her a question she'd answer truthfully and damage the Republican shysters! Very, very funny. A lot of humorous stuff. He was always trying to shepherd and protect them from themselves, as it's no secret they're not the smartest - just the most obsessive and unprincipled. That goes a long way in politics in any country.

And my wife and I always chuckle at the way Guillermo, one of the weather-men, brightly greeted his continental compadres - at least I expect he's Argentinian - "Good morning South America!" Imagine a crazy, Spanish, upside-down exclamation mark before the first word. Oh, by the way, "mad" and "crazy" tend to be enormous compliments in my lexicon, what with the sane world being truly crazy and all that.

I was starting to think he was in the tank for McCain.

Acorn should go after the lazy fraudster(s) and show what fools McCain and Palin are.

I recall a story about a woman who kept a journal at work. The whole time she was
"working", she was actually writing.... about how she wasn't working. She got busted.
This is the same slacker-style thing.

totally to the contrary, and NOW they're finally getting to the truth? My university newspaper did better investigative reporting than CNN, and many if not most of us there were generally high at the time.