http://journals.democraticunderground.com/underpants/131 My email to CNN on their ACORN reporting
Posted by underpants in General Discussion
Tue Oct 14th 2008, 12:33 PM
Regarding your reports on ACORN:
Your "Investigative Reporter" has been repeating basically the same misleading report on ACORN for the last few days. He included footage of ACORN offices in Gary Indiana and Milwaukee that had been "closed down". This implies that they scurried out of town or where fly-by-night operations when in fact common sense (and full reporting) would have lead him to the realization that they aren't going to continue paying rent on these offices AFTER registration was over. His report was laden with "allegations" and "investigations" without pointing out that ACORN has never once been charged or indicted let alone convicted of anything. In fact ACORN itself turned in one paid employee when they determined that this worker had acted illegally and that they fully complied with investigations into another former employee.
FACTS on ACORN
http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archiv...Common sense should have also lead to a consideration of the frequency of actual "voter fraud" (not to be confused with "registration fraud" or "election fraud") and the limited benefit in comparison with the cost. Since 2002 in Ashcroft and Gonzales lead Department of Justice there have been exactly 95 indictments of ALL voter/registration/election frauds in the entire United States.
In 5-Year Effort, Scant Evidence of Voter Fraud
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/washingt...What is to be gained by one person trying to create one fraudulent vote? Fine and imprisonment to create one fake vote at one precinct?
It doesn't make sense and it rarely happens.
What DOES happen is voter suppression which you have completely failed to report.
From the 50,000 voters illegally disenfrachised in Florida in 2000
to caging (including active duty military in the Jacksonville Fla. area in 2004)
to mailers telling people to vote on the wrong date or to pay up their utility bills
to the wild changes in registration standards by Ken Blackwell in Ohio in 2004 (he both officially counted the votes and ran Bush's election campaign in Ohio)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Blackwell...to phone calls telling people that their voting place had changed (Virginia 2006)
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/...This is only a short list. All of these operations have been from the Republican party either nationally or locally.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_suppres...Have you completely forgotten about WHY David Iglesias was fired as US Attorney in 2006?
It was because he (and another later fired US Attorney) would not file charges just prior to the mid-term elections.
CHARGES AGAINST ACORN
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/ar...Only now is this initial report slowly falling apart. I see now that you are finally pointing out that ACORN was contracted during the Democratic primaries by the Obama campaign.
Why does ACORN have to file all registrations that they collect? Because of a 2002 US law changed (when Democrats briefly had a majority in the Senate) as a result of Republican/RNC shadow groups collecting registrations and then dumping them. The person who had thought they registered would show up at the polls to find out that they were not on the rolls.
Report the whole story not just part of it.
PLEASE NOTE-the wikipedia links are the quickest way to provide the beginning of an investigation trail for your "Investigative Reporter"