"Acorn's Vindication: Too Little Too Late" The New McCarthyism.

The New McCarthyism

During the 2008 Presidential Campaign the rabid rightwing targeted ACORN, claiming the organization had engaged in Voter Fraud. Despite the fact that these allegations were proven to be false, the Rightwing Noise Machine repeated the lie over and over again.

Repeating a lie doesn't make it so, but Propagandists know well that if you repeat something often enough, after a while most people will believe it. And McCarthyites know that if you smear someone enough, you can destroy their lives.

Many of these 'Dirty Tricksters' and 'Propagandists' are students of the Morton Blackwell school of 'journalism'. Graduates of his Leadership Institute include, Karl Rove, Ralph Reed, Grover Norquist and Jeff Gannon among others. Having no ethical standards is a requirement to be a part of this infamous and very ugly 'Conservative Movement'.

Among the new generation of these McCarthyites, is the now infamous James O'Keefe

Morton Blackwell himself is a 'dirty trickster' of the ugliest kind. Many may remember his 'Purple Heart' bandaids during the Kerry campaign in 2004, eg.


Paul Weyrich

One of the heroes of this anti-democratic movement is Paul Weyrich, who made the now infamous statement: "I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of the people. They never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.


So it is easy to see that to this subversive movement, suppressing the vote is a fair tactic to use in a political campaign. Targeting an organization that registered over one million voters, most of them poor, by lying, smearing or anyhow they could do it, was therefore one of their main goals in the run-up to the 2008 Election.

They hoped that after discrediting ACORN, to then tie President Obama to what would then be viewed as a 'corrupt' organization. And any other Democrat they could find!

They set out, with the help of their Noise Machine and sadly, the MSM, to smear the organization so badly, that anyone who ever had even the slightest connection to them, going back 30 years if necessary, would be finished politically.

Shame on the Media

None of this would have worked, if we had an independent media with reputable journalists who care about delivering facts to the American people. Instead, the MSM doing what they do so well being, as Colbert pointed out so correctly, mere stenographers at best, simply read the memos handed to them by whoever their contacts are in the 'Conservative Movement'.

It worked, as smear campaigns often do, despite the fact that there was not a shred of truth to allegations and as I said, despite the fact that the smear along with the Giles/O'Keefe/Breitbart smears have all been debunked.

The Nation: ACORN's Vindication: Too Little, Too Late

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122275494

January 6, 2010

On Christmas Eve, buried on page A24 of my edition of the New York Times, was this story: "The controversial community organizing group Acorn has not broken any laws in the last five years, according to a Congressional Research Service report released Tuesday evening."

Indeed, the CRS report—requested in September by House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers and House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank—finds no instances in which ACORN "violated the terms of federal funding in the last five years," and no instances of individuals allegedly registered to vote improperly by ACORN "attempting to vote at the polls."

While the lies and the smears of the ugly Conservative 'Media' received coverage practically 24/7, the news of this finding by a Congressional Committee, received none. The same 'journalists' on CNN and elsewhere who covered those lies extensively, never issued an apology or a correction of the lies they were responsible for disseminating.

More from the link above:

In the case of ACORN, not only does the CRS Report refute recent charges of financial impropriety and voter fraud against it, but so does a report by Scott Harshbarger, former Attorney General of Massachusetts and former president of Common Cause, whom ACORN quickly turned to for an independent audit when the damaging video tapes surfaced.

Harshbarger writes of the videotape content, "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 videographers might be facing their own legal troubles. The CRS report finds that taping face-to-face conversations without consent appears to violate California and Maryland state laws.)

But facts be damned, CRS notes that as of October 2009, ACORN had been subjected to at least 46 federal, state, and local investigations. And too many good Democrats were swept up in the witch hunt hysteria, moving quickly to defund ACORN based on the rants of Beck, Bachmann, and Boehner.

Yes, the disgraceful rush by Congress to vote to defund ACORN including all but a few Democrats. ACORN sued Congress and won an injunction against Congress when a judge found that they had acted 'unconstitutionally' which should mean that ACORN's funding will be instated.

One who rose above the fray was New York Congressman Jerrold Nadler who courageously spoke out against House legislation as unconstitutional for singling out ACORN for punishment—known as a "bill of attainder." Last month, the federal courts agreed with Nadler's opinion.

ACORN Wins Injunction Against Congress

http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/acorn-wins-injunction-against-congress

But according to ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis:

..... the ruling didn't correct the injustice. "The judge declared it unconstitutional. Well, it didn't seem to make a difference—did not make one whit of a difference. The new Appropriations bill had defund ACORN language in it. The damage has been done. The omnibus bill was signed. So they completely ignored the judge's order, so now we have to go back in the court along with the Center for Constitutional Rights—thank god for them. And we will continue to fight this legally because we know we are right."

It is so easy to take away someone's reputation, but even with victories like these, it is not so easy to get it back.

ACORN is suing O'Keefe, Giles and Breitbart and hopefully we will find out more about these anti-constitutional dirty tricksters in the discovery phase. That should prove to be even more interesting now with the arrest of O'Keefe for his latest violation of the law.

ACORN Sues, O'Keefe, Giles and Breitbart.com

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/09/23/acorn_sues_okeefe_giles_and_br.html

They are also in danger of criminal charges in three states, CA, MD, and PA for violating the laws when they illegally recorded ACORN workers without their knowledge.


And last Thursday, ACORN's Philadelphia office filed a Federal lawsuit against Giles and O'Keefe which should also produce some interesting information on who is behind this bumbling and criminal operation.

Who Was Harmed The Most By These Criminal Activities

More from the link above:

According to Lewis, damage to ACORN's work on the ground includes "10,000 people minimum" who will not obtain free tax preparation services from ACORN.
"We've had to suspend that. That's a direct affect on poor people, and you know we were commended by the IRS prior to the right-wing attacks," said Lewis.

Lewis also said ACORN must curtail its fight against foreclosures. "About 200,000 people that we won't be able to help directly," she said, noting that this comes at a moment when the Obama Administration has admitted its own anti-foreclosure plan has fallen short because bailed-out banks aren't cooperating.

Finally, Lewis said loss of funding has impacted ACORN's fight to address wage and hour disparities — workers who aren't paid the minimum wage, cheated out of overtime, unfairly dismissed or discriminated against — "people just totally taking advantage of low-wage workers in this economy."

The saddest thing of all is how the Democrats betrayed ACORN and the poor who were affected. And how even on Democratic boards, credibility was given to this gang of criminals.

If this had happened to a Republican Organization, Republicans everywhere would have been fighting hard to defend them and donating to make sure they could continue their work.

Shame on Democrats for their failure to defend ACORN.

Jerry Nadler is a hero imo. He alone had the courage to speak out in their defense. As Bertha Lewis said:

"To have liberals, moderates — a lot of Democrats — just be willing to throw us under the bus and wipe away 40 years of working for poor people in this country without due process…" said Lewis. "This story is bigger than ACORN. And that's what we're going to try to get folks to continue to focus on."

This network of anti-Democratic 'Conservatives' which is training an army of spies and political dirty tricksters, inflitrating college campuses and attacking and smearing decent people, destroying lives, resembling Germany's infamous brown-shirts more than citizens of a Democratic nation, has gone unchallenged, in fact it has been encouraged, by the media and worst of all, by Democrats. I won't hold my breath, but a real media exposure of what these dangerous-to-democracy people are all about would at least shed light on them so that the American people can judge better the next time they set out to destroy innocent people.

...... as they were in reporting the now-discredited allegations, right?

but in their coverage of the O'Keefe & Co. arrests they repeat the lie that O'Keefe exposed ACORN, when he did nothing of the kind and is in danger from that little escapade of even more criminal charges. But that's not how the story is told. I guess it's up to us to spread the word?

Old Scratch had him firmly by the short and curlies and was draggimng him down to hell.

Old Scratch or Mr. Scratch is a folk name for the The Devil in the local legends of New England and pre-Civil War America.<1> The character is exemplified in the short stories "The Devil and Tom Walker" by Washington Irving and "The Devil and Daniel Webster" by Stephen Vincent Benet. It is possible that the local legends containing this name were influenced by Faustian stories brought to North America by German immigrants.

Old Scratch is also referred to in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, and in A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

among us' and it showed on his face. I really believe that these people are capable of eliminating those they believe to be inferior to them. Maybe not as blatantly as Hitler and other murderous haters did, but by denying people the right to a living wage, to food and water, to the means to survive. They would deny all those things to people they believe should not have the right to vote, and they would let them die. Evil is the only word I can think of to describe them.

The context of adding Weyrich's statement to what's really going on with the reich wing's dirty tricks campaigns is the same lens I've been looking at this perpetual war on ACORN through, during and since the election.

Their war against the poor and the continuous attempts to suppress the registration of voters just proves that, to paraphrase Obama, they are only concerned with serving their own ambitions and not what's best for American citizens. It saddens me greatly to see Democrats falling in line so easily with the "witch hunt hysteria". It's also massively disconcerting that in this day and age it's de rigueur for the MSM to do the same thing.

What's the answer? A new improved Fairness Doctrine?

Nice to see you and thank YOU for all the great videos you've been posting.

Someone could write a book about this subversive network of what are, imo, treasonous underminers of the U.S. Constitution.

It is so disturbing the most Americans are not even aware of them, but I know the MSM knows who they are. The question is why they have never been exposed and why Democrats, who also must know who they are and what they do, are silent on what really is a threat to Democracy.

By their silence, they have allowed them to grow like a cancer on this society.

I cannot believe that even now, Democrats and the Media have ignored all of this history.

Glad you are aware of Weyrich, he is central to their anti-democratic beliefs that the poor should not be allowed to vote.

Have to run, but great to see you ~ :-)

I really don't know how the research forum works but hard facts debunking the right wing attacks needs to be more accessible for DUers to counter misinformation.

makes my blood boil...

I ran into two DUers in the last couple of days who believe the smears.

would do an in-depth investigation into the 'vast rightwing conspiracy'. There really is one.

It would help if they would just basic reporting, especially when they've been wrong. It would be nice to see them correct their 'mistakes' once in a while, with as much intensity as they showed when they were getting it wrong.

I give those folks no credence. There is no excuse for repeating lies, especially on DU. A news story would never convince the people here saying such things.

who not only did not stand up for ACORN, but actually gave these smear-mongers, rather than ACORN, the benefit of the doubt, that is the saddest thing to bear. I have zero patience with so-called Democrats, who support the smears against ACORN, clearly ignorant, or maybe willfully so, of the facts that are not that hard to find in these times. Are they just lazy or worse, complicit, it's hard to tell, but there are far too many of them on Democrat boards to give me much hope that the rightwing smear-mongers will not prevail.

 

In fact, I blame those enablers more.

the people

democracy. But Democrats do not have to help them ~ as they did in the case of ACORN. They should be held accountable every time they do, or soon we will have no opposition at all.

Only 75 did not ~

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2009/roll718.xml

Very sad to see Grayson on the 'yea' list. He did vindicate himself somewhat later when he agreed with Jerry Nadler that the bill was a 'bill of attainder' and if Congress defunded ACORN they would have to defund every Corp that had charges of corruption in their background. That still wouldn't have applied to ACORN though, as they did not. Marcy Kaptur also, two of my favorite members of Congress.

I'd like to ask why they voted the way they did. Kucinich, Hinchey, Grijalva, Capuano, Lee all voted 'no'.

The 75 who voted correctly, FOR the Constitution, were vilified at the time by the Rupert Murdoch's WSJ and the rest of the RW media. But the MSM remained silent.

K&R

on him, just as those who turned on ACORN too quickly. Now that the truth is coming out, people are realizing they've been fooled by the MSM into thinking Obama is the boogeyman.