ACORN: bringing third world politics to America

Glenn Beck yesterday unveiled a new congressional report accusing the far-left activist group ACORN of massive fraud, money laundering, and racketeering directed from the highest levels of ACORN management.
The report (PDF available here) – called “Is ACORN Intentionally Structured As a Criminal Enterprise?” — was released by Republican staffers on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
The ranking member on the committee, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-California), told Beck that with ACORN, “it’s always the mice that are getting prosecuted; it never rises to the top.”
But what investigators found “was a pattern of loose financial accounting and no firewalls,” Issa said. “It’s very clear that that’s for a reason…you cannot be giving government money…to ACORN and its affiliates without knowingly delivering it to partisan operatives who in fact engage in campaigning.”
Beck noted that President Obama was a community organizer. “He is organizing our government in the same way,” Beck said. “We can’t track anything. You’ve seen that healthcare bill. It is so complex. Money’s everywhere. It’s a shell game. And everybody’s getting rich, and the people who helped him devise this is the SEIU…a union that is tied directly into ACORN. We are building a new exoskeleton and it’s feasting on our republic.” said Beck.
Issa said he “absolutely” agreed. “Our study was specifically done so that the facts speak for themselves so that very clearly we could make the case that ACORN cannot be receiving government money and should lose its tax-free status,” he said.
Congressional Democrats have shown little interest in probing ACORN. After initially expressing interest in an investigation, House Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers (D-Michigan), a longtime ACORN ally, backed off, saying “the powers that be decided against it.”
Meanwhile, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) tried yet again to block ACORN from receiving taxpayer funds. On Thursday he offered an amendment to a spending bill that would have prohibited any taxpayer money in the bill from going to ACORN.
According to a King press release, “Liberals on the House Rules Committee ruled King’s amendment out of order.” This is the seventh amendment that lawmakers sympathetic to ACORN have blocked King from offering.
“John Conyers is right: the ‘powers that be’ in this Congress will do all they can to protect ACORN,” King said.