When the congressional Democrats joined the Republicans in attacking ACORN and cutting off its funding--without even the pretense of an investigation to establish a rational basis for their actions--they clearly demonstrated the almost utter meaninglessness of electing a Democratic majority over the past two wave elections. The elections were clearly important in terms of removing the GOP from direct power, so that it's worst abuses were either ended or toned down.
But clearly nothing remotely resembling actual Democratic governance has emerged to take it's place. And this vote was a stark, harrowing reminder of how politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum: if you don't have a positive agenda, you will end up voting for any sort of stupid, evil shit that comes down the line, if the stampede factor is high enough. Or, to put it more bluntly: If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything. So here's a quick run-down on what I see as six of the principle evils involved in this heinous act. I invite everyone to add to my list in comments.
(1) Screw The Poor, Part 1: The defunding directly takes money away fromthe leading organization involved in helping low and moderate income keep their homes. ACORN's been getting around $3 million a year to do this kind of work--counseling low- and moderate-income families and individuals.
As Zach Roth reported for TPMMuckraker:
Whatever you think about ACORN, poor people and minorities may end up being hurt the most by Congress's sudden vendetta against the group....
According to Brian Kettenring, ACORN's deputy director of national operations, the group's voter-registration work is funded entirely through private sources -- primarily membership dues and foundation grants. So that work would be unaffected.
The same goes for ACORN's core operations -- the rent on its offices, for instance.
In recent years, ACORN has been getting around $2-3 million in federal funds annually, said Kettenring, stressing that this was a rough estimate. That's about 10 percent of its total budget for the year.
That money goes mostly to housing work: primarily fair housing programs, which fight housing discrimination; and foreclosure-prevention programs, which help low-income people obtain loan modifications so they don't lose their homes, and which educate people about preventing foreclosure.
Important work these days, you might say. Losing federal funds, said Kettenring, "would impact our ability to help people save their home."
In other words, ACORN itself, said Kettenring, won't be hurt much by Congress's action. It's the people who ACORN works with -- who tend to be among the neediest -- who will lose out.
To be sure, it's fair to question how effective those programs ultimately are....
But it's not as if the federal money will now go to a different group that does this work more effectively. So the ultimate result, of course, is less help for struggling Americans, in very difficult economic times. As members of both parties compete to express their outrage, that's worth keeping in mind.
In contrast, the top-tier financial firms have received more than $10 trillion in various forms of financial assistance from the government--a sum that's over 3 million times the annual $3 million that ACORN has received. Any quetions?
(2) Screw The Poor, Part 2: Cutting back on voter registration for minority and low-income voters. The federal funds have nothing to do with this, but as Roth also notes:
Late Update: A different ACORN spokesman tells the Wall Street Journal that the group is considering cutting its voter-registration work. That's not because of any funding issue. Rather, it's a desire to avoid "political attacks."
Of course, the GOP has been fighting to suppress minority voters for more than half a century. So, way to go, congressional Democrats! Of course, since they don't really care very much about passing legislation, it's really not a very big deal to them. That's why they are the enemy every bit as much as the Republicans are.
(3) Empower Demonization: The post-New Deal GOP is entirely built on demonization, from McCarthyism to Nixon's "Southern Strategy" to Reagtan's "welfare queens" to Willie Horton and beyond. The stupidest thing that Democrats can do is cave in to rightwing demonization, and thereby empower it. So, naturally, that's what the Versailles Dems do.
(4) VALIDATE Demonization: But the Versailles Democrats didn't just empower conservative demonization by allowing it to succeed. They joined in on it--essentially saying that conservatives were right to demonize ACRORN.
(5) Invalidate the reason for voting for Democrats in the first place. This would not necessarily be a bad thing if we lived in an alternative universe were (a) national third party politics was a viable possibility, with a substantial history behind it, and (b) low-income voters were not also largely low-information voters, who desperately need sharp party divisions in order to participate in electoral politics relatively effectively. Because we do not live in that alternative universe, this action clearly demoralizes and outrages progressives, and intensifies divisions within progressive ranks between those who advocate national third party politics and those who--however reluctantly--do not.
(6) A general "fuck you" to all grassroots activists. Seriously, if I have to explain this one to you, I'm afraid that I can't possibly explain it to you.
Democrats throw a million votes away... ACORN thinking about ending voter registration activities:
http://online.wsj.com/article/...
Way to go, Dems, for voting against a big registration advantage for yourself...
Morans!
Because what a handful of ACORN employees did was soooo much worse than Triple Canopy:
Former Iraq Security Contractors Say Firm Bought Black Market Weapons, Swapped Booze for Rockets
Last spring, the U.S. diplomatic mission in Iraq got a makeover,replacing the scandal-plagued Blackwater private security company with a firm named Triple Canopy.
The new $1 billion contract cemented Triple Canopy's status as the pre-eminent provider of private security services in Iraq, with its heavily armed employees appearing side by side with senior State Department diplomats.
But the company's rise to prominence followed a long, often chaotic route, marked by questionable weapons deals, government bungling and a criminal investigation that was ultimately closed without charges being filed, according to newly released investigative files.
Company employees told federal investigators that Triple Canopy swapped booze for weapons and supplies from the U.S. military. They said the company bought guns and other arms on the black market in Iraq. Some worried that the money was flowing into the hands of insurgents, records show.
or Blackwater:
US extends Iraq contract for Blackwater firm
WASHINGTON - The State Department said Wednesday it has extended a contract for protecting U.S. diplomats in Iraq with a subsidiary of the security firm once known as Blackwater USA even though the company doesn't have a license to operate in the country.
Whistleblowers Unveil More ArmorGroup Allegations:
Former Company Officials Say State Department Contractor Involved in Myriad Fraudulent Schemes
Former employees of ArmorGroup, the private security company that holds a State Department contract to protect the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, unveiled new allegations against the besieged contractor a week after photographic evidence emerged of its guards engaged in physical and sexual harassment. In a press conference revolving around an unlawful-termination lawsuit filed against ArmorGroup, former senior company officials said ArmorGroup was aware of widespread fraud; intentional use of non-English speaking guards to save money at the expense of embassy security; operations of a shell corporation in order to win contracts intended only for American companies; and even involvement in prostitution - and that the State Department knew about at least some of the company's illicit practices
ACORN: No investigation necessary to oust them. GOP-connected contractors: no investigation sufficient to oust them.
But ACORN is hardly alone in the Versailles Dems' war against the Dem base. Consider President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan's war on public schools and public school teachers:
"This is journalistic malpractice, plain and simple. A reporter right out of J-school would have taken the two minutes necessary to call the San Bernardino Police Department and verify Ms. Kaelke's statements. But that never occurred to anyone at Fox News before the network ran with the story. This kind of shameful work raises serious questions about the legitimacy of the entire campaign currently being waged against ACORN."
Controversial Blackwater Security Firm Gets Iraq Contract Extended by State Dept
Company Banned From Operating by Iraqi Government Earlier This Year By KIRIT RADIA
Sept. 1, 2009-
The State Department has extended a contract with controversial private security firm Blackwater, ABC News has learned. The contract was due to expire this month.
Sources say the department has agreed to temporarily continue using the subsidiary known as Presidential Airways to provide helicopter transport for embassy employees around Iraq until a new contract with another security company, Dyncorp International, is fully implemented. Presidential Airways is an arm of U.S. Training Center, which is a subsidiary of the company Xe, formerly and still commonly known as Blackwater....
The Blackwater contract's extension is for an indefinite period of time, but an official stressed it was "limited." The official said the State Department would like to complete the transition in "weeks or months."
Certainly by 2012. Or '13. Definitely by '13. Or '14.
Meanwhile, ACORN is being fired:
Census Bureau Cuts Its Ties With Acorn
By JAKE SHERMAN
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Census Bureau on Friday dropped Acorn as a partner for the 2010 Census after two separate hidden-camera videos captured four employees of the community organization giving tax advice on running a brothel to a man posing as an aspiring politician and a woman posing as his girlfriend and a prostitute.
The Census Bureau earlier this year signed up the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, one of the nation's largest community groups, as a national partner for the decennial census, a role that entails helping to publicize the importance of the count and encouraging people to participate.
In a letter to Acorn President Maude Hurd, Census Director Robert Groves said Acorn had become a distraction.
But not Blackwater. No distraction there. Dead Iraqis, maybe. But no distractions.
Violence is cool. Sex, not so much. Even if the violence is real, and the sex hypothetical.
Cross-posted at Project Vote's Voting Matters Blog
This week Project Vote and the ACLU of Pennsylvania filed a lawsuit, on behalf of ACORN, against Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett and Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala, Jr. The purpose of the suit is to keep the district attorney from filing a frivolous complaint alleging that ACORN's method of retaining - not paying - canvassers was a violation of state law.
Cross-posted at Project Vote's Voting Matters Blog
By Erin Ferns
Enfranchising America's least represented citizens is as simple as following the law: that's the message Project Vote and a coalition of voting rights groups sent today as they filed lawsuits against Indiana and New Mexico for failing to comply with the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).
Cross-posted at Project Vote's Voting Matters Blog
In a major victory for voting rights, low-income voters in the state of Missouri will finally have better access to voter registration opportunities, thanks to a lawsuit settlement announced today by Project Vote, Demos, and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
About 3 months ago, ThinkProgress's Amanda Terkel posted, "I Was Followed, Harassed, And Ambushed By Bill O’Reilly’s Producer" -- detailing an incident that led to this video on FOX.
Today, FOX was up to their little tricks again -- setting up a red carpet outside an ACORN event and ambushing community organizers as they walked in.
Stephanie Taylor and I figured it was time to avenge Amanda Terkel....
(In other on-video confrontation news, see Norm Coleman and his DC Republican funders get confronted by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee here!)
UPDATE: Causing a stir! Video posted at Gawker, AmericaBlog, I put it on Daily Kos, where else? I'll post other updates on Twitter.
When ACORN came under unprecedented attack last election cycle for our work bringing new low- and moderate-income voters of color into the electorate, Adam Bink, one of the editors there, reached out to our small online team and offered the resources of this vibrant progressive community to help us combat the firestorm of accusations and lies pushed by partisan activists.
He and people like Mike Lux, David Sirota, Chris Bowers, Natasha Chart, Matt Stoller, and Paul Rosenberg rearranged their priorities and gave their time to debunk the accusations and put the attacks and our work into context. Their advice was instrumental in helping ACORN build relationships with progressive bloggers and online activists, relationships that helped folks across the blogosphere contribute to our defense. Near the end of the entire saga, in response to a thank you video to the progressive online community that the Working Families Party produced with me, Digby said something that captures what I think is the essence of what happened in 2008. She said, “It’s beginning to feel like a movement.”
Well, it certainly felt like that to me too. And my involvement with the progressive online aspect of that movement all started with the OpenLeft community.
So when I found out that OpenLeft was facing a funding crisis (and I know a few things about facing fundraising crises as the CEO of a poor people’s organization) I knew I had to help. So I did. When ACORN was being attacked, OpenLeft stood up. Now its our turn. When OpenLeft is in trouble, ACORN will always have its back.
But you need to help too. OpenLeft is too important to the progressive movement to be allowed to fail.
If you believe that there is a need for a space that offers deep progressive analysis of both policy and politics, then you need to give.
If you believe that there is a need for a space that offers cogent analysis of the changing electorate and its potential impact on progressive public policy, then you need to give.
If you believe that there needs to be a place dedicated to holding elected officials accountable for their promises around progressive public policy, then you need to give.
If you believe there needs to be a space where progressives can discuss long-term goals, strategies and tactics outside of the short-term urgency of specific campaigns or elections, then you need to give.
Because the truth is that, while there are many sites that do some of these things very well, there are practically none that do them all and do them all so well. And that’s probably the biggest reason that you need to give.
Since 1948, when Congress defeated one of the best chances had at a universal health care bill, the issue has not diminished in its importance to the country or its influence in all aspects of our economy. Right now we are facing what I think is best opportunity of my lifetime to reshape the health care system to insure the uninsured, control costs, and remove health care coverage from its linkage to employment.
ACORN, through its partnership with Health Care for America Now (HCAN), is heavily involved in pushing out elected representatives to take advantage of this moment and enacting lasting, comprehensive health care reform. While we may not end up with the perfect system, from a progressive point of view, whatever we do get will be a vast improvement over what we have now. Today, in a direct shot at the insurance industry fighting the changes, HCAN and its partners, including ACORN, released a study on the consolidation of the industry and its near monopolistic practices in many states. Below I've written more about this, through the prism of Tamecka Pierce, one of Florida ACORN's strongest leaders. We can win real health care reform this year. But we need to fight for it. --Bertha
When Florida ACORN member Tamecka Pierce first got her employer-provided health insurance, she was ecstatic. No more dealing with the limitations and bureaucracy of the Medicaid system, which had been her sole option as an unemployed single mother with three children.
That joy was short lived. Just after she was accepted into the Blue Cross/Blue Shield program, she was diagnosed with lupus, an auto-immune disease in which the body slowly eats away at itself. The treatment is complex, ever-shifting, and life-long as there is no cure.
Predictably, Blue Cross/Blue Shield spent months fighting not to cover Tamecka. When she finally won, her problems didn't end. As the sole breadwinner, money is always an issue. On a monthly basis, Tamecka found herself choosing between medications and visits to specialist, or between health care and other bills.
But it doesn't have to be this way. Follow me on the flip to find out how.
If you didn’t see ACORN spokesman Scott Levenson take on Glenn Beck on Wednesday, you missed a bit of a dust-up. Enough of a dust-up for Keith Olbermann to name Beck his “Worst Person in the World” for Thursday May 7.
For most of the nine minutes, Beck did his best to continue the rich Fox News tradition of smearing ACORN’s work, especially around the voter registration drive we did last year. Scott did his best to give as good as he got.
For the most part, he did pretty well, I’d say, forcing Beck to shut off his mike one point. (Here’s an aside: Why is it that right-wing radio and TV hosts always prattle on about the first amendment when they get called out for their hate speech, but when they can’t bully guests into submission, then need to cut the other guy’s mike? Are they scared to actually deal in facts?)
But the real confrontation happened off-screen, when, during a commercial break, Beck said that ACORN was “bad for America” and Scott responded, “You’re just afraid of black people.” You can almost see Beck’s head explode in this clip.
Follow me over the flip for more on how Beck exemplifies the problems conservatives have with race.
The last time I was here I was discussing the foreclosure crisis at the heart of the economic meltdown and the launching of ACORN's Home Defenders campaign. This is the hard work ACORN members and like-minded community activists are doing to help foreclosure victims stay in their homes until the various programs and proposals from the Obama Administration can take effect. As part of that effort, we're calling for a 3-month moratorium on foreclosures and supporting the so-called bankruptcy "cram-down" legislation that is now before the Senate.
But I want to talk about something that’s even bigger than that campaign. And even more complicated and difficult to make sexy. No, it is not my auntie’s hair. (I keep saying, "Braids!" And she keeps reaching for the straightener. It ain't pretty.) I'm talking about President Obama's first budget proposal.
Before you click away with your eyes all glazed over, hear me out. Because this budget is a major down payment on a progressive future for the United States.
On Wednesday I wrote a piece on Huffington Post and another here at Open Left talking about the centrality of fixing the foreclosure crisis to any recovery from the economic meltdown. Since the toxic assets at the center of the meltdown are based on mortgages that are entering foreclosure at a rate of one every 13 seconds, we have to address foreclosure as a part of getting America back on its feet.
The Homeowner Affordability and Stabilization Plan (HASP), announced in Phoenix on Wednesday by President Obama, which will help up to an estimated 9 million families, is a good first step – and the first serious effort by the Federal government to confront the challenge. But just because there was an announcement does not lessen the urgency of the problem. We are still in a situation where four families every minute enter the foreclosure process. We believe there must be a moratorium on foreclosures until HASP is fully implemented.
In the extended entry I give a report back on ACORN's actions on Thursday to create a sense of urgency around this crisis and help some families stay in their homes.
President Obama unveiled his $75 billion Homeowner Stability Initiative today, which could be a start to ending the foreclosure crisis that plagued 2.3 million Americans last year. While Obama acknowledged his plan won't be able to save every home, he claimed it would stop "the worst consequences of this crisis from wreaking even greater havoc on the economy."
To that end, Obama's plan will help those homeowners facing mortgages more costly than the price of their homes, along with borrowers on the verge of foreclosure. That would be key to enabling 4-5 million Americans currently "under water" refinance their mortgages, and another 4 million people avoid foreclosure. The plan also "will provide forward-looking confidence" for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said.
But the question still remains how soon this money will get to the people who need it most, considering 10,000 Americans go into foreclosure every day. As Arianna Huffington recently put it, "'The banks are too big to fail' has been the mantra we've been hearing since September. But when you consider the millions of American homeowners facing foreclosure, aren't they also too big to be allowed to fail?"
It is good to be back here at OpenLeft. Thanks to the site's editors, I will be posting from time to time on ACORN's major campaigns and the work being done by progressives to push for the kind of policies we need to get America back on its feet and back to work. I'm starting with the work we are doing to address the foreclosure crisis at the heart of the economic meltdown. -- Bertha
Yesterday President Obama signed into law the economic recovery package that is a firm first step forward in getting America back on its feet in the midst of the economic devastation we are experiencing.
Today, President Obama announced his Administration's $75 billion plan for addressing the foreclosure crisis engulfing the country. This is a welcome initiative, especially in the wake of the 2 years of inactivity and neglect from the Bush Administration.
I would argue that in terms of addressing the specific genesis of our present crisis - the toxic assets crippling the financial sector - the announcement today is of greater magnitude. For without a plan to address the predicted 8-9 million foreclosures over the next 4 years, that's in addition to the 2.3 million that occurred in 2008 with a total estimated cost to the economy of over $850 billion, attempts to spur an economic recovery will fail. There can be no long-term solution without addressing the immediate foreclosure crisis.
I talk about the problem and what we can do about it in the extended entry.
