Posted on 10/03/2009 5:09:45 AM PDT by Zakeet
A credible source claims the embattled left-wing advocacy group ACORN is poised to announce massive staff layoffs but an ACORN spokesman denies this is the case.
A credible source close to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now revealed that the activist network intends to lay off all staff members operating out of its New Orleans headquarters. All information provided by the source to this reporter in the past has turned out to be correct.
However, ACORN spokesman Scott Levenson of the public relations firm The Advance Group in New York City said the source was incorrect.
In an interview Friday afternoon with Levenson said (referring to BigGovernment.com), “You guys just can’t get it right. You’re wrong again.”
When pressed to elaborate, Levenson declined to do so.
Levenson received media attention earlier this year when Fox News host Glenn Beck ejected the combative publicist from his studio during a commercial break. Beck said at the time that Levenson accused him of being a racist.
My source said that one of the employees to be cashiered in the Crescent City is the daughter of disgraced ACORN founder Wade Rathke. Rathke’s wife, Beth Butler, also works for ACORN but it is unclear at this point if she too will be laid off. Rathke’s son also reportedly is employed by ACORN.
ACORN also plans to lay off two-thirds of its Washington, D.C., staffers as soon as Wednesday of next week, according to the source. Layoffs will also extend to ACORN’s affiliate the ACORN Institute.
The source also revealed that all or most of ACORN’s development staff in the group’s New York City office will soon be laid off if they haven’ been laid off already.
ACORN’s already tarnished image took a major hit last month when BigGovernment.com unveiled undercover sting videos in which ACORN staffers across America were shown advising a pair posing as a pimp and a prostitute on the finer points of avoiding prosecution for prostitution, importation of underage illegal aliens to serve as sex workers, obtaining government grants under false pretenses, and tax evasion.
The adverse publicity generated by the videos and the group’s never-ending scandals is slowly but surely drying up ACORN’s funding sources.
FReep mail me if you want on/off the list.
na na naaa naaa hey hey hey GOODBYE!
don’t let the door smack ya in the back on your way out!
Its ACORN bring a box to work day!
Thanks, have heard nothing about it for awhile.
“Thank-you Hannah, James, Glenn Beck and Breitbart”
Amen to THAT !!
A Fairfax VA company, ICF International, was originally hired to administer the program - and they made incredible progress. But they had to contend with the incredible corruption of Louisiana, and groups affiliated with ACORN.
In turn, ACORN and the corrupt pols in LA blamed everything that went wrong on ICF International, even though the loans were finally getting approved.
Last July, Congresswoman Maxine Waters held hearings, and charged ICF with "racism" because the African-American slums in the lower 9th ward were not worth as much as better homes in other wards, so they got less to rebuild. Facts were facts, and ICF could not give them more money by the law Congress had written. It would be akin to an insurance company giving the payment of a Mercedes for a totaled Ford Focus.
It didn't matter - ACORN and the Democrats played the race card, all the while taking their "cut" of the money.
ICF finally had had enough and didn't even re-bid on the contract.
The effectiveness of the Road Home Program dropped overnight, and now nothing is being done.
Another nice one! But that’s not it.
That’s the one!
Rathke has already started a new organization with the name Community Organizers International. Some on here proposed a logo of a fish (koi) swallowing an acorn. The thing is, it takes years to get new contracts written with the government. The whole thing’s been fun to watch. :)
The roaches are scattering it’s going to be hard figuring out where they’re ending up at but hopefully someone will be monitoring their whereabouts.
LMAO. Best thing I’ve heard all week.
Megyn Kelly takes on ACORN Spokesman Scott Levenson
ACORN’s Scott Levenson Finally Meets His Match (Glenn Beck Video)
The Children's Health Fund
Ward 3, LLC
Primary Care Development Corporation
Ditmas Park Care Center
HOTEL,RESTAURANT & CLUB EMPLOYEES & BARTENDERS UNION LOCAL 6
American Red Cross in Greater New York
Community Health Care Association of New York State, Inc.
New York Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now
New York Hotel Trades Council
Muto Performance Corp
Jay Wartski
The Children's Health Fund
Rotten ACORNAmerica’s Bad SeedBy The Employment Policies Institute
July 2006
ACORN is a bad seed.
ACORN is a multi-million-dollar Conglomerate
Beth Butler is both Wade Rathke’s wife and Head Organizer of Louisiana ACORN, where the nationalorganization resides. Rathke has also placed hisdaughter, whom he called “Organizer 5” in one Internetdiary entry, into the crucial campaign to attack Wal-Mart (see elsewhere in this report)
In 2003, the National Labor Relations Board would find that ACORN management was guilty of usingunion-busting tactics against its employees.
Follow The Money (If You Can)
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now is registered as a non-profit corporationin Arkansas, which does not require public financialdisclosure. According to labor activist and scholar Peter Dreier, ACORN’s annual operating budgetis around $30 million.
The New York Times subsequently reported that the figure is closer to $37.5million, excluding the non-profit research and housingorganizations the group runs.
Even this estimate likelydoes not include the vast resources of the ACORN-rununions or reflect election-year resources given to itsostensibly non-partisan get-out-the-vote efforts.Because it operates a virtual self-contained economy,ACORN entities exchange millions of dollars everyyear for goods and services. The scant financial documents available for public inspection paint apicture of a spider web of ACORN-run organizationsthat trade loans, leases, payments, and grants.
While few financial transactions are available, the following offer a glimpse of the money that flows back and forth from one account to another at ACORN’s headquarters:
From 2000 through 2003 ProjectVote paid more than $1.7million to ACORN and CitizensConsulting.
Tax forms show that since 1997, theACORN Housing Corporation has paidmore than $5,100,000 in fees or grants toother ACORN entities
Since1997, the American Institute forSocial Justice has given grants in excess of$7 million and payments of more than $2million to ACORN and its affiliates
Front For Union Attacks
ACORN acts as a partner and front for union causes, including attacks ranging from those onlarge companies such as Wal-Mart to non-profit hospitals
SEIU Member Money Feeding ACORN Coffers
As with most ventures ACORN is involved in, itwould take a forensic accounting expert to trackall of the money flowing from one ACORN groupto another. But the financial disclosure forms fromACORN’s unions shed some light on their cash flow.Local 880’s Department of Labor financial filings from 2005 show a pattern of loans and payments to ACORN-run organizations
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ACORN’S Jen Kern“ We would like it to become afact of political life,” Kern says,“where every year the other sidehas to contend with a minimum-wage law in some state.”
“This is what moves people to the polls now. This is our gay marriage.”
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Government Grant Fraud
Manhattan Institute scholar Sol Stern has characterized
ACORN’s shift from the philosophy of National Welfare
Rights Organization founder George Wiley, who sent Wade Rathke to Arkansas, to one of using institutions for their advantage:
Instead of trying to overturn “the system”—to blow it up, as George Wiley wanted to do—ACORN burrows deep within the system, taking over itspower and using its institutions for its own purposes,like a political Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Pattern and Practice: Denial
The frequency with which ACORN employees arecaught turning in fraudulent or erroneous documents indicates the group cares less about obeying laws thanpushing its political agenda. When it is periodically forced to answer allegations of fraud, ACORN downplays the harm of its crimes or shifts blame to supposedly rogue employees, whom the organization then fires
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Little Rock Housing Scandal
A controversy over public money allocated to ACORN in Arkansas but sent to Louisiana led its former statechairwoman to call the group “one of the biggest scams in Arkansas” and a reverend to say that “as long as ACORN has a finger in it, it ain’t gonna bedone right.”
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AmeriCorps
In 1994 the ACORN Housing Corporation (AHC)was awarded a $1.1 million grant by AmeriCorps, a program of the Corporation for National Service(CNS). The money was intended to fund the trainingof 42 AmeriCorps members in 13 cities. The workers were expected to identify low-income families hoping to purchase a first home, to assist them in findingsuitable housing, and to advise them in securing the necessary financing
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Anti-Corporatism As Tool For Power
If confrontational actions are key to ACORN’s survival,then a “bad guy” must be found. And, for internal political reasons, ACORN picks a business to target. This explains why, even as their treatment of their own employees suggests otherwise, they continue to fight for economic issues such the minimum wage
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A Closer Look Under The Roof Of ACORN
Housing Corporation
2003: Paid $300,366 in fees to Citizens Consulting. All itemized grants—totaling $1,107,480—are given to ACORN entities.
2002: Paid $193,371 to Citizens Consulting. All itemized grants—totaling $1,076,112—are given to ACORN entities.
2001: Paid $222,248 to Citizens Consulting. All itemized grants—totaling $1,257,087—are given to ACORN entities.
2000: Paid $222,298 to Citizens Consulting. Itemized grants —totaling $426,925—are given to ACORN entities
1999: Paid $179,511 to Citizens Consulting.
1998: Paid $182,929 to Citizens Consulting
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Anti-Corporatism As A Means To Money
ACORN is in business to harass business, and business is booming. While the group has traditionally been ready to accept public acknowledgement of funds from churches and foundations, it has turned more to a new business model: the shakedown.
ACORN: No Business Like Poverty Business
Written by Gregory A. Hession, J.D.
Sunday, 02 November 2008 06:00
ACORN’s website asserts that it “is the largest grassroots community organization in the United States, comprised of over 450,000 member families organized into 1000+ neighborhood chapters in over 100 cities across the country. The mission of ACORN is to empower low and moderate-income people by building effective and solidly rooted organizations capable of winning concrete improvements for low-income communities.” Not exactly.
ACORN proves the axiom of the modern welfare state — that there’s no business like the poverty business. Although ACORN runs a large conglomerate of social-activist anti-poverty front groups out of a New Orleans hub, it is registered as a nonprofit corporation in Arkansas, which does not require financial disclosure. This has allowed it keep its own finances shielded from public scrutiny, while demanding transparency from all others.
The group’s nonprofit status refers only to its corporate form. That is, ACORN must be organized for a public purpose and have no stockholders, unlike a regular corporation. However, it is not tax exempt under federal law, since it does advocacy and lobbying that would run afoul of IRS restrictions, such as endorsing political candidates.
ACORN was started in 1970 by Stephen Wade Rathke, a former SDS radical and Boston-based community organizer. The group now consists of so many interlocking associations, corporations, and affiliates that investigators have trouble identifying them all. One research organization numbers them at 174, but the Capital Research Center puts the number closer to 300. One blogger came up with 294 of them by running a Lexis/Nexis search of organizations registered to ACORN’s 1024 Elysian Fields address in New Orleans.
The core of ACORN’s fundraising started with a member-dues model. The group has used that money to leverage federal, state, and local government grants totaling tens of millions of dollars. It also receives union cash for organizing activities and political campaign funds for get-out-the-vote drives. It now runs radio stations, businesses like a furniture company, a magazine, mortgage counseling centers, schools, a consulting company that advises other nonprofits, and a lobbying outfit, all as profit centers. Only a small portion of its revenue now derives from dues.
More...
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2594/3886248078_3a02665a76.jpg
Julie Cherry, Secretary Treasurer Louisiana AFL-CIO, and Beth Butler, ACORN
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www.neworleanscitybusiness.com/uptotheminute.cfm?recid= -
Published on: 7/31/2007
Beth Butler, community organizer for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, comprised of low to moderate income people, said there are a lot of reasons to push the applications deadline for The Road Home program.
“We’ve been fielding calls all morning of people trying to file online and they couldn’t file online,” Butler said.”We tried to help them but it was down all across the country.”
Butler said elderly applicants in particular were discouraged by the complexity of the applications process.
“The older people really think the forms are a burden and they think it is a barrier,” said Butler.”There’s a lot of reasons this should be extended. “
Butler said ACORN believes an appeals process is needed for those who failed to meet the deadline because of online difficulties.She pegged the number of calls at about a dozen for the morning.
She said homeowners should have been able to reach The Road Home officials on deadline day but could not.
“We just couldn’t get information from people who worked for them,” she said.
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www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/07/15/politics/politico/ma -
Published on: 7/16/2007
But New Orleans anti-poverty activist Beth Butler said Edwards has done more than just talk the talk.
“He has actually gone to states where we have had minimum-wage initiatives on the ballot and worked for the initiatives,” said Butler, who works for the nonprofit group Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN.
“It’s extremely important to have people who are willing to address the issues.”
And she rejected the idea that Americans could not be made to care about poverty while American troops remain in Iraq.
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www.paydayloanlowdown.com/2006/06
Published on: 6/1/2006
Beth Butler, an ACORN community organizer in Louisiana, says she recently attended a meeting of the group’s national officials, and payday lending was a hot topic.She says ACORN has supported legislation at the local, state and national levels with the goal of limiting the growth of what she calls “predatory lenders.””They fight us tooth and nail,” Butler says.
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Gambit Weekly : Do You Know What It Means to Myth New Orleans... -
Published on: 8/22/2006
Beth Butler believes the letter is not only frightening, it’s untrue.Butler is a community organizer for New Orleans ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), which created the Katrina Survivors Network, an evacuee group that emphasizes evacuees’ “right to return.”Butler criticizes multiple parts of the letter, including the warning about lack of grocery stores.
“The Lower Ninth Ward didn’t have a supermarket before the storm,” says Butler.
BETH BUTLER FROM ACORN SAYS THAT myths about New Orleans extend to its people.”Doesn’t everyone from out of town think that everyone who was rescued from the roof in the Ninth Ward was poor, including Fats Domino?
Butler felt belittled as an evacuee in Baton Rouge.”I kept saying we should print up T-shirts saying ‘Ninth Ward Marauders,’” she says.
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KFDM-TV Channel Six News
Published on: 10/25/2004
Community activist Beth Butler says she,s most concerned about first-time voters being told they must show a photo I-D at the polls instead of being told they can fill out a voter affidavit confirming their identities.She says they also plan to visit different polling sites that have large numbers of minority voters to distribute the group’s “Voter’s Bill of Rights.”
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Beth Butler, Tanya Harris, and Diana Hill have primary responsibility for ACORN/New Orleans, the local branch of the nation’s largest community organization
ACORN’s Working Family of Democratic Socialists
by Publius
Blogger Andrew Marcus has a timely piece over at his Founding Bloggers blog:
Founding Bloggers can exclusively confirm that as of 2000, ACORN listed the Working Families Party as an affiliate of ACORN. They also listed the New Party as an affiliate.
ACORN Saga: Founder Wade Rathke Wants YOU — To Go on Welfare
by Matthew Vadum
Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) founder Wade Rathke wants to use the Internet to overthrow the capitalist system.
He said so in his new book, Citizen Wealth: Winning the Campaign to Save Working Families, in which he serves up some community organizing war stories, and offers his thoughts on the future of organizing. Rathke’s currently on a cross-country book tour.
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