There has been a lot of outrage over the videotapes that show workers for ACORN, the Assn. of Community Organizations for Reform Now, offering a couple posing as a prostitute and a pimp some advice on how to expand their "business" with government funding. Congress voted to cut off federal money to ACORN, and there are various probes into its funding and activities. This page chided the group for tarnishing the name of grass-roots organizers everywhere.
But that doesn't mean every gleeful anti-ACORN attack is on the mark. For example, the California Republican Party took the opportunity to call for a "full and complete forensic audit" of all voter registration cards solicited or submitted by ACORN or its representatives.
The state GOP should sit down and take a breath. There is an important distinction to be drawn between ACORN's voter registration efforts, which we commend, and its counseling services, which have some serious problems. The group was in the news last year because about a third of the voters it signed up turned out to be nonexistent, but don't forget the rest of the story: That 1-out-of-3 rate is on a par with all registration efforts for first-time voters -- and not necessarily through the fault of those doing the work.
How about when you sign up the Dallas Cowboys to vote in LA?
To be fair, I would not have recognized that one. On the other hand, I would have conscientiously checked their driver's licences or other form of identification before accepting their forms.
ACORN, in other words, is no better or worse than most others in registration, except in this: It signs up far more people, both the valid and, it stands to reason, the non-valid. By all means, there should be tighter controls to prevent fraudulent registrations, but there is no evidence to warrant a new voter registration probe.
Other than signing up the Dallas Cowboys ...
The state GOP this week announced a registration drive of its own, funded by gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, complete with a $3 bounty on each valid signature.
Note, the bounty is only for valid signatures, not the Dallas Cowboys. A big difference that will lead to the canvassers checking quite thoroughly before they waste their time. See how simple it is?
A scandal in the making? No. Like it or not, it's not illegal to pay for new voters, whether they are Democrats or Republicans, and whether the signature gatherers are paid by an activist organization or the former head of EBay.
It is, I imagine, very illegal to pay for imaginary voters like the Dallas Cowboys. Let's look into what ACORN paid for, shall we? It will prove quite, quite amusing to those of us who are not subsequently living the monastic life all unchosen.
Slam ACORN for counseling pretend criminals. But if the group is also registering voters who don't tend to pick Republicans, well, sorry GOP, but that's not a crime.
What if they're signing up the Dallas Cowboys?
Posted by: Fred ||
09/27/2009 00:00 ||
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Actually, I don't care if they sign up imaginary voters. Registering to vote is not the same as actually voting. If those imaginary people actually try to vote, that's a problem.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
09/27/2009 1:50 Comments ||
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#2
There is an important distinction to be drawn between ACORN's voter registration efforts, which we commend,..
Sorta of ignores that the AG (D) of Nevada is engaged in a full blown investigation and prosecution of ACORN for voter registration fraud. Then again, this is the LAT.
#3
It's a lot harder for fictional voters to vote if they haven't registered. Defrauding only part of the electoral process is still a pretty damning crime in my eyes. When the voters no longer have confidence in the fairness of the outcomes of elections, we're on the verge of very serious problems. And I think we're getting close.
#4
The system may be a tad flawed when you consider that about half of the 9/11 hijackers were actually able to register to vote in Virginia and Florida.
#5
That 1-out-of-3 rate is on a par with all registration efforts for first-time voters -- and not necessarily through the fault of those doing the work.
OK...
1) I don't believe it.
2) It's no excuse even if it is true.
3) Why do we need groups like ACORN to help voters register anyway? Why can't these people get off their butts and figure out how to do it themselves? Is it, perhaps, because they are too stupid, ignorant and lazy? Is it because they are not legal residents of this country?
Thanks for finally waking up, GOP of California. It took you long enough.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
09/27/2009 13:09 Comments ||
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#6
Why can't these people get off their butts and figure out how to do it themselves?
I think a lot of African Americans did, once they realized one of theirs had a chance. Sherri Shepherd is one example. 40 year old black woman (co-host of The View) registered for the first time in her life in order to vote for Obama (she had to ask her co-workers to assist her in this matter). She claims that her religious affiliation (Jehova's Witness) had prevented her in registering prior to 2008, although she had no such compulsions with it in "having more abortions than she could count". I doubt it's a stretch to assume she probably couldn't name the person currently serving as O's VP.
#7
The list of states where ACORN ISN'T being investigated for voter fraud is a lot shorter than the opposite. Anyone "defending" ACORN is probably a crook, or at least friends with them.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/27/2009 21:48 Comments ||
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Abandoned by even many of its Democratic allies, ACORN hit back today at Congress after it slapped the latest penalty on the community advocacy group.
The House voted today to avert a possible government shutdown next week by temporarily extending the current federal budget. But Democrats inserted a provision saying that ACORN could not receive funding under the stopgap measure or any prior legislation.
"To include language in legislation that targets a single organization is unconstitutional and wrong," ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis said in a statement. Congressman Nadler said it best: "The punishment here did not follow some criminal or administrative process with basic due process protections. It flowed out of a Fox News network report, which led the call for a public lynching. There was no statement of charges and no reference to a judicial or administrative finding of wrongdoing by ACORN.' "
Fair enough: let's stop funding all community organizations ...
Lewis added that ACORN is being singled out unfairly -- after a controversy started when employees it later fired appeared to advise conservative activists posing as a prostitute and her pimp on how to skirt the law -- when other groups and corporations are accused of doing much worse.
After all, other groups might have been advising pimps and 'hos how to avoid the heat. We don't know of any others but there could have been ...
"One unintended - and positive - consequence of the witch hunt against ACORN is that it could help rein in the likes of Halliburton and Blackwater and even Wall St," she said in the statement.
If she's going to compare the counseling of pimps and 'hos to Wall Street, then I confess she's got us ...
"If the standard is that organizations that have broken the law shouldn't get federal money, then let's set that standard consistently. There are numerous corporations that have been proven records of malfeasance. For its part -- and although we don't claim perfection in our work for poor and working families - ACORN has never yet been convicted of any crime in a court of law - the conservative imagination and the media are another matter."
A brave US attorney could change that ...
The anti-poverty advocacy group has also been disowned by both the Internal Revenue Service and the Census Bureau, which had worked with the group on tax preparation advice and the population count, respectively.
Apparently the Census Bureau has no interest in counting under-aged Salvadoran child sex slaves ...
Posted by: Fred ||
09/27/2009 00:00 ||
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"The anti-poverty advocacy group"
The only poverty they're "anti" is their own. Normal poor people need not bother to apply (except to be used gratis for props).
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/27/2009 0:13 Comments ||
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Yep, they seem to avoid poverty in the upper ranks. However, that does not apply to its own workers.
When is thievery not a crime but a personal tragedy? When is lying for personal gain or political expedience a mere error in judgment? The answer is obvious to any partisan. Your political enemies engage in criminal or morally repugnant acts; your allies, friends, and relations make mistakes or bend the rules for the greater good. As Rudolph Giuliani remarked during his presidential campaign, the definition of torture "depends on who does it." Waterboarding was "aggressive questioning," when Americans inflicted it. "It was a judgment call," (not a criminal conspiracy,) ACORN president Maud Hurd said in 2008, describing the decision to cover-up the embezzlement of nearly a million dollars by Dale Rathke, the brother of ACORN founder Wade Rathke.
No, I don't mean to suggest that torture and embezzlement are moral equivalents. I do mean to state that activists, advocacy groups, politicians, and pundits, left and right, display equivalent moral hypocrisy when rationalizing illegal or unethical conduct by some of their own. It's the hypocrisy bred by the self-righteousness of people convinced that they're on the side of the angels, that their commitment to the right cause makes them incapable of doing wrong. It's the hypocrisy that led the ACLU national board to trivialize, misrepresent, or conceal serious misconduct by its staff and lay leaders (the subject of my book, Worst Instincts.) It's the hypocrisy that has consistently characterized the "progressive" response to recent and still unfolding ACORN scandals. By ignoring, minimizing, or rationalizing grossly unethical and even criminal conduct, ACORN's left-wing friends have harmed it more than its right wing enemies ever could.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/27/2009 00:00 ||
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Harshbarger was the prosecuting attorney in the Amirault case. He kept them in jail long after it had been demonstrated that they were innocent because he didn't want it on the record that he was the John Hathorne of the 20th century Witch Trials. Whatever he does, it should be viewed with skepticism.
Michael Calderone has his doubts... Thinks Stone mighta been Rathered. Something's gonna get destroyed here, either Stone's reputation or Americans for Limited Government...
Posted by: Fred ||
09/27/2009 00:00 ||
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"How hard can it be to look at server logs?"
Depends. How hard are they trying to hide the ugly truth?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/27/2009 0:16 Comments ||
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I can't find a link, but I read somewhere that there's a good chance this is a hoax. I recommend a degree of skepticism.
#4
3:1 odds this is BS. Who says "bite me" anymore? Ditto for the last two words.
Last time I heard "bite me" in any public utterance was from a kid who grabbed a microphone ca. 1984 at a Texas Rangers game and said, "Bite me, Howard [Cosell]! The whole state of Texas hates yore guts!" As repeated by David Brinkley at the end of his Sunday a.m. news talk show.
#7
I strongly support what Breitbart and his colleagues are doing at biggovernment.com, but this one had damned well better be true or their credibility will be trashed permanently.
#8
Its so damn easy to fake email to be coming from someone else its laughable. Spammers do it all the time.
Spammers can only fake the email address; They can't alter the indicator of the origination of the email, data which is in the header. It is possible to spoof an IP address within a mail server ( to have the mail server list a false IP ), but you would have to be a c or some other internal script programmer to make it happen.
However, most modern anti-spam measures included in mail servers would catch the difference in a DNS query and disconnect from the offending mail server instantly.
All the above is beyond of the ken of the people we are talking about. Even NBC's IT folks have better things to do, I suspect, than to fake email, headers or spoof IP addresses.
And the people in the NGO ALG? I doubt such a scam would be worth perpetrating given the resources required to make it happen.
The way CBS's was after Memogate? They will be chastened and some sort of prophylactic practices will be introduced, like calling the smearee before you publish. But Breitbart has more than one gaffe's worth of credibility to burn.
#11
One comment I haven't seen regarding this controversy: Blackberry claims their e-mail function is secure and encrypted.
If NBC has implemented the secure Blackberry server - then I think it would have complicated any email shenanigans.
I know when I was responsible for wireless communications at my company - I made sure our corporate communications were as secure as I could make them. If NBC hasn't - I don't know what's wrong with them.
Got a couple of free hours, Leigh? I could start telling you.... ;-p
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/27/2009 11:30 Comments ||
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How hard could it be to extract the contents of her Sent Items folder?
Posted by: Fred ||
09/27/2009 11:30 Comments ||
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See comment #1, Fred.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/27/2009 11:31 Comments ||
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Email, as its basis is ultimately just text. Were it to be transported as encrypted text, it would have to be transmitted as a MIME attachment, and therefore the terminus would have to either have a means of decrypting the text, or the encryption would have have to be filtered before being delivered.
All the above is frightfully expensive.
Blackberry's claim to encryption has more to do with access to a web mail interface over a SSL session which is encrypted end to end and is secure from prying third parties.
This is ultimately a transport wrapper, not necessary secure email, but for its transport from the server to the reader. Even gmail.com offers an SSL wrapper for accessing its webmail.
Ultimately IT security is physical security foremost. If you can't secure a mail server from physical tampering, all the secure encryption protocols in the world won't keep your information and emails safe. IT security also means that if someone can access your mail device, you have a lot bigger problem than a Nazi for a television producer. You have what I would term a severe IT security problem.
Email inasmuch as it is plain text is usually transported reliably from one node to the other. That spammers and similar folks exist to pollute mail servers with their particular brand of online robbery, doesn't make mail unreliable.
At the moment there are a number of claims throughout that email is easy to hack and alter, which is true once it gets to its final destination, and it is just as easy to alter sent mails.
It is likely that ALG uses a third party email service which has no dog in this fight and can reliably provide the raw spool from which the mail comes. If it does and the spool is unaltered, it would put the controversy to rest in ALG's favor.
NBC's only proof is from a sent mail spool, eminently alterable with the right tools.
#17
she's also faculty at NYU (HT to Dan Riehl): Jane Stone has worked over the past 17 years investigating everything from corporate negligence at Fortune 500 companies to bogus retirement homes to the trafficking in endangered species by the country's prestigious zoos. She has investigated dangerous abortion clinics, explored Pat Robertson's religious and political philosophy and profiled a dangerously overcrowded public hospital. The investigations have changed laws, shut down shoddy companies and increased workplace safety standards. They have also helped shed light on important public policy issues.
She has won three national Emmys, including one for Outstanding Investigative Journalism, three regional Emmys, an Ohio State Award, A DuPont-Columbia Award, a Peabody, and the Joan Shorenstein Barone Award for Excellence in National Affairs Reporting. She was a producer for 60 Minutes, West 57th, PBS Frontline, Dateline NBC and the CNN Special Assignment Unit. She also helped start Court TV, and in the last few years has developed a strong interest in legal journalism. She was recently awarded the American Bar Association Gavel Award for educating the public about important legal issues. Professor Stone continues to produce stories for Dateline NBC.
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/27/2009 11:49 Comments ||
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I was searching out the background on this story. I clicked on one of the links and one of these malicious software sites jumped on my site and started supposedly scanning my computer files. It started to report all the viruses and bad things that I have on my computer. I noticed some of the words were mispelled. I was running Mozilla browser at the time. The next step was that if I downloaded their program, I could clean up the problem for price. I'm pretty dedicated to keeping up with virus definitions, malicious software, and use a layered protection. Be careful of these malicious shits. Wish that I could send a power surge into their computers or reach through my computer and do bad things to them.
#19
The only way to stop this is by always cryptographically signing your email. The vast majority have neither the capability nor the inclination to do it. Otherwise, email is completely untrustworthy, far less so than images.
But if it is cryptosigned, it's more trustworthy than notarized paper.
For the first time, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has publicly admitted that politics has trumped science. The agency acknowledged yesterday that it approved a device to help with knee-replacement surgeries--a device the agency's own scientists said often failed--only after it received pressure from a cohort of Democratic congressmen from New Jersey, where the device's manufacturer is located.
The $3000 device was known as the Menaflex, a "collagen scaffold" that supported a damaged meniscus in the knee. It failed its initial reviews but received approval in December of last year anyway, during the waning days of the Bush Administration. In a new report, FDA cited pressure from senators Robert Menendez and Frank R. Lautenberg and representatives Frank Pallone Jr. and Steven R. Rothman as a decisive factor in gaining approval: "The Director of FDA's Office of Legislation described the pressure from the [Capitol] Hill as the most extreme he had seen and the agency's acquiescence to the Company's demands for access to the Commissioner and other officials in the Commissioner's office as unprecedented in his experience."
In addition, the former head of the FDA, Dr. Andrew C. von Eschenbach, intervened to have the device approved.
Gee and I thought there was a law about that sort of thing ...
According to The New York Times, the company that manufactured Menaflex, ReGen Biologics Inc., had recently made campaign contributions to all four Congressmen. The Times added that thirty patients in the United States have received the Menaflex and 3000 in Europe. U.S. News & World Report noted that, despite acknowledging that the approval process was compromised, FDA has no plans at the moment to remove the device from the market.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/27/2009 00:00 ||
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If I were a lawyer, I would be very interested in this story. Especially if I could also find someone who had the device installed, and the device failed.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
09/27/2009 1:52 Comments ||
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FDA Admits Politics Trumped Science on Knee Device
Fixed.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/27/2009 17:41 Comments ||
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A video of Burlington Township elementary school students singing about President Obama during Black History Month has mushroomed into a national debate over the role of politics in the classroom.
In the video, children at B. Bernice Young Elementary School recite barely audible lyrics that repeat the name "Barack Hussein Obama" and describe the president's views on equality.
The children then sing verses such as "Hello, Mr. President / we honor you today / for all your great accomplishments we all [say] hooray. Hooray Mr. President, you are No. 1 / the first black American to lead the nation."
School district officials said the YouTube video was made in February, a month after the presidential inauguration. It became an Internet phenomenon this week after its discovery by conservative opinion leaders including Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity of Fox News and columnist and blogger Michelle Malkin.
The state education commissioner has directed Burlington Township School District Superintendent Chris Manno to conduct a thorough review of the incident to ensure that students can celebrate the achievements of African Americans during Black History Month "without inappropriate partisan politics in the classroom," said Beth Auerswald, state education spokeswoman. The review also would determine whether the privacy of the children had been violated, she said.
Auerswald noted that the teacher heard leading the class retired at the end of the last school year. Sources said the state Department of Education had received 80 e-mails about the video, 65 of them from out of state.
"Our curriculum studies, honors, and recognizes those who serve our country," Manno said in a statement. "The recording and distribution of the class activity were unauthorized."
Manno could not be reached yesterday. A day earlier, he told the Burlington County Times that there had been no intention to "indoctrinate" the children, as conservative critics have suggested. "The teacher's intention was to engage the children in an activity to recognize famous and accomplished African Americans," Manno said.
Yesterday, a Fox News truck was parked across from the school as children were dismissed for the day. A school employee responded to a reporter's request to talk to Principal Denise King by calling local police. Leslie Gibson, 38, who has two children at the school, said yesterday she didn't think it was appropriate for educators to tell children the president is "No. 1." That distinction, she said, should be reserved for a role model such as the child's father or mother.
"I want my kids' horizons to be broadened, but not religiously or politically," said Gibson, who described herself as a political independent. She identified the class as a group of second-graders last year who were taught by now-retired teacher Elvira James. Efforts by The Inquirer to reach James were unsuccessful.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/27/2009 00:00 ||
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Raymond Hussein Obama is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life.
#2
So this is the role model for our kids ca. 2009: a major-league BS artist whose main accomplishment prior to becoming POTUS was his autobiography. Actually, not one but two autobiographies, when he hadn't done enough to merit even a slim biography.
Here are some proposed role models if we want our nation to turn around the creeping cronyism, mediocrity, and statist stupidity that this administration's inflicting on us:
-- Norman Borlaug. Nobel-prize winning scientist behind the agricultural revolution that saved hundreds of millions of lives worldwide (and would have saved hundreds of millions more were it not for fanatical environmentalist know-nothings).
-- Steven Wozniak and Steve Jobs. Left-leaning rebels who never wasted a day as "community organizers", instead, they mastered difficult scientific and technical problems and then, risking everything they had, built one of the world's great companies. In other words, capitalists extraordinaire.
-- James Watson. Nobellist, biologist, discoverer of the double helix. Devotee of truth and fearless exposer of academic BS.
#4
Those involved in illegal or inappropriate activities with tax funds (ACORN and this School District), rarely address the issue at hand...rather cite that the taping was illegal. If the ACLU was not an agenda-driven organization, it would be all over this case. Their specious 1977 defense of the Nazi march in Skokie, IL as an attempt to show that they are non-partisan, ran out of gas that same year.
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Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Abandoned by even many of its Democratic allies, ACORN hit back today at Congress after it slapped the latest penalty on the community advocacy group.
A video of Burlington Township elementary school students singing about President Obama during Black History Month has mushroomed into a national debate over the role of politics in the classroom.
