ACORN Officials Scramble, Firing Workers and Shredding Documents, After Exposed as Players Behind Occupy Wall Street Protests By Jana Winter Published November 03, 2011 | FoxNews.com
Officials with the revamped ACORN office in New York -- operating as New York Communities for Change -- have fired staff, shredded reams of documents and told workers to blame disgruntled ex-employees for leaking information in an effort to explain away a FoxNews.com report last week on the group’s involvement in Occupy Wall Street protests, according to sources.
NYCC also is installing surveillance cameras and recording devices at its Brooklyn offices, removing or packing away supplies bearing the name ACORN and handing out photos of Fox News staff with a stern warning not to talk to the media, the sources said.
“They’re doing serious damage control right now,” said an NYCC source. NYCC Executive Director Jon Kest has been calling a series of emergency meetings to discuss last week’s report—and taking extreme measures to identify the sources in their office and to prevent further damage, a source within NYCC told FoxNews.com. Two staffers were fired after NYCC officials suspected them as the source of the leaks, a source told FoxNews.com. “One was fired the day the story came out, the other was fired on Friday. (NYCC senior staff) told everyone that they were fired because they talked to you,” a source said. NYCC spokesman Scott Levenson denied that anyone was fired for talking to the press. FoxNews.com’s report identified NYCC as a key organizing force behind the Occupy Wall Street protests. Sources within the group also told FoxNews.com NYCC was hiring people to carry signs and join the protests. NYCC -- a nonprofit organization run almost entirely by former ACORN officials and employees --did not reply for comment prior to the publication of the initial article, but later posted a statement on its website dismissing the article and denying that it pays protesters. A source said that immediately following publication of the FoxNews.com report staff were called into the Brooklyn office for meetings headed by NYCC’s organizing director, Jonathan Westin. Westin handed out copies of the article and went through it line-by-line, the source said. Staffers were also given copies of photos of Senior Fox News Correspondent Eric Shawn and three other Fox News staff members, including this reporter. “They reminded us that we can get fired, sued, arrested for talking to the press,” the source said. “Then they went through the article point-by-point and said that the allegation that we pay people to protest isn’t true.”...................>>>>...................>>>>...................Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011.....posed/#ixzz1cjGbYAzc
Fox hasn't made a dollar by hyping ACORN to gullible Conservatives in almost a year. It's about time FoxSnooze made more bucks from this cash cow!
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
~ For those of you who rely on FixedNews as your sole source of information, the truth about ACORN may surprise you:
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) was a collection of community-based organizations in the United States that advocated for low- and moderate-income families by working on neighborhood safety, voter registration, health care, affordable housing, and other social issues. At its peak ACORN had over 400,000 members and more than 1,200 neighborhood chapters in over 100 cities across the U.S.,and overseas.
ACORN was shut down in the wake of the September 2009 release of selectively edited videos by two conservative activists using a hidden camera to elicit damaging responses from low-level ACORN employees that appeared to advise them how to hide prostitution activities and avoid taxes. A nationwide controversy immediately ensued resulting in a loss of funding from government and private donors, including a "defund ACORN" act passed by congress.
Following the publication of the videos, four different independent investigations by various state and city Attorneys General and the GAO released in 2009 and 2010 cleared ACORN, finding its employees had not engaged in criminal activities and that the organization had managed its federal funding appropriately, and calling the videos deceptively and selectively edited to present the workers in the worst possible light. Despite this, by March 2010, 15 of ACORN's 30 state chapters had already closed and the group announced it was closing its remaining state chapters and disbanding.
If You Tell A Lie Often Enough, It Becomes The Truth... (It would seem the Conservative Viewers of Fox News seem to be especially vulnerable to the "big lie" concept)
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
Acorn never went anywhere they only changed their name and went back to business as usual.
Shadow... read my last post... Why would they ever go anywhere??? Business as usual was helping poor Americans and insuring that every American has a vote.
You, like the Fox Follies Fans, can continue to believe the propaganda if you choose to... I prefer the truth.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
If they weren't guilty as video evidence suggested, and they do SUCH good work, why'd they bother to change their name? Why would they shred documents?
If they weren't guilty as video evidence suggested, and they do SUCH good work, why'd they bother to change their name? Why would they shred documents?
Change their name??? ACORN lost it's funding and was disbanded. It ceased to exist. There was no name to change.
As for the rest of the story... IT COMES FROM FOX NEWS. The Fox Agenda is to discredit Occupy, like they discredited ACORN with bogus video.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
As part of the effort by some chapters to stay afloat by severing ties with the national organization, California ACORN changed its name to Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment,[8][not in citation given] New York ACORN renamed itself New York Communities for Change,[10] and an offshoot of the ACORN organization called Acorn Housing changed its name to Affordable Housing Centers of America[114] yet has retained the same tax and employee identification numbers that it held under its former name.
If it walks like a duck, smells like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck Tommie. Keeping the same TIN and EIN numbers is a dead giveaway.
WASHINGTON D.C. – House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Ranking Member Darrell Issa (R-CA) today released a report examining the rebranding of 13 ACORN affiliated organizations following reports that ACORN had disbanded. The report includes evidence of a recent business transaction between ACORN and the organization rebranded as Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) which details how membership lists, computer equipment, employees and other assets will be transferred from ACORN to the new organization.
“Based on review of these corporate filings, Committee investigators have discovered that Affordable Housing Centers of America, Inc. maintains the same Tax Identification Number as ACORN Housing, Inc., its predecessor,” the Issa-released Report found. “This means that, for tax purposes, Affordable Housing Centers of American and ACORN Housing are the same. Additionally, Committee investigators found that several new ACORN affiliates maintain the same boards, staff and Employer Identification Numbers as former ACORN offices. This reflects the lack of true change or reform between these new organizations and their predecessors.”
Reacting to the report’s findings, Issa said, “ACORN is attempting to rebrand itself without instituting real reforms or removing senior leadership figures that need to be held accountable for wrongdoing. These newly renamed organizations are like career criminals who adopt aliases without changing their criminal lifestyles.”
The report concludes that these new organizations are not independent of ACORN, but part of a national strategy by ACORN to limit damage from recent scandals, escape public scrutiny, and continue a model that allows the organization to illegally function as a political machine funded by taxpayers and charitable donations:
“These rebrandings and transactions indicate that local chapters are not forcibly separating themselves from ACORN, but are attempting to reinvent themselves through a process done in full coordination with ACORN and its national senior leadership including Bertha Lewis. The close coordination of the rebranding process signals a level of continued control that ACORN’s senior officials exert over newly rebranded affiliates. ACORN and its affiliates appear to be following a strategy that will allow it to rehabilitate important state and local chapters under new names and then solicit private donations and public grants. ACORN is clearly reeling from public and official scrutiny of its many misdeeds. Documents and investigation, however, reveal that changes taking place at ACORN are the result of financial hardship and a desire to rebrand without real reform. Rebrandings should not be mistaken for real reforms which would, at a minimum, have to include a house cleaning of ACORN leadership, organizational transparency, and an exclusive focus on charitable work and services.”
Thanks for the information MT. It appears that ACORN will be back in business under a new title. Glad to hear it.
The Rich and Conservatives have Fox News, Labor has Unions Gun Nuts have the NRA I'm glad that the poor and disenfranchised of America will still have someone to represent them.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
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