ACORN, the black community group that figured so prominently in the last election when it engaged in massive voter-registration fraud, is back in the (non NYT) news again. Seems that someone sent a team of borrowers dressed as a pimp and a Ho to ACORN headquarters and asked for assistance setting up a brothel. ACORN obliged, on tape, then explained the first tape as an isolated example. Well that was in Baltimore. New tapes show the same team trying, and succeeding, in Baltimore and New York. For those of us who know who, and what ACORN is, there’s no surprise here, but when this story finally moves off the Internet and hits the mainstream media, the Times will find itself once again trying to explain a story to its readers that it had previously told them nothing about.
The readers like this protective shield, I suppose, so maybe the Times will muddle through.
It’s pretty amazing how much has transpired with this story since it broke late last week. I think a website called Big Government broke the story and there has been alot of fallout and continues to be. Suffice it to say that it’s a pretty sordid tale. But, I think your main point is correct. It’s a pretty significant story that’s kind of leaking out very slowly. From what I’ve seen, it would be hard to figure it out if you relied on the MSM.
The NY Times is seriously leaving me cold as a journalistic enterprise… this being just the most recent example. Anyone following the Duke lacrosse scandal a few years back knows that their prejudicial mindset does damage.
Speaking of the times, haven’t seen anything here on their drinking water article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/us/13water.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2
There are actually three released tapes, Baltimore, Washington and Brooklyn, NY. The team, James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles, was not sent by anyone but acted on their own. ACORN has threatened suit. In an interview, O’Keefe said, “Bring it on.” He also implied there may be more.
Like a child throwing a tantrum, the best way to deal with what was the “newspaper of record” is to ignore it. Taking responsibility for your own edification is not only empowering, but adds (incrementally, to be sure) to the increasing irrelevance of the “institution”.
As the regular readers of this blog are well aware, why the devil would we trust some $27K per year reporter’s interpretation of facts (in this case the Greenwich real estate market) when instead we can come here and get access to the original source materials. And unlike the legacy media, your biases are right out in the open for all to see and process.
Go Times-free; you’ll never be as well-informed, and you’ll never go back.
The Census bureau also cut ties to Acorn last Friday and dropped them as a partner for the 2010 census as a result of the tapes now surfacing. In the letter to Acorn’s President, the Census director said that Acorn had become a “distraction”. Hmmmm, I guess that’s the new term for getting caught promoting prostitution, tax fraud and several other major crimes on camera.
It’s amazing that a 20-year old journalism student and an independant filmmaker did what main stream media have mostly ignored and have gotten results.
You would think the fact that more and more of those in the Congress are now also starting to call (with a little more conviction) for an investigation of this corrupt organization that is slated to receive 4.19 Billion of the stimulus (porkulus) money would at least merit a story in the Times.
The money is supposed to be for “neighborhood stabilization activities by ACORN. I wonder if ignoring prostitution or other illegal activities in the neighborhoods is considered a form of stimulation. Oh wait, prostitution WOULD be stimulating something. Never mind!
Hey DB. I have no idea how you missed it. CF summarized the drinking water article in his earlier “No news is good news” post by summarizing it as “Cavities in children (caused by Bush and big business)”
Hmm, water quality for all of us vs. ACORN and pimps. OBVIOUSLY ACORN is the more relevant story for all of our daily lives.
The criticism of the Times by everyone is amusing, because many obviously read it for some reason. It has some slanted views on things obviously. If you don’t like it, read the NY Post and like B1 says, “you’ll never be as well-informed”.
Is the NYT trying to be the AOL of newsprint? Filter the world to only what we determine you want to know?
don’t forget the 10 ACORN employees indicted in Florida for voter fraud. ACORN probably committed the greatest voter froaud this country has ever seen in the 2008 election.
On other news not fit to print in the NYT, the Census Bureau was very quietly moved from under the Commerce Dept. to the White House. Why…no one knows…only Rahm Emmanuel. My guess is to redistrict.
The Times has for a very long time been to the Demoncrat Party what Pravda once was to the old Soviet Politburo. Its editorial board members are but shills for the effete liberalocracy now killing the Democrats. They went to the same colleges, eat at the same shishy restaurants, go to the same Georgetown cocktail parties, summer together on Martha’s Vineyard, on and on and on.
They believe in the “absolute truth” of Howard Zinn’s and Noam Chomsky’s socialist rants is if those were gospel and they are utterly clueless as to what’s really happening on the streets here in the real world.
We’ll never be able to cure the Times of its delusions except by letting it die through revenue attrition.
Congress we can cure though, with a full and complete sweep-out in November 2010
“ACORN probably committed the greatest voter froaud this country has ever seen in the 2008 election.”
Nah. The Supreme Court blessed it in 2000.
John Conyers was going to hold hearings on ACORN. The investigation was dropped according to Conyers at the request by “the powers that be”.
I wonder if the Times will think this tidbit is newsworthy. Apparently the Senate thought it was relevent, and judging from the vote count, most Democrats threw the organization under the bus as well.
Senate Votes to Defund ACORN Housing
The Johanns Amendment # 2355 to H.R. 3288 passed by a margin of 83 to 7.
From the Associated Press:
WASHINGTON (AP) – The Senate voted Monday to block the Housing and Urban Development Department from giving grants to ACORN, a community organization under fire in several voter-registration fraud cases.The 83-7 vote would deny housing and community grant funding to ACORN, which stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.
The Senate’s move would mean that ACORN would not be able to win HUD grants for programs such as counseling low-income people on how to get mortgages and for fair housing education and outreach.
Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb., said that ACORN has received $53 million in taxpayer funds since 1994 and that the group was eligible for a wider set of funding in the pending legislation, which funds housing and transportation programs.