Hmmmm. “Operation Vote.” That’s the new name of a Chicago-run voter recruitment drive launched this weekend by Team Obama to target minorities and shore up his left flank.

As usual, everything old is new again…

Photoshop credit: Leo Alberti

Via the Washington Post:

President Obama’s campaign is developing an aggressive new program to expand support from ethnic minority groups and other traditional Democratic voters as his team studies an increasingly narrow path to victory in next year’s reelection effort.

The program, called “Operation Vote,” underscores how the tide has turned for Obama, whose 2008 brand was built on calls to unite “red and blue America.” Then, he presented himself as a politician who could transcend traditional partisan divisions, and many white centrists were drawn to the coalition that helped elect the country’s first black president.

Today, the political realities of a sputtering economy, a more polarized Washington and fast-sinking presidential job approval ratings, particularly among white independents, are forcing the Obama campaign to adjust its tactics.

Operation Vote will function as a large, centralized department in the Chicago campaign office for reaching ethnic, religious and other voter groups. It will coordinate recruitment of an ethnic volunteer base and push out targeted messages online and through the media to groups such as blacks, Hispanics, Jews, women, seniors, young people, gays and Asian Americans.

Just a few weeks ago, “Operation Vote” was “Project Vote.”

And the last time Obama fronted a massive campaign machine coordinating minorities and tied into the Chicago/ACORN social justice machinery it went by the name… “Project Vote.”

Obama denied aaaaanything having to do with ACORN and on his campaign’s “Fight the Smears” snitch watch site, he flatly denied any connection between Project Vote and the fraud-plagued ACORN:

• Fact: Barack was never an ACORN community organizer.
• Fact: ACORN never hired Obama as a trainer, organizer, or any type of employee.
• Fact: ACORN was not part of Project Vote, the successful voter registration drive Barack ran in 1992.

The truth? Well, Project Vote whistleblower Anita MonCrief (now at Emerging Corruption) has been exposing the racket for years. As the “new” “Operation Vote” gets underway, it’s worth reminding the electorate how the old Project Vote skirted campaign finance, disclosure, and tax laws in its single-minded bid to lock up minority voters. If you weren’t paying attention back then, pay attention now.

***

Flashback May 2009:

(Photo source: 2008 ACORN slideshow presentation)

They thought it would go away. They were wrong. Obama and the Left thought ACORN’s scandalous racket was a dead issue. But whistleblowers, investigative bloggers, and talk radio continue to press for transparency and taxpayer accountability. Iowa GOP Rep. Steve King has renewed efforts for congressional hearings into the financial structure of the massive, publicly subsidized activist group and its non-profit affiliates. Judicial Watch sheds light on ACORN’s partnership with the Census. Keep an eye on ACORN’s propaganda role in the Obama push for a government health care takeover. And Glenn Beck spotlights the left-wing strategy session to rescue ACORN.

My column today returns to one of the Obama campaign’s big lies — that Barack Obama “never organized with ACORN” and that ACORN had nothing to do with Project Vote. They were joined at the hip back then and they remain joined at the hip today.

Here’s the text of e-mails from ACORN and affiliate staffers patting themselves on the back for their role in Obama’s voter registration drive (click here for the original). Note the addressees, including Frances Piven. Yes, that Frances Piven:

From: Kevin Whelan [specialprojects@citizensservices.org]
Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2008 10:54 PM
To: mslater@igc.org; ‘Sanford Newman’; poldirect@acorn.org; ‘Frances Piven’; lcm25@columbia.edu
Cc: ‘Sarah Massey’; nhendersonjames@projectvote.org; kgillette@projectvote.org; ‘Michael McDunnah’
Subject: RE: Obama’s Voter-registration Drive

Find it on news stands now.

It’s the coordinated corruption, stupid. And if the GOP doesn’t start fighting back, the consequences will be permanent.

***
The truth about ObamACORN
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2009

Left-wing groups in Washington, D.C., are panicked. The New York Times and other Team Obama whitewashers have tried hard to suppress mounting evidence of legally suspect coordination between the Obama presidential campaign, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), and Obama’s old employer Project Vote (ACORN’s non-profit canvassing arm). Alas, the truth keeps seeping out.

At a closed-door pow-wow hosted Thursday at the left-leaning Center for American Progress, activists discussed how to combat a relentless stream of corruption charges from ACORN/Project Vote whistleblowers. But it’s too late for a reputation bailout. Former Project Vote official and whistleblower Anita MonCrief has harnessed the Internet to crowd-source a massive cache of documents showing ties between Obama staff and the supposedly “non-partisan” ACORN operations.

Last fall, the New York Times abandoned an investigation into whether Obama had shared donor lists with Project Vote, a 501(c)(3) organization that is prohibited from engaging in political activity. Public editor Clark Hoyt earlier this month called it “the tip that didn’t pan out.” Critics suggested that the donor lists could have been compiled through public records. But I have obtained the lists — not only of Obama donors, but also lists of Democratic National Committee, Hillary Clinton, and John Kerry contributors. The records [view them here] include small donors to the Obama campaign who are not disclosed in public campaign finance databases. It’s information only a campaign could supply.

MonCrief testified under oath last fall that her then-boss, Karyn Gillette, gave her the Obama donor list and told her the campaign had furnished it. Moreover, e-mail between ACORN, Project Vote, and other affiliates, including ACORN’s subsidiary, Citizens Services, Inc. (CSI), make explicit references to working on “Obama campaign related projects.” [Click here for the e-mail.] The “list of maxed out Obama donors” is explicitly mentioned in staff e-mail. [Click here for the e-mail.] Another message from ACORN/Project Vote official Nathan Henderson-James warns ACORN and affiliated staff to prepare for “conservatives…gearing up a major oppo research project on Obama.”

Henderson-James wrote obligatorily, “Understand I’m not suggesting that we gear up to defend a candidate’s campaign.” But that, of course, is exactly what the ACORN enterprise did.

Text of full e-mail [click here for original]:

From: Nathan Henderson-James [sworddirect@citizensservices.org]
Sent: Friday, February 08, 2008 5:09 PM
To: ‘Zach Polett’; ‘mslater@igc.org’; Kevin Whelan (specialprojects@citizensservices.org)
Cc: Karyn Gillette; ‘communications@acorn.org’; Nordette Adams
Subject: Oppo Research On Obama

Folks,

The attached link goes to a story on TPM Muckraker that says that conservatives are gearing up a major oppo research project on Obama.

We should prepare for this information being used to tie Obama to the bogus voter fraud charges leveled against PV and ACORN from the last two election cycles. It may or may not gain traction, it may or may not be chosen as a way of attacking him, but I think we cannot afford to ignore the possibility and plan what our response(s) might be (if any).

Understand I’m not suggesting that we gear up to defend a candidateís campaign, but prepare for the scrutiny and possible ancillary attacks that will come our way because of this.

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/02/tabula_rasa.php

Nathan
—–

Nathan Henderson-James
Director, Strategic Writing and Research Department
Citizens’ Services, Inc.
3655 S. Grand Ave #250
Los Angeles, CA 90007
213-747-7202 phone, 213-747-4221 fax, 510-213-1970 cell
sworddirect@citzensservices.org www.citizensservices.org

Why does this matter? Transparency, tax dollars, and electoral integrity. ACORN’s own lawyer, Elizabeth Kingsley, acknowledged last year that a vast web of tax-exempt ACORN affiliates were shuffling money around – making it difficult to impossible to track whether campaign rules and tax regulations were being followed. ACORN receives 40 percent of its revenues from taxpayers. Americans deserve to know whether and how much commingling of public money with political projects has occurred over the last four decades – and what role the Obama campaign played in this enterprise.

Remember: Last August, the Obama team admitted its failure to properly disclose $800,000 in payments to ACORN’s subsidiary, CSI – which works hand-in-hand with Project Vote and the ACORN parent organization. Obama mysteriously re-classified the campaign advance work expenditures as “get-out-the-vote” activities. Nary a peep from electoral integrity watchdogs.

Despite heated denials from Team Obama, the links between ACORN, Project Vote, and CSI are inextricable. As Obama himself reminded ACORN leaders after its political action committee endorsed his presidential candidacy in February 2008:

I come out of a grassroots organizing background. That’s what I did for three and half years before I went to law school. That’s the reason I moved to Chicago was to organize. So this is something that I know personally, the work you do, the importance of it. I’ve been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career. Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work.

As I’ve reported before, the Obama campaign’s “Vote for Change” registration drive, running in conjunction with ACORN/Project Vote, was an all-out scramble to scrape up every last unregistered voter sympathetic to Obama’s big-government vision.

In an e-mail message to whistleblower MonCrief last summer, New York Times reporter Stephanie Strom told the truth: “The real story to all this is how these myriad entities allow them to shuffle money around so much that no one really knows what’s getting spent on what.” By October 6, 2008, Strom had thrown in the towel in the wake of blistering phone conversations with the Obama campaign. She wrote:

“I’m calling a halt to my efforts. I just had two unpleasant calls with the Obama campaign, wherein the spokesman was screaming and yelling and cursing me, calling me a rightwing nut and a conspiracy theorist and everything else…I’d still like to get that file from you when you have a chance to send it. One of these days, the truth is going to come out.”

It’s only just begun.

***

Yesterday, I posted a few of the e-mails between NYTimes Stephanie Strom and ACORN/Project Vote whistleblower Anita MonCrief. You can download the entire series of message by clicking here. Mike Gaynor has transcriptions of several of the message here, including:

1. “I’m a little miffed with the funders, too. They have to be aware that the grants they make to c(3)s like Project Vote are being funneled to Acorn, which, whether c(4) or simply nonprofit corporation under state law, they aren’t supposed to give money to. ” July 10, 2008 8:18:52 PM

“What a mess.” September 13, 2008 9:43 AM

Kris Kobach will bring his determination to fight voter fraud to the Kansas secretary of state’s office after defeating incumbent Chris Biggs.

The Republican was leading with 58 percent of the vote to unseat Democrat Biggs, who had 38 percent, with 53 percent of precincts reporting.

Kobach, 44, raised the profile of the secretary of state race by focusing on voter fraud. The issue helped draw much more attention to the race — from Kansas and elsewhere — than secretary of state contests usually receive.

Kobach said he would use his position to push for state legislation to require proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate or passport, for anyone registering to vote in Kansas.

He also wants to require voters to produce valid photo identification every time they go to cast a ballot. He said these steps would help prevent illegal immigrants from voting and skewing election results.

In Ohio, another huge win as progressive Democrat Jennifer Brunner will be replaced by GOP challenger Jon Husted:

Republican state Sen. Jon Husted has won his bid for Ohio secretary of state, giving the GOP the office that will oversee the next presidential election in the traditionally battleground state.

Husted’s victory Tuesday also gives Republicans a key seat on the powerful apportionment board, which draws the state legislative districts every 10 years after the census and is scheduled to meet next year.

The former Ohio House speaker defeated Democrat Maryellen O’Shaughnessy, a former Columbus city councilwoman and the clerk of Franklin County Common Pleas Court.

The Soros-ization of election bureaucracies has been a primary agenda item of the Left, via Matthew Vadum:

George Soros said he was staying out of the 2010 elections. It appears he wasn’t exactly telling the truth.

After helping Al Franken steal a U.S. Senate seat in 2008, Soros’s ultra-wealthy buddies in the Democracy Alliance, a billionaires’ club that funds left-wing political infrastructure, are spending money to level the playing field for vote fraudsters. (Soros is also funding an effort to take away democratic elections for state supreme courts, as John Gizzi notes in a new Capital Research Center paper.)

Their money is flowing to secretary of state candidates directly and to the Secretary of State Project, a “527″ political committee that can accept unlimited financial contributions that it doesn’t have to disclose publicly until after the election. The SoS Project, which has raised at least $170,836 in this election cycle, is an officially approved Democracy Alliance grantee. Not surprisingly, members of the Alliance are opening their wallets to help secretary of state candidates across America endorsed by the SoS Project.

The purpose of the SoS Project is to destroy the remaining vestiges of electoral integrity. The group endorses left-wing, Democratic secretary of state candidates who have no respect for clean, honest elections.

It’s about time the progs were subjected to pushback on electoral integrity matters.

Kudos to Kobach and Husted.

How about the other 48?

I kid you not:

Bed bugs.

ACORN Canada is using the issue to push a new government licensing scheme on all landlords, which would drive up rent and lead to less affordable housing, not more.

Gotta love these social justice crusaders — worse than the pests they’re exploiting.

My reporting on ACORN’s housing counseling grant rip-offs go back to April 2008, when I spotlighted the left-wing mortgage counseling racket. As bad as the ACORN/Obama alliance is, I’ve pointed out several times that this mess festered under the Bush administration and a GOP ruling majority. Now, GOP Rep. Daryl Issa announces today that the HUD Inspector General has concluded a probe of the ACORN/HUD counseling expenditures.

It’s every bit as bad as you expected, from missing documentation to suspicious money-shuffling and overbilling to multiple violations of regulations and grant requirements.

Here is the full report at HUD IG site.

Issa’s summary:

HUD Inspector General Exposes ACORN’s Failure to Comply with Federal Grant Requirements

§ Unfortunately, ACORN’s money laundering is impossible to track: “Further, cost or price analysis and documentation to support the basis and justification for the services was not readily available.” (p. 13).

***

The incestuous relationships between ACORN, Project Vote, CSI, and CCI have been documented here previously thanks to the whistleblowing work of Anita MonCrief. She and her team keep tabs on all the latest ACORN/ACORN-style outbreaks at Emerging Corruption. Bookmark it!

Here’s a pleasant Friday afternoon surprise. Don’t expect to see it on the front page of tomorrow’s NYT, though. Via AP:

A federal appeals court on Friday threw out a decision that had barred Congress from withholding funds from ACORN, the activist group driven to ruin by scandal and financial woes.

The ruling by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan reversed a decision by a district court judge in Brooklyn that found Congress had violated the group’s rights by punishing it without a trial.

Congress cut off ACORN’s federal funding last year in response to allegations the group engaged in voter registration fraud and embezzlement and violated the tax-exempt status of some of its affiliates by engaging in partisan political activities.

Fueling the outrage was a video that caught three employees allegedly advising a couple posing as a prostitute and her boyfriend to lie about her profession and launder her earnings.

ACORN responded with a lawsuit accusing Congress of abusing its power with what amounted to a “corporate death sentence.”

The appeals court disagreed, citing a study finding that ACORN received only 10 percent of its funding from federal sources.

“We doubt that the direct consequences of the appropriations laws temporarily precluding ACORN from federal funds were so disproportionately severe or so inappropriate as to constitute punishment,” the three-judge panel wrote.

More on ACORN’s latest shenanigans here and here.

In other news, oxygen deprivation leads to death.

Judicial Watch, a conservative group that exposes and prosecutes government corruption, obtained FBI documents from a 2007 investigation of ACORN, in which employees admitted to voter fraud and that ACORN was working for the Democratic Party.

By the way, the president of the United States used to work for ACORN’s Project Vote. He helped register voters in Chicago for former Senator Carol Moseley Braun’s campaign. I’m not saying Obama was involved in voter fraud; I’m just putting the information out there.

Although the pimp-advice-giving liberal organization officially shut down operations on April 1, ACORN will continue to live in some form or another.

Corruption abhors a vacuum.

Follow me on Twitter @La_Shawn.

Connie Hair at Human Events has the news:

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has issued a stay on the December 2009 injunction by Clinton-appointed Judge Nina Gershon that declared the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) funding ban was unconstitutional.

The result of the stay is that the Congressional funding ban will go back into effect, and ACORN will not receive taxpayer dollars while the court reviews the case.

“I applaud the Court of Appeals for immediately addressing the effects of Judge Gershon’s attempt to legislate from the bench,” said Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif), top Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. “Today’s action immediately restores the congressionally mandated ban on funding ACORN and its affiliates as a result of their criminal conduct and wasting of taxpayer dollars. Congress does have the constitutional right to deny an organization the benefit of taxpayer dollars.”

In related news, ACORN’s Bertha Lewis proclaims the resurrection of the community organizing racket and Matthew Vadum reports that the “dissolved” ACORN is still grubbing for money from donors.

Good news to report, via the Center for Individual Rights:

Today an abrupt end came to a lawsuit that Project Vote, an affiliate of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), had launched against Anita MonCrief, a vocal critic of both groups. The federal judge hearing the case ordered all claims dismissed based on a stipulation by the parties. Project Vote had sued MonCrief and an unidentified “John Doe” for $5 million in damages.

MonCrief worked for Project Vote for two years but became disillusioned by what she experienced there. In various venues, including testimony in court and before a congressional panel, on national television, and in her own blog, she detailed what she regarded as the corruption of both Project Vote and ACORN.

Project Vote’s lawsuit, filed last year in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, featured a slew of counts, including trademark infringement, tortious interference with prospective economic advantage, and trespass to chattels. Represented by the Kansas City law firm of Graves, Bartle, Marcus & Garrett and the Center for Individual Rights (CIR), MonCrief countersued both Project Vote and ACORN for abuse of process, alleging that ACORN was Project Vote’s alter ego and that the two groups had brought the suit to punish her for exercising her right to free speech and to uncover her sources.

Late last year, the judge dismissed the trademark claims, among others, but the rest of Project Vote’s suit and MonCrief’s countersuit against it and ACORN continued into the pretrial discovery phase. Before that phase went very far, however, the parties agreed to a settlement. In return for MonCrief’s dropping her countersuit for abuse of process, Project Vote agreed to dismiss its claims against her in their entirety.

“This is a stunning victory for Ms. MonCrief,” said Terry Pell, CIR’s president. “By dismissing all of its claims, Project Vote has canceled its arrogant attempt to silence a critic using the courts. Ms. MonCrief now is completely free to continue blogging and speaking about Project Vote and ACORN without fear of this action.”

Pell added, “And the utter failure of Project Vote’s suit should encourage others who wish to speak out against corruption at ACORN or anywhere else.”

The only way to defeat the Left’s thugs is to stand up, fight back, and turn the tables. The victory for MonCrief, Graves, Bartle, Marcus & Garrett, and the Center for Individual Rights is a victory for all watchdogs targeted by the “community organizing” racketeers. Be not afraid.

Photoshop credit: Leo Alberti

The pimp-advice-giving liberal organization will close down operations on April 1. Ironic? Maybe not. Somebody at ACORN just might be clever enough to have picked the date to telegraph the organization’s intentions. ACORN will continue to live in some form or another. Organizations like ACORN don’t die; they retreat and regroup. New name, same mission.

Long before Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe went undercover and videotaped ACORN employees offering tax advice for an underaged brothel, ACORN was under investigation for fraud. Bad press followed, Congress cut off funding, and private donors flew the coop.

From My Way News:

In a statement, ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis blamed the group’s demise on “a series of well-orchestrated, relentless, well-funded, right-wing attacks.”

Longtime ACORN critic Matthew Vadum of the Capital Research Center, a conservative think tank, called the group “thoroughly corrupt” and believes it will re-emerge.

“I don’t think it’s really dying,” he said. “It’s just retreating for the time being until it thinks it’s safe to resurface.”

Whelan said there are no plans to reconstitute ACORN, but he said other organizations, including some formed by former ACORN workers, “are answering to the continuing need to organize people to have a voice in their communities.”

Whatever ACORN does, its spawn are forewarned. Folks like Giles, O’Keefe, and other “citizen journalists” will be watching.

Follow me on Twitter @La_Shawn

Scroll for updates…See this clarification…

The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports that James O’Keefe, half of the ACORN-busting duo that conducted undercover stings across the country last summer, was arrested today in an alleged wiretapping* plot at the New Orleans office of Democrat Sen. Mary Landrieu. O’Keefe and three other young men were arrested by the FBI. One of the men is the son of the acting U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana.

The Times-Picayune has not posted the full FBI affidavit, but the details they have are damning. This is neither a time to joke nor a time to recklessly accuse Democrats/liberals of setting this up — nor a time to whine about media coverage double standards. Deal with what’s on the table:

Alleging a plot to wiretap Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office in the Hale Boggs Federal Building in downtown New Orleans, the FBI arrested four people Monday, including James O’Keefe, a conservative filmmaker whose undercover videos at ACORN field offices severely damaged the advocacy group’s credibility.

Also arrested were Joseph Basel, Stan Dai and Robert Flanagan, all 24. Flanagan is the son of William Flanagan, who is the acting U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, the office confirmed. All four were charged with entering federal property under false pretenses with the intent of committing a felony.

According to the FBI affidavit, Flanagan and Basel entered the federal building at 500 Poydras Street about 11 a.m. Monday, dressed as telephone company employees, wearing jeans, fluorescent green vests, tool belts, and hard hats. When they arrived at Landrieu’s 10th floor office, O’Keefe was already in the office and had told a staffer he was waiting for someone to arrive.

When Flanagan and Basel entered the office, they told the staffer they were there to fix phone problems. At that time, the staffer, referred to only as Witness 1 in the affadavit, observed O’Keefe positioning his cell phone in his hand to videotape the operation. O’Keefe later admitted to agents that he recorded the event.

After being asked, the staffer gave Basel access to the main phone at the reception desk. The staffer told investigators that Basel manipulated the handset. He also tried to call the main office phone using his cell phone, and said the main line wasn’t working. Flanagan did the same.

They then told the staffer they needed to perform repair work on the main phone system and asked where the telephone closet was located. The staffer showed the men to the main General Services Administration office on the 10th floor, and both went in. There, a GSA employee asked for the men’s credentials, after which they stated they left them in their vehicle.

The U.S. Marshal’s Service apprehended all four men shortly thereafter.

*Updated* They are, of course, presumed innocent until proven guilty.

But for now, let it be a lesson to aspiring young conservatives interested in investigative journalism:

Know your limits. Know the law. Don’t get carried away. And don’t become what you are targeting.

***

*Updated*: The affidavit pdf is here…O’Keefe and the others admit to entering the government office under false pretenses. O’Keefe admits to planning the operation.

*Update: Note that the affidavit refers to malicious interference with the phone system, not bugging or wiretapping.*

Excerpt:

Update: Allahpundit has the relevant legal statutes/analysis. Not good.

***

Update: Ooookay…

A conservative activist who posed as a pimp to target the community-organizing group ACORN and the son of a federal prosecutor were among four men arrested and accused of trying to tamper with phones at Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office.

Activist James O’Keefe, 25, recorded two of the other suspects with his cell phone as they walked into the office dressed like telephone repairman and said they needed to fix problems with the phone system, according to an FBI affidavit.

A federal law enforcement official said one of the suspects was picked up in a car a couple of blocks away with a listening device that could pick up transmissions. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the information was not part of an FBI affidavit that described the circumstances of the case.

O’Keefe said “veritas,” Latin for truth, as he left a suburban jail Tuesday with suspects Stan Dai and Joseph Basel, both 24. All declined to comment.

“There will be a time for that,” Dai said.

As he got into a cab outside the jail, O’Keefe said, “The truth shall set me free.” His biography on a Web site where he blogs says he works at VeritasVisuals.com, though that Web site does not currently work.

The fourth suspect, Robert Flanagan, the son of Shreveport-based acting U.S. Attorney Bill Flanagan, was not with them. It was not immediately known if he had already been released on the $10,000 bail set for each suspect.

It sounded like a Watergate-style operation, but federal officials have not yet said why the men wanted to interfere with Landrieu’s phones, whether they were successful, or even if the goal was political espionage.

Local TV report shows brief comment from O’Keefe here. Pre-trial proceedings are schedule for tomorrow morning:

***

Update: Hmmmm. Here’s Patterico’s take…

OK, final word. I’m sticking out my neck and declaring that I think this will prove to be a big nothing.

I just don’t believe this guy was wiretapping phones or trying to do so. I really don’t.

It might not even have been an attempt to show how easy it would be to bug phones. Maybe there is another explanation. But I don’t think he was acting in a criminal fashion. I don’t.

You can quote me.

***

Update: Hannah Giles writes:

Andrew Breitbart has made the new media trendy, and after the ACORN videos everyone and his conservative dog was aboard the new-media campaign bandwagon. Yet, the moment an unsubstantiated report on James was leaked, the rank and file of our movement exposed themselves as vulnerable to the MSM as anyone

For instance, Michelle Malkin, a once avid supporter/defender of James and all his work, called for an example to be made out of him, and instructing other young journalists to not follow in his footsteps. Again, this was before she knew his side of the story.

As a reminder, here was Hannah’s initial reaction before she knew the full story:

I am shocked by the reports of this behavior. I am well aware that following the law is an integral part of being a good investigative journalist. I take that responsibility and accountability very seriously. I certainly hope these reports are untrue.

I stand by my initial response to the story:

Know your limits. Know the law. Don’t get carried away. And don’t become what you are targeting.

***

Ed Morrissey:

There has been considerable overreach by some media outlets, to be sure. Some elements of the story have come directly from the report filed by the FBI,- detailing what the witnesses told them about the operation. That information remains to be tested in court, but the description therein doesn’t quite square with O’Keefe’s explanation. They wouldn’t have needed to get access to the telephone closet in order to observe people answering the phone, and attempting to access it under false pretenses (representing themselves as telephone-company technicians) strongly implies that they wanted access for other reasons.

If the FBI affadavit or the witness testimony is inaccurate, then that will come out in court. However, I doubt that the FBI got the description of their clothing wrong, and dressing up as telephone repairmen wouldn’t have been necessary at all to get undercover video of people answering the phone, or not answering it, as the case may be. If all O’Keefe and his people wanted was an admission that the phone system was working, then the disguise may have helped, but it still wouldn’t have been necessary to gain access to the phone closet.

O’Keefe seems to recognize that now:

On reflection, I could have used a different approach to this investigation, particularly given the sensitivities that people understandably have about security in a federal building. The sole intent of our investigation was to determine whether or not Senator Landrieu was purposely trying to avoid constituents who were calling to register their views to her as their Senator. We video taped the entire visit, the government has those tapes, and I’m eager for them to be released because they refute the false claims being repeated by much of the mainstream media.

Even accepting O’Keefe’s explanation, his team still appears to have broken the law by gaining admission to a federal office under false pretenses and attempting to access the phone system, possibly with “willful and malicious” intent to interfere with it. Be sure to read Allahpundit’s analysis of the law and how it applies to this situation. If a judge winds up with this case, he will certainly take intent and purpose under consideration but it doesn’t change the fact that O’Keefe should have done his homework and reconsidered this very bad idea before engaging in it. And what for? To get on people on tape answering the phones? That’s not exactly a journalistic scoop.

Anyone who doesn’t know there is a Census this year will know after Monday.

The government’s unprecedented $340 million promotional blitz of the 2010 Census launches Monday with the debut of the Census Portrait of America Road Tour in New York City’s Times Square.

A 46-foot trailer, to be unveiled on NBC’s Today show, and 12 smaller cargo vans with 14-foot trailers will crisscross more than 150,000 miles nationwide through April to promote the benefits of responding to the 10-question Census.

They will stop at more than 800 events from local parades and festivals such as New Orleans’ Mardi Gras and San Francisco’s Chinese New Year celebration to national sporting events from the Super Bowl and the Daytona 500 to the NCAA Final Four.

“This thing is all over the place,” says Angelo Falcón, president of the National Institute for Latino Policy and chairman of the Census advisory committee on Hispanics. He jokes that “it might make people sick of the Census.”

This is just the beginning:

• $140 million on TV, radio, print and outdoor advertising, including $2.5 million for two ads in the Feb. 7 Super Bowl pregame show and a 30-second spot directed by Christopher Guest (This is Spinal Tap, Best in Show) and starring Ed Begley Jr.

• Roughly $80 million spent on ads will target racial and ethnic groups and non-English speakers in 28 languages. The bulk of it will pinpoint Hispanics, blacks, Asians and American Indians, but some ads will be in Arabic, Yiddish and other languages.

• Partners from Univision and Telemundo to Google and Best Buy will promote the Census.

Via USA Today, hat tip American Power.

***

Obama census propagandists have already invoked Jesus, Mary, and Joseph in their recruitment drive. Are Allah and Buddha next?

But it’s not just the ACORN angle that’s scandalous.

It’s the race hustler shakedown.

Why, oh, why do we need to be funding massive new federal bureaucracies to create separate “Offices of Minority Health” in six separate health care agencies:

The provision [Burris] cites, found on pages 240 through 248 of the manager’s amendment, requires that six different agencies each establish an “Office of Minority Health.” The agencies are the “Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Health Resources and Services Administration, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.”

According to page 241 of the amendment:

In carrying out this subsection, the Secretary, acting through the Deputy Assistant Secretary, shall award grants, contracts, enter into memoranda of understanding, cooperative, interagency, intra-agency and other agreements with public and nonprofit private entities, agencies, as well as Departmental and Cabinet agencies and organizations, and with organizations that are indigenous human resource providers in communities of color to assure improved health status of racial and ethnic minorities, and shall develop measures to evaluate the effectiveness of activities aimed at reducing health disparities and supporting the local community. Such measures shall evaluate community outreach activities, language services, workforce cultural competence, and other areas as determined by the Secretary.’’

According to a Senate legislative aide, the scandal-plagued Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now could qualify for grants under this provision. ACORN would also qualify for funding on page 150 of the underlying Reid bill, which says that “community and consumer-focused nonprofit groups” may receive grants to “conduct public education activities to raise awareness of the availability of qualified health plans.”

As I pointed out in July, there are more race-based fiefdoms created by the Demcare architects:

New bureaucracies always have old special interests to appease. The Bureau of Health Information will house its own “Office of Civil Rights” and “Office of Minority Health.” The information czar will be required to collect health statistics in the “primary language” of ethnic minorities – and thus, the need for a new “language demonstration program” to showcase their efforts. Obamacare will also ensure “cultural and linguistics competence training” and establish “a youth public health program to expose and recruit high school students into public health careers.” The government health care juggernaut must be fed and staffed, after all.

And as I pointed out in October, SEIU is leading an entire new generation of ACORN-esque shakedown artists ready to step up to the subsidy-filled plate:

* A New Way Forward
* Action Now
* AFL-CIO
* Albany Park Neighborhood Council
* Alliance to Develop Power (ADP)
* Americans for Fairness in Lending
* Americans for Financial Reform
* ARISE Chicago
* Brighton Park Neighborhood Council
* Central Illinois Organizing Project (CIOP)
* Center for Community Change (CCC)
* Change in Terms
* Change To Win
* Chicago Coalition of the Homeless
* Citizen Action
* Communities United for Action (CUFA)
* Community Voices Heard (CVH)
* Contra Costa Interfaith Supporting Community Organization (CCISCO)
* Gender Just Metanoia Centers, Inc.
* Grassroots Collaborative
* Green Party of Nevada
* Fuerza Laboral/Power of Workers
* Housing Action Illinois
* Illinois Alliance for Retired Americans
* Illinois Hunger Coalition
* Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement
* Jane Addams Senior Caucus
* Jobs with Justice
* Michigan People’s Action (MPA)
* MoveOn
* Northside Action and Justice
* Northside POWER
* Northwest Bronx Community & Clergy Coalition
* National People’s Action
* People Organized for West Side Renewal (POWER)
* PUSH Buffalo
* Right to the City Alliance
* Rights for All People (RAP)
* Roomdad Productions
* SEIU Illinois State Council
* SEIU Local 1
* SOUL
* South Austin Coalition Community Council (SACCC)
* Sunflower Community Action
* Syracuse United Neighbors (SUN)
* Teach Our Children (TOC)
* UE
* UCLA Undergraduate Students Association
* Workers United
* Working In Neighborhoods (WIN)

There’s a website devoted exclusively to listing “Green Job” openings in Philadelphia.

You can find it here.

Check out the noteworthy advertisement for an opening in ACORN’s Philly office:

Pennsylvania ACORN 2009-03-24 2009-04-15

ACORN is hiring a Southeastern PA Organizer. Description: Pennsylvania ACORN is a chapter of ACORN, the largest low-to-moderate income membership organization in the country. We believe that Pennsylvania should belong to all the people — not just the wealthy and well-connected. We are an independent, multi-racial, progressive organization working through elections and legislative campaigns to advance issues important to poor, working and middle-class people. Current issues include: health care access, foreclosure and predatory lending, and education reform. PA ACORN is hiring an organizer to recruit & mobilize low and moderate income people to win on a variety of issue based legislative campaigns, including passing health care reform, stopping foreclosures, and increasing resources for local schools. The organizer will also be responsible for working with grassroot leaders to identify local issues for local campaigns. The organizer would work out of the Pennsylvania ACORN office in Philadelphia with daily travel to specific communities in targeted legislative districts, including Norristown, Upper Darby, & Chester City. Applicants must be able to demonstrate a commitment to social justice issues, strong work ethic, a commitment to indigenous grassroot leadership, and the ability to work both independently & as part of a team. Previous organizing experience, Spanish, and knowledge of voter databases is also helpful but not required. Starting salary is commensurate with experience and organizer must have valid drivers license and reliable vehicle. If interested, please send resume and cover letter to Ali Kronley at paacorn@acorn.org, with “Southeastern PA Organizer” in the subject. Additional Qualifications: Desired Qualifications: * A demonstrated commitment to economic and social justice * Minimum 1 year field organizing/canvassing experience; union, community, or political organizing experience is important. * Strong organizational and time management skills with the ability to meet goals and deadlines while working independently * Strong work ethic, ability to multi-task, and commitment to local organizing * Must have own reliable transportation and valid drivers license. * Knowledge of voter files and databases preferred. *Although deadline listed below is May 1st, we are looking to fill the position quickly so appreciate receiving applications soon How to Apply: Please email a resume and cover letter to Ali Kronley at paacorn@acorn.org

***

In other ACORN news, the General Accounting Office tells House Republicans it will investigate ACORN’s use of federal funds.

And in the “When pigs fly” category of news, an appeal of the court ruling in the ACORN funding ban case:

The government is arguing that a judge should reverse her ruling banning it from cutting ACORN’s funding.

It said in papers filed Thursday in federal court in Brooklyn that an investigative report commissioned by ACORN reinforces Congress’ concern with ACORN’s misuse of federal funds.

The report was released four days before Judge Nina Gershon ruled Friday that the government’s cutoff of ACORN funding was unconstitutional.

A federal judge today issued an injunction preventing the implementation of a congressional ban on funding for ACORN.

Judge Nina Gershon concluded that the ban amounted to a “bill of attainder” that unfairly singled out ACORN.

“[The plaintiffs] have been singled out by Congress for punishment that directly and immediately affects their ability to continue to obtain federal funding, in the absence of any judicial, or even administrative, process of adjudicating guilt,” Gershon wrote in her decision.

Gershon said ACORN had demonstrated “irreperable harm” from the ban, while “the potential harm to the government, in granting the injunction, is less.” The decision noted that the ban had already prevented ACORN from receiving payment from contracts awarded before the ban took effect.

“The public will not suffer harm by allowing the plaintiffs to continue work on contracts duly awarded by federal agencies, which was stopped solely by reason of [the ban],” Gershon wrote.

In defending the ban, the Obama administration argued it interpreted the bill narrowly enough to allow payment of existing contracts. But Gershon found the legislation too broad.

Constitutional law professor Eugene Volokh mulled over the legal questions in September here. So did Hans von Spakovsky here. His conclusion:

In sum, the Defund ACORN Act does not meet the legal definition of a bill of attainder. There is no valid reason why the courts would not defer to the legislative judgment of Congress as to the regulatory purposes of this statute, particularly since its general provisions provide no proof of punitive intent and further the interests of not providing taxpayer funds to organizations that violate campaign finance and election laws — laws that implicate the very essence of our democratic form of government and our voting process.

The [Congressional Research Service report on the bill of attainder question] at one point concedes the tenuousness of such a claim, as it should, when it admits that a “court would most likely be able to discern a rational, non-punitive purpose for [the Act]: a desire to prevent federal funds being used for activities that violate federal or state law.”[30] There is no basis for a court to overcome the presumption of constitutionality of the Act and rule otherwise

ACORN critic Mike Gaynor can say “I told you so.”

Gershon’s Judgepedia profile is here.

You are going to be shocked, shocked, I tell you, when you read the conclusion of the “independent” review of ACORN’s recent activities by ACORN’s “independent” assessor, left-wing former Massachusetts AG and Common Cause president Scott Harshbarger.

Harshbarger has determined — wait for it — that ACORN engaged in no wrongdoing depicted in the nationwide undercover stings conducted by BigGovernment.com/James O’Keefe III and Hannah Giles.

You can read the entire self-absolution here.

As I noted in September, ACORN’s “independent” advisory council included several panelists who were not only willing to overlook illegal activity, but who have also been tainted by their own shady behavior and associations:

ACORN advisory council member Henry Cisneros resigned from his post as Clinton HUD Secretary after lying to FBI agents about payments to a former mistress.

ACORN advisory council member Andy Stern is president of the SEIU, the Big Labor organization plagued by embezzlement scandals and inextricably linked to ACORN’s disgraced founder Wade Rathke. (And see my document drop here on ACORN’s “nurturing” of SEIU Local 100.)

And ACORN advisory council member Eric Eve of Citigroup is a champion of the ACORN/Citibank illegal alien loan program that openly undermines immigration laws and integrity in banking.

The truth is more sordid than any fictional scenarios caught on tape: ACORN is a criminal enterprise.

The Harshbarger report outlines documents that the panel reviewed, including:

We have reviewed an extensive collection of documents, including, by way of example, ACORN (and ACORN Housing, Project Vote, ACORN Institute, among other ACORN related entities) staff policies and organizing manuals; descriptions of the organizational structure of ACORN boards, chapters, affiliates, and corporate entities; ACORN and academic/media articles regarding ACORN’s various national issue and advocacy campaigns; ACORN related human resources and staff management policies; internal reporting requirements; project and services quality control methods; board administration and governance guidelines; and software information. These documents total more than 7,000 pages.

In addition, we have obtained reports from, and interviewed consultants retained by, ACORN since June 2008 to review its finances, organizational structure and board governance.
We have reviewed selected court materials; media coverage and commentary; several Congressional Committee reports; materials available from and on relevant websites; and a range
of individual comments received, pro and con, regarding ACORN.

These include the Kingsley report, which I’ve mentioned several times over the past year. That report noted the incestuous relationship between ACORN and Obama’s old employer, Project Vote — and reported that it was “impossible to document that Project Vote’s money had been used in a strictly nonpartisan manner” and “raised concerns not only about a lack of documentation to demonstrate that no charitable money was used for political activities but also about which organization controlled strategic decisions.”

Question: Why won’t ACORN release that report and other key documents publicly?

***

A reminder of the three main investigative areas ACORN doesn’t want anyone to get to the bottom of:

1) How Team Obama hid its $800,000 campaign payment to ACORN through front group “Citizen Services, Inc.”;

2) How Team Obama shared donor lists with the president’s old employer, ACORN affiliate Project Vote, a 501(c)(3) organization, which is prohibited from engaging in political activity (Mr. President, meet Anita MonCrief);

3) And how Project Vote and hundreds of myriad entities intermingled non-profit, tax-exempt funding with the national ACORN flagship’s political operations — a buried story Obama would know about if he read NYTimes reporter Stephanie Strom’s report last October before she was muzzled as Election Day drew near.