Rachel Maddow totally blows apart Fox News’ coverage of the so called ACORN scandal. New unedited video that Fox never showed. Great job by Maddow here, check it out. Must watch segment.
This has to be seen to be believed!
At CPAC 2010, Max Blumenthal is confronted by ACORN videographer Hannah Giles, the deranged Andrew Breitbart, and a mob of conservative crazies, including one really manic guy who won’t stop using the word, “rubric.”
My favorite part:
Max Blumenthal: “Breitbart claims he (James O’Keefe) was in there dressed as a pimp when in fact he wasn’t. I don’t understand this whole minstrel show he was trying to do. Maybe he can explain that.”
Hannah Giles: “But James is a man. He couldn’t have a menstrual cycle.”
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Among Republicans, only 27% say Obama actually won the race, with 52% — an outright majority — saying that ACORN stole it, and 21% are undecided. Among McCain voters, the breakdown is 31%-49%-20%. By comparison, independents weigh in at 72%-18%-10%, and Democrats are 86%-9%-4%.
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“Belief in the ACORN conspiracy theory is even higher among GOP partisans than the birther one, which only 42% of Republicans expressed agreement with on our national survey in September.” - PPP communications director Tom Jensen said
Today Public Policy Polling asks “Do you think that Barack Obama legitimately won the Presidential election last year, or do you think that ACORN stole it for him?”
Poll: Majority of Republicans Believe ACORN Stole the Presidential Election
(via newsweek)
“ACORN introduced Yoko Ono to John Lennon”
FOX NEWS mentions ACORN 22 times this morning, poo-poos GDP growth of 3.5%
On Thursday morning, Fox and Friends made 22 mentions of the minority-organizing group ACORN — a consistent boogeyman for the GOP — despite the fact that there has been no new news on the ACORN front in weeks.
“Straight ahead,” said host Steve Doocy early in Thursday’s show. “Congress has stopped funding ACORN after… Fox News uncovered shocking video tapes. But did you know that that ACORN ban was only temporary? Should ACORN get its funding back?”
DeFOX America
FOX News is on a witch hunt, aimed at destroying the Obama administration and the progressive movement. Theyve already succeeded in pushing Van Jones out of the White House and badgered Congress into passing an unconstitutional bill to defund ACORN. Glenn Beck actually keeps an enemies list on a blackboard thats a regular part of his show.
ACORN is just the beginning. FOX has an enemies list, and theyre going to keep destroying progressive champions until we stop them.
Where is the Defund Blackwater Act?
Democrats joined Republicans in voting to “Defund ACORN,” yet have done nothing to stop Blackwater’s ongoing taxpayer funded crusade in Iraq and Afghanistan.
By Jeremy Scahill
Republican Congressional leaders are continuing their witch-hunt against ACORN, the grassroots community group dedicated to helping poor and working class people. This campaign now unfortunately has gained bi-partisan legislative support in the form of the Defund ACORN Act of 2009 which has now passed the House and Senate. As Ryan Grim at Huffington Post has pointed out, the legislation “could plausibly defund the entire military-industrial complex:”
The congressional legislation intended to defund ACORN, passed with broad bipartisan support, is written so broadly that it applies to “any organization” that has been charged with breaking federal or state election laws, lobbying disclosure laws, campaign finance laws or filing fraudulent paperwork with any federal or state agency. It also applies to any of the employees, contractors or other folks affiliated with a group charged with any of those things.
According to the Project on Oversight and Government Reform, this legislation could potentially eliminate a virtual Who’s Who of war contractors including Lockheed Martin, Boeing and KBR to other corporations such as AT&T, FedEx and Dell.
Perhaps one of the most jarring comparisons here is the fact that ACORN is now being attacked while the Obama administration continues to contract with Blackwater, the favorite mercenary company of the Bush administration, which is headed by Erik Prince, who was a major donor to Republican causes and campaigns, including those of some of the Defund ACORN bill’s sponsors, including Indiana Republican Mike Pence, one of the key figures in hunting down Van Jones. Prince, of course, was recently described by a former employee as a man who “views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe,” and that Prince’s companies “encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life.”
At present Blackwater has a $217 million security contract through the State Department in Iraq which was just extended by the Obama administration indefinitely. It holds a $210 million State Department “security” contract in Afghanistan that runs through 2011 and another multi-million dollar contract with the Defense Department for “training” in Kabul. All of this is on top of Blackwater’s clandestine work for the CIA, including continued work on the drone bombing campaign in Pakistan and Afghanistan. This also does not take into account Blackwater’s lucrative domestic work training law enforcement and military forces inside the US at the company’s compounds in North Carolina, California and Illinois, nor the private “security” work it does for entities like the International Republican Institute, nor the work it does in training “Faith Based Organizations.” It also does not include the contracts doled out to Erik Prince’s private CIA called Total Intelligence Solutions, which works for foreign governments and Fortune 500 corporations.
Then there is this fact: Blackwater was paid over $73 million for its federally-funded, no bid-security contracts with the Department of Homeland Security in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, billing taxpayers $950 per man per day, a spending decision the Bush administration called “the best value to the government.” ACORN, meanwhile, only helped poor people who were suffering as a result of the government’s total and complete failure to respond to Katrina.
Meanwhile, a recent federal audit of Blackwater, compiled by the State Department and the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, suggests the company may have to repay some $55 million to the government for allegedly failing to meet the terms of just one federal contract in Iraq, which, it is important to note, is $2 million more than the total money allotted by the federal government to ACORN over the past 15 years. (The company also cannot account for one federally funded “deep fat fryer” in Iraq, according to the audit).
Overall, Blackwater has raked in well over $1 billion since 2003 in security contracts alone—all of which were kicked off by a fat no-bid contract to guard L Paul Bremer. Let’s also remember that Blackwater was estimated in Congressional hearings in 2007 to earn some 90% of its revenue from the federal government and Prince refused to disclose his salary, but said it was over $1 million. Blackwater has been or is being investigated by the US Congress, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, the Justice Department and the IRS, among other agencies, for a range of issues from arms smuggling to manslaughter to tax evasion. One of its operatives pleaded guilty to killing an innocent, unarmed Iraqi civilian, while five others have been indicted on manslaughter and other charges over the 2007 Nisour Square massacre during which 17 Iraqi civilians were gunned down. The company is also facing a slew of civil lawsuits alleging war crimes and extrajudicial killings in Iraq.
Here is a question for those Democratic lawmakers that voted in support of the Defund ACORN Act: How do you justify making this a major league legislative priority while Blackwater continues to be armed and dangerous across the globe on the US government payroll? Where is the Defund Blackwater Act?
Pew Research Center
