Muscatine

Nigel, I'm afraid that the libs think the conservatives set up acorn and they are blameless. JOS was defending acorns registering thousands and thousands of voters who were either fictional, dead or that they registered LOTS of times cause they paid them to register. So acorn is collecting money from us - taxpayers - to do what? If that isn't fraud and a taxpayer ripoff, just what is?

Frankly, I think that a person should not be able to register to vote on election day and then turn right around and vote. W-A-A-A-Y too dicey for my taste. We have campaigns that are HIGHLY advertised for more than a year and if you just happened to wake up  and decide you want to vote - I say too bad so sad. If you haven't given any more thought to the issues and the candidates than this last minute crap - forget about it!

People absolutely should register and vote, but not this high pressure crap that acorn practices.

Going back to the original premise of my post which was made October 26th.  It's a month later, and I still can't get an H1N1 vaccine even though the medicos say I should.  The same government that wants to handle the reins on my health care has screwed this up to the point of being ridiculous. 

My take? Well this would indicate that you're asking my opinion and my opinion is that ACORN clearly has some idiots in their employ, but that's not really too different than any other organization. I'm sure we can all think of someone that we work with/have worked with that is/was dumber than a sack of hammers. Hell, I can think of quite a few from over the years without even trying too hard. So that's my opinion. But let's look at the facts, eh?

What we have are two individuals (James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles) who posed as a pimp and a prostitute while secretly taping ACORN employees from whom they were seeking "business advice." And without fail, according to O'Keefe and Giles, the ACORN employees went along with it even offering them advice on how to avoid paying taxes. This much we know from the mainstream media. Not just Fox, mind you, but this is what was reported by the "liberal media" as well.

But that's where the reporting stopped in most cases. Because that's where the sensationalism ended. What happened next? Well, it turns out that there's a little more to the story.

In San Bernadino, O'Keefe and Giles were told explicitly that although the ACORN employee wanted to help them, ACORN would never go along with it.

In San Diego, an investigation was opened into human trafficking.

In Philadelphia, the couple was reported to the police.

In New York, Giles was told repeatedly that she should take steps to protect herself from O'Keefe, turn to her family, in particular her mother, and get off drugs.

In the Los Angeles office, an ACORN employee attempted to get Giles to go to a women's center.

In Miami, the ACORN employee wouldn't bite and Giles was advised to go to a domestic violence shelter.

And in Baltimore (the video we've all seen numerous times), the couple was told specifically by the tax advisor "I can't touch that" when they asked for assistance in setting up a house for the prostitution ring. AND the ACORN employee reported the couple to the police, albeit a couple of days later.

So what do the facts tell us? Despite the stupidity of some of their employees, in the end, ACORN, more often than not, did the right thing as most of the employees caught in the sting were either fired or suspended pending an investigation and, in some cases, the couple was reported to the police. Does it make ACORN look good? Absolutely not! But do I think it's a problem rampant throughout the entire organization? Not any more than I think the entire KBR company is complicit in the gang rape and subsequent cover up of one of its employees.

Well... After over charging for fuel, food and laundry services and being responsible for the electrocution deaths of American soldiers due to shoddy construction work, one would have thought that conservatives and liberals could also agree that the fraud and taxpayer ripoff apparent with Halliburton and it's subsidiaries was obvious. But...