Michele Bachmann and ACORN....two of a kind?
June 7th 2009 03:14
It seems some on the right think ACORN stands for the devil incarnate, out to eliminate the American Way and destroy capitalism whilst corrupting America's virgin youth and eating kittens.
Glenn Beck seems to have taken the point against ACORN, having a special one hour episode on FOX trying to demonize the organization. With zeal akin to Simon Wiesenthal hunting down Nazi war criminals, Beck scoured the country looking for real and imagined ACORN infractions. He found problems, of course. There were, and are, investigations of ACORN and it's employees.
Most come from voter registration anomalies like a person signing up more than once or using fictitious names in order to bump up the registrations gathered. Reports of Mickey Mouse and company registering to vote in the last election have driven the right to call ACORN everything from Nazi Brownshirts to Black Panther instigators to Communist infiltrators.
Of course ACORN does alot more than register voters. ACORN has an estimated 300 other organizations either working with it or under it working for socially aware causes all over the country. Still, it's the voter registration irregularities that have the right up in arms.
But try as they may, no one has been able to find any instance where Mickey Mouse (or any other fake registration) voted in November. They have found evidence that ACORN workers submitted false signatures, but those are too different things. Once signatures are submitted they must be verified. And ACORN was responsible for initiating investigations into workers who blatantly tried to cheat the system.
What's that got to do with Michele Bachmann, you ask? Well, she is promoting a petition on her website that is supposed to be delivered to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi calling for no taxpayer money to go to ACORN or any of it's affiliates. And apparently, anyone can sign, as often as they like.
I'm personally on the petition twice. First, as a Mr. Jack Meoff (number 18940) and again as the indomitable Mr. Fah Q. (number 18948). I checked a couple of hours later and I'm still there, so I must be authentic, right?
"Well, there's a big difference from an online petition and a voter registration sign up" you say. Actually, at the first level, there's no difference at all. Anyone can sign an online petition using any name, and anyone can sign a voter registration form under any name. I.D. isn't checked in either circumstance.
The differences come after that. Voter registrations are checked by county election workers and either verified or discarded. Online petitions usually aren't. But if ACORN is to be held accountable as an organization for what anyone puts on paper, shouldn't Michele Bachmann be also? Of course not. And that's the point
Glenn Beck seems to have taken the point against ACORN, having a special one hour episode on FOX trying to demonize the organization. With zeal akin to Simon Wiesenthal hunting down Nazi war criminals, Beck scoured the country looking for real and imagined ACORN infractions. He found problems, of course. There were, and are, investigations of ACORN and it's employees.
Most come from voter registration anomalies like a person signing up more than once or using fictitious names in order to bump up the registrations gathered. Reports of Mickey Mouse and company registering to vote in the last election have driven the right to call ACORN everything from Nazi Brownshirts to Black Panther instigators to Communist infiltrators.
Of course ACORN does alot more than register voters. ACORN has an estimated 300 other organizations either working with it or under it working for socially aware causes all over the country. Still, it's the voter registration irregularities that have the right up in arms.
But try as they may, no one has been able to find any instance where Mickey Mouse (or any other fake registration) voted in November. They have found evidence that ACORN workers submitted false signatures, but those are too different things. Once signatures are submitted they must be verified. And ACORN was responsible for initiating investigations into workers who blatantly tried to cheat the system.
What's that got to do with Michele Bachmann, you ask? Well, she is promoting a petition on her website that is supposed to be delivered to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi calling for no taxpayer money to go to ACORN or any of it's affiliates. And apparently, anyone can sign, as often as they like.
I'm personally on the petition twice. First, as a Mr. Jack Meoff (number 18940) and again as the indomitable Mr. Fah Q. (number 18948). I checked a couple of hours later and I'm still there, so I must be authentic, right?
"Well, there's a big difference from an online petition and a voter registration sign up" you say. Actually, at the first level, there's no difference at all. Anyone can sign an online petition using any name, and anyone can sign a voter registration form under any name. I.D. isn't checked in either circumstance.
The differences come after that. Voter registrations are checked by county election workers and either verified or discarded. Online petitions usually aren't. But if ACORN is to be held accountable as an organization for what anyone puts on paper, shouldn't Michele Bachmann be also? Of course not. And that's the point
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Comment by Morgan Bell
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