The shameless seven

The U.S. Senate voted 83-7 in a rare demonstration of bi-partisan resolve to keep ACORN from receiving federal funds through HUD. The nation owes a debt of gratitude to James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles for their gutsy reporting. ACORN has a lot of friends in high places. Heck, seven Senators still voted to give them funding after the revelations of criminality. They are: Gillibrand (D-NY), Casey (D-PA), Durbin (D-IL), Burris (D-IL), Sanders (I-VT), Leahy (D-VT) and Whitehouse (D-RI). The voters of Vermont and Illinios should be especially proud that both their senators stood up for an organization that was caught on four and counting occasions giving advice on setting up a brothel for underage girls from Central America.

Those that follow ACORN know that they don't limit themselves to giving tax and housing advice to prostitutes and their pimps. They also dabble in vote fraud. The organization is being investigated in a dozen states for their voter registration practices. Even with these investigations the U.S. Census bureau was going to let them help with next years census. I guess they figure if they can create democrat voters out of thin air, they will be an asset in inflating the number of Americans. Two twentysomethings with an outlandish story and a hidden camera put a stop to that however.

While ABC news anchor Charlie Gibson believes this story is best left to cable television and the NY Times doesn't want to touch it with a ten foot pole. At least according to this internal email from last fall: "The Times reporter who wrote that story, Stephanie Strom wanted to pursue the story further, but she was discouraged by her superiors at the Times and gave up after blistering phone conversation with then-candidate Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. Strom revealed in an email: “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.” Explaining why she wanted to pursue the story further in another email Strom wrote:
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 — and for the charities like the housing orgs, that’s a problem. Charitable money cannot be spent on political activities. It’s a big no-no that can cost charitable organizations their exemptions." You can't get friends much higher than President of the United States.

This is an organization that has received at least 53 million dollars from the federal government since 1993 and is set to receive many times that from the stimulus bill. Barney Frank is a huge supporter of ACORN and it will be interesting to see if the House strips ACORN of taxpayer funds. If and when the vote happens, I'll post an update with the names of those who want your money to support criminals.

Update: The House voted 345-75 to strip ACORN of all federal funds. Names of the 75, all democrats below:

Baldwin, Becerra,Brady (PA),Brown, Corrine, Butterfield, Capuano, Carson (IN), Castor (FL)Cleaver, Clyburn, Crowley, Cummings, Davis (IL), DeGette, Delahunt, Doyle, Edwards (MD)Ellison, Engel, Fattah, Filner, Fudge, Green (Al), Grijalva, Hinchey, Hirono, Holt, Honda, Jackson (IL),Jackson-Lee (TX),Johnson, E. B., Kilpatrick (MI)Kucinich, Larsen (WA), Lee (CA), Lewis (GA), Lynch, Markey (MA)McCollum, McDermott, McGovern, Meeks (NY), Mollohan, Moore (WI), Moran (VA), Nadler (NY), Neal (MA), Olver, Pallone, Pascrell, Payne, Polis (CO), Price (NC), Rahall, Rangel, Roybal-Allard, Rush, Sánchez, Linda, T.Schakowsky, Scott (GA), Scott (VA), Serrano, Sherman, Sires, Slaughter, Stark, Thompson (MS), Towns, Tsongas, Velázquez, Waters, Watson,Waxman, Wexler,Woolsey

Sadly, most of the Massachusetts delegation chose to continue funding ACORN. They are: Capuano, Delahunt, Lynch, Markey, McGovern, Neal, Olver, Tsongas. If enabling child prostitution isn't enough for these Reps to pull the plug on ACORN what is?