What’s in a Name? ACORN Renames Itself from Coast to Coast for Funding, Continues to Work in States, Except Ohio, After Video Scandal & Voter Registration Fraud Practices
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on March 16, 2010
Political cartoon about ACORN from 2008…
Things haven’t changed much in 2010 for ACORN… new coat of paint, new name after James O’Keefe’s sting videos were released last fall. Business as usual for the corrupt organization…
Except in Ohio. ACORN, because of its fraudulent voter registration practices uncovered there, must leave the state and cannot rename itself in Ohio, because, as pointed out by attorney Maurice Thompson, “ACORN could simply have shut down but reopened the next day as WALNUT or CHESTNUT or whatever and done the exact same thing.”
Which is precisely what it is doing in other states.
Reported by My Way News, ACORN branches rename, rebrand after video scandal:
CHICAGO (AP) – Affiliates of the once mighty liberal activist group ACORN are remaking themselves in a desperate bid to ditch the tarnished name of their parent organization and restore federal grants and other revenue streams that ran dry in the wake of a video scandal.
The letters A, C, O, R and N are coming off office doors from New York to California. Business cards are being reprinted. New signs with new names are popping up in front of offices.
The breakaways are trying to shed the scandal that emerged six months ago when videos showed some ACORN workers giving tax tips to conservative activists posing as a pimp and prostitute. But while their names are different, most groups have kept the same offices and staff.
That, critics say, means the groups really haven’t started anew and severed all ties to ACORN, which faced accusations of mismanagement and rampant voter registration fraud well before the video brouhaha sent even longtime Democratic backers scattering.
[...]
ACORN’s financial situation and reputation went into free fall within days of the videos’ release in September. Congress reacted by yanking ACORN’s federal funding, private donors held back cash and scores of ACORN offices closed.
From NY Post, ACORN shell of itself as it renames office:
ACORN is shutting its Brooklyn operation, only to replace it with another outfit by a different name.
In what sources called a desperate attempt at rebranding, the new organization, called New York Communities for Change, has many of the same board members as ACORN, shares similar goals of the troubled activist group, and will take over its lease on Nevins Street, an ACORN spokesman said.
“New York ACORN has closed its doors in New York City [and] there was a desire on the part of former members and staff to chart a new course with a new, independent organization that would get back to the basics of organizing,” the spokesman said.
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One source with close ties to ACORN said the change was a desperate maneuver by the left-leaning organization to clear its bad name and continue raising private funds.
“They’re reinventing themselves,” the source said. “The old brand is toxic, and so they have to reinvent themselves in order to apply for funding and start their operation all over again.
“They couldn’t raise any money. All of their funders — the money was dried up. All of their benefactors refused to give them funds under the ACORN banner.”
The source said ACORN called a private meeting last month of friends and closely affiliated politicians to announce the makeover.
Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes launched a probe into the local ACORN branch in September after The Post revealed that two activists disguised as a pimp and a prostitute were able to solicit financial advice on starting a brothel.Other ACORN affiliates, including offices in Baltimore, Washington and San Bernardino, Calif., were exposed in the hidden-camera sting.
From Matthew Vadum, Big Government, ACORN Crime Family Shutting Down Nationwide: Launching Renaming Effort:
ACORN is attempting to perpetrate yet another spectacular fraud on the American people in order to keep tax dollars and foundation grants flowing into its coffers.
With the fallout from the hidden camera videos last fall, congressional funding of ACORN’s election fraud and racketeering business is no longer guaranteed, so ACORN is trying to pass off various state chapters as ”new” groups.
As part of the radical group’s fraudulent rebranding scheme, ACORN has renamed its New York chapter New York Communities for Change. Unlike on the West coast where ACORN is at least pretending its renamed California chapter (Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment or ACCE) is not part of the ACORN network, New York Communities for Change shares the same Nevins Street address as ACORN’s Brooklyn office.
A March 4 fundraiser for New York Communities for Change is being hosted by Debra Cooper.
Meanwhile, the Massachusetts branch of ACORN has been renamed New England United for Justice.
More state-level name changes are expected soon while the basic structure of ACORN, which is controlled from the top using interlocking directorates, remains essentially intact.
The ACORN network’s interlocking directorates are deliberately organized to help ACORN escape legal and public scrutiny. “ACORN hides behind a paper wall of nonprofit corporate protections to conceal a criminal conspiracy on the part of its directors, to launder federal money in order to pursue a partisan political agenda and to manipulate the American electorate,” according to a report from the Republican investigators of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Under indictment in Nevada for election law violations, ACORN feels it can do all this in the light of day because the Obama administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress have no interest in a real investigation of its criminal activities.
Here are links to all seven of James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles’ ACORN child prostitution/tax fraud stings, with accompanying videos, in the same order they were released to the public at Big Government… the audacious story of corruption that the Obama-supporting mass/fringe media deliberately ignored. These exposés don’t include the states where ACORN voter fraud registration was discovered:
Number 1: Baltimore
Number 2: Washington, DC
Number 3: New York City
Number 4: San Bernardino Part I and Parts II and III
Number 5: San Diego
Number 6: Philadelphia
Number 7: Another head of the ACORN hydra folds — but don’t think for a minute it’s not reforming elsewhere
Patterico’s Pontifications: Maddow: O’Keefe HID Important Facts About ACORN!!!! (Patterico Responds: Except That He Didn’t) and ACORN on the Verge of Bankruptcy
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