ACORN nuts for all.

Jobin says:

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now is an organization that supposedly helps low income families with neighborhood safety, voter registration, health care, housing, and social issues. However, shouldn’t help be legal? First of all I think it’s sick that two people would pretend to be a prostitute and a man running for congressman, but at least it gets us the real story.
Would professional help, or supposedly professional help, really encourage someone to get around the law? I thought that’s what this organization was trying to do in the first place, follow the law in a fashionable way. This organization doesn’t help people with their lives and with legal issues, but simply how to get around them. It is clearly illegal if they say that they can’t help if the cops come. First of all I think it’s a joke that this woman comes in with all of this paper work trying to help somebody make prostitution acceptable. Is she trying to look professional? Because my first guess that everything that is written on those papers is ignorant. It doesn’t even seem like it’s the first time they’ve dealt with this kind of issue if there is already a code for prostitution.
Looking back on the video most people would laugh at not only with this ACORN employee is saying, but what this “congressman” is saying and having the employee take him seriously. The employee also keeps talking about everything that is going to be written off, and you hear a kid in the background! Imagine a kid growing up in this kind of environment. She also allows girls, without even asking their age, to illegally move from El Salvador, and the only thing she is worrying about is taxes. Since they aren’t legal citizens they don’t have to pay taxes. There are so many things wrong with the sentence. She basically says that they should treat these 15-year-old prostitutes like animals, and that you just shouldn’t worry about them. After all, they are underage. How can they be considered dependents when they are underage illegal immigrant prostitutes? This organization doesn’t help with health care, and income, and safety, but simply how to get around it.
This woman doesn’t even know what she’s talking about. She stutters before she says anything and on that basis alone she can’t be taken seriously. She is messing around with all of this paper work, but what kind of paper work would allow this in the first place? Prostitution alone is illegal, setting aside everything else. When she says that they’re underage and it’s clearly illegal for them to be making money, she says that they shouldn’t be telling anyone that information and laughs at it! What kind of sick person is this? She literally is trying to get around the law but justifying it with something that is illegal. When she says that they “don’t even exist,” it is even more sickening because it defies the law and any respect that they could hope to have for this organization. I understand that this is just clips of a longer meeting, but everything that comes out of her mouth is illegal and erroneous. ACORN has a lot more than problems, because in reality they aren’t helping anybody’s lives, but making them worse.

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Lucky Bamboo says:

The intentions of ACORN are perfect for the people but there are so many different people working within the organization that there is bound to be some corruption. Not every person is an ethical being, there are always going to be those people that lack certain morals, yet cover them up and are eventually caught (sometimes to late). Unfortunately for ACORN the bad people bring the whole group down. ACORN is criticized by the Republican Party, which bashes ACORN as a whole by using the incidents that are leaked into mainstream media.
I still cannot believe that clip on ACORN tax help for prostitution, pimp, and underage workers. I am in shock! The whole prostitute/pimp set up still seems like it is acting, but it is a real life situation. ACORN is an organization that has helped so many people and communities around The United States and other places in the world. If we do not have organizations around like ACORN, then people that need help will have less support. ACORN has helped many find better housing, receive good pay, support cities with good gun control laws, better public schools, hurricane Katrina relief, and much more.
Unfortunately, ACORN has recently been in the media spotlight for voter registration fraud and the prostitute tax incident that was shown in the blog video. The organizations goal is not to help people produce clean fraud with taxes, voting, and more but it is the bad people within the organization that dirty up the system. It is unfortunate, but necessary, that if people are going to work for these organizations and help others commit crimes then the government is going to have to have more control. We are supposed to be a civilized society full of good people, and we do have all of this but there always seems to be some corruption within any big organization or company. These tough times in the economy create money-making monsters. Everyone wants more money so they will do whatever they can to make that extra bit.
I agree with Chenjerai that if we say ACORNS mistakes are just made by a few people and just let them off the hook, than we must treat other organizations the same way even if they have more corruption within their systems. Our tax paying dollars go to these private organizations all the time with the intentions of doing good for people. If the government has given ACORN 53 million dollars since 1994, and this organization has screwed up a few times, I believe it is the responsibility of the government to start checking up on this organization or setting stricter regulations. I realize that ACORN is a non-government organization, but they are receiving funding from the government and need to be watched over. I know that Obama is focused on a lot right now but we need to make sure our tax paying dollars are going to organizations that are using the money wisely. If we can monitor the use of the government’s money then we can make sure nothing is going to waste and fraud. Everyone needs certain organizations and help from those around them. ACORN is meant to help low-income people have opportunities for good living, voting, learning, and working rights. ACORN is not a bad organization, it just needs some clean up and some guidance so that the fraud can end.

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Larcenist says:

This was shocking from a moral perspective but not at all from a business perspective, which is where this lady is coming from. Sure what she did is very unethical but the video also blows things out of proportion. I don’t think people quite understand how a non-profit works.
Non-profits get their money from a few different sources. They get them from donations, either from individuals or companies looking to improve their image, providing subsidized lower cost services, and of course from the government. Now there are a few other ways non-profits can make money such as starting a second for profit company, that is an expansion of the non-profit, to cover some expenses. However, any employee of a non-profit will tell you that they get the largest sum of their money from the government.
This is how it works. There are a bunch of federal government agencies that basically keep aside an enormous amount of cash that gets divided between the non-profits in the country that apply for them and fit their category, through, what they call, grants. For example, if your non-profit was designed to help low income families get their kids a better education then you would probably apply for a grant from The U.S. Department of Education.
In order to get a larger portion of the available grant money, non-profits, unlike for profit businesses, have to keep track of and record every little thing they do. This way they can try and prove to these agencies why they deserve a larger grant then another non-profit. This is essentially ACORN’s goal. They want to say they have helped as many people as possible.
People sometimes don’t realize that non-profits actually do make profit, and executives can make a lot of money. Marsha Evans, former President and CEO of The American Red Cross, received a salary of more than one million dollars a year.
These companies push their employees to get results, and if they don’t they won’t be working for to long.
Honestly, they probably wouldn’t have ever fired that lady if that video was never made, even if they knew what she was doing. For a non-profit to get a large share of that limited amount of grant money they have to find loopholes and employ carefully planned business tactics. Non-profits that don’t do these things now a days won’t survive.
To me, the hooker and pimp seemed way to friendly to be real. Both were very polite, understanding, and well spoken throughout the video. The lady from ACORN talks to a large portion of uneducated and lower income people just trying to make enough money to live. She knows that the chances these people have of finding a great working environment that pays well are very close to none.
She understands that in some communities illegal jobs such as prostitution and gang membership are sometimes the only available jobs for the young or uneducated. Sympathy for someone just trying to put food on their plate and clothes on their back is what comes out of working in that type of job environment for so long. To her she might have been just helping out some friendly people.
Either way its wrong and it shouldn’t happen. It’s truly more a fault of the system though then of ACORN. There is always going to be loopholes in our systems that people can exploit, but this isn’t the problem in my opinion. The problem is that the competition for grant money has pushed these organizations to exploit these loopholes.
The lady should have told them to go to Nevada or Rhode Island where prostitution is legal and to just wait one year until those 15 year old girls were 16, the legal age to have sex in those two states. Thats still pretty ethically wrong though haha.

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Capone says:

The ACORN scandal is ridiculous. When I first saw this video on the daily show I was amazed that they would do anything like this. The group has already been questioned so much and now that they supported a prostitution ring it almost seems like it should be exterminated. Granted what the group does for the community, especially low income families is great, but the fact that they are spending our money on covering up prostitution is ridiculous. John Stewart couldn’t even find a way to spin the story in a positive light for anyone who doesn’t support pimps and prostitutes. The fact of the matter is that what the acorn group was doing was blatantly in the wrong and it should have never happened. For the first time the blog post had nothing to do with racism, which shows how ridiculous it was, if Sam was willing to post it for our race relations class with no ties. The only kind of racist remark I have heard regarding this issue is when the ‘pimp’ who uncovered the story was on a morning show and said he didn’t even look like a pimp, he said that he was too white or something of the sort. Anyways, back to the point. Acorn really should have known better. Although I am sure the directions were not handedly down from the top, they still did it at the bottom, and at multiple sites. You simply can not be in politics and be doing the things that they are doing and ACORN is embedded in politics. I honestly just want to know what those ACORN employees were thinking about when they decided that it was ok to help this man and woman who were blatantly in the wrong. What reasoning did they use to help these people? Why on earth would anyone help a man and a woman, regardless of whether or not he was trying to run for congress, smuggle girls in to become prostitutes, most likely against their will. How does that help anyone, including themselves? That is the answer I really want to know because in all honesty I have no clue why anyone would even, ever do this. It just seems illogical. The part that really bothers me is that they didn’t consider what the lives of the girls that the future congress man was going to ship into the U.S. and use as prostitutes. How could anyone approve of this type of behavior? After this video and the uncovering of the types of things ACORN is willing to do I believe that some changes are necessary immediately. I am not saying that ACORN should be destroyed, but it defiantly needs to be overseen better.

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The Beer Baron says:

To start things off, I don’t quite understand these women’s mindset when they casually allowed people they believed to be prostituting women to stand in their office and negotiate a tax claim. If ACORN really is a “community-based organization in the United States that advocates for low and moderate-income families by working on neighborhood safety, voter registration, health care, affordable housing, and other social issues,” how can they possibly believe that prostitution is a step forward in creating a socially productive and safe environment for their community? I can possibly see them helping out a prostitute who comes to them with advice on how to change her lifestyle without getting the police involved, but what they did in the video clearly works against their employer’s mission statement. I know I would find it difficult to totally turn away a person who is legitimately looking for aid, but these people should have taken the higher road and refused to help an individual that not only engages in illegal prostitution with the other woman present, but also had told the people that he planned to bring fifteen young girls into the business as well. It seemed to me that the two ACORN employees didn’t take the policies that they should have been representing serious enough and merely wanted to get a person that was coming to them for a completely illegal operation out of their hair.
As for the second video regarding the larger implications of this singular case of corruption, I thought several good points were made. Firstly, it is reasonable to believe that this is a negative outlier in an otherwise beneficial social reform program. The idea of ACORN does seem to be very useful in that it allocates money into impoverished areas and allows these funds to be spend and divided based on individual cases rather than distributing a single lump sum of money that rarely arrives to the people who need it the most. Secondly, it is interesting to look at this as a systemic problem rather than an isolated instance. I would bet that large corporations and other operations that are looked upon more favorably in the eyes of the government get away with corruption of funds more often than social programs such as ACORN, who sometimes become the scapegoat in a much larger problem. The example was brought up that Wall Street has received over $500 billion dollars in federal aid for to heal their wounds from gaming the housing system. I don’t believe that ACORN would still be in existence today if they required a half a trillion-dollar band-aid to fix the mistakes that most likely resulted from greedy businesses that would rather turn a profit than think of the future of the economy.

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E double L I E says:

I have to begin by saying that I think it to be pretty low that two people would go out of there way, dress in costume, and take all the necessary precautions to pretend to be a prostitute and hoe, in order to out the pretty much illegal things that are happening behind the scenes at ACORN. I began by reading about ACORN on the link to wikipedia. They define the association as follow: “The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now is a collection of community-based organizations in the United States that advocate for low- and moderate-income families by working on neighborhood safety, voter registration, health care, affordable housing, and other social issues. Upon reading this, I immediately thought, “wow, I can’t believe I didn’t know about this organization before, it sounds like an amazing thing.” I still do believe that an association of this sort is an amazing thing for this country, and any country, despite the actions that were exploited in the videos. I also do believe that this association has helped and positively changed the lives of many Americans.
That being said, I cannot say that I am shocked to see the corruption displayed in the videos, or associated with an association of this one, or any sort. Let’s face it; you can pretty much find corruption in everything these days. Whether it is politics, the government, policemen, marriage, friendship, what have you, we see corruption. And I’m not just some Debbie-downer. My parents are happily married, I have plenty of trustworthy friends, and so on. As a realist, I do believe that there is some capacity of corruption in almost everything. People are selfish and people want to get whatever it is that they want in their lives. ACORN just shouldn’t be the association to advocate prostitution, especially when they’re using other people’s earnings.
On a brighter note, I do not believe that you would see corruption in every branch of ACORN. That would be entirely ridiculous, and the funding for ACORN would be done and through by now if that were the case.
I am glad that Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe did this, and that it was exposed to the public via the media. Not only do I think it’s fair for tax payers to know where their tax dollars are potentially going, I think this association clearly needs some change and some help. By calling them out on their wrong doings, change can occur.
I read in someone else’s post that they ask themselves who should be held accountable for all of this corruption. I can’t help but to think that it is us who should be held accountable. That is why O’Keefe and Giles made their video, to procure change. And why is there corruption in government and in the War in Iraq, well it is ‘we the people’ who in the end are held accountable. If we want change, we have to take action.

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iowa tix please says:

The Association of Community Organizations Reform Now is an organization that tries to help the less fortunate by working on neighborhood safety, housing issues, along with giving aid to those who need it. Apparently, they are too helpful. This video was absolutely despicable. There is one thing to be said that they try to help everyone from all walks of like but it is another when you are helping a sixteen year old prostitute and her pimp who will be using the extra money for campaigning money. For the ACORN employee to actually go and look through tax codes to make prostitution legal is flat out insane. The way she went about it was like, all right this happens everyday. To add to this the other worker for ACORN was “trying to help” by letting the girl know key rules for handling the fourteen year olds who she was bringing over to be prostitutes and living in the brothel. Once the worker comes back and tries to find loopholes in tax codes she lands on performing arts, to which the prostitute says that she is a good performer in the way that she moves her body. A normal person would be taken aback by this, but I guess a normal person would not be involved in a situation like this, however, the worker acted as though that was a good idea and impressed by the prostitutes cunning. Although this is a terrible thing that is occurring I hate when people are setup like this by crude journalists who are trying to find a story. I think it is dirty and underhanded, however saying this, to add to just another human contradiction I am happy these journalists have shed light on how insane and shady this organization can be. The Association of Community Organizations Reform Now has done many good things though they aid living wages, promoted education, aided in Katrina relief programs, voter registration, along with making the neighborhood safer. Being said how can you make the neighborhood safer when you are not only helping but also basically promoting prostitution? How can your neighborhood be safe when you have illegal prostitution rings in your community with pimps aiding to a corrupt congressmen’s campaign? ACORN may be helping many people but it may be time to cut down on that number. They are helping a sixteen-year-old prostitute start her own brothel by letting her and aiding her by making it acceptable to bring over other fourteen year old prostitutes from El Salvador. I was shocked when I first saw this video and after giving time to think about it more I am angry now and disgusted. They are not helping the problem what so ever they are aiding it.

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I'm Ron Burgundy? says:

I do not know how anybody in their right mind can watch the under cover video filmed in ACORN’s Baltimore office and not be shocked and appalled. Two workers for ACORN, which stands for The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, do not even bat an eyelid when a man and woman walk into their office posing as a prostitute and prospective senator and ask for advice on how to “smuggle” fourteen year old girls in to their community to work as sex slaves. You may say “Oh, this is unfortunate but probably is just a case of two bad workers not having any morals.” But you would be incorrect. This was not just one isolated incident, but indeed occurred at five separate offices around the country. What is wrong with these people? Not only do the workers in this video not condemn their actions, they advocate them, telling them to keep their heads up.

This is an organization whose mission is to protect low- and moderate-income families. How is this protecting or improving the “situations” these two people faced, not to mention those little girls the “politician” planned on importing. Instead of being praised for all of the good work this organization does in its community, it is now facing multiple accusations, stretching from voter fraud to helping aid in prostitution and tax evasion. This is coming from an organization that received over $54 million of your tax money. It sure is comforting to know that some of that money is going to good use supporting pimps and prostitutes.

I’m not sure that this was the idea Gary Delgado and Wade Rathke had in mind when they founded ACORN back in 1970 in Little Rock, Arkansas. You would also think that the leaders of ACORN would be outraged that their employees were caught in the act aiding tax evasion and prostitution, but again you would be incorrect. Instead of admitting there was a problem, ACORN board members tried to slander the filmmakers calling it an attempt at “gotcha journalism,” saying the videos were edited with voice-overs and that the organization was going to sue the filmmakers, a website that had a copy of the video, and Fox News for airing the tape. So why can Dateline NBC have an entire show (To Catch a Predator) dedicated to luring older men into thinking they are meeting up with a young child to have sex, and not have that labeled “gotcha journalism?”

But as soon as real politicians in Washington began to receive wind of the news and went to work excluding ACORN from obtaining more taxpayer money from the Housing and Urban Development, they changed their stance very quickly, announcing that they were suspending advising new clients and would begin an internal review. A truly classy organization, indeed.

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Rock Lobster says:

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now is an organization that supposedly helps low income families with neighborhood safety, voter registration, health care, housing, and social issues. However, if the help you’re providing includes illegal activity of some sort than in the long run you’re not helping anyone at all. How can these employees think that what they’re doing is the right thing to do? They are making black people seem real stupid in allowing prostitution to go on just to give these lower class citizens a house. From what I understand, ACORN seems to be a very helpful and supportive group for people in dire need of a place to live, but doing this is putting a giant black mark on what the organization is trying to accomplish.
In the video they start discussing allowing illegal immigrants to stay in the house with them. First of all you don’t know who these people are. They have no identification since they are entering the country illegally. They say that they are children, but as far as they know it could a giant drug ring moving in to this house. And of course all these black women care about is the taxes involved, which is none since they aren’t citizens. Second of all, even if they are children, you would think that the employees would understand that these are kids being used as hookers. That’s disgusting in itself, but to than agree to allow it because of the lack of taxes makes it that much worse. These women clearly are in the wrong field of work. They are hurting a lot more people than they are helping by letting all of this happen. I don’t understand how these women can take all of this seriously. It’s clearly a joke and these people are treating it like it’s an everyday thing that hookers come in to get a house and ask to have 15 year old children in the house with them. This instance gives black people a really bad name.
So apparently these two employees have been fired, but who is to say that there aren’t more employees like these two doing the same shady business. ACORN has to seriously step up their hiring process because they cannot keep allowing events like this to occur. It’s going to hurt their reputation as a great organization that helps tons of people in need. If helping people means finding shortcuts to do so than in the end it is not worth it. Not only does ACORN look really bad right now, but the Obama administration is on the chopping block right now for supplying them money and Obama is in no position to be making mistakes like that. I think ACORN is a great cause, but it has to fix some loose ends.

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Anonymous says:

ACORN, along with most other institutions in the world is laced with corruption and sketchy people. Whether or not this is indicative of the entire organization is the question raised when it comes to acorn. The video displays the corrupt employees who give acorn a bad name. If we are going to judge acorn we can not only look at this one video which focuses on the negatives of the organization, but we must study our facts and see that it has also helped many poor people improve their lives. I have never heard of Acorn before watching this video, and I assume many others are in the same situation, making it hard for us to change our snap judgment of what seems to be an extremely sick and fraudulent group. Although our first instinct might be to reject this program, we have to realize that we do not have the privilege of watching videos of the corruption run in our government and other organizations that we respect. So how can we really shut down ACORN when we cannot accurately compare it to other programs in the country? Don’t get me wrong, by no means am I supporting what the employees did in this video or saying that they were just in their actions, but I just think we all need to be more open minded and look at the greater scheme of things. A report like this one should not just make us evaluate one particular group, but it should force us to examine all institutions that have an impact on our lives. If ACORN is breaking the law, what is not to say that other organizations using our tax money are not doing the same thing? In a recent article in USA Today, it was stated that ACORN wanted to conduct the investigation of this scandal internally, not involving detectives outside of their organization. This request is absurd and should in no way be granted to them. For all we know, if they conducted the investigation themselves it would be done by corrupt members of their group. Hopefully after the problem is evaluated, the employees showed in this video will be terminated from their positions, and the organization will begin to “clean up its’ act”. I would like to say that I have faith that ACORN will recover from this scandal, but after millions of people have seen this video, this is highly unlikely and will take a large clean up crew. If anything, this video will hopefully urge organizations all over the country to keep a close watch on all of their employees and not tolerate absolutely absurd tactic and policies within their institutions. As for ACORN, they surely do have some crazy nuts working for them and thankfully they have been discovered and now must deal with public humiliation, arguably the worst punishment.

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sassafras says:

All I have to say is that after watching this You Tube video of ACORN representatives, I officially give up on humanity. The fact that this took place at ACORN’s headquarters in Baltimore is even more nauseating! This isn’t to say that these representatives are an accurate portrayal of all ACORN branches and employees; I’m simply saying that it is especially unsettling that this happened at the ACORN headquarters out of all places. For there to be corrupt business practices at this organizations headquarters is extremely worrisome. Furthermore, it sheds negative light on the ACORN branches that do operate in an ethical fashion. However, if this is going on at the headquarters of ACORN it does make me wonder how the other branches of ACORN are conducting themselves. It is even a shame that I have to question such a supposedly compassionate organization. If the people at the forefront of this grassroots movement are not even trustworthy, who, in ACORN, is?
This just goes to show that we, humanity, make assumptions about other cultures and sub cultures based on the people in charge. For example, I studied abroad in Italy this summer. Many, many people were hostile to me simply because I was from the United States. They assume I am a stupid, close-minded United Sates-ian who does not take the time to consider other cultures. Why did the Italians think this? Because that is unfortunately how our past president conducted himself. People assume that is how everyone in the United States conducts themselves because that’s the connotation of their leadership, and if we elected that leader, surely it’s a reflection of the people. These leaders of the Baltimore headquarters probably seemed very trustworthy when they were hired, it’s just unfortunate that people are going to judge this entire organization based on its unethical leadership. It’s terribly unfortunate, but that’s the reality.
I cannot continue this entry without pointing out the many double standards in this ACORN situation. For example, how the hell can an organization claim to be so altruistic and giving when they do not even respect young girls?! Additionally, this organization helps lower-income families obtain health care, yet they are assisting in the spread of sexually transmitted diseases by helping to create a brothel full of illegalities. Furthermore, they encourage people to vote and be involved in politics yet they are the ones furnishing unprincipled politicians. They are helping people at the expense of others! The irony kills me. And it is all in the name of tax evasion. Once again the dollar dictates. People have been cheating the tax system since the beginning of time. And since my dad is a financial lawyer, I have heard many ridiculous tax evasion stories. However, this one takes the cake. I can’t even fathom the immorality of this particular tax evasion attempt. Then again, people will do anything for money and my cynicism continues.

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jds5268@psu.edu says:

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now is an organization that supposedly helps low income families with neighborhood safety, voter registration, health care, housing, and social issues. For the most part after looking into ACORN they are trying to help misfortunate people with common problems. This organization is know worldwide for there services. What looks and is bad is when you have two leaders in this organization trying to juke the system and commit fraud. I was shocked when the 2 members of ACORN tried to find a way to make the pimp legal through taxes by saying it was an art form. Who in there right mind would believe this? Then the pimp and prostitute tell the ACORN members that they have 13 underage girls that are illegal to come and start working for them. I believe that once a video like this gets leaked out its not good for the organization. I would say if it hasn’t happened already that ACORN will be terminated and closed down. Even thought I would assume there are could people inside this organization trying to make a difference. Its just you have rotten apples in the system, I wonder if the two corrupt ACORN members even make a profit from the two undercover pimp and prostitute? If so I wonder how much because after reading about ACORN isn’t it a volunteer organization trying to help the lower class citizens. Granted what the group does for the community, especially low income families is great, but the fact that they are spending our money on covering up prostitution is ridiculous. How could anyone trust this organization now after this has been all over the media? Ill put it this way you cant! But another way to look at it is we only know what we see and hear. We do not know if his whole organization is corrupt. What we do know is that there was a small incident inside the organization and they got busted. If this was an isolated incident, I would say it is unfair to judge the entire organization on this one occurrence. Just because two women at once branch of the agency were engaged in complete wrongdoing, does not mean the entire association is at fault. All I can say about this subject is that from what I understand ACORN is a good organization. But that does not justify what happened with the two members that got kicked out for the wrongdoing. All that I could say is leaders in this organization need to look into there business a little better. They need to know whats going on behind closed doors just like this one. If ACORN does get shut down you really cant blame it on the entire ACORN staff and organization. This situation Just makes you really think about what else goes on behind closed doors that the government doesn’t know about.

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PittsSteelers says:

The video on the group ACORN literally made my jaw drop. It is absolutely ridiculous for this type of behavior to be occurring right under our noses. This group is located in nearby Baltimore which makes it even harder to believe. I might, perhaps wrongly so, expect something like this to occur in a foreign country more well-known for sex trafficking. Actually, it may have been less surprising if the video was filmed from the country from where the supposed girls were coming from: El Salvador. I do not necessarily know a lot about human trafficking, but the occurrence there would be much easier for me to believe than here in the United States. Knowing that this “prostitute” wanted to harbor underage girls and pimp them out should immediately make anyone turn her away. This group, however, gave her advice. It seemed as if the ACORN employees were not remotely phased by the woman’s requests. One has to wonder if this is the first time they have allowed such illegal activity to occur while having knowledge of it. The organization assisted the sixteen year old girl to cheat the government. The “prostitute” is sixteen! That is barely old enough to drive. The amount of illegal advice in one clip is outrageous. ACORN cheats the system in so many ways. Is it fair of this organization to find loopholes in governmental policies just because an underprivileged prostitute would come in wanting to perform such criminal activity? My answer would be no; it is not fair. For those of us who do not believe in breaking the law, it is absolutely not fair. On the other hand, it is unfortunate that ACORN was exposed in such a negative fashion. I am sure their only intention was to help people and they were willing to do anything necessary to achieve that goal. ACORN did somewhat take care of this particular problem by firing the two women involved. There is, though, an obvious underlying problem within these types of organizations. If I lived in Baltimore county, finding out this information would be infuriating. Their tax dollars are paying for criminal activity. From what I understand federal taxes have also been collected for ACORN. While it is likely this is a rare case, it is still wrong. There are people who really do need this program for housing. I find it sad how there are manipulative wrongdoers ruin it for those who are in genuine need. I understand ACORN’s purpose, but it is also unacceptable to take advantage of the government and the tax payers. I can only hope that currently, and in the future, the Obama administration will begin to really crack down on corrupt organizations. This will not only help those who really need it but will give the everyone more reason to trust the government.

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Ms. Realistica says:

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now is an organization made to create support and housing for low income families. This incident with the workers themselves, basically advocating and helping and socializing themselves with slavery astonished me in many ways. First, I know that there are a lot of crazy Americans that do crazy things for money, but for someone to tell you that they want to house thirteen young girls that were trafficked into the U.S. is another thing. It saddens me to actually see people, who themselves are poor and not wealthy advocate this type of “help.”
This situation though is not new to me. I actually know a man who worked at a Western Union and dealt with a under cover drug dealer. He was later arrested and jailed for two years. I will say that the U.S. departments do take jobs seriously when THEY”RE losing money. It’s just so sad how Americans seem to only look out for themselves. They never really think of helping others in an ethical way. Knowing that someone is a prostitute, running a brothel with illegal sex slaves is wrong. The employees probably thought that helping the customers lie about their taxes and number of people living in a residence will help them…but its not really helping because those employes are being dishonest, they’re causing some young innocent women to suffer, which isn’t being reported, and they’re being unethical. All of this is not helpful.
After watching the first video, I also watched the response by Chenjerai. I would have to agree with him a 100%. He talked about how we focus ourselves on these cases only but don’t realize that the government itself has a great role in it also. For example, Guantanamo Bay. Here, we are abusing and hurting criminals but, it’’s against the law. We fight for crime, and then we commit it. We fight against prostitution, but we allow it and sometimes advocate it! He also talked about how in order to fix this problem, we have to go to the roots. It’s important because this problem is not only an ACORN problem but goes on around the whole world. Cheating, lying and stealing is nothing new to use Americans. Big companies and corporations are the ones benefitting from this and now they’re losing money.
All I’m trying to say is that not only should we look at ACORN but also investigate other big companies and corporations to test 1) If they are using taxpayer money to gain big bucks for themselves 2) If they are using or hurting young innocent people in the process and 3) in what ways could the government (sometimes corrupt but hopefully changing) deal with these criminals and work hand in hand to fix the problem.
Hopefully change will come and prosper soon..and I mean positive change…

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Aldo says:

I should start of by saying that this video of the two ACORN employees is definitely disturbing. While the effort to try and shadily legitimize these people’s prostitution business doesn’t exactly offend me all that much, the latter part of the video does. Knowingly hearing the plan to illegally smuggle underage girls into the country to work in a brothel should have immediately ended this meeting. Sadly, it didn’t. Not only did the tax specialist continue on with the meeting after hearing of the plan, but then offered up tax advice on how to claim a tax credit for these young girls. To add on to this problem, the other woman comes in and gives the group street advice on how to run the business successfully in the future. Thankfully this was a set up event and not a real prostitute and politician setting up a laundering scheme. What is fortunate is that someone had the hunch that if they went into this specific office, they might encounter some less than reputable characters. I was happy to hear that both of these employees were let go, but it seems to me that this was probably an isolated incident. I wanted to do a little more research on ACORN to find out what all they are involved in. After only a few minutes of searching the internet, I found that among other things, ACORN has helped to gut and rebuild over 1500 homes affected after hurricane Katrina. Furthermore, they helped to register nearly one million voters for this most recent election. They have also worked to pass laws in cities like New York and Chicago to assure that employees working in private businesses that do business with the government are paid a wage that gives them the income to afford basic living necessities. With that all being said, I’d like to believe that these two employees are just a couple of bad seeds in what seems to be a fairly productive association.
I think that Chenjerai made an interesting point about this situation in his video response. It’s easy in a situation like this to immediately point a finger at ACORN as a shadily run organization. What many fail to think about is that this was just an isolated incident in one of ACORN’s many offices located around the country. Also, while it was still an illegal act, are low income people the ones we really need to worry about when it comes to cheating out on their taxes. Obviously we can’t look past all low income individuals on their taxes, but when it comes to the amount of money that they contribute to the tax system, I agree with Chenjerai when he says that maybe we need to be looking more into the corporations on issues of withholding money from the government.

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Love says:

Acorn I believe this company is wrong and stupid for not going deeper with the people that they hire to represent their company. I think the company needs to be held responsible because they hired these people. In the mean time I know that it may be a big company and they may not be able to keep tabs on all their employees but I believe things like this should not happen. It is crazy what some people will do for a check, these people in this video have no heart. Their giving the ok for young girls to come to America to sell their bodies and mostly like do it against their will. I believe that this is a problem worldwide. How will we put a end to sex-trafficking if we have companies such as these helping pimps and hoes get tax write offs. I believe this is taking away from the people who really need help and are in poverty to get affordable homes to help provide for their families and try and live the American way.
These people right here are the reason that the economy is the way it is today. I just think people need to grow up and think about their action and different things that they do. This is not right, giving hoes and pimps an easy pass in the community. This upsets me because I have friends and families that could use help like this but they are giving it away to hoes and pimps to help support a sex house. Then in the video they are giving advice so you know they have been doing this for a while or have been there at one point in their life. Then they try to make having sex classify as performing arts, what is the matter with people today. Do people have no respect for themselves and does anything click in their head and say what is right and what is wrong. These women in this video deserve to be fired because if they sat and let these people fake scam in the video then I’m sure that there is people out there today that they helped get by too. Then I go back to the company and the government I believe they both need to look more into this. It’s not right how these people in the video working for acorn are able to do this so easy.
It is wrong what some people will do for money in this country. Seeing this video I’m sure that they are not the only branch to be doing this because most of these acorn companies are in low income communities and I am sure they are given different situations like this and give in because they will make money off of this deal. I just believe that the company leaders need to crack down on this and watch the people that they hire and let work for them because this will look badly for them.

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mac11 says:

Wow am I being punked? I watched the full video on the ACORN situation, and I am completely shocked. It truly boggles my mind how or even why an employee would do that. The woman, Tanja, basically showed the pimp and prostitute on how to cheat the system. Are you serious? What was even worse about the whole scenario is that the pimp and hooker straight out told Tanja that they were planning on opening up a brothel. The two of them went into detail in the steps they were going to take, which included taking in UNDERAGE women from El Salvador. My first reaction if someone told me that would be, ‘okay, I am going to call the police’ not ‘oh, what a good business venture.’ At certain points throughout the video I had to laugh about how she called prostituting “performing arts,” but the sad thing is Tanja was serious! She really had no care in the world on how she was supporting something so ILLEGAL! Then Tanja goes about how they would be able to write things off. Personal grooming, clothing, gifts, and more, all according to Tanja, could equal almost $7,000-$8,000 in write offs. Tanja then recommends that the two of them should claim the girls as dependents, and says the girls under 16 don’t have to fill out W-2s, and to act as if they weren’t even there (Tanja has such good ideas!!! NOT!!!). This situation gets under my skin. How does she think its okay for a 14 year-old to be prostituting? Don’t get me wrong, I understand ACORN does a lot for the community. ACORN provides people in need of help with housing, insurance, and many other things. It is sad that two employees created such a negative and poor image for ACORN. Although in the end it’s really not ACORN’s fault. It is really the two employees that thought it would be a good idea in providing a potential brothel owner with ideas on how to cheat the government. Then I start to think about what the tax dollars are being spent on. If this was a real situation our tax dollars would be going to support clothing for a prostitute! That makes me so mad thinking about that, and it leads me to wonder where the money is truly going. It is also sad to think that some people probably go in there and apply for help but get declined. Some people who really need help are not getting money (not just from ACORN, but other government assistance programs), and others who were attempting to set up a place for hookers to stay are actually being taken serious. Those two ladies should have said hello, and goodbye in a matter of ten seconds. Now this leads me to other questions. Were those women brought up in an area that was completely okay with prostitution? Is it something that those two employees were used to seeing? For me, prostitution is and should be illegal. There is no reason for women to sell their bodies in exchange for money, but that is how I feel. Obviously, watching this video some people feel differently about hookers and brothels. I guess I will finish off with Obama’s reaction. If he truly said he has other things to worry about, we’ve got a problem. If our President feels as if this isn’t an issue that needs to be addressed than I feel as if his priorities are not straight. Whatever the case is, I am glad those two women got fired. I think that this sting or experiment was an excellent idea, and should be used more often with other government assistance programs, although I kind of am scared of what the results will be.

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Road Not Taken says:

I think that this is another case of one screw up tarnishing the whole of the group. I’m sure that ACORN does a lot to help families in need. I also think that for the most part, the organization is really trying to do something good. However, it is these mess-ups that really make it hard for people to have faith in organizations that help those in need.
It makes people skeptical of giving tax dollars to organizations that help the underprivileged. It is simply another case of what happens when things are not monitored. The same thing has happened with social worker organizations.
What turned me off to this was the fact that Obama said he had bigger fish to fry. Sure he does, but this organization is receiving tons of money. If it is ineffective, shouldn’t Obama do something so we don’t lose more money in these rough economic times?
I know that a lot of people claim that these programs are basically stealing money away from other important projects and giving it to lazy people. While I understand that maybe some people are taking advantage of these organizations, that will always be the case with anything.
Hopefully this was one small incident, but you have to wonder. If these women were willing to help out a pimp and a prostitute run their own illegal projects, what else were they letting slip through the cracks?
It just makes people feel like their tax dollars are going to help out scum and I feel bad that people feel this way, but this type of evidence hurts the causes that are actually helping people.
I doubt again that everyone is taking advantage of these systems, but who wouldn’t if this was the case?
Some people may turn this into a race thing, claiming it is the lazy people causing the problem, but I would beg to differ. There are a lot of white families in poverty who try to milk the system as well.
Overall, this just makes these type of organizations look bad, but nothing is really being done about it, which I find pathetic. The government could be doing better things with this money and for Obama to say that it is not important bothers me. The money could go toward a helpful organization rather than one that allows prostitutes to make their own illegal cat houses. I think both sides of the argument are flawed. ACORN does probably help a lot of people, but the corruption it does have is letting a lot of money slip through the cracks. But saying that this is a waste of time and should be trashed is wrong too because some people really do need this organization in order to stay afloat. I’m torn on the situation.

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LUCKY says:

First I would have to say I am in complete and utter shock, the things these ACRON (The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) employees, now former employees, were stating had me in awe. It is obvious that America has corrupt people in the system, but to see it first hand makes it a bit more realistic. There is absolutely no way around defending or having pity for these particular ACORN employees. They were wrong in every single aspect, from finding the correct term to best fit her “work” title (a prostitute) so that she could report taxes to bluntly stating to not even bother reporting the young girls coming from another country to potentially become prostitutes because “they do not exist”. Morals and Ethics apparently do not exist in these women’s mind or world. I feel no pity for the hidden cameras because how else are we going to find corrupt workers, especially when it pertains to a government issue.
Now looking at the “bigger picture” I do sympathize for the ACORN organization and their employees that do their job morally and ethically correct in order to work for a better community, but because of two bad seeds the entire organization may have been damaged. I hate that news, such as this one, brings even more doubt to people having faith in organizations that try to help the underprivileged. I am sure ACRON has helped some families in need, but of course the media does not publicize, inquire, or care about the positives as much as they do the negatives.
I agree with Chenjeral’s idea about other institutions being corrupt and where does the root begin? ACRON has not been the first nor will it be the last institution to get caught with unethical workers.
On another note Obama’s statement “ I have bigger fish to fry” did not rub off easy. Situations such as these are how riots begin and few organizations that help the public are removed. As a leader he must take any problematic situation into account. But in Obama’s defense I feel everything and anything he says or does is taken, analyzed and thrown around the world as controversial to then penalize him later on, i.e. “Obama is racist”. As President he must analyze everything and anything he says (especially as the fist black president) but he is human, and I feel many people are counting down the days, hours, minutes and seconds for him to fail. I do admit there are some things Obama is doing in office that I do not agree with, (i.e. sending more troops to Iraq) but he makes mistakes so people just need to back off a little. I am 100% positive that Obama’s intention for organizations such as these is to further help those in need and not aimlessly collect taxpayer’s money.

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Their all NUTS says:

I cannot tell you how disturbed I am by the ACORN video. As a member of the Baltimore community this hits really close to home. I know exactly where this place is located. It makes me so angry that I have such moral less people living in my neighborhood.

First and foremost, I have to say that I think the reporters did an amazing job on this piece of journalism. They stayed in character the entire time and never tried to bring this behavior out of the two ACORN employees. This is not an example of “gotcha journalism.” This is clearly an example of journalists doing what they are trained to do and catching a great story in the process.

On that note, I cannot believe how willing and eager the ACORN employees were to help the two reporters. I mean, they never even tried to hide their identity for a second. They didn’t try to put up a façade of any kind. They straight up told the ACORN employees that they needed help legitimizing a prostitution brothel, and the ACORN employees were more than happy to help.

Needless to say, it makes me sick that two government employees are willing to throw our tax dollars to some lowlife individuals trying to sneak by while breaking the law. I really don’t care what you do in your free time or even what you need to do to make some money, but do not do it at the rest of us, legal tax payers, expense. What were the ACORN employees thinking? And even worse, the one woman didn’t even flinch when the reporters told her that they were going to sneak in underage girls to prostitute them as well. Instead, she got out her files and tried to write the illegal immigrants off as dependents!

The whole situation is revolting! I wonder if at any moment, the consciences of the ACORN employees kicked in and they felt like they were doing something wrong. It sure doesn’t appear that way on the tape. It really does make you think how many other people they have helped scam the system and gotten away with it! And I’m sure that this is only one of many cases in the United States. It really does make you weary of the government. I mean, if some low level government employee can get away with giving my hard earned dollars to prostitutes, then I can’t even imagine what messed up things the people in high authority are accomplishing. Bottom line is we really need to look at our programs and make some necessary changes ASAP!

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Betty Boop says:

It is a shame to see an organization get a bad name just because of a few employees and their carelessness to follow strong ethics in a company. The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now may have been looked upon as a solid group looking to help better the lives of low-income people and families, but now they will always have a bad reputation because of two employees that decided to be shady. It disgusts me that the employees would try legalize prostitution on paper when they know for a fact its against the law, not to mention the fact that its for underage females. There is so much wrong with this situation that it blows my mind with frustration. How do we know that these employees have not done stuff like this in the past? For all I can assume, a drug dealer came in and explained his situation and that he does well with his business, and the female employees filed it under some other “code” in the tax forms. This type of situation in an organization makes me question everything, about the people who hired them, about the training, the integrity and honor codes they abide too, and so forth. It makes my jaw drop that the employee is telling her client to do shady things, like telling the “prostitute” and the other girls to keep their mouths shut and that ACORN can not be held accountable if the cops come and bust them. I hate to hear stories like this when organizations are looked upon as respectable groups trying to help the less fortunate out, meanwhile there is an unethical twist to making that happen. Tanja and Shira should feel ashamed for living such a hypocritical career life. Shira evens says aloud that it is not a legal business, and supports them getting assistance to make it legal on paper. Tanja, the “tax specialist”, goes to justify the fake prostitute’s job as a classification of “performing arts” and classifies the 13 girls coming over from El Salvador as “dependents” and not to worry about them because they don’t have a social security number. IS THIS WOMAN SERIOUS?! How does she go through her daily life not feeling guilty for the service she provides to illegal and shady occupants? From kids screaming in the background to hearing about all the shady information traded under the roof of this organization, it makes me wonder what other companies out there are doing the exact same thing and have just happened to be lucky of not getting caught. ACORN is just one example of the corrupt businesses going on in America, and it is about time that we make more of an effort to scrutinize and inspect what is going on in other companies in this country.

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Toucan Sam says:

After reading the blog and watching the videos, I feel as though the system creates (maybe even promotes) the “isolated incidences” we see in this ACORN report as well as the military scandals. Essentially, ACORN is designed to help those with low incomes to get and make the most of their precious money with very little support of their own coming from the government. Because ACORN does not have the resources to help these individuals, they must utilize the limited resources they have to help these poor people, regardless of the income.
I understand why everyone is upset that these ACORN workers were willingly and generously giving this “prostitute” and this “pimp” information on how to illegally evade IRS taxes and make their illegal operation look legal. But what I think is more important than the giving of information is how these two workers came to be almost experts on the subject, and how they were not shocked at all that two people were coming to them with their illegal operation. It seemed to me that the two employees had seen this situation so often that it was hardly an issue. This lack of surprise would suggest that many people in the Baltimore area who were living on low incomes were bringing in any resources through illegal means, whether through prostitution or the sale of illicit drugs.
This incident also shows the problem with government funding in local areas. If the government had been pumping billions of dollars into ACORN and other programs that help low-income families, would workers result to tax fraud? Probably not, because they could hand out money to those who needed it, rather than looking for ways that people can keep money that is being taken away from them by the government. Instead, the government chooses to put the money into large corporations (although, for somewhat good reasons on their part), so problems of tax fraud and cheating the system will continue to exist as people look to stretch a dollar.
As for the military problem that you suggest, I’d say that both Abu Graib and Guantanamo Bay are a result of the system, but for two different reasons. Guantanamo Bay is backed by the system 100%. I doubt any high ranking general in the U.S. Army did not have indications that torture was being used on prisoners in an attempt to extract information. These methods were being used for military intelligence, and hence the system relied on the existence of Gitmo. Abu Graib, on the other hand, was a failure of the system. Every day soldiers aren’t trained to handle the extreme stresses that come along with prisoner holding and information extraction, and when sort of let off the leash, soldiers are going to lose control. Things can be crazy in war, with people always attempting to kill you, not being sure when or how the enemy will attack, and seeing people you care about die, it is easy to understand why people would mistreat someone labeled as “the enemy.” I would say Abu Graib is similar to ACORN in the fact that the system does not worry about the little guy, and thus when bad things happen, really bad things happen.

FOLLOW YOUR NOSE!!!!!!!!

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truth says:

ACORN played right into the hands of republicans and it looked like it’s going to take the hit for it. Last time I checked all funding to ACORN was cut off by a voting in the Senate. I can see the reasoning why but then I also has to ask, is this the way it is all over the ACORN network across the country? These journalists did prove their point by going to three different offices and asking relatively the same questions and pretty much getting the same response. All the ACORN workers walked the fake prostitute and fake husband through steps to elude the law and make her job look like a legal one. Are you kidding me? This video appalled me and just made me realize some people are really ridiculous. I understand I come from a pretty good situation and have it better then others but I still really don’t understand how someone could do this, give out this information as their living. It just doesn’t seem right to me. My re-married mother is having problems paying for my college and I help her out but I have problems as well, never has it occurred to me to dup the law and make it work for me. I don’t believe this is a race issue though, because when you think about it wasn’t your white-collar Bernie Madoff’s kind of doing the same thing just in a different context? Madoff made off with millions by dupping the system, these workers help other dup the system to make money illegally. I understand they have a harder time and all in their lives but that’s why you need to strive and make something positive of yourself I believe. Some people say it’s sick that these two journalists dressed up and played a hooker and her pimp, how is that sick? They did this to expose a corrupt government funded operation. These two kids did what was needed to do, with very little money or help needed. I understand Obama says there are bigger issues at hand but is that just because of his sympathy for ACORN, for which he once represented in a court case. It gives you a lot to think about when you’re sitting around the dinner table. All I know is as much as people say Bush was a horrible president with this and that, it really makes me think the whole system of politics really has become so corrupt and unjust it’s just a repeating system no matter who’s in the seat of the president. It’s going to just keep repeating till there is a big cleansing along the way, how it will happen or when I have no idea all I know is that almost the same type of scandals hit the president through their terms in office.

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Just Can't Keep Still... says:

This truly scares me. More than anything else I’ve heard yet. Companies like ACORN are meant to help people out that really need it. There are so many people that are dependent on companies like ACORN to have a place to live and to be able to afford to live there. And it literally hurts me to see them manipulating money to help an illegal industry. The worst part? The fact that the undercover man and woman specifically said that the girls were illegal immigrants—from El Salvatore. Oh, and don’t forget that they also specifically stated that the girls were FOURTEEN YEARS OLD. If I was the person in ACORN, my mouth would have dropped open in shock first when they asked me for a place to use as a brothel, it would have dropped even wider when they said where the girls were from and I would have kicked their asses so far out of the office that they wouldn’t know how to find their way back once they said the girls were fourteen. Seriously, how did the people from ACORN not suspect anything? Why in the world would the couple come in and reveal everything that they were doing against the law? Prostitution rings work because of the secrecy and people not finding out of them, they wouldn’t want the house being registered as a brothel—that would ruin anything. How did the people of ACORN not become suspicious of these people? How could you not take one second to second guess what these people are doing—both for the fact of how illegal and how morally wrong it is and because of how much trouble you can get into if someone was to find out that you were the person giving them the house to provide for their illegal usage. If I were in that seat, I feel like their proposition would have “DANGER! DANGER! DANGER!” written all over it.
However, by far, the worst part is that these two women were completely unfazed as the couple was discussing their plan. I don’t care how rude I would have appeared, I could never sit there and listen to these people discuss their plans without a look of disgust on my face—or I would have had to leave the room to compose myself and then come back to see what they really wanted. But the way that the women handled the entire situation nonchalantly scares me—either they’re really good actresses or just really didn’t care. And I’m they type of person who really strives to see the good in both people and situations and there is no good that comes out of this situation and I could in no way find a reason to defend these women—I don’t care how naive they could have been, nothing justifies their actions.

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Shewolf says:

I watched the video and forgot that I was watching something that was real. This is just disturbing, and bothers me to think about all the unqualified employees for jobs like these. As messed up as it is to pose as a prostitute and congressman to catch the ACORN employees in the wrong, I guess it proved to be a good way to get the true story. I am glad that this video was exposed to the public because I believe it is fair for taxpayers to know the truth behind where their hard-earned money is going and being used to support.
These employees are very uneducated and it is sad that they go along with this ploy. It makes me mad that they are trying to offer their advice for how to handle the prostitution and brothel. The acting was terrible by the prostitute and congressman, and to think that perhaps these two ACORN employees have handled a situation similar to this in the past is even more disturbing, because of how outlandish this seems to me. I do not understand how they get away with the tax write offs when I assume they should be documenting all of their business with their customers. I am curious to know how many situations in the existence of ACORN, have been similar to this. I would not think that it takes a genius to ethically evaluate the situation, and as a result turn these two people away. I understand their job is to help the underprovided, but not when the situation is obviously illegal. How can the employees think that supporting prostitution is socially helping the country? The whole situation seems very shady with the child screaming in the background, and the women condoning the prostitute for bringing underage children into the country illegally for prostitution.
On one hand, I want to feel bad for these two employees to have been laid off from their jobs because of the manner in which they were exposed, but how can I look past their corrupt practices? I am happy that they were caught because they were taking advantage of their position. ACORN was not established to find loopholes to get around the system.
Clearly, the government needs to have more control over ACORN and establish stricter regulations for all non-profit organizations, to reduce the risk of this happening again. How can people not judge this organization as a whole, now that these unethical ACORN employees were caught? In theory ACORN is a wonderful organization, that I am glad exists today. However, the risks of non-profits such as these may out way the benefits, if they are not closely controlled. I hope that they can find a way to improve ACORN without taking it away because I feel that it is very important for our country to have.

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