Just how "leaderless" is Occupy Wall Street? According to Fox News, the thousands of Communists, anarchists, eco-feminists, malingerers, and professional protesters taking part in OWS are actually being guided by a reconstructed ACORN. The "fair and balanced" news organization alleges that OWS is being funded and controlled by former ACORN activists under new names who are using shady practices to collect money for OWS under false pretenses. Will this turn out like that time that a certain prominent news organization alleged George Soros was funding OWS? more ›

While Kanye West teased the Wall Street Occupiers with his gold teeth, self-styled watchdog journalist of the left and Brietbart bedfellow James O'Keefe also visited Zuccotti Park earlier today. Tweets about O'Keefe's appearance were alarming the protesters considering his history of selective editing, garnering national media scrutiny, and idiotic but sexxxy tactics. more ›

During much of the battle over the Atlantic Yards development, opponents of the project portrayed ACORN, the embattled community organizing group, as sell-outs, because the organization partnered with developer Bruce Ratner after he pledged more than 2,000 units of below-market-rate housing for the project. Some critics, like Daniel Goldstein, the former spokesperson of Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, saw this as betrayal, and questioned the ethics of a low-interest $1.5 million loan later given to the group from Forest City Ratner. Fast forward to yesterday: After Goldstein accepted $3 million in exchange for moving out of the Atlantic Yards footprint, ACORN's CEO Bertha Lewis sent out a rather nasty email to reporters, slamming Goldstein hard: more ›

Never underestimate the power of a deceptively-edited hidden camera video to bring down an organization that tries to help poor people. Despite being cleared by the Brooklyn DA this month, ACORN announced today that it's closing all its offices by April 1st. "For Acorn as a national organization, our vindication on the facts doesn’t necessarily pay the bills," says Bertha Lewis, chief executive of Acorn. Congress voted to cut off all grants to the organization in the wake of videos made by a young Conservative gadfly who, joined by a woman posing as a prostitute, posed as a pimp seeking advice from ACORN employees. The DA found no criminality, but by then the ACORN offices in New York had already reorganized as Communities for Change. more ›

In December a federal judge in Brooklyn ruled that it was unconstitutional for Congress to cut funds for ACORN without conducting a formal investigation into the low-income community activist group. At the time, ACORN was still reeling from hidden camera videos which seemed to show ACORN employees advising a pimp and prostitute on tax evasion. These carefully edited videos were eventually found to show no criminality, but ACORN's funding was never restored. (The group also came under fire because some workers had written false names like "Mickey Mouse" on voter registration drives in 2008.) more ›

Kings County District Attorney Charles Hynes has concluded his investigation into possible criminality on the part of three ACORN employees caught on video giving advice to a couple posing as a prostitute and companion. (Though the right-wing gadflies who made the hidden camera video edited it to suggest that James O'Keefe was posing as the woman's pimp, the couple actually told ACORN employees he was trying to protect her from the pimp [PDF].) Yesterday Hynes cleared ACORN of any criminality, while perpetuating the misconception that O'Keefe had posed as a pimp and worn a cliche pimp costume during the meeting (he did not).: more ›

Marred by scandals both real and hyped, community organizing group ACORN has suspended most operations nationwide, effective today. In September, Congress voted to cut funding for the group, which came under investigation last year because some employees were accused of submitting false voter registration forms with names such as "Mickey Mouse." (ACORN had received $53 million in taxpayer funds since 1994, according to Nebraska senator Mike Johanns.) The vote came in the midst of the infamous "undercover pimp/prostitute" videos, which were carefully edited by a young conservative gadfly to suggest that an ACORN employee in NYC was advising a young woman how to hide prostitution money from the IRS. (Before all that, there was the embezzlement of funds by the group's founder, and, as Norman Oder recalls, the shady acceptance of $1.5 million bailout from Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner.) more ›

James O’Keefe, the twenty-something conservative gadfly, has issued a statement explaining why he, with three others, were arrested for posing as telephone workers in Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu's office on Monday. O'Keefe, who got famous after he punk'd some workers at community organizing group ACORN last September, says that contrary to "the false claims being repeated by much of the mainstream media," they were not trying to bug Landrieu's phones. Oh no, they were just trying to verify why her "constituents were having trouble getting through to her office." While O'Keefe admits he could have "used a different approach," he expects the media to apologize "for their journalistic malpractice" at once! In the meantime, he's charged with "entering a federal property on false pretenses with the purpose of committing a felony," which is how latte-swilling Obama elites treat Real Americans who are only trying to help. more ›

In the wake of the infamous undercover pimp/prostitute videos that got the community outreach group ACORN in such hot water in September, the group hired Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger to conduct an internal investigation. The results are now in, and ACORN's CEO Bertha Lewis calls it "part vindication, part constructive criticism and 100% roadmap to the future." Harshbarger says he "did not find a pattern of intentional, illegal conduct by ACORN staff involved; in fact, no action, illegal or otherwise, was ever taken by any ACORN employee on behalf of the videographers. Instead, the videos represent the byproduct of ACORN's longstanding management weaknesses, including a lack of training, a lack of procedures and a lack of onsite supervision." Well, that settles that, right? more ›

A bookkeeper and community organizer for the embattled antipoverty group Acorn raked in $500,000 in merchandise through a corporate rewards program with Verizon—goodies she had no right to claim, investigators say. As part of an expansive fraud that began five years ago, Donnett Davis allegedly opened a corporate rewards program for Acorn’s 10 to 20 phone lines with Verizon, but named herself as the recipient. She was also able to somehow add (allegedly) another 9,000 DOE phone lines to her rewards account. The haul was pretty sweet. more ›

Mark Green went on the attack in last night's public advocate debate, linking his rival Bill de Blasio to the recently scandalized group, ACORN. Up until now, Green has attempted to cruise back into the advocate office based on name recognition and the harshest criticism toward de Blasio has come from Charles Barron (who was not even in the race!). But during last night's debate, Green said, "The Working Families party and ACORN put $30,000 in his pocket, so when they come and visit him at City Council who is he working for? You or his employers?" more ›

The embattled community organizing group ACORN is filing a lawsuit today in Maryland District Court, accusing individuals behind an embarrassing series of hidden camera videos of violating state law by recording employees' conversations without permission. Similar to the videos recorded in ACORN's Brooklyn offices, the Maryland video shows workers giving inappropriate advice to two filmmakers (left) posing as prostitute and pimp seeking assistance in getting a house for a brothel. Alan Schwartz, general counsel for Acorn, accused the fake pimp, James O’Keefe, of "trying to destroy an organization whose principal purpose is to help poor people." more ›

Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner's quid pro quo relationship with community organizing group ACORN is public knowledge, but now that the group is on the hot seat for those hidden camera humiliations, the Post takes another look. For years, ACORN has rallied its members to enthusiastically support the construction of Ratner's $4.9 billion NBA arena, and in exchange ACORN would help manage tenants for the 2,250 affordable-housing units still planned for Atlantic Yards, to be built someday in the unforeseeable future. more ›

The only thing falling faster than the acorns on the trees these days is government funding for the embattled community organizing group of the same name. After lopsided votes in both the Senate and the House earlier in the week to cut off federal money from ACORN, yesterday Governor Paterson ordered state agencies not to move forward on contracts with the group. more ›

Brooklyn prosecutors expect to meet next week with gotcha "journalists" James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles to view raw hidden-camera footage recorded by the duo at an ACORN office in Brooklyn, where they duped employees of the community organizing group into giving bad advice to Giles, posing as a prostitute with O'Keefe as her pimp. A spokesman for the Brooklyn DA tells the Daily News, "This is a first step, and there are possible criminal charges." As you probably know by now, the heavily edited video has become a rallying cry for drown-government-in-the-bathtub right-wingers, and yesterday the House of Representatives voted 345 to 75 to deny funding for ACORN. The vote came on a provision attached to a student aid bill; on Monday the Senate voted 83 to 7 to deny housing and community grant funding to ACORN. According to the AP, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi described the latest allegations against ACORN as "horrible," but she still believes the group has many honest employees and stresses that it's up to House-Senate negotiators to determine whether the provision to cut funding remains in the final version of the bill. more ›

Before he got famous exposing low-income community advocacy group ACORN as an organization employing a few gullible do-gooders, conservative provocateur James O'Keefe had fun at Rutgers riling up the liberals. The 25-year-old "Borat of the right" first cut his teeth in the hidden camera game while enrolled as a philosophy student at the New Jersey university. Posing as an overly-sensitive Irishman disturbed by the presence of Lucky Charms in the cafeteria, O'Keefe met with an assistant director at Rutgers dining services. During the meeting, O'Keefe explains that the leprachaun on the cereal box is hurtful: "He's portrayed as a green-cladded (sic) gnome, and as you can see ... we're not all short. We have differences of height, and we think this is stereotypical of Irish-Americans." more ›

The right-wing smear campaign against community organizing group ACORN is having the desired effect; yesterday the Senate voted 83-7 to deny housing and community grant funding to the non-profit organization. The vote—prompted by last week's arrest of ACORN employees in Florida accused of falsifying hundreds of voter applications last year—came as an unflattering secret camera video shot in ACORN's Brooklyn office surfaced. The video shows two ACORN employees advising a young couple, posing as prostitute and pimp, how to falsify documents to get a mortgage and tax breaks for a brothel housing El Salvadoran teens. more ›

Two right-wing filmmakers have teamed up with Fox News to conduct a juicy hidden-camera exposé on the community advocacy group ACORN, a group conservatives hate because it receives government funding to help the indigent. According to Fox, filmmaker James O'Keefe, 25, dressed as a cliche pimp and sought housing advice at ACORN offices in New York. Joined by his partner Hannah Giles, 20, who posed as a prostitute, O'Keefe claims to have told employees he needed a house to run a brothel and help Giles escape an abusive pimp. more ›