Posted on 09/19/2009 8:55:39 AM PDT by Jet Jaguar
Activist group ACORN started in 1970 to help the poor in Arkansas and quickly went national, growing into a multimillion-dollar conglomerate with a mission so far-flung that schools now bear its name, two radio stations are affiliates and a man it backed is the president. Oh yeah, it's also the unwilling star of a hot Internet video featuring a couple dressed as a hooker and her pimp.
SNIP
Many Democrats used to advertise their ACORN connections. Now, however, the Democratic-led Senate has voted to cut off its grants from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Democrat-dominated House doesn't want it to get any federal money, period.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs called the conduct in the videos "completely unacceptable" and a prominent ally of President Barack Obama, John Podesta, is on an ACORN advisory panel working to clean up the mess.
Republicans are using ACORN to portray Democrats as corrupt and distract Obama from his policy agenda, the same way Democrats used issues involving Halliburton, the giant government contractor and ex-employer of former Vice President Dick Cheney, against the GOP during the Bush years. Top Republicans from congressional leaders to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger want criminal probes of ACORN and conservative voters are pressuring news organizations for coverage.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Fed by huge gouts of taxpayer money, it was bound to spead its tentacles.
No, it was corrupt with a Marxist agenda from its inception.
“Did ACORN get too big for its own good?”
Slapping down A.C.O.R.N. is more like a smokescreen, in which the Communists running our government appear to be cleaning up their act (but aren’t).
“The openly Democratic-leaning group has seen its”....
DEMOCRAT LEANING? Sure, leaning on their back, smoking cigars, laughing at the idiot Whitey, who ships in boxcar loads of cash!
Some highlights from the 2008 data are:
--Government workers were nearly five times more likely to belong to a union than were private sector employees.
--Workers in education, training, and library occupations had the highest unionization rate at 38.7 percent.
--Black workers were more likely to be union members than were white, Asian, or Hispanic workers.
--Among states, New York had the highest union membership rate (24.9 percent) and North Carolina had the lowest rate (3.5 percent).
Membership by Industry and Occupation
The union membership rate for public sector workers (36.8 percent) was substantially higher than the rate for private industry workers (7.6 percent). Within the public sector, local government workers had the highest union membership rate, 42.2 percent. This group includes many workers in several heavily unionized occupations, such as teachers, police officers, and fire fighters. Private sector industries with high unionization rates include transportation and utilities (22.2 percent), telecommunications (19.3 percent), and construction (15.6 percent). In 2008, unionization rates were relatively low in financial activities (1.8 percent) and professional and business services (2.1 percent). (See table 3.)
Among occupational groups, education, training, and library occupations (38.7 percent) and protective service occupations (35.4 percent) had the highest unionization rates in 2008. Sales and related occupations (3.3 percent) and farming, fishing, and forestry occupations (4.3 percent) had the lowest unionization rates. (See table 3.) .....
Union Representation of Nonmembers
About 1.7 million wage and salary workers were represented by a union on their main job in 2008, while not being union members themselves. (See table 1.) About half of these workers were employed in government. (See table 3.) .....
Union Membership by State
In 2008, 29 states and the District of Columbia had union membership rates below that of the U.S. average, 12.4 percent, while 20 states had higher rates, and 1 state had the same rate. All states in the East North Central, Middle Atlantic, and Pacific divisions reported union membership rates at or above the national average, and all states in the East South Central and West South Central divisions had rates below it. Union membership rates rose over the year in 26 states and the District of Columbia, declined in 20 states, and were unchanged in 4 states. (See table 5.)
Six states had union membership rates below 5.0 percent in 2008, with North Carolina having the lowest rate (3.5 percent). The next lowest rates were recorded in Georgia (3.7 percent), South Carolina (3.9 percent), Virginia (4.1 percent), Texas (4.5 percent), and Louisiana (4.6 percent). Three states had union membership rates over 20.0 percent in 2008--New York (24.9 percent), Hawaii (24.3 percent), and Alaska (23.5 percent).
The largest numbers of union members lived in California (2.7 million) and New York (2.0 million). About half (8.0 million) of the 16.1 million union members in the U.S. lived in just 6 states (California, 2.7 million; New York, 2.0 million; Illinois, 0.9 million; Pennsylvania, 0.8 million; Michigan, 0.8 million; and Ohio, 0.7 million), though these states accounted for only one-third of wage and salary employment nationally. .....
Unions are a cancer of the work force, and need to be removed. Particularly, the union membership should not be allowed in government / public sector, as they should not "serve" two masters - the union and the populace. Someone could introduce such a bill in Congress and / or states' legislatures. If nothing else, it would start a debate about the role of the unions and their drain on citizen's tax burden, including government / public pensions, and who is working for whom - if government working for the people or are the people working for the government (and unions)? Which services can be competitively privatized (hint: the biggest one is education)?
Ronald Reagan started the ball rolling forcefully with PATCO strike debacle, but after him nobody really took on the unions, and the downward slide of union membership was reduced to a trickle. Destroying the unions will remove the large part of funding and the "organizing and enforcement" arms of Democratic party and its liberal base.
Yeah, Acorn got too big, and it also got TOO CORRUPT!
You’re correct. The Congress Criminals will remain in place as the Sheeples sigh in relief as the ACORN Criminals take the hit, and are allegely disbanded.
ACORN has already become COI, Community Organizers International, but who knows other then those of us here at FR, and those that read the Internet Conservative news blogs.
They’ve already disguised themselves as a different organization. They have already begun the Liberal process known as “re-inventing themselves”.
This group was designed to suck at the taxpayer teet. It was criminal from day one.
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“Obama helped represent ACORN in a 1995 lawsuit against Illinois that forced enactment of the “motor-voter law,” making it easier to register to vote.”
Do we need to know more? This group and those like it have advocated for the dim bulbs to get more illegal, concocted votes. Motor voter laws need to be SCRUTINIZED.
And what’s going on in Indiana, where they strike down voters having to ID themselves??
I’m so tired of non-citizens, fake people, dead people and criminals voting in Democrats.
ENOUGH!
ACORN has already become COI, Community Organizers International, but who knows other then those of us here at FR, and those that read the Internet Conservative news blogs.
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The investigations being called for need to include ACORN/COI and ALL ITS SURROGATES.
“”I’ve been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career,” Obama told ACORN leaders in November 2007, according to a posting on Obama’s campaign Web site. “Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work.”
Pro-Democratic groups, including unions, paid ACORN branches and affiliates for get-out-the-vote activities in the last election.
ACORN’s connections to unions - Andrew Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, is among those with Podesta on the ACORN advisory panel - illustrate some of the contradictions found in its past.”
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GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR...
Obama=ACORN/COI/All surrogates
The probably is their outvoting the living citizens who pay taxes
...surprised to see the words ‘good’ and ACORN in the same sentence!
Thanks Jet Jaguar.
Oops, and thanks neverdem for that other ACORN topic I just pinged. [blush]
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