Free Republic

(CNSNews.com) - The U.S. Justice Department gave a group called the New York Agency for Community Affairs a grant of $135,130 in fiscal year 2005 to “provide youth leadership training to students at select New York City schools, form ‘ACORN Youth Union’ chapters, and coordinate student campaigns to address issues such as school funding, neighborhood safety, and school governance,” according to a Government Accountability Office report released this week. The GAO report says that in fiscal years 2005 through 2009 the federal government gave ACORN and what the GAO calls “potentially related organizations” more than $40 million in federal funds.  According...

ACORN's top officer said Sunday that she was "outraged" by the content of hidden-camera videotapes showing her organization's employees offering advice to undercover filmmakers posing as a pimp and prostitute, as she pledged to "reform" the inner workings of the activist group. Chief organizer Bertha Lewis tried to calm a growing firestorm over the behavior of her group's employees. Allegations of voter registration fraud and other ethical lapses have plagued ACORN for years, but the videotapes were the last straw for the group's critics -- as well as its long-time defenders. The videotapes, filmed by two conservative activists, led to...

ACORN, a social justice organization with roots in [New Orleans], battles a string of scandals. The announcement stuck to a wall outside the entrance to ACORN's local office in the 2600 block of Canal Street quietly signals the trouble afoot. In English and Spanish, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now tells walk-up clients that ACORN's housing office has shut itself down for two weeks to immerse itself "in an intensive training program." The sign is a symptom of a tumultuous week in the history of a controversial poor people's social justice movement -- one founded by a New...