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ACORN trapped, congressmen cornered
by Mark Silva
Sometimes Washington moves in mysterious ways.
A 20-year-old, scantily-clad woman from Florida, Hannah Giles, a Florida International University student whose father is a conservative pastor and TownHall.com columnist, walks into an ACORN office with James O'Keefe, a 25-year-old conservative activist wearing outlandish fur-trimmed pimp-garb carrying a concealed video camera for BigGovernment.com, and within days two houses of Congress are voting to yank federal funding from a national organization that helps impoverished people find housing.
It isn't just any national organization, of course. It's one that worked to register tens of thousands of people to vote last yearand, in the process, had some of its more overzealous registration-gatherers accused of faking forms with names as specious as Mickey Mouse. It's an organization whose voter-drive may have helped turn out some winning votes for the new, Democratic president, Barack Obama.
And so, after months of somewhat below-the-radar controversy over the federally-supported organization's conduct during the election, a pair of conservative vigilantes with a video camera ensnaring a few ACORN employees in some bizarre conversations has jeopardized the federal funding of a group that aids the poor, with more than 700 employees.
Giles is a self-styled "journalist behind the ACORN prostitution/tax evasion sting.'' Find her at Townhall.com, along with conservative columnists such as Michelle Malkin, who suggests that the dynamic video-duo of Giles and O'Keefe are simply the right-wing equivalent of 60 Minutes.
"Undercover journalism is only acceptable when it fits a liberal agenda,'' Malkin suggests at TownHallwhich offers a free copy of Glenn Beck's book, Arguing with Idiots, the one with a cover picturing him in some sort of military officer dress, for ordering a 12-issue subscription to TownHall magazine.
"That is the message from "professional" reporters and left-wing activists outraged about three successful video stings targeting President Obama's old friends at the left-wing tax-subsidized outfit ACORN,'' Malkin writes. "Conservative documentarian James O'Keefe and writer Hannah Giles, working for the BigGovernment.com website, posed as a pimp and prostitute,'' she writes, just as major news networks have worked undercover.
The videosshot in Baltimore, Washington, New York and San Bernadino, Calif.became an overnight sensation on the Internet, and on FOX News, which reports today that ACORN is "on its heels.''
The Senate voted 83-7 on Monday to block any housing grants to ACORN. And the House today adopted, as an amendment to a student loan bill, legislation that Republican Leader John Boehner proposed to defund ACORN. The House vote was 345-75the two votes suggesting few see any gain in risking rising to the defense of an organization victimized by some video vigilantes.
While the two sides haven't agreed on anything yet, a lot of people have been put on the record this week on votes that they will be hearing about again next year.
As FOX News.com reports, with some apparent glee today: "Republicans now have the firepower to run ads highlighting this vote, saying: "This lawmaker voted against defunding ACORN."
Neither vote means anyone has lot their federal funding yet. However, the Census Bureau decided last week to count ACORN out of any canvassing next year.
Even the White House is walking away from ACORN, with Press Secretary Robert Gibbs saying this week of the videotaped conversations among the posing "prostitute'' and "pimp'' and ACORN workers "completely unacceptable.'' ACORN's president said the same thing of the employees, in firing them, and has ordered a 'top to bottom'' review of conduct within the organization, which has received a reported $53 million in federal money over the last 15 years/
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now largely offers housing assistance and income tax preparation for minorities and the poor.
ACORN's Florida director, Stephanie Porta, says that Giles, 20, showed up at the group's Miami office alone in July or August claiming to be a prostitute seeking housing assistance. An ACORN staffer suggested a domestic-violence shelter that she might visit, Porta says, but didn't offer any financial advice.
Giles and O'Keefe, a self-styled filmmaker attempting to do good, landed some more willing participants in their other video expeditions.
"I cannot and I will not defend the actions of the workers depicted in the video, who have since been terminated," ACORN Chief Organizer Bertha Lewis has said, with the group suspending new admissions to its programs and going through some staff training.
A thumbnail biography of Giles at the conservative Townhall.com Website calls her an "aspiring journalist" and the oldest daughter of Townhall contributor Doug Giles, who is senior pastor at the Clash Church in Aventura, Fla., whose Web-site bills it as "Bold. Wild. Free." Townhall is notable for the contributions of enlightened voices such as those of Malkin, Ann Coulter, Chuck Norris and Oliver North.
Prosecutors in Miami have charged several ACORN workers with actual violations of law in the gathering of voter registrations. But it was not the real, or officially alleged, acts of ACORN workers that have put the organization's federal funding in jeopardy, but rather the surreptitious videotapes of a couple of conservative young crusaders posing as a pimp and a prostitute.
And FOX News reports:
House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, R-Va., applauded the vote.
"ACORN has violated serious federal laws, and today, the House voted to ensure that taxpayer dollars would no longer be used to fund this corrupt organization," he said in a written statement. "All federal ties should be severed with ACORN, and the FBI should investigate its activity... This united Republican effort to defund ACORN is a victory for the rule of law and taxpayers across the country."
"The vote was essentially symbolic because the student aid bill did not actually provide any funding to ACORN,'' FOX notes.
"But it does give Republicans more momentum as they continue to keep the pressure on ACORN, which is on its heels. On a procedural tactic known as "motion to recommit," Republicans essentially forced Democrats, who control the House, to vote on an issue that may leave some of them vulnerable in next year's mid-term elections.''
House Votes To Cut Off Federal Funding To ACORN
The 345-75 vote came several days after the Senate took a similar vote to block the Housing and Urban Development Department from giving grants to ACORN. Employees of the community-organizing group were videotaped offering advice to conservative activists posing as people interested in buying a home to use for their prostitution business.
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