Chuck Asay by Chuck Asay

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  1. IrishEddieOHara

    IrishEddieOHara said, about 1 month ago

    Mr. Asay, you have to prove that the leadership of ACORN was complicit with the people who were caught in the sting. If you have the proof, then produce it.

    As Catholics, we faced the same problem when 4% of our ordained clergy brought shame and disgrace upon the Church by their actions, yet you can find no official document of the Church which teaches, instructs and admonishes us to molest teenage boys. That notwithstanding, the virulent anti-Catholic bigots in the media and population still continue to try to make the actions of a few stand for the teachings of the whole Church.

    It is pathetic, disgusting, and a sign of one who has run out of intellectual ammunition in an argument. Pejoratives do not win arguments.

    Bring up paperwork that shows that the ACORN leadership was complicit in this.

  2. M Kitt

    M KittGenius_badge said, about 1 month ago

    Wow, Irish, not only am I in full (nearly, for just this once) agreement with your’ comment, I’m impressed with your’ empathy toward an organization dedicated to equality and many of the values shared by the most selfless among the human race, targeted with one of the worst smear campaigns that corporate media can produce, braced to weather that storm.

    Suppose it had to happen sometime, who woulda thunk it would be ACORN, tho, that would inspire you this way. While I’m not religious, you’ve shown even ME that there’s some common ground to be found.

    Damned, man, you have my full respect for the rest of the day :-) You’ve earned it.

  3. HOWGOZIT

    HOWGOZIT said, about 1 month ago

    Thank goodness investigative reporting is not dead. If 60 minutes did this on Halliburton–oh wait…

  4. believecommonsense

    believecommonsenseGenius_badge said, about 1 month ago

    Asay goes over the top once again. Is he now blaming Pelosi, Reid and Obama for the actions taken in every Acorn office? Silly. Asay gets dumb and dumber.

    If anyone should have a finger pointed out them, it is the media. But then there’s only a couple of news organizations that bother with investigative journalism anymore, sadly.

  5. ahab

    ahabGenius_badge said, about 1 month ago

    Asay could study Oliphant a bit. His artistic ability is there but he falls way short on connecting ACORN to anyone but acorn itself. It’s not like outing a CIA agent.

  6. dtroutma

    dtroutma said, about 1 month ago

    The Democratic leadership is selling crack on the street corners! They’re working at the Bunny Ranch! They’re stomping grapes at Gallo to make wine! They’re lying about WMDs to start a war! Ooops! Wait a minute that was the entire Republican leadership, calling any deniers traitors.

    The argument trying to connect every evil to a little organization like acorn is like trying to say every cop in America is crooked because one guy gets busted in - pick a city.

    Acorn IS the Republican’s WMDs against the Dems, but it flies like a dodo.

    And yes, outing Joe Wilson’s wife-Valerie Plame (yes THAT Wilson-who told the truth) was TREASON from the VPs office. That shame IS the only capitol crime in the Constitution- think about it.

  7. believecommonsense

    believecommonsenseGenius_badge said, about 1 month ago

    dtrouma, yep, you are so very right. But sure didn’t upset that many folks, did it? Glad to know I’m not the only who feels some outrage about this!

  8. dsped

    dspedGenius_badge said, about 1 month ago

    It’s fascinating - over the past several years, whenever a leftist happened to point out bad elements in those organizations that rightists hold in high esteem (bad soldiers, bad cops, bad priests), the uproar was deafening that we were smearing those organizations as a whole.

    You couldn’t mention a soldier who’d raped or killed a civilian without bringing down upon on your head accusations that you hated the entire military, and America itself.

    Apparently the “individual bad elements aren’t necessarily representative of the entire structure” code of conduct doesn’t apply when certain rightists are looking for Obammo to use.

    (Obama + ammo = Obammo)

  9. nomad2112

    nomad2112 said, about 1 month ago

    Irish, you hold the trump card today ! ! !

  10. scottfreitas

    scottfreitasGenius_badge said, about 1 month ago

    ACORN has a 40-year-long track record of voter fraud, corruption, and abuse of taxpayer dollars.

    All they do to “help” people is to try and get everyone they possibly can to suck off of other people’s money. “Free” housing, welfare, etc etc

    No free nation can survive by allowing healthy, able-bodied people to leech off the fruits of others. You’d have to be insane to think a nation of “single mothers” could long endure, survive, prosper, or defend itself militarily.

    You people who support ACORN are corrupt to the core–haters of humanity. ACORN does nothing to help people, but everything to enslave them and make them into non-productive users.

  11. harleyquinn

    harleyquinnGenius_badge said, about 1 month ago

    If I went to 5 different churches and 5 different priest tried to feel me up. Then there is a problem and it does not start with the priest. The most shocking thing is not the guy who offered to help bring in the girls it was the acceptance the fakes got. When it was that easy, please if anything it shows a real oversight problem!

  12. countrymike

    countrymike said, about 1 month ago

    Comparing this to the catholic church scandel is spot on, but your conclusion is wrong. If i’m not mistaken in some of those instintces higher athorities in the curch new or had reason to beleive evil doing was going on and there response was to hide and cover up the problems. Honesty is always the best policy for good reasons. The same holds true here. The enitial reaction from acorn was to blame the investigation and fox for a blatent smear campain, poor judgement on the acorn higher ups, the correct response should have been “thank you for exposing some inicusable behavier and criminal actions within our organization, obviously this is iniscusable and a very thourgh review of all our officies is under way and we will cooperate with any local and federal offices who wish to investigate our practices.

  13. dsped

    dspedGenius_badge said, about 1 month ago

    I’m not actually comparing any scandals. I’m comparing right-wing reactions.

    When scandals happen in an organization they support (military, police, church, etc), they’re quick to claim it’s limited to a few bad apples.

    When they happen in an organization that leftists support, they’re equally quick to claim the entire organization is tainted.

    Yes, leftist partisans do the same thing in reverse.

  14. tizzo

    tizzo said, about 1 month ago

    The difference is that the “conservative” scandals you mentioned, military, police, church, are always fully investigated and always to in fact turn out to be isolated incidents of individuals acting on their own.

    ACORN, on the other hand, is an organization whose very purpose for existence is to circumvent the law to the benefit of liberal/progressive politicians. Incidences of voter registration fraud on their behalf are widespread both geographically and chronologically.

    And although it is a statistically small sample, the prostitution sting revealed a pattern of behavior at multiple locations in multiple cities.

    To cite another example, if even the allegations in the sexual abuse scandal surrounding the Catholic church had been anywhere near as widespread as the actual criminal activity documented on the part of ACORN, the church might have been deserving of the level of scorn it has drawn.

    Likewise, if Tailhook had happened in every branch, at any (or even a few) different similar events, we could start comparing. But the fact of the matter is that ACORN’s misdeeds, measured by sheer volume, are orders of magnitude greater than those committed by all of the actors in all of the conservative counterexamples you cite put together, and so far they have not suffered anywhere near the criticism or scorn heaped upon any one of those actors.

    It is also worth noting that the abuses in the various conservative scandals you mention are inherently personal, while the various ACORN scandals are inherently organizational. In other words, there is no possible benefit to be gained by the Catholic Church by promoting the sexual abuse of teenage boys, nor is there any benefit to the US military for promoting debauchery among the ranks.

    The benefit to ACORN from increasing the number of voters likely to vote for their ideological compatriots in public office, on the other hand, seems fairly obvious.

  15. michael

    michaelGenius_badge said, about 1 month ago

    The only reason why Fox News wants to make Acorn into a big story is:


    1. Acorn serves poor and black communities.

    2. Obama was once on a legal team for a lawsuit 20 years years involving Acorn.

    In terms of government money $3M/year is a pittance compared to the amount of money pumped into the Faith Based Initiative, and strangely enough the head of the Ohio department of the Faith Based Initiative (appointed by Bush) was arrested for pimping out a 17 year-old girl. Why shouldn’t Bush be embarrassed, and that scandal be a huge story?

    http://www.drudge.com/archive/116769/police-faith-based-official-ran

  16. harleyquinn

    harleyquinnGenius_badge said, about 1 month ago

    Even the Daily show guy was embarrassed. To paraphrase “even I am embarrassed and I am a fake news reporter!”

    But what can you expect from a politician and the media. They will step on the little guy who help them be put into power.

  17. ezdeb

    ezdeb said, about 1 month ago

    HQ is crying for ACORN because they’re little guys being stepped on?

    What is this world coming to?

    By the way, excellent posts on this thread today.

    I agree, Irish rocked it.

    Have a good thursday!

  18. Tigger

    TiggerGenius_badge said, about 1 month ago

    Yet Asay was deafly silent from 2001-2009 during the 8 years of the Failed policies of ‘W’ Go figure

  19. M Kitt

    M KittGenius_badge said, about 1 month ago

    Difficult to express how pleased I am that ACORN is a pain in the side of the right wing, I’ll be donating to them again this year, thank you all for inspiring me and keep it up.

    Wonder if this overblown response will eventually become a windfall for ACORN, people recognizing this Corporate media blitz for the witchhunt it’s always been.

    Again, keep up the GOP campaign, smearing your’ own credibility this way has always been good for the rest of us :-).

  20. IrishEddieOHara

    IrishEddieOHara said, about 1 month ago

    For those who disagree with my stance…..remember, all I am asking for is PROOF that the LEADERSHIP of ACORN is complicit in this latest scandal. Proof that they knew about such “counseling”, proof that they would approve such “counseling” and proof that they have instructed their minions to do the things that have been done.

    Remember, we are dealing with human beings here, and sometimes controlling the troops can be as hard as herding cats. It is apparent that ACORN hired a couple of women with the morals of an alley cat in heat. Does that mean the leadership of ACORN knew that these women were onboard and that they would do such “counseling”.

    If you guys on the right can prove this stuff, then please bring forth your proof that ACORN is top heavy corrupt and I will join you in condemning them.

  21. Howard McFann

    Howard McFannGenius_badge said, about 1 month ago

    Anotrher far-out Obama bashing editorial. What in the devil has Obama to do with the misfeasance of a couple of low level employees in ACORN? Be fair for once a week, at least.

  22. Howard McFann

    Howard McFannGenius_badge said, about 1 month ago

    Anotrher far-out Obama bashing editorial. What in the devil has Obama to do with the misfeasance of a couple of low level employees in ACORN? Be fair for once a week, at least

  23. dsped

    dspedGenius_badge said, about 1 month ago

    @ Tizzo: how these scandals eventually turn out is beside the point. I’m referring to the vast discrepancies partisans of all stripes show in applying the “innocent until proven guilty” principle when the scandals INITIALLY break.

    When the partisan disagrees ideologically with the organization in question, s/he is very likely to conclude the entire organization is rotten without giving the least benefit of a doubt.

    S/he’s equally likely to believe an organization that’s ideologically palatable can’t possibly be corrupt, that it has to be rogue elements.

  24. harleyquinn

    harleyquinnGenius_badge said, about 1 month ago

    WOW, I knew liberalism was deranged, but the pro ACORN on this board are defending child prostitution. I mean really “The catholic church blah blah blah” really? M Kitt a media GOP smear? how far out of it are you? This was done by two kids? And ACORN was more then happy to show it’s true colors.

  25. dsped

    dspedGenius_badge said, about 1 month ago

    ^Harley’s post demonstrates my point. He clearly disagrees ideologically with ACORN, and is thus quick to equate any support of the organization with support of offenses committed by individuals in it’s employ.

  26. M Kitt

    M KittGenius_badge said, about 1 month ago

    And, Dsped, he’s got a REALLY short memory related to treatment of Acorn over the years, selective I’d say.

    When Dems/Libs complained across at least 2 election cycles about rigged black box voting machines the right wing’s counter was to place blame for vote miscounts on Acorn, an accusation that to this day has never panned out.

    What they’ll not mention is that the ACTUAL problem was with voter -registration- that never translated into actual votes, no one ever showed up at a polling place and tried to vote using “Bullwinkle” or “Mickey Mouse” ID’s, as the GOP knows full well. Permanent employees were not involved either, just temporary hires.

    So what we have is a connivance of GOP Corporate media to spoil what’s still essentially an outstanding track record for Acorn over tens of years that finally led to this instance of misbehavior among (still temporary) Acorn employees, the right wing loyalists like HQ crowing about it as if it’s a GOP Senator caught doing something in a bathroom stall.

    But HQ denies any kind of witchhunt, right?

    Wonder what GOP would have done if the Supreme Court had been 5-4 in favor of the Dems in 2000 and Al Gore had been placed in office, would we have had posters of him as Hitler? Armed protesters? Accusations that he wasn’t really Catholic, a “closet” Muslim?

    The essential difference is that “fringe” left wing groups aren’t either violent or militant, hate groups thrive among the GOP tho.

  27. stebon

    stebon said, about 1 month ago

    If we had an adversarial press as we once did, ACORN would never have gotten beyond Cook county where they were instrumental in initiating the collapse of the mortgage industry.

    Read Beck’s new book; learn something–especially you, M Kitt.

  28. dsped

    dspedGenius_badge said, about 1 month ago

    @M Kitt: ACORN has 1200 neighborhood chapters and almost half a million members. By virtue of it’s size, it’s practically guaranteed to have at least some corruption in it’s ranks, just as with any similarly or larger sized organization. That’s just human nature and the laws of probability.

    With that in mind, and reviewing the various scandals that have arisen, there has been presented nowhere near enough evidence that there is SYSTEMIC corruption in the organization.

  29. M Kitt

    M KittGenius_badge said, about 1 month ago

    If W hadn’t mandated that Federal lending practices be ignored, Stebon, those sub-primes wouldn’t have crashed our housing market, along with his failure to enforce regulation of his Wall Street interests and Corporate buddies with no bid War Profiteering contracts, declaring pre-emptive war, rendition, and all the other fine benchmarks he left the rest of us to deal with.

    Stebon hasn’t countered anything I’ve said about Acorn’s track record or the confluence of Corporate Media to smear them, his reference to Beck is consistent with that, in fact.

    GOP has never answered up for the Supreme Court decision either, and can’t. Again accusations against Acorn are their counter “look everyone, see what the Dems are doing” is what the Fox Disinformation network carries, along with Beck, Limbaugh, Savage, ad nauseum.

    The black box hoodwink will no doubt be used again at some point, just a matter of time since the right wing’s bag of tricks isn’t really very creative.

    Corporate GOP at it’s finest.

  30. M Kitt

    M KittGenius_badge said, about 1 month ago

    Agreed, Dsped.

    Acorn can’t possibly control the actions of every person in every chapter of every district, particularly when they’re forced to hire temps to compensate for how thinly they’re stretched (this especially applies at election time.)

    The right wing sought out this flaw to take advantage of it, as I’ve stated, these few incidents are being used to smear what is otherwise a more than commendable track record, better by far than the recent GOP congressional record (sexual misconduct, anyone?)