Anita MonCrief is a blogger and writer in Washington, DC. She attended the University of Alabama where she majored in political science and history. She was one of the founding members of the Alabama Model United Nations, a team that was ranked in the Top Ten in the Southeast. Anita has even traveled to Canada to promote understanding of the United Nations System.
Anita has worked with the American Bar Association’s Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative (ABA CEELI), where she assisted with the creation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Assessment Index.
Anita has also worked with the International Crisis Group, the Grameen Foundation and Project Vote/ACORN. Anita has partnered with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe on their mission to Macedonia as an election observer. In 2005, she joined the Strategic Writing and Research Department of ACORN Political Operations and its affiliate Project Vote.
In 2008 Anita came forward to expose the damage that ACORN has done to the impoverished and marginalized communities, as well as its rampant voter fraud, and gained notoriety as the ACORN whistle blower.
Anita MonCrief
‘The People United Will Never be Defeated’: Inside ACORN’s Community Organizing Model
by Anita MonCriefAs ACORN pretends to “dissolve” around the country, internally, there appears to be a mad dash to get out ahead of prosecution. Not surprisingly, ACORN has a history of shutting offices down when an investigation gets too close. For example, in 2004 ACORN’s affiliate Project Vote abruptly closed its national office in Ohio and shipped boxes stuffed with un-cashed checks and paperwork to Washington, DC.
ACORN appears to have honed these tricks and has now decided to re-brand on a national scale. However, given its history, many are skeptical:
“If you want to see whether ACORN is really changing its ways, check to see whether the signatories to those local ACORN bank accounts are changing. When it comes to ACORN, the money is the organization, and the name is just the name.”
In order to operate effectively, ACORN requires little public scrutiny and a lot of lore and misdirection (think registering Mickey Mouse to vote). For 40 years ACORN’s organizing model has survived social revolutions and political upheavals and to understand ACORN a review of the 1970’s “manifesto” of ACORN founder Wade Rathke is essential.
Acorn Organizing Model
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Inside ACORN’S Political Plans: Ensuring a Democrat Majority
by Anita MonCrief
According to a report from Ohio today, a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has asked the ACORN-tainted Ohio Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, to investigation ACORN’s voter registration work in the state.
“U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan has formally asked Ohio’s secretary of state to look into allegations that ACORN had at least a preliminary plan to back Democrat candidates in key Ohio congressional races in 2008.”
The political plan was described in an October article as “having been scaled back,” and of course, ACORN denied any partisan activity.
“But to some, ACORN’s early 13-page plan for the 2008 election reinforces what critics always assumed: The group’s goal was never nonpartisan. The political plan and other ACORN documents show that the group was interested not just in helping presidential candidate Barack Obama, whom it urged its members to support, according to post-election Federal Election Commission reports. ACORN also was interested in Congress and the Ohio Statehouse.
“There’s no question that ACORN strategized to figure out how its election efforts could maximize the benefit for selected Democratic candidates in the most competitive races,” U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa of California told The Plain Dealer. “
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Obama’s ACORN Connection Can’t Survive Inspection
by Anita MonCriefMedia Matters continues to try to provide cover for the public flogging ACORN has received as a result of investigative videos which showed ACORN employees giving advice on a number of illegal activities including human trafficking, child prostitution, bank fraud, illegal immigration and tax evasion. Meanwhile, the mainstream media has largely ignored a growing scandal that cannot be contained: ACORN is reportedly closing offices across the country, including the site of the DC undercover videotape.
Also, today another damning ACORN tape was released at Big Government. This time an ACORN member openly confessed to ACORN using non-partisan voter registration to secretly produce Obama votes.
Anyone paying attention knows accusations relating to voter registration fraud, illicit partisan activity and other chicanery often have been made against ACORN, with ACORN either denying all or any ACORN fault. In October of 2008, I testified in Pennsylvania regarding the illegal coordination between Barack Obama’s Campaign and ACORN:
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New York 23: ACORN expected to Protest Election Results Tomorrow in Clinton County
by Anita MonCrief
Multiple sources on the ground in New York’s 23rd Congressional district confirm that ACORN is expected to be actively protesting the election results in Clinton County, New York tomorrow. This move comes on the heels of a legal win for the Hoffman camp today as it was ruled that all poll watchers would have to be registered voters of NY 23.
Rob Ryan, spokesman for the Hoffman campaign, states that the legal decision is all about ballot security and that the move by ACORN is not a surprise.
“The Working Family Party is desperate, Today’s poll show that Doug Hoffman is drawing votes from all Demographics”.
While the focus tomorrow will be on securing a win for Hoffman, Ryan says there are still worries about:
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Bertha Lewis and the Campaign to DeFox America
by Anita MonCrief
Bertha Lewis of ACORN appears to be tired of losing arguments, credibility, and government funding. With her “colleagues” at the White House behind her and the memory of being forced off her talking points fresh in her mind, Bertha Lewis strikes back.
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From the Archives II: ACORN Corruption Runs Deep
by Anita MonCriefIn politics the media seems to have a tier system for how they report on scandals. Republicans who fall from grace are vilified. They are the butts of countless inappropriate jokes and cartoons and expected never to be heard from again. Recent right scandals (examples, Governor Mark Sanford and Mark Foley) dominated the news, but, besides Fox News, the media barely covered Obama adviser Van Jones or delved deeply into the dealings of Louisiana Congressman William Jefferson.
Unfortunately for America, the media has been filtering news for years and this practice has allowed some of the main figures in the Teamstergate scandal to assume top spots in the Democrat party. Part 1 of this series reviewed the history of the scandal and its strong ties to ACORN and President Obama. In order to help readers fully appreciate the connections, I discuss below some of the major players in the Teamstergate saga who were named in indictments and a Congressional report on in a scheme that reached all the way into the White House.
The Congressional report, on Teamstergate, reached a number of damning conclusions that implicated organizations like Project Vote and Citizen Action. It also raised a number of questions about campaign finance and “soft money” donations. Something that ACORN seemed concerned with as detailed in a spring blog post here. Were these questions raised by ACORN political director Zach Polett a result of the following statement in the Congressional report:
The issue of soft money abuses is inevitably tied to the question of how access to political figures is obtained through large contributions of soft money. It is also tied to the question of how tax-exempt organizations have been used to hide the identities of soft money donors. A system that permits large contributions to be made for partisan purposes, without public disclosure, invites subversion of the intent of our election law limitations.
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From the Archives: ACORN Corruption Runs Deep
by Anita MonCriefIn what obviously was part of a concerted effort, former President Bill Clinton appeared recently on Sunday’s Meet the Press to discuss – wait for it – the “real” forces behind President Obama’s falling poll numbers and increasing opposition:
Former President Bill Clinton says the right-wing conspiracy that attacked him during his presidency now is after President Obama.
Democrats–no strangers to major scandal–do not hesitate to divert attention away from the corruption and “pay to play” tactics being exposed or simmering just under the surface. Clinton deliberately inserted himself into a critically important national debate and thereby unwisely opened the tomb of similar scandals, potentially more explosive than his unwise dalliances with Monica Lewinsky.
For most of the 1990’s, the White House, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Citizen Action and ACORN’s Project Vote were embroiled in what would become known as “Teamstergate.”
That scandal involved disgraced former union crusader and Teamster national president Ron Carey. According to New York Times Archives:
Three of Mr. Carey’s campaign aides have pleaded guilty to a web of illegal fund-raising schemes, including having the union donate $735,000 to three liberal grass-roots groups for a get-out-the-vote effort during the 1996 Congressional elections. In return, those groups and their supporters were to channel money to Mr. Carey’s re-election campaign…
Insisting that he delegated decisions on political gifts, Mr. Carey repeatedly denied knowing about the large donations to the three liberal groups: Citizen Action, Project Vote and the National Council of Senior Citizens.
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ACORN and SEIU: Anatomy of a Shakedown
by Anita MonCriefAcross America community organizations operate in impoverished, disadvantaged, low-income or minority communities. No matter the phrase used to describe the special interest, a group exists to represent it. Often these organizations initially have good intentions and seek to give back and serve the community in which they operate. When government money, power and influence become part of the equation however, lofty principles tend to fall by the wayside. Other organizations are created to cause chaos and disrupt the system.
The Association for Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) was perceived by many as a well-intended organization, but it appears that the association that Wade Rathke founded was increasingly driven to cause chaos and disrupt the system whenever it could.
BEFORE the Dale Rathke embezzlement finally became last year, John Fund, in “Grapes of Rathke: ACORN, a liberal activist group, comes under scrutiny. About time,” reported: (more…)
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