The New York Times reported today that long-suffering Brooklyn homeowner Daniel Goldstein has finally been forced out by the state’s eminent domain abuse in the Atlantic Yards case. And the paper turned to ACORN chief Bertha Lewis for some gloating commentary:

Bertha Lewis, a housing advocate who supported the project, bid Mr. Goldstein “good riddance.”

“Low- and moderate-income people had to wait years for housing while he obstructed the Atlantic Yards project,” she said.

Of course, Lewis is much more than just a “housing advocate who supported the project,” she was the CEO of ACORN, a group that signed a contract with Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner “to publicly support the [Atlantic Yards] Project by, among other things, appearing with the Developer before the Public Parties, community organizations and the media as part of a coordinated effort to realize and advance the Project.” In return, Ratner pledged to include a certain amount of “affordable housing” in the project, units that ACORN stood to make a fortune from marketing and managing. As the New York Post reported, “Anita MonCrief, a former ACORN official-turned-whistleblower, estimates the anticipated deal could bring the group $5 million to $10 million annually over multiple years.”

And the money didn’t stop there.

In 2008 Ratner bailed ACORN out to the tune of $1.5 million dollars after the news broke that Dale Rathke, brother of ACORN founder Wade Rathke, had embezzled nearly $1 million from the group back in 2000 and the national leadership had covered the crime up for eight years. The financial fallout from that scandal threatened to ruin ACORN until Ratner stepped in with a $1 million load and a $500,000 grant. This desperately-needed cash kept ACORN alive and allowed it to keep providing cover for Ratner’s corporate welfare and eminent domain abuse.

So if it wasn’t for Bruce Ratner’s taxpayer-subsidized bribes and handouts, we would’ve bid good riddance to ACORN long ago. Apparently the New York Times didn’t think any of that context was important to the story.

ACORN founder Wade Rathke has been gloating on his blog about the recent arrest of James O’Keefe in Rathke’s hometown of New Orleans.

Andrew Breitbrat and his www.biggovernment.com site stopped pretending that James O’Keefe, bungler-in-charge, was not his boy, and realized that he needed to stop shouting and start ‘splaining.

Breitbrat?  Zing!  How adult of you, Wade.

Similarly, current ACORN chief organizer Bertha Lewis issued a statement upon the news:

The recent arrest of James O’Keefe, is further evidence of his disregard for the law in pursuit of his extremist agenda. From the day that O’Keefe’s undercover “sting” videos came out, ACORN leadership pledged accountability for its own staff while pointing out that the videos had been shot illegally and edited deceptively in order to undermine the work of an organization that has empowered working families for four decades.

It’s as if O’Keefe’s problem somehow is vindication for the corrupt web of organizations she oversees.

Bad news, Bertha: it’s not.

Regardless of what O’Keefe and his friends did or didn’t do, the facts remain: ACORN has been accused of voter registration fraud in multiple states, and its Nevada trial is set to begin this spring. The government’s star witness in that case is a former ACORN employee.

Several ACORN employees gave dubious tax and housing advice to a couple posing as a pimp and a prostitute, with much of it caught on camera.  Their actions were shameful and the case could be made, I believe, should the government want to pursue one (which it apparently decided not to), that ACORN staffers were providing tips to defraud the IRS and HUD.  They were also caught aiding people who supposedly were attempting to smuggle underage girls into the United States for nefarious purposes.

Meanwhile, several former ACORN employees and national board members have leveled serious accusations against the group, including being loose with its taxpayer-provided resources and allowing those resources  to be comingled with political funds.

Much more can be found in the report issued by Congressman Darryll Issa (R-CA), the ranking Republican member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

I suppose in ACORN’s world, where morals and ethics are all relative, Bertha might have a case.  But in the real world of average, law-abiding citizens, the organization is plainly corrupt.

And the reality is, ACORN was set on a course of corruption and sleight-of-hand tactics by Wade Rathke – the man that has the gall to criticize James O’Keefe.  It was Rathke that held virtually everything close to the vest and out of the reach of other ACORN leaders, including financial books and organizational charts.

If it wasn’t for Rathke and his – dare I say – poor organizational skills, there would not have been anything for James O’Keefe to expose in the first place.

Real Estate Tycoon Bruce Ratner and ACORN's Bertha Lewis

To get his way, Ratner turned to his buddies in big government, specifically the Empire State Development Corporation, a controversial state agency with the power to bypass zoning laws and seize private property via eminent domain. In other words, this is a classic case of eminent domain abuse. Ratner isn’t building a bridge or a tunnel or any other legitimate public project that might justify the forceful taking of private property by the state. He wants to build a basketball arena, sell tickets to the games (not to mention broadcast rights, concessions, and luxury boxes), and collect a big fat profit.

So what in the world is ACORN, a self-described champion of “social and economic justice” and “low- and moderate-income people” doing in bed with a shady corporate powerbroker like Bruce Ratner? Let’s follow the money.

In May 2005, ACORN entered into a contract with Ratner “to publicly support the [Atlantic Yards] Project by, among other things, appearing with the Developer before the Public Parties, community organizations and the media as part of a coordinated effort to realize and advance the Project.” As ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis admitted to an interviewer from Regional Labor Review, ACORN provides Ratner with “political cover–let’s face it.”

In exchange for this “political cover,” which has included large numbers of noisy ACORN members present at every Atlantic Yards public hearing, press conference, and media event–including an August 2006 event trumpeting “community support” for the project where Bertha Lewis acted as MC–Ratner pledged to include 2,250 units of “affordable housing” in the project. ACORN in turn plans to market these units, screen applicants, and oversee a housing lottery to fill the vacancies. And as the New York Post has learned, ACORN expects to make a fortune doing so. According to the Post, “Anita MonCrief, a former ACORN official-turned-whistleblower, estimates the anticipated deal could bring the group $5 million to $10 million annually over multiple years.” Not too shabby for providing Ratner with a little “political cover” while his allies in the government seize private property on his behalf.

And the cash doesn’t stop there. In May 2008, the news broke that Dale Rathke, brother of ACORN founder Wade Rathke, had embezzled nearly $1 million from the organization back in 2000. And as the New York Times reported, this crime had been “concealed by senior executives until a whistle-blower told a foundation leader about it in May.” That’s eight years of concealment by senior ACORN executives, a deeply disturbing scandal that scared away donors, dried up support, and, combined with ACORN’s notorious tax troubles, threatened to ruin the organization financially.

Thankfully for ACORN, Bruce Ratner was right there to bail them out. In September 2008, Ratner rescued his “political cover” with a $1 million loan and a $500,000 grant. This desperately-needed cash has allowed ACORN to continue providing bogus “community” support for Ratner’s corporate welfare agenda.

With New York’s highest court set to rule any day now on this shameless act of eminent domain abuse, the folks at ACORN must be getting a little nervous about all those millions they stand to lose. As Bertha Lewis recently told Crain’s New York Business, “I’ll fight to the death to get this project done.” Let’s hope the court spares her the trouble by striking down the Atlantic Yards–and severing ACORN’s lifeline to Bruce Ratner along with it.

1)What do you think of the tea parties?

It’s important to note that I wasn’t asking about political philosophy or personal preference, but rather as an organizing philosophy.

Rathke is impressed by their ability to organize. As an organizing phenomenon, the tea parties are effective and, as an organizer, Wade Rathke believes they took advantage of a vacuum, stepped in, and filled a void that the president never saw coming. Rathke once referred to the tea party movement as “tea baggers”. He did this only once. He never really took any pot shots at them besides this and so I don’t know that this was a deliberate dig.

Rathke did, however, also point out that often the tea parties fail basic organizing principles.

Far too often, screen shots, photos, and videos show angry people, people yelling, and faces that portray meanness. That’s not the image you want in organizing. As Rathke told me, “the more angry you are, the calmer you have to look”. In organizing, Rathke is always very aware of how a crowd will appear in newspapers, on television, and in photos. This is something he stresses at all times in organizing protests. Portraying anger, in his opinion, turns off more people than it attracts.

Conservatives can dismiss this criticism but they’ll do it at their peril. I processed this as Rathke, not the political opponent, but Rathke the schooled community organizer offering an opinion based on experience. There is a lot of anger portrayed at tea party rallies and that’s what often winds up on television. Image is everything and Rathke, the organizer, understands this.

2) What do you think of conservatives demonizing the SEIU protests of the American Banking Association while lionizing the tea parties?

This is something I have found peculiar myself. When I thought this question up, I thought it was a red meat question for Rathke. He didn’t necessarily react quite as ideologically as I thought.

Rathke simply said that protests are totally legitimate. He said that SEIU has been criticizing the banks for a while. The latest protest was no different than protests they’ve done before. Rathke didn’t take the bait to take a series of potshots at his political opponents to exploit the hypocrisy of folks that lionize one set of protests while demonizing another set of protests. Protests are something that Rathke has engaged in his entire career and he told me that he has no problem with anyone conducting a protest for any issue as that’s something he’s done his whole life.

3) What do you think of conservatives attacking Saul Alinsky all while using his tactics?

Rathke told me he often receives “strange emails” both from folks he knows and doesn’t know that brag about how they have used one Alinsky tactic or another on LIBERALS. This he finds to be delicious irony.

On the issue of Saul Alinsky, he told me that all organizers owe at least some inspiration to Saul Alinsky. Saul Alinsky was able to drive imagination for idealistic youth. He showed people like Wade Rathke that community organizing can be a profession, a calling, and a way of life. It wasn’t something his high school guidance counselor ever told him was possible. Far more than anything he did as an organizer, Saul Alinsky inspired with words, speeches, and several books.

4) How do you build rapport as a white guy in a place like the Dominican Republic, India, etc. Wade Rathke now runs Community Organizations International, a world organizing organization.

I was curious about this because I thought that he goes through a long and arduous process in acclimating himself to new cultures and customs. Instead, I got an education in Rathke’s experience, confidence, and skill as an organizer.

He told me that building rapport, for him, in India, the D.R, or any foreign land is no different than building rapport as a young organizer in the African American neighborhoods of Massachusetts. Wade Rathke is a six foot white guy and that won’t change, but when he goes into any neighborhood he offers the community a “set of skills to build their voice”. He seeks leaders. Most importantly, “it’s not about me, it’s about finding leaders in the community”.

5)What advice would you give current ACORN leadership?

Rathke wanted to stay away from giving advice to the current leadership. He didn’t want to be one of those folks that sat on the sidelines and told his former organization how to run things. In a broad sense, he told that me that ACORN needs to “deeply embed yourself in the community”. Show the community “why you’re valuable”. ACORN is most effective as the grassroots organization that is able to get on the street, build rapport with the community, and identify their problems. In short, go back to the basics of organizing.

6)Did he, in leading ACORN, follow the philosophy of Cloward/Piven and how does this philosophy differ from his Maximum effective participation strategy?

This was suggested to me be a fellow reporter. In fact, I wasn’t totally familiar with either and to be totally frank, Rathke went above my head.

Rathke told me that Cloward/Piven was a strategy for a time and place, the late 1960’s. It focused on welfare rights. It was focused and myopic. As the world has evolved, the strategy has become outdated. At the time, the federal government spent a lot more resources on urban renewal. There are no more race riots.

His own maximum effective participation strategy is much more expansive and in his opinion follows for the times.

In fact, Rathke was being very diplomatic in his description of Cloward/Piven. I spoke with several individuals involved in organizing following the interview. Cloward/Piven is in fact, at least according to them, a way of organizing welfare recipients to demand more and more entitlements until the capitalistic system breaks. What it really is, is a way of reaching the poor. It’s important that without poor there are no rich. Everything is relative. Poor are given all sorts of reasons for why they have a station in life. In this philosophy, the system is blamed for their station in life and you attack the system.

In the view of one, Rathke is more expansive in that he wants to apply a similar philosophy to the world.

On this note, Wade Rathke told me that he’s never met, never known, and has had no contact with Bill Ayers. There are all sorts of rumors, internet and otherwise, that put the two of them together in the 1960’s and the present. Rathke told me categorically that he doesn’t know William Ayers.

6) Did he feel any responsibility for the current travails of ACORN?

Rathke really didn’t feel any personal responsibility for the current problems at ACORN. To put it in Rathke’s words, “if this happened 30 days after I left that would be one thing, but this happened a year and a half later”. He told me he worries about ACORN often. He is saddened and disturbed by their disintegration but he doesn’t necessarily feel any personal responsibility for their current problems.

7) Are the attacks on ACORN legitimate or mostly ideologically based?

He said that without question ACORN has brought many of its problems on itself. He wasn’t going to pretend as though they’d done nothing wrong and that the attackers had no legitimate claims to make. That said there was a certain “neo McCarthyist” streak to the attacks. In his mind, there’s no question that ACORN was being singled out because, “ACORN is the single most effective community organization that works on behalf of the poor and middle class in the country”.

For this, I followed up with another question?

8)If it is ideological, how do you process the likes of former ACORN employee Greg Hall and the ACORN 8 making the same claims. Both Hall and ACORN 8 believe in ACORN’s mission. Surely, you can’t dismiss their criticism to ideology.

Rathke first dealt with Greg Hall. He said he doesn’t know who he is. (Hall is a former ACORN organizer) At any given time, ACORN will send out between six and twelve thousand W2’s in a given year. So, if one individual is unhappy, that’s not something he can speak to.

As for ACORN 8, he told me that within the ACORN board, two factions began to form. There was the “administrative party”. That was lead by Maude Hurd, current President of ACORN. Then, there was the “dissident faction”. That was lead by Marcel Reid and Karen Inman (for full disclosure, I’ve interviewed both), both currently in ACORN 8. The dissidents were caught in a philosophical battle with the administrative wing that started in 2007 and even 2006. They saw the direction of ACORN differently from the administrative wing. In his view, their disagreements are rooted in these philosophical battles.

It was at this point of the interview that I was most exhilarated. The answer was brilliant both in its genius and in its diabolical nature. I knew exactly what Rathke was attempting to do and I was still impressed even as he was doing it. In his own smooth silky manner, Rathke painted the ACORN 8 as ideologues. They aren’t conservative ideologues that see ACORN as bad. Rather they are philosophical ideologues that see the direction of ACORN as wrong and thus their disagreements are rooted in that philosophical split.

Of course, several members of ACORN 8 I spoke with afterwards found this to be, well, hog wash. One said, “what about the embezzlement“…alluding to the million dollar embezzlement by Wade’s brother Dale. Another said that if they are “ideologues”, it’s ideologues that want to see ACORN return to its original mission of helping the poor. If there was a philosophical split, it’s as both told me that they believed that ACORN was no longer helping the poor. It’s the corruption that they saw that was the philosophical split.

Epilogue:

Without speaking to Rathke, it’s really impossible to describe just how pleasant he is. That’s the best description for his demeanor and manner. This is extremely important. His pleasant nature is almost hypnotic. After speaking to him, there’s absolutely no doubt why he’s so effective. It’s damn near impossible to not like Wade Rathke after speaking to him for more than an hour. That makes him effective and also potentially very dangerous, depending on his intentions. It also makes him a lot more complicated than his political opponents would like to turn him into. He’s not anything like the political caricature that opponents make of him. One individual described him to me as “diabolical” and that’s why I thought of the word when he was answering my question, and if that’s really so, he’s also dangerous. He is under no circumstances to be underestimated. Whatever Wade Rathke is, one thing is for sure and that is that he is newsworthy.

Wade Rathke would like to turn his organizing philosophy into an organization that organizes throughout the world. At one time, his organization was an organization of one, Wade Rathke. He grew that organization into a political, organizing, media, and cultural force that has become a polarizing organization in large part because of its effectiveness. Make no mistake, he is capable of doing it. If he does it right, the conservative ideologues  of the world will criticize. If he does it wrong, it will unleash a web of corruption that will interlock the globe and span continents. That makes what Wade Rathke will do going a forward a story that everyone should follow.

Here’s part I of the interview.

Stay tuned for part III.

“We’re looking for corporate records and financial documents” states Investigator Scott Bailey; which are essentially the same things the ACORN 8 sought nearly 18 months ago. “We also wanted ACORN real estate records” states Marcel Reid, President of ACORN 8.

“We sent letters to the entire ACORN Board of Directors nearly a year ago, stating that it was either provide this information through the ACORN 8’s Writ of Mandamus (request for books and records) or we were going to go to the Police” continues Reid.

“It could not have happened at a better time” states Michael McCray, National Spokesman for the ACORN 8. “We believe that ACORN is trying to flee this jurisdiction. Since Louisiana seems to be the only government agency that is seriously investigating ACORN.”

“If ACORN hopes to survive then the know nothing, see nothing, do nothing board of directors must by replaced by individuals with the strength and capabilities to fulfill their fiduciary obligations and the courage to reign in corruption within ACORN’s senior management ranks” continues Reid.

“ACORN as we know it today is finished.  It’s a 40 year old business model that never adopted to changing political times or new technology” McCray continues, “and a do nothing board of directors can not operate such a high-profile multi-national corporation.”

ACORN is still reeling after a barrage of bad press and negative government reaction following undercover videos of “pimps and prostitutes” seeking ACORN assistance; and is desperately struggling to remove itself from this legal imbroglio.

In a letter that ACORN Attorney Schwartz sent to “ACORN Friend’s in the Legal Community” stating, “We need some top-notch bankruptcy advice and maybe representation. The reorganization may involve the creation of new nonprofit entities in each state where ACORN functions, as ACORN considers moving from a centralized corporate structure to a decentralized federated structure. ACORN will need help from people who have handled rebranding …”

“That’s like putting lipstick on chitterlings” states McCray, “If ACORN was afraid of the independent audit and forensic examination which  eight ACORN board members demanded; I can’t imagine what they will do once a U.S. Bankruptcy Trustee is appointed to investigate ACORN.”

“The ACORN 8 have always sought a forensic examination and an independent audit of ACORN and its related entities. And we were thrown off the board for attempting to investigate a $1 Million embezzlement” continues Reid.

Recently, Eric Eve senior vice president of Global Consumer Group, Community Relations, at Citigroup also unexpectedly resigned from the ACORN Advisory Council. The “new” board charged with assisting Bertha Lewis, ACORN Chief Organizer to investigate and reorganize ACORN. This advisory council includes John Podesta, head of the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank; Andrew Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union; and former Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend.

“ACORN’s organizational structure and management culture creates real conflicts for anyone who truly seeks to exercise their fiduciary obligations for the benefit of the membership and not just to appease management” concludes Reid.

While not everyone has always approved of ACORN’s confrontational tactics, many know some of the impressive results achieved for poor people over the years. Living wage laws to fight poverty. Partnership with unions to assist workers. Housing programs to get Americans one step closer to the American dream. Those are real, tangible victories that improve people’s lives.

“We just only hope and pray that ACORN’s  mission to serve the underserved, and give meaningful voice to low and moderate income families can continue” states McCray. The ACORN 8 is dedicated to doing just that. Quoting the late Senator Edward Kennedy, an ardent ACORN supporter, McCray concludes “the work goes on, the cause endures, hope still lives, and the dream will never die.”

Photo from Big Government Contributor Kevin Kane

In a fast-breaking development comes word that agents of the Attorney’s General office in Louisiana have raided ACORN’s offices in New Orleans. ACORN’s New Orleans was, for decades, the headquarters of the national community organizing association. News of the raid comes from Marcel Reid and her colleagues at ACORN 8, an association of former ACORN leaders and board members. Many of the individuals involved with ACORN 8 were fired from ACORN for demanding a forensic audit following an embezzlement scandal involving Dale Rathke, brother of ACORN co-founder Wade Rathke.

.

Update: Big Government has contacted the Louisiana Attorney’s General office. We are told that all of the press officers are “out to lunch” right now. We have been promised a return call later this afternoon.

According to NOLA.com:

Attorney General Buddy Caldwell has served a search warrant at the ACORNoffice at 2609 Canal Street, according to Tammi Arender Herring, a spokeswoman with the office.

Investigators in khaki pants and polo shirts loaded several dozen computers and other electronic items into an SUV. They are also carrying records out of the building on handcarts.

The large office building sits at the corner of Dorgenois and Canal. ACORN staffers were given no notice that a search would be conducted today, Herring said.

Whole story here.

From WDAM in New Orleans:

Caldwell said investigators will copy records and hard drives, then return them to ACORN.

He said the original allegations of embezzlement were made last year by ACORN board members who were fired after they asked for a forensic examination of the group’s books.

ACORN fired the longtime director of its Louisiana chapter last month, citing a lack of accountability.

Whole story here.

Big Government readers may remember that the ‘longtime director’ ACORNS’s LA chapter is Beth Butler, longtime companion/wife of ACORN co-founder Wade Rathke.

This new $5 million revelation was posted just days after ACORN founder and the embezzler’s brother Wade Rathke nonchalantly explained his reasons for the embezzlement cover-up to Megyn Kelly on Fox News:

“Because we made a decision that between restitution and retribution, that restitution was more in the interest of the [ACORN] organization and that decision was unanimous.”  

Chicago’s SEIU Local 880’s sent Dale Rathke its books

 After ACORN’s internal “discovery” of the embezzlement, ACORN Founder, SEIU Local 100 officer, and SEIU International Board member Wade Rathke took charge of SEIU Local 880’s books.  Dale Rathke’s name has been replaced with Wade Rathke’s name on Local 880’s original 2002 Department of Labor LM-2 union financial disclosure report, pictured below. 

After the ACORN embezzlement became public knowledge in 2007, SEIU Local 880’s 2002 union financial report, the form LM-2 pictured below, was resubmitted to the U.S. Department of Labor on May 16, 2007.  This is about five years after the original 2002 report that was filed by ACORN chieftain Wade Rathke.

That 2007 amended filing by SEIU 880 allows federal investigators to open up SEIU 880’s 2002 financial records for a federal investigation.  The two trustees who signed the 2007 submission of the SEIU 880 2002 LM-2 are criminally liable for any false statements made on the report.

When the Wade Rathke version of SEIU Local 880’s LM-2 2002 union financial report was amended in 2007, curious differences appeared.  The amended 2002 report filed in 2007 shows a drop of about $500,000 in membership dues from the original filing ($3,032,338 compared to the original filing of $3,525,995 of dues received.)  This should raise some eyebrows.

Unfortunately, the Obama Administration has gutted the small office that investigates labor union embezzlements at the Department of Labor (see related story).

Since we now know that Dale Rathke was in charge of SEIU Local 880’s financial records and we know his brother Wade decided to cover-up the embezzlement as he took control of SEIU Local 880’s books, then it seems reasonable that Department of Labor investigators would want to make certain that Wade Rathke did everything by the book. 

Would an investigation expose a more elaborate relationship between SEIU and ACORN? Can there ever be a full accounting of their books?

Don’t hold your breath and expect Obama’s Labor Department to act.  With the President’s close personal relationship to ACORN and SEIU, we may start hearing demands that an independent special prosecutor be appointed to deconstruct the ACORN-SEIU-Obama Administration web.

Below are the first pages of the two 2002 union financial reports (click on images for the full reports):

Received at the U.S. Department on 6/23/2003.

 

 

 

 

 

In 2007, the books were redone:

Received at the U.S. Department on 5/16/2007.