A federal appeals court on Friday threw out a decision that had barred Congress from withholding funds from ACORN, the activist group driven to ruin by scandal and financial woes.

The ruling by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan reversed a decision by a district court judge in Brooklyn that found Congress had violated the group’s rights by punishing it without a trial.

Congress cut off ACORN’s federal funding last year in response to allegations the group engaged in voter registration fraud and embezzlement and violated the tax-exempt status of some of its affiliates by engaging in partisan political activities.

Fueling the outrage was a video that caught three employees allegedly advising a couple posing as a prostitute and her boyfriend to lie about her profession and launder her earnings.

ACORN responded with a lawsuit accusing Congress of abusing its power with what amounted to a “corporate death sentence.”

The appeals court disagreed, citing a study finding that ACORN received only 10 percent of its funding from federal sources.

“We doubt that the direct consequences of the appropriations laws temporarily precluding ACORN from federal funds were so disproportionately severe or so inappropriate as to constitute punishment,” the three-judge panel wrote.

The Center for Constitutional Rights, which argued on behalf of ACORN, said it was considering asking the appeals court to rehear the case with more judges.

Read the whole thing here.

I will leave it to my colleagues at Big Journalism to give the proper attention this article is due. However, in building their ideological case, the authors point to certain “facts” about stories that first appeared here, which necessitates a few words here.

In discussing the recent Shirley Sherrod imbroglio, the authors write that Breitbart,

did not quite own up to the seriousness of the error he committed – posting a video misleadingly edited to make it appear that a black Agriculture Department named Shirley Sherrod was boasting of discriminating against a white farmer.

We did not edit, much less misleadingly edit, any of Ms. Sherrod’s remarks. We posted two excerpts from her speech, representing the sum total of the video we had. We didn’t cut anything out of her speech. Is any news organization in the future who only posts excerpts from a speech vulnerable to the charge that it “misleadingly edited” it?

At the very end of one of the video excerpt’s, Ms. Sherrod begins to explain how she later realized her initial discrimination of the white farmer was wrong. In Andrew’s article about the speech he  noted

Eventually, her basic humanity informs that this white man is poor and needs help.

If we were trying to show that Ms. Sherrod was “boasting” of discrimination and were prone to editing the tape as evidence, wouldn’t we have cut that part out? Wouldn’t we have neglected to mention that she eventually did the right thing? But, the media’s focus on Ms. Sherrod is really an attempt to misdirect attention from the NAACP, who was the real focus of the article and the video excerpts.

As Andrew’s article noted:

Sherrod’s racist tale is received by the NAACP audience with nodding approval and murmurs of recognition and agreement. Hardly the behavior of the group now holding itself up as the supreme judge of another groups’ racial tolerance.

We all now know that Ms. Sherrod’s anecdote was part of a larger point about the need to move beyond racial prejudices. But, the NAACP audience did not know that as they heard the speech. As Ms. Sherrod recounted the first part of her parable, how she declined to do everything she could for the farmer because of his race, the audience responded in approval. By itself, that made the video excerpt newsworthy.

Indeed, the NAACP, who was in possession of the full video for months, even noted in its initial statement condemning Ms. Sherrod:

The reaction from many in the audience is disturbing. We will be looking into the behavior of NAACP representatives at this local event and take any appropriate action.

This was always the story and it is clearly an uncomfortable one for the NAACP and, obviously, the authors of the Politico article. The media would rather focus on Ms. Sherrod or Andrew Breitbart than report that leaders of a state chapter of the NAACP approved of racial discrimination.

But, the authors aren’t finished there. To further underscore their point, they return to that old lefty cliche from last year; that what you saw with your own eyes on the ACORN tapes didn’t really happen. The authors make this outright statement:

The ACORN videos were later revealed to have been misleadingly edited…

Not alleged, mind you, but “revealed,” as if the Oracle of Delphi issued a formal proclamation. And, who exactly “revealed” this “fact:” oh, yes, Democrat Attorney General Jerry Brown. Brown is a long-time ally of ACORN and is running for Governor again this year. As ACORN had traditionally been an important part of Democrat candidate’s election efforts, he might have had an incentive to find that the ACORN videos were “misleadingly edited.” In fact, at the beginning of Brown’s investigation, a local ACORN spokesman told a meeting of local democrats that he had spoken to Brown’s office and was assured:

the fault WILL be found with the people that did the video — not ACORN.

That certainly adds some interesting context to Brown’s “finding.” Of course, Brown may objectively believe the ACORN videos were “misleadingly edited.” But he isn’t a disinterested observer. Politico should have noted that, even if it would have weakened their intended point. So too, they should have noted that, from the very beginning, the full audio recording and transcript of the entire ACORN interviews were available here. I have heard many on the left say ad nauseum that the ACORN videos were “heavily edited”, but I have yet to see one concrete example of how this alleged editing altered the substance of what the videos revealed.

At the very beginning of Andrew’s article on racism at the NAACP, he noted that “context is everything.” To the authors of the Politico article, context is negotiable; simply another weapon in a reporter’s ideological tool-kit.

Everything I know about being a good consultant comes from Fight Club. Discretion is everything. Rule number one is you don’t talk about consulting for the Tea Party. Rule number two is you don’t talk about consulting for the Tea Party. The story about the wild characters who are shaping this campaign cycle is worth telling, but please excuse my anonymity.

I hold as many meetings as possible over Tanqueray and tonics at the St. Regis hotel on K Street in Washington, D.C. The bar is dark and private, with comfortable couches. Even the gin tastes better there. On weekday afternoons the only people in the bar are foreigners and political consultants long past caring about who actually wins.

“You’re going to see something spectacular,” an old friend who has a knack for black-bag operations said as he proudly downed his vodka. “About a month from now you’ll see ACORN explode from within.” Right on schedule a video was released that showed undercover conservative activists James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles getting advice from employees at the Baltimore office of the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now on how to smuggle underage El Salvadoran girls into a fictitious brothel.

That’s when I realized this isn’t an average fringe movement. This one is credible, legit and-for the first time in a decade-scaring the crap out of the left. In my years as a campaign hack and then as a consultant, I’ve created more than my share of fake grassroots organizations. Some were downright evil but effective beyond expectations. Did you get an automated call from the sister of a 9/11 victim asking you to reelect President Bush in 2004? That was me. Did you get a piece of mail with the phrase ’supports abortion on demand as a means of birth control’? That may have been me too.

Conservatives had been trying to take down ACORN for three decades. Where they failed, BigGovernment.com and my friends succeeded. In one magnificent explosion, a loose group of troublemakers, libertarians and Republicans took its first scalp. Sonja Merchant-Jones, former co-chair of ACORNís Maryland chapter, told The New York Times in March, “That 20-minute video ruined 40 years of good work.”

The ACORN blood tasted good. Shortly after, a core group of about 30 of us convened for the first time. It was the kind of conference call during which no one, except the handful with nothing to lose, offered last names. But it didn’t matter. I’d been around long enough to know many of the people by voice. Most of our talk was devoted to rants about the K Street lobbyists who are ruining the GOP. There I sat, in the quiet corner of a coffee shop on K Street, listening to a conference call beating the shit out of the people who keep me in business.

The cynical among us think it’s a group of peasants with pitchforks controlled by an underground cabal of Glenn Beck, wealthy donors and the guys who killed JFK. But the worst thing I can say about the Tea Party I work for is that it can make lots of noise but can’t win without professional help. I love the irony of helping run this organization from the St. Regis Bar.

This cause is worthier and more real than anything I’ve done in the past. I’m all in. When I met the colorful characters behind the organization, I was really all in. None of them were prom king, none went to college east of the Appalachians (even the Jews), and a lot of them smoke a pack a day just because they’re not supposed to. Unlike most of the tired, airbrushed conservatives living in D.C., the homegrown activists I work with are the real deal. They may not read much, but they all know their Ayn Rand.

Read more tomorrow. The whole article can be found here.

The documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by Judicial Watch, a conservative government watchdog group in Washington, DC, concern the arrests of eight workers from the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, aka ACORN, for violations of election laws and voter fraud in Missouri.

ACORN is a collection of “community organizations” purportedly promoting various social issues relevant to low-income families, and large-scale voter registration drives have been a significant aspect of that outreach since the 1980s. During the 2006 mid-term elections there were numerous reports of voter fraud on the part of ACORN’s canvassers, which led to investigations in numerous states. The 2006 federal investigation of the allegations in Missouri led to several convictions, but after a similar investigation in Connecticut was halted by the Obama Justice Department in 2009, Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain the documents produced by the earlier investigation.

The result was a collection of FBI documents which included copies of arrest warrants and court documents and over one hundred pages of handwritten notes from the FBI investigators regarding the ACORN employees’ attitudes and actions.

The investigators were told that ACORN had “told employees not to talk to the FBI“, and that “anyone who was against PV (Project Vote) or ACORN’s goals [were] ‘right wing.’” The investigators noted that Project Vote paid ACORN “whether the [voter registration] cards were fake or not” and one of the employees they interviewed “said ‘You treat the cards like $ (cash).’” Despite knowing that submitting fake voter registration cards was against the law, employees detailed several methods for creating fake cards. One explained that they would get “some names…right from the phone book and made up the rest.” Another “thought if she used a completely fake name it would be less like ID theft.”

The Connecticut and Missouri investigations are not stand-alone incidents, however. ACORN has a long history of encouraging falsification of voter registration cards. Between 2004 and 2006, they had been implicated in investigations in 12 states, and in 2007 were involved in the largest instance of voter fraud in Washington state’s history. In 2009, ACORN was investigated by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee which issued an 88 page report which declared that “[t]he weight of evidence against ACORN and its affiliates is astounding.”

Astounding, indeed.  These documents show the need for a national criminal investigation by the Obama Justice Department into ACORN. Is Attorney General Holder doing nothing because of Obama’s close connections to ACORN and Project Vote? The information in these new documents has national implications that cry out for further investigation,” stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

In fact, donors may find it easier to channel funds in the direction of liberal activists who describe themselves as community organizers now that the sullied name has been dropped, they suggest.

Shortly after ACORN’s leadership announced that it was dissolving on April 1, national and state affiliates repackaged themselves under generic sounding descriptions. ACORN Housing, for example, became known as the Affordable Housing Centers of America.

“Anyone who celebrates the demise of ACORN has celebrated prematurely because they are not going away,” Anita MonCrief, a former Project Vote/ACORN employee, said in an interview. “The network is repositioning itself so it can receive new donations.”

ACORN, which stands for the Association of Community Activists for Reform Now, has received over $53 million in federal funds since 1994, federal records show. Although the U.S. Supreme Court turned away a legal challenge to last year’s congressional ban on public funding, there does not appear to be any concerted effort on the part of lawmakers to have it reimposed.

Moreover, it is worth noting that only four Democrats joined with Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) to oppose an amendment that would allow organizations with a criminal history to receive funding. The amendment was submitted as part of a mortgage bill several months before the videotape scandals broke.

“There’s a real boldness on the part of Democrats who want to keep funding ACORN,” Rep. Bachmann said. “They are incredulous about the possibility of losing their majority and they know which side their bread gets buttered on and ACORN is their friend.”

Even so, only a small-percentage of ACORN’s overall financial support comes from the government, MonCrief, explains. “The rest of the money comes from left-leaning foundations and there is no indication these funding sources will dry up,” she said. “There are also individual donors and you also have to include organized labor.”

MonCrief indentified Wellspring Advisors, Vanguard Charitable Endowment, the Rockefeller Fund and the Tides Foundation as the major conduits for facilitating anonymous donations.

“If someone wanted to contribute directly to ACORN without having their name attached to it they could give a  check to Wellspring Advisors, they can give to Vanguard Charitable Endowment, they can give to Tides Foundation,” she said. “There are so many ways ACORN can obtain money through these anonymous donors  and some are connected to the Rockefeller  Fund.  So long as there is an agenda they are going to make sure that money is funneled to them anyway they can.”

Wellspring Advisors is the critical component in this equation, she emphasized.

“Donors were able to give anonymously to Wellspring so the money would not be traced back to where it was coming from and Wellspring would then cut a check from Vanguard,” MonCrief continued. “That’s one way it happened.”

Sandy Newman, who founded Project Vote, operated as a conduit between Wellspring and the ACORN affiliate, MonCrief points out on her blog.

“ It’s interesting that Wellspring is one of Project Vote’s major donors and Sandy Newman steers other money in Project Vote’s direction,” she wrote. “Newman founded Project Vote along with Zach Polett, who was also head of ACORN Political Operations. ACORN voter registration drives are intentionally partisan undertakings with the intent to replace elected officials with ACORN friendly candidates. This is once again the “wink, wink” approach to doing business. It all seems so legal on the surface.”

Other former insiders such as Ronald Sykes, who served as treasurer for the Washington D.C. ACORN affiliate, have raised questions about Citizens Consulting Inc (CCI), which was the major accounting arm for the national group and its allied organizations. A report from the House Oversight Committee concluded that CCI was largely responsible for misappropriating and comingling funds.

“Money was funneled through Wellspring, from there it went into various bank accounts controlled by CCI,” MonCrief said. “CCI had dozens and dozens of accounts. Some were Project Vote and some were ACORN.”

MonCrief, who testified against ACORN in 2008 as part of a voter registration fraud case in Pennsylvania, said the Project Vote affiliate was closely interlinked with the national organization’s operations.

“It is laughable to say Project Vote was in any way separate because it functioned as one cohesive arm with ACORN,” MonCrief explained. “Project Vote could not exist without this support because it doesn’t have the field capacity to run voter registration programs.”

ACORN remains the subject of voter registration fraud investigations in at least 14 states and MonCrief  anticipates that the same network will find a way to remain active in the 2010 midterm elections and beyond. The political operatives that continue to stand behind the renamed affiliates are very shrewd in the sense that they will target areas where elections are close and where they have sympathetic local election officials, MonCrief warned.

Despite the publicity that followed various criminal investigations, there is much about ACORN that remains hidden from public view, Matthew Vadum, a senior analyst and editor with the Capital Research Center (CRC) suggests.

“We really don’t know how much ACORN has received from its aggressive corporate shakedown efforts,” Vadum observed. “The renamed network could remain well-funded thanks to liberal foundations and high dollar donors such as Herb and Marion Sandler.”

An intrepid researcher and investigator, Vadum has kept careful tabs on the rebranded ACORN entities. Most recently, he reported on the lobbying efforts of the rebranded D.C. affiliate.

As public attention dissipates and the ACORN name fades, foundations that pulled back in the wake of negative press attention last year may find they have more flexibility and dexterity to re-establish their support. This would be a significant development as ACORN drew in millions of dollars from foundations in the span of just a few years.

The lead ACORN organization registered in Arkansas and New Orleans has received $3 million from the Marguerite Casey Foundation, $821,000 from the Robin Hood Foundation, $595,000 from the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation and $65,000 from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, according to CRC.

Other foundations have contributed to ACORN’s affiliates.

Project Vote has received $4,047,500 from the Rockefeller Family Fund, $1,460,801 from the Tides Foundation, and $2,643,100 from the Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program, financial records show. ACORN’s American Institute for Social Justice (AISJ) has received almost $30 million in foundation grants, since 2000, according to CRC.

Other generous benefactors to AISJ include the Marguerite Casey Foundation, which donated $5,125,000 and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which donated $4,130,000, CRC research shows.

In previous reports for CRC, Vadum has also called attention to the Woods Fund of Chicago, where President Barack Obama and former Weather Underground leader William Ayers sat as board members. The Woods Fund has donated about $190,000 to the ACORN network, according to financial records.

The corporate shakedown efforts, which have also been lucrative for ACORN, were largely funded by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), according to the testimony MonCrief delivered in Pa.

One of the most aggressive and successful joint SEIU-ACORN nationwide campaigns known as “Muscle for Money” targets corporations and top officers who resist union demands, MonCrief has explained.

Even in the teeth of ongoing scandals, ACORN and its affiliates received over $1 million from organized labor in 2009 including over $220,000 from the Change to Win coalition, U.S. Department of Labor financial disclosure forms show.

The 2009 LM-2 disclosure forms show that SEIU Local 32 donated $25,400 to the national ACORN organization, Local Union 1 donated $32,791 to the ACORN Community labor Training Center and the national SEIU donated $37,878 to the ACORN Labor Partnership.

All told, organized labor has contributed over $10 million to ACORN, since 2005 with SEIU contributing about $8.7 million of this sum, according to Labor Department records.

In 2009 gubernatorial races, ACORN was active in attempting to swing the New Jersey election in cooperation with SEIU, according to other press reports. However, the network was less visible in Virginia where Republican Bob McDonnell won by a large margin.

As it turns out, Gov. Chris Christie’s margin of victory over the Democratic incumbent in N.J. was large enough to avoid a recount.  But there is a lesson here for Republican operatives in that community organizers who were supposedly setback by on-going scandals still found expression where they could most be effective; in close-competitive races where it is possible to maximize the influence of organized labor.

The Supreme Court has turned down ACORN’s request for help in its lawsuit claiming Congress was wrong to shut off the activist group’s federal funding.

The high court on Friday refused to throw out a decision by the federal appellate court in New York City. That court had decided to freeze a judge’s determination that Congress acted unconstitutionally in yanking the group’s funding.

ACORN, which bills itself as an advocate for low-income and minority home buyers and residents, has drastically cut its operations since losing its funding.

Lawmakers acted after a widely circulated video showed three employees apparently advising a couple posing as a prostitute and her boyfriend to lie about her profession and launder her earnings.

Check for updates here.

A federal appeals court on Wednesday handed the government a victory by temporarily blocking a judge’s finding that Congress was wrong to halt federal funding to the activist group ACORN.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan also agreed to expedite the government’s appeal of U.S. District Judge Nina Gershon’s rulings that the funding cutoff was unconstitutional. Oral arguments were likely to occur before July.

The appeals court’s one-paragraph decision to freeze Gershon’s two rulings that found Congress acted unconstitutionally will remain in place until the 2nd Circuit rules on the merits of the government’s appeal. It acted a day after hearing arguments.

The government had argued that it was necessary to block the Brooklyn judge’s ruling to ensure that federal agencies weren’t required to commit funds that haven’t been appropriated by Congress. It said Congress did the same as several states and localities when it tried to protect federal funds by stopping certain federal agencies from pledging money to ACORN and its affiliates because of evidence of systemic mismanagement by the group.

Attorney Jules Lobel, of the Center for Constitutional Rights, represented ACORN and said he was considering taking the unusual step of appealing the temporary order to the U.S. Supreme Court. He said government lawyers needed to show the appeals court that it would suffer irreparable harm to block Gershon’s rulings.

“They never even attempted to show that,” he said.

Lobel, who argued against the stay before a three-judge panel of the 2nd Circuit on Tuesday, said the decision was another blow to ACORN, which has suffered through a national scandal and been driven to near ruin after three employees were caught on video apparently advising a couple posing as a prostitute and her boyfriend to lie about her profession and launder her earnings.

“It further drives the nail into ACORN,” he said. “It just delays crawling out of the hole. Justice delayed here is justice denied.”

Continue reading here.