The wounded ACORN snake continues writhing.  This time, the group has been barred from the entire state of Ohio, a swing state where the organization was very active in the last presidential election.

So active, in fact, it received an “Unsung Hero” award from the Communist Party USA for its “critical but  generally unrecognized role of organized labor and grassroots voter registration efforts in winning Ohio for Barack Obama,” according to a document on ACORNcracked.com.

But now, ACORN has reached a settlement under the Ohio Corrupt Activities Act, similar to the federal RICO Act  –  the same law that’s used to prosecute mobsters and drug kingpins.  Under the settlement, ACORN,  along with Project Vote, agreed “to file a certificate permanently surrendering its business license in Ohio by June 1,” according to The Columbus Dispatch.

The next part of the settlement was critical: it bars ACORN from simply changing its name and moving back into the state. From the Dispatch:

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The “independent” investigation of ACORN has been completed, and the final report is in.

The verdict? ACORN has done nothing illegal, and most of its problems stem from the subpar leadership of its founder and former “chief organizer,” Wade Rathke. As long as Rathke and his allies are out of the picture, everything should be good to go at ACORN headquarters, according to Scott Harshbarger, former attorney general of Massachusetts.

I get the feeling Mr. Harshbarger produced exactly the type of report (which can be viewed at ACORNcracked.com) that the ACORN board of directors paid him to produce: a rationalization of the group’s behavior, designed to deflect the growing chorus of criticism and breathe new life into the organization.

I doubt that anybody will be fooled by the silly conclusions in Harshbarger’s report. But I fear that ACORN’s friends in the White House and Congress may use it as an excuse to allow the organization back into the federal government’s good graces.

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If one wonders or doubts Wade Rathke’s reach around the world, consider the following document found on a community organizing website in Asia and published on ACORNcracked.com.

It has been well-documented that last year Rathke “left” ACORN U.S. to head over to ACORN International and export ACORN’s brand of organizing and tactics.  He has since changed the group’s name to Community Organizations International.

ACORN Community Organizing Model is not the type of document ACORN would wish to have on the Internet.  For ACORN, is tantamount to Eisenhower’s plan for D-Day being printed on the front page of the Washington Post.  Not a good thing for the ultra-secretive group.

Consider this frank section of “SETTING UP THE ORGANIZING DRIVE:”

2.  Contacts:  The whole process of making contacts is built on a pyramid theory.  Make one that leads to others.  The purpose of contacts is to gather information and resources, and to build power.  There are three types:  hot, warm, cold.  The hot contacts are people we have met before at some point in the organization’s history.  Check the biographical file in the state office.  Warm contacts are those we have not met but know something about in order to build an edge, i.e. we have an opener or a handle for the conversation – something they did, someone they know who we know, some reason to believe we can hit the core.  The cold contacts are those people we must meet for some reason, yet we have no lead to them.  The only edge there is simply an organizer’s skill in prying information and setting up his/her ego in order to loosen her/his tongue in person or on the phone.  It’s a skill to be perfected, if you’re greasy, you are in the hole. 

Groups such as Leaders and Organizers of Community Organizations in Asia clearly didn’t nor don’t understand the pressure and scrutiny ACORN has faced over the last several months.  But their foolishness or naivete is the ACORN’s researcher’s gain.

For whatever reason, the LOCOA site doesn’t create a direct link to the individual page.  If you wish to see it for yourself on the LOCOA site, go here, then click on Program in the menu bar.  Then, go to the second page of documents and click on ACORN Community Organizing Model.  Or, to save yourself time (not to mention if and when the document disappears from the website), you can visit ACORNcracked.com for a PDF.