Celebrities do it. Corporations do it. All in the name of survival. Both celebrities and corporations – both for-profit and non-profit alike - try to remain relevant in this sense: they will, on occasion, try to re-invent themselves.

The latest to try to improve their image? That scandalous organization which found its hand caught in the cookie jar – ACORN.

They no longer go by that acronym as new business cards have been printed, along with their stationery and new signs popping up in front of offices.

That little bit of activity really isn’t unusual. But because it involves the organization formerly known as ACORN, it has some actual meaning.

These satellite offices, despite their name change, really is the old ACORN that most people are familiar with. They still do many of the same things that they did under the old name, despite the begging to differ from the heads of some of the satellite offices.

But here’s the thing. The old organization, with their new acronym – whatever that may be, is basically picking up where they left off. And that’s something that Congress should be made fully aware of.

The re-branding of ACORN isn’t going to change much about the organization. They will still advocate those tired, liberal causes and presumably at some point of time find a way to get involved in some “gotcha” moments. Some things never change; with ACORN (or the new version, anyways), that is so appropriate.

The re-branded organization was, is and will always be about one central theme: economic justice. Anyone who is familiar with Saul Alinsky know where I’m going with this.

At some point in time, this rogue group will try yet again to gain some financial help from the federal government.

Speaking of name changes, ACORN Housing is now known as Affordable Housing Centers of America. California’s ACORN operations are now known as Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment. New York’s changed, too: New York Communities for Change. And you can expect other former ACORN offices to follow suit.

If ACORN (or whatever their new name really is) truly wants to get in on the good foot, hiring some auditors outside of these offices would be a good start. And hiring reputable individuals that have naver had any dealings with ACORN would help, too.

But I’m guessing that they probably will not change their organizational structure or mission statement very much. Which is unfortunate for them.

Jim sent this in:

Two citizen groups — Americans for Tax Reform and the Alliance for Worker Freedom — are demanding a full federal investigation into the alleged illegal activities of Service Employees International Union (SEIU), according to a report submitted to the National Association of Chiefs of Police’s Public Corruption Committee.

Attorney General Eric Holder must leave office. He can resign or be impeached – either way, he has to go!

From his first day as the head of our Justice Department, Holder has used his power to serve his political needs, not the needs of the American people. Since being sworn in Holder has:

• Ordered a civil trial of confessed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four other confessed murderers, conffering on enemy combatants who have sworn death to America the rights of American citizens.
• Allowed America’s sworn enemies – the confessed perpetrators of 3,000 murders – through their lawyers, paid for by taxpayers, to argue in court that America is the guilty party and to prove it by accusing our frontline defenders of aggression and torture, and by demanding the sources of our intelligence on the enemy.
• Held this trial in New York City – where Mohammed’s plan resulted in the deaths of nearly 3,000 innocent people and exposing New Yorkers to another terrorist threat.
• Ordered the prosecution of former CIA agents for interrogating terrorists captured in Iraq and Afghanistan.
• Defied Congress and ordered the payment of federal funds to Acorn!
• Dismissed criminal charges of voter intimidation against members of the Black Panthers, who were caught on videotape in Philadelphia threatening a camera crew and harassing anyone who didn’t look like an Obama supporter.

Holder must go! It is clear Holder’s agenda has little to do with American justice, and is a threat to the security of 300 million Americans. He has inflamed racial tensions, repeatedly turned his back on court rulings and his oath to you, your family and the American people, and added to the chaos this Administration is using to distract the American people from its socialist agenda. Holder’s reckless disregard for his genuine responsibilities is a disgrace. His true loyalties are to the American left. Believe me, Holder is a major player in the overall scheme of “fundamentally transforming the United States of America,” as Obama promised five days before his election. He’s kept his word, and Obama and Holder have us on the fast track to socialism. 

Folks, those of you who are politically in the know probably already know that San Diego is, by and large, a Republican enclave; however, they happen to have an ACORN office in San Diego County. And like the other ACORN offices who got “caught in the act” elsewhere, the San Diego branch got taped. And guess what else? The California Attorney General, former California governor Jerry Brown, may be involved to at least a small degree.

To recap, on October 1, Brown announced that announced that an investigation hyad been opened into ACORN’s activities in the state of California, which were a result of undercover videos showing the organization’s employees offering to assist the two undercover filmmakers with human smuggling, child prostitution and even tax advice (no different than the other tapes). as per custom, ACORN denied any wrongdoing, some of their employees were terminated and ACORN even pledged to cooperate with any investigations that followed.

That’s interesting, considering that the local head ACORN organizer in California, David Langstein, was caught on tape earlier this month, speaking to an East County (San Diego County) Democratic Club. Both audio clips can be heard by clicking here.

In addition to the audio clips, the National City (San Diego suburb) ACORN office engaged in a massive “document dump” on the evening of October 9, which contained thousands of sensitive documents – just a few days before the Attorney General’s visit. While the “document dump” is kind of newsworthy, what is interesting is the manner in which the dump occurred; the documents in question were dumped in a public dumpster, without considering laws and regulations in to how sensitive information should be treated. That’s irresponsibility at its finest, folks.

Some of the “dumped” documents include not only the inner workings of ACORN within the state of California, but also personal, sensitive information belonging to ACORN employees, organization members and clients of ACORN. Of course, I’d be remiss in not including some San Diego ACORN shenanigans on video.

ACORN, as deep in doo-doo as they already are, are about to get in it even deeper. By the way, below are the “Dumped” documents in question.

SanDiegoACORNDocumentDumpScandal-100909-Document1 –

SanDiegoACORNDocumentDumpScandal-100909-Document2 –

SanDiegoACORNDocumentDumpScandal-100909-Document3 –

A big thanks to Big Goverment.com!

Annie sent this in:

If someone walked into a bank and demanded money, what would you do? Comply if he was armed, right? What if he wasn’t carrying a weapon but somehow managed to convince the Bank’s Leadership   that he was entitled to the money? What if it was from your account that he was demanding the cash?

If you think the above scenario is far-fetched, brace yourself.

Bertha Lewis and the other bottom-feeders at ACORN have deemed it necessary to sue the Federal Government for pulling their funding.

Yes, you heard that correctly.

They feel it’s ‘unfair’ that their budget is ’suffering’ and they’ll be less able to afford to continue their many ‘worthy programs’ without the billions in stimulus money. (excuse me, I just cleared my throat)

The suit alleges that Congress violated the Constitution (what else is new?) when it passed legislation in September that targeted ACORN to lose funds specifically marked for programs, such as federal housing, transportation and education. According to the ‘Center for Constitutional Rights,’ the bill of attainder punishes a person/group without a trial and is therefore illegal under Article 1 of the Constitution.

So…let me get this straight:  Acorn continuously breaks the law, running their shyster outfit like the Mafia,  they’ve received $53 million dollars of OUR Federal taxpaying dollars since 1994, yet were found to be eligible to receive BILLIONS of our tax dollars…and they’re whining like spineless criminals because they were finally caught red-handed?

Uh, where I come from, we call this K-A-R-M-A.  Suck it up, Bertha.. Trafficking hookers and shelling out ‘advice’ to other nasty unsavories is NOT what that money was intended to be used for. Especially when WE are paying for it. 

NOTE TO CONGRESS: before getting cute and deciding to give in to this suit, shelling out OUR TAX DOLLARS to these scum bags again, you might want to have a conversation with old Harry Reid – the same guy who refused to open an investigation into ACORN despite MASSIVE evidence linking ACORN to fraud in his own state.

1) 48 % of NV registrations turned in by ACORN were fraudulent and when the offices were raided by authorities,  they found that 59 inmates from a work-release program at a nearby prison were employed by ACORN and found numerous irregularities. Its field director, Christopher Edwards, pled guilty to two gross misdemeanor counts of conspiracy.

Yet, despite the embarrassing avalanche of evidence,  when the US Senate voted 83-7 to block ACORN from bidding for additional federal grant money, Reid STILL refused to hold a hearing on ACORN’s activities.

Even after the scandal broke revealing that ACORN was involved in human trafficking, underage prostitution operations and other allegations, Reid claimed that investigating ACORN would disrupt other critical areas of concern. (like bankrupting America, working to pass an illegal healthcare bill that nullifies our constitution and protecting sex offenders  – yep, Harry’s been busy)  

Reid communicated his concerns to Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), stating his preference to focus on healthcare reform and economic recovery.

Perhaps Reid’s attitude has more to do with the fact that SEIU/ACORN reps, kicked FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS over to Dirty Harry’s campaign and they are expecting his protection.

But, ACORN has been under scrutiny for years - their misdeeds ignored by our Leadership, the Media and ultimately, the tax-paying public. Luckily enough, Hanna Giles, Andrew Breitbart, James O’Keefe and Glenn Beck dug their heels in and caught ACORN red-handed, permanently ripping the blinders off of America, once and for all. 

Embarrassing for Harry Reid, who should be thinking about packing up his office in the near future. His reign as a do-nothing, spineless weasle is about to come to a very public end.  Embarrassing for Bertha Lewis and her continuous persistance that they’ve not engaged in “wrong-doing”

Bertha shouldn’t be consulting attorneys, but rather her own conscience.

And embarrassing for the rest of our Leadership if they even CONSIDER putting these thugs back on the Government teat.

ACORN’S FUNDING MUST BE BLOCKED IMMEDIATELY AND PERMANENTLY.

America is waking up and will no longer allow this unarmed band of thugs to waltz into our lives and fill their loot bags, spouting entitlement, ON OUR DIME.

Fearing a potentially devastating Democratic loss, the highly controversial Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) group and its affiliated organizations are gearing up to tip the scales and re-elect the beleaguered incumbent in the hard-fought New Jersey gubernatorial race, sources tell Newsmax.

“ACORN is heavily involved in Gov. Jon Corzine’s get-out-the-vote operation, but is maintaining a low profile at the insistence of the Corzine campaign,” Matthew Vadum, senior editor of the conservative Capital Research Center think tank, tells Newsmax. “If Corzine manages to win reelection, he doesn’t want the victory tainted by his close association with ACORN.”

Wall Street Journal columnist and author John Fund wrote Tuesday that “Plenty of reasons exist for suspecting absentee fraud may play a significant role in tomorrow’s Garden State contests.”

ACORN-linked groups from neighboring Pennsylvania and New York “appear to have moved into the state,” Fund wrote.

Fund also reported that the state’s Democratic Party is pressuring county clerks around the Garden State to downplay signature checks on absentee ballots. Without such checking, it is very difficult to detect absentee vote fraud.

Although bruised and battered by the recent undercover videos depicting workers at various ACORN offices giving advice on tax evasion to a reputed child-prostitution ring, ACORN remains a potent political force in many regions. It has been the focus of voter-registration fraud investigations in more than a dozen states.

A search of the Acorn.org Web site shows that the organization has a heavy presence in New Jersey. It maintains offices in Jersey City, Trenton, Paterson, and Newark.

The group could play an important role in voter turnout, which many pundits predict will determine whether Corzine or his Republican challenger, Chris Christie, emerges victorious.

The latest Quinnipiac poll shows Christie clinging to a narrow 42 percent to 40 percent lead over Corzine, with independent Christopher Daggett garnering 12 percent. Among those Daggett voters who say they may change their minds, Christie is preferred 39 percent to 29 percent.

Although those trends would appear to favor Christie, Republicans haven’t forgotten the prolonged Minnesota recount battle that ended with Democrat Al Franken being awarded the victory over GOP incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman. The bitter lesson drawn by many Republicans: Once officials in a heavily Democratic state declare a race close enough for a recount, all bets are off.

“If there is a recount,” Fund writes, “you can bet disputes about absentee ballots will loom large. Moreover, if serious allegations of fraud emerge, you can also expect less-than-vigorous investigation by the Obama Justice Department — which showed just how seriously it takes such allegations when it walked away from an open-and-shut voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party in Philadelphia earlier this year.”

Absentee ballots become critical in every recount, and New Jersey officials are reporting a marked increase in requests for absentee ballots.

“There has been a reported surge in absentee balloting, which might be suspicious but isn’t necessarily proof of anything,” Vadum tells Newsmax.

Fund reports that state officials received “a flood” of more than 180,000 requests for absentee ballots.

“On some 3,000 forms the signature doesn’t match the one on file with county clerks,” Fund adds. “Yet citing concerns that voters would be disenfranchised, Democratic Party lawyer Paul Josephson wrote New Jersey’s secretary of state asking her ‘to instruct county clerks not to deny applications on the basis of signature comparison alone.’”

Voter-fraud allegations have marred several New Jersey elections in recent years, Fund reports.

In September, New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram announced the indictments of Atlantic City Councilman Marty Small and 13 campaign workers, charging that they solicited absentee ballots on behalf of individuals not qualified to receive them, then opened the sealed ballots, and destroyed any that were not cast for Small.

In this election, supporters of Roberto Feliz, an Independent candidate for mayor of Camden, are sounding alarms over suspicious ballot activity, Fund reports. One Feliz backer says absentee ballots, which are thought to be more vulnerable to voter fraud, have increased by a factor of 15 compared with previous elections.

“In the 2005, when the city’s voters voted for both governor and mayor on the same day, only 200 absentee ballots were cast,” Fund writes. “This year, some 3,700 have already been received.”

Fund adds that the Feliz campaign has received complaints from voters regarding absentee irregularities.

Fund writes: “I spoke with Uremia Rojas who reports that ‘a man with a clipboard knocked on my door and had me sign something so I could vote by mail. I was skeptical but signed and got a ballot. I never really wanted one.’”

According to Fund, SEIU Local 32BJ, which is headquartered in Philadelphia but maintains an office in Newark, is “heavily involved” in the New Jersey gubernatorial election. The local’s political director, Peter Colavito, is a former political chief for ACORN, Fund says.

New York’s Working Families Party also has “moved into” New Jersey, he reports. The Working Families Party has very close ties to Acorn, an organization notorious for its labyrinthine network of affiliates.

In October, The New York Times reported that, before becoming White House political director, Patrick Gaspard “worked with ACORN in New York to set up the Working Families political party and sat on the party’s board,” along with ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis.

Fanning Republican fears is the fact that, despite New Jersey’s recent run-ins with vote-fraud allegations, Corzine signed a new “Vote by Mail” law in June that some believe may make it harder to detect fraudulent ballots.

That law allows voters to opt to receive mail-in ballots automatically for all state elections, which eliminates the need ever to show up at a polling place and submit identification.

“There are also new opportunities for voting shenanigans in New Jersey,” Vadum says. “Voting by mail is even easier now, thanks to the law Corzine signed.”

There was no immediate response from the Corzine campaign or ACORN Monday afternoon to a Newsmax request for comment regarding ACORN’s reported involvement in the election.

Leave it to Jesse Jackson, Sr. to be in lockstep with any and everything that ACORN has done in the past and the present. In his mind, overlook the fact that the organization is being investigated ay 14 states for voter registration fraud. Apparently, Jackson could care less that ACORN has been caught 4 times on videotape offering tax evasion advice (Baltimore, Washington, D.C., San Bernardino and San Diego, CA).

Despite all the overwhelming and damning evidence that is against ACORN, Jackson thinks that ACORN should be funded.

And rest assured, Jackson was in full Chicago-politics mode as he spoke at the Clinton Global Inititive. He was interviewed by Kathleen Walker of Newsmax TV at the Initiative and one of the questions posed to him was in reference to the huge reduction in ACORN’s funding. Jackson’s answer? LEt’s just say that it was typical Jackson:

“No. There should be an evaluation, and we should make a distinction between what’s gone wrong with what, in fact, has gone right. ACORN has helped a lot of poor people. If there are some people who have made errors, then eliminate them, as ACORN is trying to do.”

Jackson even put in his two cents regarding President Obama’s health care campaign, using race (wow, I didn’t see that one coming):

“It may be a factor, but confusion is a factor. Misunderstanding is a factor, and fear is a factor. So, we must get beyond that — because healthcare costs are rising, because the insurance companies, the pharmaceuticals and hospitals have runaway costs without checks and balances.”

And you can rest assured that Jackson advocates the government running health care:

“Because the private sector’s interests are conceivably narrow. Government has reforms for all of its people. The government all, for, and by the people must protect its people . . . Government is, in fact, a stabilizing force and a provider of last resort.”

Leave it to Jesse to be the proponent of no work ethic, the government “taking care of you” and everything else that smacks of socialism. But then again, it isn’t like Jackson has ever held a real job in his lifetime. And his credentials as a so-called “reverend” are dubious, at best – in my humble opinion. so he is hardly the authority on dictating how the citizens of the United States should embrace any kind of policy – health care, economy or anything else.