Thread: ACORN : Behind the Scene of 'Occupy' Protests ?

EXCLUSIVE:
ACORN Playing Behind Scenes Role in 'Occupy' Movement

By Jana Winter

Published October 26, 2011

| FoxNews.com


The former New York office for ACORN, the disbanded community activist group, is playing a key role in the self-proclaimed “leaderlessâ€

ACORN statement on New York

24 February 2010

Today in New York a group of grassroots leaders and organizers who have worked with ACORN for many years announced today that they are establishing a new, state-based organization. There was a similar announcement last month in California.

ACORN Communications Director Kevin Whelan issued the following statement:

"ACORN's national leadership respects the decision of this dedicated group of community leaders who have done so much to help make their neighborhoods, cities, state, and the country a better and fairer place. We know they will continue to do great work and we wish them well.

Bertha Lewis continues to serve as the CEO and Chief Organizer of ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) that speaks for low income families nationwide. (Ms. Lewis does not have a position with the new community organization that was announced in New York today.)

It's no secret that ACORN has had to fight hard to survive a series of vicious right wing attacks over the past year and half and that this has made it harder for ACORN to raise funds and organize and serve its members. We understand the desire of local grassroots leaders in some states to move ahead focusing solely on the fight to improve their communities."

http://www.acorn.org/node/694

RELATED

Occupy Wall Street: 5 conspiracy theories

http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-253540.html

Jon Kest

Executive Director of New York Communities for Change

Why We're Joining OccupyWallStreet


It has been amazing watching OccupyWallStreet grow over the past two weeks. As someone who has been involved in the social justice movement in New York for more than 30 years, it's a rare occasion that I get to watch a movement like this develop from the outside.

Over the past several years, while the big banks have destroyed our economy and working people have fought to make do with less and less, the richest 1 percent of Americans continue to take of more of the pie.

That's why I'm excited to announce that New York Communities for Change and many of our allies in community organizing and labor will be showing our support for OccupyWallStreet next week.

No place is more symbolic of that gross inequity than Wall Street and there is no better symbol for what all of us are working to achieve than seeing Zuccotti Park full of people who are ready to say that the American people are not going to take it anymore.

The levels of inequity in this county, and in New York especially are out of hand -- and no one knows that more than the working families that make up the members of New York Communities for Change.

We've seen our mayor and our governor slash our social safety net in the name of austerity while turning their noses up at new sources of revenue such as renewing the millionaire's Tax and seeking claw backs for improperly used public subsidies. Even when elected officials like New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman take a stand against the big banks, corporations and the politicians in their pockets do everything they can do derail his efforts.

That's why NYCC members joined thousands of New Yorkers on May 12 to demand that Wall Street banks pay their fair share and it's why we'll be back on Wednesday Oct. 5 to continue our stand against the big banks and show our support to the protesters who have been on Wall Street for days.

Wednesday's solidarity march will be a precursor to a week of actions planned by many of the groups that participated in the May 12 coalition. The action will draw attention to the levels of inequity that exists in New York and demand that the wealthiest New Yorkers don't receive a tax break when the millionaire's tax expires at the end of this year. We hope that the energy, spirit and voices that are present in Liberty Plaza will be with us as we demand the governor renews the millionaire's tax.

When the big banks tanked our economy they took away millions of people's shot at achieving the American Dream. It's about time all these people come together and hold Wall Street accountable for what they've done to our futures and the future of this country. Whether you're a union worker whose rights have been under attack, or a parent whose watched the funding for your child's school go into the pocket of a Wall Street CEO, or one of the millions of people, young and old, who are looking for work with no avail, on Wednesday we will stand together to demand justice.

And hopefully it will be the first day of many.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jon-kest/ ... 89544.html

New York ACORN Front Group Based in New Orleans Gets Taxpayer Money

Submitted by Carl Horowitz on Wed, 09/09/2009


One of the defining hallmarks of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, is its propensity for using front organizations to advance its goals. The New Orleans-based nonprofit organization has fully 360 subsidiary and adjunct groups. Lately, one of its affiliates, a misleadingly-named nonprofit entity called New York Agency for Community Affairs, Inc. (NYACA), has been at the center of attention. A recent probe by a consortium of New York City newspapers shows NYACA thus far in this year alone has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from New York state and local taxpayers for political campaign services. In many cases, the lawmakers who earmarked the funds had been locked in close re-election campaigns that used NYACA volunteers. It's no small wonder that NYACA and ACORN overlap to the point of being nearly indistinguishable.

According to its mission statement, NYACA was founded "to provide a vehicle for grassroots community organizations to increase their capacity to meet the needs of low- and moderate-income communities." The group's avowed purpose is assisting homeowners facing foreclosure and renters seeking to buy a home. But in practice it is a cleverly-disguised conduit for ACORN to contribute money to left-of-center New York politicians in tight re-election races. "There seems to be some sort of relationship between these different organizations," said Jill Manny, a New York University law professor and executive director of the National Center on Philanthropy and the Law, after reviewing NYACA tax records. That would be an understatement.

The New York Agency for Community Affairs has received more than small change. A recent investigation by Manhattan Media, a consortium of New York City neighborhood-based newspapers, reveals that NYACA and its ACORN alter ego have made out well. Examining tax forms, lobbying records, campaign finance reports, and contracts, researchers found that in 2009, NYACA has received $175,000 from eight state senators, $240,500 from 10 state assemblymen, and $85,000 from four New York City Council members. For 2006, NYACA reported a little over $1.3 million in revenues, almost all from government. That same year, the group paid out nearly $1.2 million for "contractual services" to ACORN and another $67,000 in direct grants. And in 2007, NYACA received more than $730,000 in government support, sending $711,152 of that to ACORN.

How closely are the two groups linked? For one thing, there's the Internet. Clicking on www.nyaca.org routes the viewer to the website of ACORN Housing Corp., www.acornhousing.org. Even more curiously, the New York Agency for Community Affairs isn't based in New York at all, but at 2609 Canal Street, New Orleans, LA 70119, the same address as ACORN's local affiliate there. What's more, NYACA's chief organizer is Jon Kest, younger brother of ACORN National Executive Director Steven Kest. Jon Kest also serves as chief organizer for the local ACORN chapter in New Orleans. As ACORN has its national headquarters in New Orleans (1024 Elysian Fields Avenue), it doesn't take a huge leap of imagination to realize NYACA is an ACORN front. But NYACA isn't entirely devoid of a New York connection: One of its employees is Bertha Lewis, longtime head of ACORN's New York City affiliate until she took over last year as ACORN national CEO-chief organizer. And the Kests until about a decade and a half ago ran the New York City operation until Ms. Lewis assumed the reins. Even sports teams change their name if they move to another city. Apparently, ACORN affiliates don't.

Creative bookkeeping explains why ACORN saw fit to add an organizational layer in the form of New York Agency for Community Affairs. NYACA is registered as a "public charity," which exempts it from paying certain state and local taxes, and equally importantly, prohibits it from engaging in or supporting political activity. ACORN, on the other hand, is a "social welfare organization" - that is, authorized to conduct certain political campaign operations using public as well as private funds. ACORN in fact has received large sums of money from the Working Families Party (WFP), an entity founded by none other than Steven Kest in 1998 to move the Democratic Party leftward (Note: Under New York State election law, a party may "cross-endorse" candidates of other parties). The WFP describes itself as a coalition founded by ACORN, the Communications Workers of America and the United Auto Workers.

NYACA clearly wants it both ways. On one hand, the group wants to influence the outcome of elections, with organized labor playing a central role. On the other hand, it doesn't want to pay taxes connected with this activity. In other words, ACORN set up the New York Agency for Community Affairs as a legalized money-laundering operation - and possibly with some illegal misrepresentation of facts. According to records filed with the IRS and the New York State Attorney General's Office, NYACA declared no relationships with any outside organizations through common employees or officers. To believe that would require defining "relationships" in ways not found in Webster's Dictionary.

NYACA Executive Director Mariana Davenport thinks the group's critics are manufacturing something out of nothing. Through an e-mail she noted: "The organizations share staff and space. Although many of the NYACA board members are also members of ACORN, ACORN has no authority to direct NYACA." NYACA, she emphasized, is merely a "fiscal sponsor" for taxpayer funding for ACORN's foreclosure prevention and homebuyers' assistance programs, among other initiatives. But why would ACORN need such a "sponsor?" And why would ACORN employees, of whom Ms. Davenport is one, have a need to list themselves at a separate organization that does the same things?

This seeming bait-and-switch arrangement has another story as well: its connection to the well-publicized scandal that resulted in the forcing out of Wade Rathke, founder and longtime chief national organizer of ACORN, in the late spring of 2008. Rathke left amid revelations that he'd covered for his brother, Dale Rathke, during the latter's embezzlement of nearly $1 million from the organization back during 1999-2000. But it wasn't just Wade Rathke who likely had a hand in the cover-up. The following individuals sat on the ACORN management council at the time of the thefts and were made aware of the thefts: Steven Kest, Jon Kest, Madeline Talbott, Keith Kelleher, Mike Shea, Zach Polett, Helene O'Brien, Amy Schur, Liz Wolff, and Beth Butler. Of these persons, the Kest brothers, O'Brien and Butler still work for ACORN, while Shea runs ACORN Housing Corporation and Wolff runs special projects at Citizens Consulting, Inc. (CCI), the very group to which Dale Rathke, while as ACORN chief financial officer, allegedly routed the money he'd stolen.

If investigators examine the incestuous nature of the ACORN-NYACA combine, they're not likely to get any help from New York politicians who earmarked funds for NYACA. New York State senators who provided largesse include Eric Schneiderman, Velmanette Montgomery, Ruth Hassell-Thompson, Hiram Monserrate, Kevin Parker, Diane Savino, Eric Adams and John Sampson. New York City Council members include Annabel Palma, Bill De Blasio, Melissa Mark-Viverito and James Sanders. And State assembly members bestowing generosity were Sheldon Silver, William Boyland, Adam Clayton Powell IV, Hakim Jeffries, Vivian Cook, Audrey Pheffer, Annette Robinson, Richard Gottfried, Nick Perry and Daryl Towns. Current Deputy Bronx Borough President Aurelia Greene also funded the group while serving as a member of the assembly. In the case of ACORN, it's hard to know where legal activity ends and illegal activity begins.

Related: "Issa Concludes ACORN IS a Racket."

http://nlpc.org/stories/2009/09/09/new- ... ayer-money

ACORN Officials Scramble, Firing Workers and Shredding Documents, After Exposed as Players Behind Occupy Wall Street Protests


Nov. 1, 2011: Jonathan Westin, organizing director, New York Communities for Change, attends a protest in New York City.

By Jana Winter
Published November 03, 2011 FoxNews.com

Officials with the revamped ACORN office in New York -- operating as New York Communities for Change -- have fired staff, shredded reams of documents and told workers to blame disgruntled ex-employees for leaking information in an effort to explain away a FoxNews.com report last week on the group’s involvement in Occupy Wall Street protests, according to sources.

NYCC also is installing surveillance cameras and recording devices at its Brooklyn offices, removing or packing away supplies bearing the name ACORN and handing out photos of Fox News staff with a stern warning not to talk to the media, the sources said.

[b]“They’re doing serious damage control right now,â€

Acorn shredding docs.

Dang! wonder how much that pays? Stand there for 10 to 12 bucks an hour to hold a sign and say "You Suck!" Hmm! ACORN is there so let's see if we're all up to speed here.

Next week the Federal Government is "Testing" the federal broadcasting system and shutting down TV and Radio for 4 mins.

SEIU and Acorn are involved in or I say "community organized" OWS, which the protests are starting to turn ugly especially in Oakland (sunny, warmer nights)

RINO Gov. Purdue let's it slip that election's should be cancelled until the economy crisis is over!

Marshal Law has been mentioned here several times!

The GOP is starting to show a little, very little backbone! But let's be honest they aren't representing and we really need to hold they're feet to the fire, If they're not willing to call the Dems out on everything, they need to know they will be replaced this election!