Rachel Maddow on ACORN

Started by Vekseid, October 23, 2009, 07:03:25 AM

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Vekseid

Fake prostitution scandals are enough to defund ACORN, but child sex slavery is not enough to get the same attention for DynCorp.

ACORN vs BLACKWATER PT 1

ACORN vs BLACKWATER contd Pt 1

ACORN vs BLACKWATER PT 2

ACORN vs BLACKWATER contd Pt 2

ACORN's registration efforts - what the Republicans wanted to end - are not going to be hurt by this, as the federal funding was for their housing arm. But progressives see this, which arm are they going to be donating to?

Hint: Not the housing arm, which may be not even exist for much longer even if the bill is ruled unconstitutional, as banks, etc. refuse to deal with them.

As Napoleon said, never interrupt your enemy while he is making a mistake.

We need a Burke-Roosevelt-Eisenhower conservative party again. I'm not confident that it is going to be the republicans.

Callie Del Noire

Yeah.. anyone know know how to dig those old guys up and raise them from the dead? As for DynCorp, I knew there was a reason I didn't apply to them (I had dealt with Dyncorp tech reps my whole navy career and every one of them were very ethical men, but I am guessing the oversees divisions were not given the same level of oversight as the stateside guys)

As for Acorn? Sorry..the fact that what.. 12 to 15 states are investigating them for Voter Fraud seems to indicate some level of corruption is there.

(I do hope however that Sen Franken's little addition to the law will come back to haunt Dyncorp and the other folks like them.. I do worry it's written a bit widely but this is the sort of thing he was trying to target)

Vekseid

Registration fraud, to be more specific. I'm not so much against defunding them, but Diebold / Premier Election Solutions / ES&S were far greater risks to voter liberty. Defunding them is simply stupid - it's a political stunt that is only going to boost their recognition and financial power in the long run, and no doubt after this they will be a much cleaner organization, to boot.

Callie Del Noire

Quote from: Vekseid on October 23, 2009, 08:09:31 AM
Registration fraud, to be more specific. I'm not so much against defunding them, but Diebold / Premier Election Solutions / ES&S were far greater risks to voter liberty. Defunding them is simply stupid - it's a political stunt that is only going to boost their recognition and financial power in the long run, and no doubt after this they will be a much cleaner organization, to boot.

I agree that the Diebold ect stuff is a hazard (I'm assuming you're speaking to the MASSIVE network vulnerbility issues of their electronic machines right?)

But the folks involved in the ACORN voter fraud cases have so many over so many states (14 or so from what my quick checks have pulled up) and some are pretty weird.

-An 7 year old getting registered? (CT)
-A 13 year old? (NM)
-A former ACORN member with 300 completed cards in his trunk that were supposed to be turned into the state within 10 days (MN)

To be fair from what I'm seeing a significant portion of the cases are for ACORN contractors doing the acts. Not all but a significant portion. Which tells me the folks at ACORN need to do a better job of vetting their temps and such. But the folks at ACORN have too many cases in too many diverse areas for it to all be a republican 'witch hunt'.

(Back home in NC..the republicans couldn't get this sort of thing done on the state level..the Democrats have the state locked down to the point they do whatever they want)

I do find it interesting that Ms Maddow is all for a 'all or nothing' approach to contractors (like Lockheed, Boeing, DynCorp).


I personally have dealt with Lockheed, Raytheon, DynCorp and several other companies and the actions of their reps have always been above board (WHERE I dealt with them). I do think that something needs to be done (particularly in the cases of 'No Bid' Contractors who seem to have gotten away with murder (literally in some cases)).

I find it interesting that almost ALL the cases of of the corporations cited were things brushed under the rug of the last administration (which I as a republican refuse to apologize for... I didn't vote for them, I didn't trust them..and I am tired of being painted as a frothing supporter of because I'm a republican).

I do hope to see more actions on them to push home the fact that this sort of business is not 'business as usual'.

On a side note..the electronic voting machines.. I cannot BEGIN to enumerate my issues with that boondoggle.


Vekseid

I'm not really arguing that ACORN is innocent.

I've worked with several government contractors as well. When there was corruption it was usually of the inept sort, though there were sometimes clear political pushes. Which we mocked. A lot.

Anyway, I think the reason Maddow is for 'all or nothing' is because we have a rather tremendous deficit, and some serious domestic issues to take care of. Even while working at a defense contractor, there was a massive push to figure out ways to pull inefficiencies out of the system, because everyone knew that cost plus led to horrible results. When the government needs work, farming it out to a contractor is not necessarily the proper solution.

Callie Del Noire

I do not think that some contractors (HaliBurton and Blackwater come to mind) should have been allowed to get away with the things they did (I despise the concept of NO Bid contracts) but you have to see that the contractors are here, and short of totally destroying out ability to maintain the infrastructure of the Military and Government, they are here to stay.

That being said, I do think that some of the actions that these folks did should be punished on some level. Business Ethics seems to be dead in some areas (as is the concept of long term profit vs short term losses, it's all '$$$ now!').

That being said, I personally think any form of tangible reform will require pulling Lobbyists, PACs and Special Interests teeth and the ability to manipulate the elected without some form of oversight any true changes aren't coming.

I seem to recall some agency given the ability to investigate (but were answerable to congress and the first time they did a tangible investigation of a speaker their budget got killed) but I can't recall a time or name.

All Powerful Nateboi

One of the major problems with the whole "ACORN fraud" thing is that a lot of people seem to be mistaking "Registration fraud" for "Voter fraud".

Let's look at the examples posted.

A 7 year old getting registered. This is a problem, of course, but it's not a problem that affects the actual outcome of the election. Why? Because unless a 7 year old shows up to vote, and gets to vote, that registration never does anything.

A 13 year old getting registered. This is the same thing. Without that 13 year old *actually* voting, no voter fraud is committed.

300 registration slips not getting turned in. This does borderline voter fraud, since if those 300 people show up to vote, now they can't.

Of those three examples, only one even comes close to actual attempts to manipulate the election outcome (voter fraud). Trying to register Mickey Mouse adn Donald Duck has no real effect on the election, unless someone with an ID proving that they're Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck walks into the voting place and attempts to vote.

Now, is registration fraud a problem? Sure it is, and it's one that should be looked into. But not with the amount of political fury that's been tossed around. I'd *much* rather our government look into gerrymandered districts (something states like Texas and North Carolina are famous for) and the electronic voting machines. Those have a *much* bigger effect on elections than a couple thousand Mickey Mouse's being registered to vote.

Callie Del Noire

Quote from: All Powerful Nateboi on October 23, 2009, 12:45:55 PM
Now, is registration fraud a problem? Sure it is, and it's one that should be looked into. But not with the amount of political fury that's been tossed around. I'd *much* rather our government look into gerrymandered districts (something states like Texas and North Carolina are famous for) and the electronic voting machines. Those have a *much* bigger effect on elections than a couple thousand Mickey Mouse's being registered to vote.

Surely you don't mean that one district that is like 10 miles wide and follows a 30 mile length of interstate in NC? Oh no.. didn't you hear the last Govenor? That was a perfectly valid district..

Really.

Morven

Most of the 'registration fraud' really seems to be individual contractors defrauding ACORN; at one point they were paying them based on how many registrations they got, and some contractors were faking registrations in order to get paid without actually working.  As Nateboi points out, fake people can't vote because they won't be actually showing up.  ACORN stopped paying its contractors this way, I understand.
NaNo word count: 50,180 (done with NaNo, but not with the story ...)
Ons & Offs (generalities and explanations) | New Ons & Offs (checklist) | Apologies & Absences

Callie Del Noire

Still, it's stuff like that and hiring felons to do the registration work (which is VERY illegal) that has given ACORN a bad name..

Not that either party doesn't do simular practices on a local/state level (sadly) but ACORN got caught on a big scale.

Morven

Yeah, both parties do it.  Republicans have been caught conning people into changing registration to Republican around here, with some very dirty tricks (including not telling people that's what they're signing, covering up the parts of the form that tell them what it is).
NaNo word count: 50,180 (done with NaNo, but not with the story ...)
Ons & Offs (generalities and explanations) | New Ons & Offs (checklist) | Apologies & Absences

All Powerful Nateboi

Quote from: Callie Del Noire on October 23, 2009, 02:41:53 PM
Still, it's stuff like that and hiring felons to do the registration work (which is VERY illegal) that has given ACORN a bad name..

Not that either party doesn't do simular practices on a local/state level (sadly) but ACORN got caught on a big scale.

WHile I'm certainly nto denying that ACORN used some shady practices, I think it's really a distraction for politicians to be yelling about them. They're the proverbial small fish in this pond. The shit they've pulled doesn't screw with the voting process *half* as bad as the things I've mentioned.

Vekseid

Quote from: All Powerful Nateboi on October 23, 2009, 12:45:55 PM
300 registration slips not getting turned in. This does borderline voter fraud, since if those 300 people show up to vote, now they can't.

Of those three examples, only one even comes close to actual attempts to manipulate the election outcome (voter fraud). Trying to register Mickey Mouse adn Donald Duck has no real effect on the election, unless someone with an ID proving that they're Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck walks into the voting place and attempts to vote.

No, in Minnesota you can register at the polls. It amounts to little except for the guy being stupid.

All Powerful Nateboi

Quote from: Vekseid on October 23, 2009, 05:16:44 PM
No, in Minnesota you can register at the polls. It amounts to little except for the guy being stupid.

So you can. I'd forgotten that part.

SO apparently, it didn't even boarderline voter fraud. And yet we've got talking heads and actual politicians yelling about it, when they should really be spending their energy on something that will actually change anything.

Callie Del Noire

Quote from: All Powerful Nateboi on October 23, 2009, 05:26:21 PM
So you can. I'd forgotten that part.

SO apparently, it didn't even boarderline voter fraud. And yet we've got talking heads and actual politicians yelling about it, when they should really be spending their energy on something that will actually change anything.

Except withholding registration paperwork past the mandatory turn in number of days is a chargeable offense. (the intent being that it reduces paperwork on polling days, and allows folks to secure absentee ballots ahead of time. )

Voting isn't just a right to me.. it's a responsibility. I got really unwound when one of my workers in Spain said his vote 'wouldn't count for anything'. This was RIGHT after the 2004 election where the state of Florida had come down the absentee ballots in some districts (He was a resident of Dade count Florida too!)

All Powerful Nateboi

Quote from: Callie Del Noire on October 23, 2009, 05:39:17 PM
Except withholding registration paperwork past the mandatory turn in number of days is a chargeable offense. (the intent being that it reduces paperwork on polling days, and allows folks to secure absentee ballots ahead of time. )

Voting isn't just a right to me.. it's a responsibility. I got really unwound when one of my workers in Spain said his vote 'wouldn't count for anything'. This was RIGHT after the 2004 election where the state of Florida had come down the absentee ballots in some districts (He was a resident of Dade count Florida too!)

Oh, I agree.

But does that *really* mean that our politicians should be working to pass laws specifically to strike at ACORN? Really? Is that *really* going to help the country out any?

Or are they just trying to score political points?

Vekseid

The way the Minnesota senate vote was going, I was half expecting a win by one vote.

Callie Del Noire

Quote from: All Powerful Nateboi on October 23, 2009, 05:47:56 PM
Oh, I agree.

But does that *really* mean that our politicians should be working to pass laws specifically to strike at ACORN? Really? Is that *really* going to help the country out any?

Or are they just trying to score political points?

Me personally? No, I don't think they should (and there is a more than a little evidence that it's an illegal law) but I do think that ACORN should reap a little of what they so on the state level.

On the federal level dealing with the housing branch of ACORN? You can't tell me that there isn't a law on the books dealing with fraud/criminal behavior that couldn't be used already.

This was a big rush to show that congress was 'reacting to their constituents'.

Quote from: Vekseid on October 23, 2009, 05:51:08 PM
The way the Minnesota senate vote was going, I was half expecting a win by one vote.

What it didnt?! I thought they had it that close. :D

Mr Self Destruct

Quote from: Vekseid on October 23, 2009, 07:03:25 AM
We need a Burke-Roosevelt-Eisenhower conservative party again. I'm not confident that it is going to be the republicans.

Another conservative on this forum?!  I thought I was the only one!