The radical activist group ACORN is the E.F. Hutton of prostitution. It stands ready to provide discreet advice on setting up a brothel and engaging in other, associated acts of criminality. When ACORN talks, pimps and hookers listen.
This has been established by an audacious video sting operation undertaken by guerrilla conservative documentarian James O’Keefe, 25, and his sidekick Hannah Giles, 20. O’Keefe posed as a pimp and Giles as a prostitute seeking help getting a mortgage for a brothel. In cities around the country, workers for ACORN — the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now — happily obliged.
Posted at the new Web site BigGovernment.com and aired on Fox News, the videos are yet another indication of the loosening grip of the legacy media. A couple of 20-somethings crafted a devastating expose with just a hidden camera and some gumption. The Census Bureau immediately severed its ties with ACORN.
In Baltimore, ACORN staff told Giles that if she makes $96,000 a year selling sex, she should tell the government she only makes $9,600. Her occupation, meanwhile, should be reported as “performing artist.” If the conversation had gone longer, surely she would have been advised how to apply for a National Endowment for the Arts grant.
O’Keefe notes that they want a house for 13 underage girls who will be imported from El Salvador to work as prostitutes. Only three — not all 13 — of the girls can be listed as dependents, ACORN prudently advises. And so long as they are under 16, they will make O’Keefe and his partner eligible for the child tax credit.
So it went in other ACORN offices. In Washington, D.C., O’Keefe and Giles were told they could lie in their loan application for the house. “We are looking out for you,” an ACORN staffer said, reassuringly. In Brooklyn, Giles was told to identify herself in loan documents as a “freelancer” and to bury cash proceeds of her work in the backyard.
The ACORN staff comported itself in keeping with founder Wade Rathke’s philosophy of “maximum eligible participation.” The idea is to sign up as many people as possible for government benefits. It has its roots, Matthew Vadum of the Washington-based Capital Research Center writes, in the 1960s New Left vision that “called upon activists to pack the welfare rolls to spread dependency, bankrupt the government and cause uprisings against the capitalist system.”
If the revolutionary fires no longer burn as bright, ACORN still has radical aspirations and a marginal commitment to the existing political and legal system. Unsurprisingly, its voter-registration efforts are synonymous with fraud. For all its disgust with capitalism, ACORN is well-heeled, between its membership fees (O’Keefe and Giles were repeatedly urged to sign up), foundation grants, corporate shakedowns and government funding. By one estimate, it has garnered $53 million in federal funds since 1993.
This must stop. After the voter-registration scandals of last year, Republicans agitated for a congressional investigation of the group. Democratic Rep. John Conyers initially agreed, then relented. “The powers that be” in the House wanted him to back off, he explained. Time for the powers that be to reconsider.
Lowry is editor of the National Review.
This has been established by an audacious video sting operation undertaken by guerrilla conservative documentarian James O’Keefe, 25, and his sidekick Hannah Giles, 20. O’Keefe posed as a pimp and Giles as a prostitute seeking help getting a mortgage for a brothel. In cities around the country, workers for ACORN — the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now — happily obliged.
Posted at the new Web site BigGovernment.com and aired on Fox News, the videos are yet another indication of the loosening grip of the legacy media. A couple of 20-somethings crafted a devastating expose with just a hidden camera and some gumption. The Census Bureau immediately severed its ties with ACORN.
In Baltimore, ACORN staff told Giles that if she makes $96,000 a year selling sex, she should tell the government she only makes $9,600. Her occupation, meanwhile, should be reported as “performing artist.” If the conversation had gone longer, surely she would have been advised how to apply for a National Endowment for the Arts grant.
O’Keefe notes that they want a house for 13 underage girls who will be imported from El Salvador to work as prostitutes. Only three — not all 13 — of the girls can be listed as dependents, ACORN prudently advises. And so long as they are under 16, they will make O’Keefe and his partner eligible for the child tax credit.
So it went in other ACORN offices. In Washington, D.C., O’Keefe and Giles were told they could lie in their loan application for the house. “We are looking out for you,” an ACORN staffer said, reassuringly. In Brooklyn, Giles was told to identify herself in loan documents as a “freelancer” and to bury cash proceeds of her work in the backyard.
The ACORN staff comported itself in keeping with founder Wade Rathke’s philosophy of “maximum eligible participation.” The idea is to sign up as many people as possible for government benefits. It has its roots, Matthew Vadum of the Washington-based Capital Research Center writes, in the 1960s New Left vision that “called upon activists to pack the welfare rolls to spread dependency, bankrupt the government and cause uprisings against the capitalist system.”
If the revolutionary fires no longer burn as bright, ACORN still has radical aspirations and a marginal commitment to the existing political and legal system. Unsurprisingly, its voter-registration efforts are synonymous with fraud. For all its disgust with capitalism, ACORN is well-heeled, between its membership fees (O’Keefe and Giles were repeatedly urged to sign up), foundation grants, corporate shakedowns and government funding. By one estimate, it has garnered $53 million in federal funds since 1993.
This must stop. After the voter-registration scandals of last year, Republicans agitated for a congressional investigation of the group. Democratic Rep. John Conyers initially agreed, then relented. “The powers that be” in the House wanted him to back off, he explained. Time for the powers that be to reconsider.
Lowry is editor of the National Review.