Backed into ACORNer

(Thumbnail image from Flickr user NewsHour)

“I’m gonna keep this real. The bottom line is if you got activity, coming in and out of the house, you’ve got neighbors and people see stuff.  And if they see stuff don’t think people won’t eventually get on the telephone and call the cops.  So whatever you do, you gotta be low key.” - DC ACORN Employee

 What you just heard isn’t advice on how to set up just any business. It’s an ACORN employee giving advice on how to evade taxes and police when setting up a home-based brothel. A man and woman posed as a pimp and prostitute, recorded the entire conversation then posted it on website BigGovernment.com.

ACORN is a non-profit organization that stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. They say they are committed to social and economic justice helping many of America’s lower income citizens.

We’re looking into media perspectives on what the arrests mean for ACORN – is it the end of the activist group or overplayed?

CNN talked to Iowa Republican Steve King. King has the view that ACORN needs to be cut off from all federal funding until they prove their practices are completely legal.

“We’ve got to audit them completely and every single affiliated corporation that they have needs a Department of Justice complete forensic audit.  We need to do congressional investigations and we need to shut off every dime going to ACORN until such time as they can have a clean bill of health.”

The undercover pimp and prostitute also went to ACORN’s Baltimore branch where they were given similar advice. Baltimore’s CBS affiliate brings us an interesting perspective on who is actually in trouble.

“ACORN says it’s employees were unprofessional but did not do anything illegal. But it is illegal to videotype someone without their express consent.” “Two people taped someone secretly if that is so that would violate Maryland’s wiretap statute, which is a felony in Maryland.”

Regardless of the law, FOX News’ Glenn Beck says what about morality. Beck adds if anyone should be outraged about ACORNS’ behavior it’s taxpayers.

“ACORN still will not say hey you know what prostitution destroy lives, hey you know what tax evasion probably a bad idea. You’re making a lot of money having sex, and the people who are actually working for a living are sending their tax dollars against our will to this crappy organization.”

But a contributor to Examiner.com downplays the ACORN revelations saying it could happen anywhere.

“Beck wants to argue that two out of 400,000 makes an entire organisation corrupt? His logic, as always, is ridiculously inadequate. Beck is not interested in truth, he is interested in sensationalism and feeding the right wing fringe.”

So what do you think of the ACORN scandal?  Is it a politically motivated smear campaign? Or will it be the final nail in the group’s funding and future?