ACORN

“A lie told often enough becomes the truth.”

by Marc Scribner on April 22, 2010

in Odds & Ends, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual

In [dis]honor of the 140th anniversary since pinko pin-up Vladimir Ilyich Lenin spawned, I’d like to present the Lenin Prize for the Reification of Destructive Ideologies to ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis. Ms. Lewis has taken a lot of heat since the ACORN-appearing-to-aid-and-abet-child-prostitution scandal broke, but remains incredibly committed to her organization–one based on a particularly vile and inane form of bureaucratic socialism. As the leader of a group that can claim more credit (excluding government) for perpetuating urban poverty than any other, the following should not be surprising.

Earlier today, Reason‘s Damon Root posted an e-mail authored by Lewis disparaging a Brooklyn man whose home was condemned through eminent domain:

Finally, the itch that was Daniel Goldstein has been scratched and scratched out.   After almost seven years of flawed strategies, smear campaigns, stupid tactics, disingenuous rhetoric and total disregard for people who have lived in the downtown Brooklyn community for years before he even thought about coming here; finally he got what he really wanted.  A Deal.  Not for the community he claimed to love so much, but for the only beneficiary of his community of one, himself, Double Dealing Danny Goldstein.

Her cranky little missive is in response to Goldstein’s announcement that he has agreed to vacate his home next month. Goldstein lives/lived in the Atlantic Yards area of Brooklyn, which is currently undergoing forced redevelopment. Naturally, as with most comprehensive redevelopment plans, this one entails kicking many low- and middle-income residents and business owners to the curb in order to transfer the property to a wealthy private developer.

But why, you might ask, would ACORN, an organization with a stated mission to “[help] those who have historically been locked out,” support wealthy private developer Bruce Ratner’s land grab over the rights of residents? Because even for committed socialist dupes, money talks. Ratner quietly funneled money into the group in 2008 following a funding panic in the wake of a multi-million dollar embezzlement scandal involving high-ranking ACORN officials. It is also alleged by a former ACORN official-turned-whistle-blower that ACORN and Lewis were promised kickbacks from Ratner in the form of control of new affordable housing units, an arrangement that could net the organization tens of millions of dollars in the coming years.

For more on Atlantic Yards, the state’s land grab, and the Ratner plan, visit Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn.

“How ACORN Destroyed the Housing Market”

by Hans Bader on November 16, 2009

in Bailout Watch, Economy, Legal, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Precaution & Risk, Sanctimony

Federal affordable-housing mandates were a major factor in the mortgage crisis, fueling the housing bubble and the subsequent collapse of the housing and financial markets, which helped bring down the economy.  Even the liberal Village Voice has admitted that.  Who drafted those awful mandates?  ACORN, reports the Washington Examiner, in “How ACORN Destroyed the Housing Market.”

How did ACORN cause the “housing bubble” and “financial collapse”?  ACORN lobbyists drafted “affordable-housing” mandates to pressure the mortgage giants to buy up more risky loans and mortgages from low-income communities, loans that banks in turn were pressured to make by the Community Reinvestment Act, explains The Wall Street Journal.

ACORN also helped spawn the mortgage crisis by promoting “liar loans.”   It has a long history of  financial fraud, vote fraud, tax evasion, waste, and mismanagement.

Lawmakers and the Obama administration have studiously ignored ACORN’s role in spawning the financial crisis, because many liberal lawmakers have long had close ties to ACORN.  ACORN is a left-wing group that launched Obama’s career as a community organizer.  (ACORN stands for Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.)  Obama has long-standing ties to ACORN, and an ACORN affiliate received received $800,000 from Obama’s campaign.

In recent months, lawmakers distanced themselves from ACORN, and cut off its federal housing funds, after it was caught on videotape in a child prostitution promotion scandal.  (ACORN is now suing the federal government in court, to force it to resume funding ACORN.  Earlier, it sued the private citizens who exposed its role in the scandal for $2 million).

However, in the long run, ACORN is likely to continue to benefit from its close ties to liberal lawmakers and the administration.  Entities related to ACORN stand to reap millions from Obama’s financial regulation proposals and health-care reform proposals.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration is busy promoting the junky, risky mortgages that fueled the housing bubble, showing that it has learned nothing from history.  One result is that the Federal Housing Administration, which is making many such loans, has gone into a “nose dive” and may need a multibillion-dollar taxpayer bailout, reports the Washington Post.

Obama wants to create a bureaucracy called the Consumer Financial Protection Agency. “The agency would be in charge of enforcing the Community Reinvestment Act, a law that prods banks to make loans in low-income communities.” The Community Reinvestment Act was a key contributor to the financial crisis.  Yet Obama’s plan would empower the CFPA to enforce the Community Reinvestment Act without regard for banks’ financial safety and soundness.

The mortgage crisis was also caused by the reckless government-sponsored mortgage giants (”GSEs”) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and by federal affordable-housing mandates.

But Obama’s proposed financial rules overhaul does absolutely nothing about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, admits Obama’s Treasury Secretary, tax cheat Timothy Geithner, even though he admits that “Fannie and Freddie were a core part of what went wrong in our system.”

Worse, Obama’s plan is “largely the product of extensive conversations” with two lawmakers responsible for the corrupt status quo, Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, and it expands the reach of regulations that have been used by left-wing groups to extort pay-offs from banks.

Recently, the administration got rid of the inspector general for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, after making Freddie Mac run up $30 billion in losses from the Obama administration’s mortgage bailouts, which bailed out even high-income borrowers who irresponsibly mismanaged their finances.  Earlier, Obama fired an inspector general, Gerald Walpin, who uncovered misuse of funds by a prominent Obama backer, smearing the inspector general with allegations that turned out to be false.

Obama Accepts “Blasphemy” Exception to Free Speech

by Hans Bader on October 21, 2009

in International, Labor, Legal, Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Sanctimony

In USA Today, liberal law professor Jonathan Turley is criticizing the Obama administration for endorsing a “blasphemy” exception to free speech: “Around the world, free speech is being sacrificed on the altar of religion. Whether defined as hate speech, discrimination or simple blasphemy, governments are declaring unlimited free speech as the enemy of freedom of religion. This growing movement has reached the United Nations, where religiously conservative countries received a boost in their campaign to pass an international blasphemy law. It came from the most unlikely of places: the United States.”

Granted, blasphemy may be patently offensive to significant numbers of people, but it is precisely such hard cases for which First Amendment protection is most important. Consider the fate of those unfortunate enough to live in countries without such protections. (Note: Some readers may find the following examples shocking.)

Religious minorities have often been persecuted for “blasphemy” in Islamic countries for disagreeing with Islam, or interpreting Islam’s holy book, the Koran, differently than the majority of Muslims do. Turley says that Western blasphemy cases have included the arrest of a Dutch cartoonist for depicting a Christian fundamentalist and a Muslim fundamentalist as zombies who want to marry and attend gay rallies; the investigation of an Italian comedian for joking at a rally that in 20 years, the Pope will be in hell, tormented by gay devils; the exclusion of a Dutch politician from Britain because he made a movie describing the Quran as a “fascist” book and Islam as a violent religion; and the prosecution of writers in Austria, India, and Finland for calling Mohammed a “pedophile” because of his marriage to 6-year-old Aisha (which was consummated when she was 9).

Earlier, conservatives and civil libertarians criticized the Obama administration for endorsing restrictions on so-called “hate speech” at the United Nations. The administration is backing proposals to classify hate speech as a violation of international human rights law. Left-wing lawyers are now likely to argue that these proposals constitute “customary international law” binding on the U.S., as a consensus interpretation of treaties the U.S. has already signed, like the CEDAW equal rights treaty. The U.S. courts are unlikely to accept such arguments in the near future, although if Obama manages to appoint enough left-wing judges, the chances of such arguments prevailing will increase.

In Canada, hate speech laws have been used to punish ministers for anti-gay sermons. In the U.S., college hate-speech codes have been used to discipline students for criticizing affirmative action, defending the death penalty against racism charges, and calling homosexuality immoral. Ironically, hate speech laws have often been used against minorities in the Third World, with prosecutors arguing that advocating the rights of minorities is an inflammatory form of racial separatism.

Left-wing lawyers claim that “customary international law” dictates a host of controversial requirements that few countries would voluntarily adopt on their own, like mandating quota-based affirmative action. For example, the CEDAW equal-rights treaty has been construed by an international committee as requiring “redistribution of wealth,” “affirmative action,” “gender studies” in academia, government-sponsored “access to rapid and easy abortion,” “comparable worth,” and “the application of quotas and numerical goals and measurable targets aimed at increasing women’s political participation.”

The UN is quite hostile to human rights, as is its “Human Rights Council,” which has included genocidal dictatorships among its members.  The U.N. recently declared Fidel Castro, the longtime Communist dictator of Cuba, a “World Hero.” Castro killed thousands and thousands of people during his rule, torturing some to death (including a few American citizens), and Cuba remains an oppressive dictatorship even today.

While advocating bans on hate speech, the Obama administration has turned a blind eye to hate speech and hate crimes by its allies and supporters.  It turned a blind eye to voter intimidation by the New Black Panther Party, which is a racist, anti-Semitic hate group that backed Obama and included an Obama poll-watcher and Democratic Party official in Philadelphia.  It was silent about the violent, racially-charged SEIU assault on a black conservative critic of Obama’s health care proposals.  The administration and its allies use the SEIU as shock troops at town hall meetings, and Obama recently appointed a high-ranking SEIU official, Craig Becker, to the NLRB.  (The SEIU is closely linked with, and even overlaps with, the controversial group ACORN, which gave Obama his start, and whose affiliate received $800,000 from his campaign.  ACORN was recently involved in a high-profile scandal promoting underage prostitution.)

While turning a blind eye to hate and prejudice from the Left, the administration has backed a bill in Congress, now virtually certain to become law, that will allow some people found innocent of hate crimes in state court to be reprosecuted all over again in federal court, taking advantage of a loophole in Constitutional protections against double jeopardy.

Cutting Off Funds to ACORN Is Constitutional, and Would Protect Against Voter and Financial Fraud

by Hans Bader on September 29, 2009

in Healthcare, Legal, Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Sanctimony

Earlier, ACORN was caught in a scandal, promoting child prostitution. Both Houses of Congress voted to cut off federal funds to ACORN.  Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and other ACORN supporters argued that this was an unconstitutional bill of attainder.

Hans Von Spakovsky, a legal scholar at the Heritage Foundation, explains why it is perfectly constitutional to cut off funds to ACORN, under controlling Supreme Court precedent.

ACORN receives taxpayer money despite a long history of financial fraud, vote fraud, and tax evasion.

Mickey Kaus, a Democrat, notes that it was ACORN that tipped the close Minnesota Senate race to Al Franken. ACORN has long been active in voter registration drives designed to put liberals in office. It registered most of the state’s new voters, and helped put in office the Minnesota Secretary of State who presided over the controversial recount that switched the lead in Minnesota’s Senate race from incumbent Norm Coleman to Al Franken.  Some lawyers have argued that the election was stolen.  The recount process was also marred by the peculiar actions of the Minnesota Canvassing Board, which treated clear votes for Coleman as non-votes or as votes for Franken.

Far from being contrite about its actions, ACORN is now suing the whistleblowers who exposed its wrongdoing, seeking millions of dollars, and an unconstitutional injunction to silence them.

ACORN is a left-wing group that launched Barack Obama’s career as a community organizer. He has long-standing ties to ACORN, and an ACORN affiliate received received $800,000 from Obama’s campaign.  (Small wonder that Obama has turned out to be the most left-wing president in American history).

Showing as little respect for the First Amendment as ACORN, Obama recently slapped an unconstitutional gag order on a critic of his health-care plan.

Obama’s health-care plan would force states to radically increase their Medicaid spending, resulting in massive tax increases or massive deficits at the state level.

Obama’s health care plan would also raise federal taxes, break campaign promises, increase the federal budget deficit, destroy many inexpensive health-care plans, and take away important freedoms.

Cutting off funds to ACORN would not affect its many affiliates that receive taxpayer money from state and federal agencies.

Bank of America recently suspended its funding of ACORN, which has long used the threat of lawsuits, demonstrations, and regulatory complaints to shake down banks.

ACORN helped spawn the mortgage crisis by promoting “liar loans.”

ACORN stands to profit greatly from Obama’s financial-regulation proposals, which would strengthen the Community Reinvestment Act.  (The Community Reinvestment Act is extremely harmful to banks and prudent lending, pressuring banks to make risky, low-income loans.)

ACORN is a “creature of the Community Reinvestment Act” (CRA), which gives groups like ACORN the ability to shake down banks, by accusing them of making insufficient low-income loans.

Obama Slaps Unconstitutional Gag Order on Critic of His Health Care Plan

by Hans Bader on September 25, 2009

in Bailout Watch, Healthcare, International, Labor, Legal, Nanny State, Odds & Ends, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Regulation, Sanctimony

While Obama ally ACORN attempts to gag whistleblowers who exposed its role in a recent scandal, the Obama administration is trying to gag critics of its health-care plan, which the Congressional Budget Office says could wipe out many Medicare Advantage programs relied on by the elderly.  (“The Obama Administration wants to seriously curtail or end Medicare Advantage.”)

It has issued a gag order to Humana, a health insurer that provides Medicare Advantage services, ordering it not to tell customers about how Obamacare could reduce the availability of such services.  The gag order clearly violates the First Amendment, according to law professor Eugene Volokh, the author of a leading treatise on First Amendment law, and a former law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.  The gag order has also been criticized by the Wall Street Journal, the San Francisco Examiner, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, yet the administration obstinately insists on enforcing it.

The Supreme Court has said the First Amendment protects the free speech rights of businesses like Humana even when they are government contractors, in cases like Board of County Commissioners v. Umbehr, 518 U.S. 668 (1996).

Liberal Obama supporters hypocritically claim Humana should shut up because it’s receiving federal funds (an argument they would never make regarding artists funded by the National Endowment for the Arts), and because its claims are supposedly false (never mind that its truthful claims are echoed by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, which is headed by Democrat Douglas Elmendorf).

But as Professor Volokh and the Washington Supreme Court have recently noted, “false statements of fact about the government are generally protected” by the First Amendment.

Humana’s statements are predictions about the future, and thus by definition not provably false.   Moreover, they are chillingly accurate predictions, which is why Obama ally Senator Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who is drafting Obama’s health-care plan, asked Obama to ban them:

“On Tuesday, the Congressional Budget Office director told Mr. Baucus’s committee that its plan to cut $123 billion from Medicare Advantage—the program that gives almost one-fourth of seniors private health-insurance options—will result in lower benefits and some 2.7 million people losing this coverage. Imagine that. Last week Mr. Baucus ordered Medicare regulators to investigate and likely punish Humana Inc. for trying to educate enrollees in its Advantage plans about precisely this fact.”

The fact that Humana is a government contractor doesn’t make this censorship any more acceptable, since the government simply has no business policing criticism of itself as “false”:  federal courts have ruled that even false speech by government contractors and employees on matters of public concern can be protected, as cases like Johnson v. Multnomah County, 48 F.3d 420 (9th Cir. 1995) show.

Nor is there any evidence that Humana is using federal money to disseminate its message.  And any subsidies Humana might be receiving would not justify the Obama administration’s blatant viewpoint discrimination against it, since Obama allies that receive lots of federal subsidies are being allowed to trumpet their support for Obamacare freely.  Under the Supreme Court’s ruling in Rosenberger v. Rector of the University of Virginia, viewpoint discrimination is a forbidden, “egregious” form of discrimination even when the government is subsidizing a speaker; here, the federal government is plainly engaging in viewpoint discrimination, since it is letting AARP make blatantly false claims in favor of Obamacare that contradict CBO finds and basic budget math, while blocking Humana from criticizing Obamacare based on reasonable arguments echoed by the Congressional Budget Office).

The Obama administration’s position contradicts the position of the Clinton administration, which admitted that Medicare contractors have free speech rights.  (But then, Obama is well to the left of Bill Clinton and past presidents).

Obama’s health care plan would raise taxes, break promises, harm people with insurance, explode the budget deficit, destroy many inexpensive health-care plans, and take away important freedoms.

Obama earlier showed contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law by radically expanding Bush’s  auto bailout, violating federal bankruptcy laws and the TARP statute in the process.  (The Obama administration ripped off taxpayers and retirees in the General Motors and Chrysler bailouts, in order to enrich the left-wing United Auto Workers union, in unnecessary bailouts that have cost at least $70 billion, drawing criticism even from the liberal Washington Post. Many commentators argued that the auto bailouts were illegal, such as the Heritage Foundation and Clinton administration Labor Secretary Robert Reich.)

He also demanded that a small country in Latin America (Honduras) violate its constitution by allowing the return to power of its left-wing ex-president and would-be dictator, imposing travel sanctions on its ordinary citizens as punishment for a ruling by its supreme court refusing to reinstate the ex-president, who was removed for violating his country’s constitution.  (The ex-president, Mel Zelaya, is a paranoid, erratic bully who claims he is being subjected to “mind-altering radiation and poison gas” and targeted by “Israeli mercenaries.”)

ACORN Sues Whistleblowers for Exposing Its Wrongdoing in Scandal

by Hans Bader on September 24, 2009

in Deregulate to Stimulate, Healthcare, Legal, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Privacy, Sanctimony

ACORN is now suing the whistleblowers who allegedly filmed it promoting illegal sexual activities for $2 million! And not just them, but also the conservative web site that made the video public! ACORN seeks an injunction to silence them — a classic example of an unconstitutional prior restraint.

That’s a flagrant violation of the First Amendment, but the lawsuit was filed in state court in Baltimore, where the judges are very liberal, so who knows if ACORN’s lawsuit will be dismissed. Even if it is, the lawsuit will cost the whistleblowers thousands of dollars in lawyers’ bills. The Baltimore City prosecutor has already expressed hostility to the whistleblowers who exposed ACORN’s wrongdoing, threatening to prosecute them under a state “privacy” law restricting audiotaping.

(Similar “privacy” laws in Massachusetts have been used to shield kidnappers calling in ransom demands, and police abusing motorists!).

I earlier discussed some of the First Amendment issues here. A commenter at National Review argued that the lawsuit is meritless even if you ignore the First Amendment.

The Supreme Court has held that privacy lawsuits, and lawsuits in general, can’t be based on protected speech, in cases like Bartnicki v. Vopper.  That principle was extended by today’s appeals court ruling in Snyder v. Phelps overturning a Maryland jury’s $5 million damage award for intrusion-upon-seclusion, and an earlier ruling limiting state audiotaping laws in Jean v. Massachusetts State Police (2007).

The IRS just ended its controversial relationship with ACORN, which earlier had its housing funds cut-off by Congress over a recent controversy, and is now embroiled in a tax evasion scandal.

ACORN has long received taxpayer money despite a history of financial fraud and voter registration fraud. ACORN helped spawn the mortgage crisis by promoting “liar loans.”

ACORN is a left-wing group that launched Obama’s career as a community organizer. He has long-standing ties to ACORN, and an ACORN affiliate received received $800,000 from Obama’s campaign. ACORN stands to profit greatly from Obama’s financial-regulation proposals, which would strengthen the Community Reinvestment Act (The Community Reinvestment Act is extremely harmful to banks and prudent lending, pressuring banks to make risky, low-income loans).

ACORN affiliates would also likely profit from Obama’s health-care plan, which contains subsidies for community organizers. (Obama’s health care plan would raise taxes, break promises, increase the deficit, destroy many inexpensive health-care plans, and take away important freedoms.)

Yet Another ACORN Scandal

by Hans Bader on September 23, 2009

in Healthcare, Legal, Politics as Usual, Sanctimony

ACORN, which had its housing funds cut-off by Congress over a recent scandal, is now embroiled in a tax-evasion scandal, reports the Washington Times.

ACORN has long received taxpayer money despite a history of financial fraud and voter registration fraud.  ACORN helped spawn the mortgage crisis by promoting “liar loans.”

ACORN is a left-wing group that launched Obama’s career as a community organizer.  He has long-standing ties to ACORN, and an ACORN affiliate received received $800,000 from Obama’s campaign.

ACORN stands to profit greatly from Obama’s financial-regulation proposals, which would strengthen the Community Reinvestment Act  (The Community Reinvestment Act is extremely harmful to banks and prudent lending, pressuring banks to make risky, low-income loans).  Its affiliates and related entities would also likely profit from Obama’s health-care plan.

ACORN’s Empire Will Expand Under Obama’s Health-Care Plan and Financial Rules

by Hans Bader on September 22, 2009

in Deregulate to Stimulate, Healthcare, Legal, Politics as Usual, Sanctimony

Congress recently voted to cut off federal housing funds to controversial group ACORN.  But since most federal money goes to ACORN-related entities and affiliates, not ACORN itself, Congress’s action is expected to have little practical effect. ACORN’s chief defender in Congress, House Banking Committee Barney Frank (D-Mass.), claims that the cut-off is unconstitutional. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) suggests that Congress’s action was purely symbolic, and not expected to have any effect on ACORN.

Indeed, ACORN’s empire is likely to expand thanks to pending legislation to broaden its and its affiliates’ ability to shake down banks. ACORN, a beneficiary of many welfare and war-on-poverty programs, is a “creature of the Community Reinvestment Act” (CRA), which allows groups like ACORN the ability to shake down banks seeking to obtain regulatory approvals, by accusing them of making insufficient low-income loans.

The Community Reinvestment Act was a key contributor to the financial crisis, because it forced banks to make risky, low-income loans.  Yet Obama is now proposing a new agency to more stringently enforce it without regard for banks’ financial safety and soundness.  Obama’s Congressional allies are working to expand the CRA’s reach and make it “explicitly race-based.”

ACORN may also benefit from the Obama health-care plan, which contains subsidies for community organizers like ACORN. While funneling money to community organizers like ACORN, Obama’s health care plan would raise taxes, break promises, harm people with insurance, explode the budget deficit, destroy many inexpensive health-care plans, and take away important freedoms.

While enriching ACORN, Obama’s proposed financial rules overhaul does absolutely nothing about the reckless government-sponsored mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, admits Obama’s Treasury Secretary, tax cheat Timothy Geithner, even though he admits that “Fannie and Freddie were a core part of what went wrong in our system.” The mortgage crisis was caused partly by the reckless government-sponsored mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and by federal affordable-housing mandates, which created an artificial market for junky sub-prime mortgages.

Worse, Obama’s plan is “largely the product of extensive conversations” with two lawmakers responsible for the corrupt political status quo, Chris Dodd and Barney Frank.

LibertyWeek 61: How About FCC Neutrality?

by Richard Morrison on September 21, 2009

in CEI Projects, Environment, Features, Global Warming, Podcast, Zeitgeist

Your host Richard Morrison welcomes returning guest co-host William Yeatman and special guest commenter Ryan Radia to the program for Episode 61 of the LibertyWeek podcast. We start with the FCC’s just-announced proposal for “net neutrality,” Treasury documents that reveal the true cost of cap-and-trade legislation and the plan for getting over California’s great depression. We then move on to the G20 Summit’s potential path to prosperity and the ever-expanding scandal that is ACORN.

ACORN Tied to Brooklyn Land-grabber

by Marc Scribner on September 21, 2009 · 1 comment

in Economy, Legal, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Stimulus to Nowhere

The multi-billion dollar Atlantic Yards development project in Brooklyn, New York–subsidized to the tune of $1.6 billion by New York taxpayers–is facing new scrutiny after politically-connected developer Bruce Ratner’s ties with embattled left-wing activist group ACORN were revealed. As it currently stands, the public-financed redevelopment plan relies on extensive use of eminent domain that would leave many long-time residents and business owners out in the cold. But ACORN, as one would expect, is framing the debate in racial terms:

ACORN’s New York director, Bertha Lewis, is a vocal and enthusiastic supporter of Ratner’s development. At a news conference announcing the project would proceed, Lewis, onstage, planted photo-op kisses on both Ratner and Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Lewis has also framed it on racial terms: “The overwhelming folks who are opposed are white people and wealthier people and more secure people and people who just arrived. *** We’re tired of being pushed out.”

It helps inspire Lewis, one imagines, that ACORN got that loan from Ratner and that Ratner gave her a hand in devising the low-income housing portions of his development. Ratner, it appears, has bought an ally, not just with cash, but with power — ACORN will now be shaping who lives where. “We’re developers now,” Lewis told New York Magazine.

But what Lewis and ACORN don’t mention is that Ratner quietly directed $1.5 million in grants and low-interest loans to the cash-strapped group last year–after major foundation support dried up due to an embezzlement scandal–leading Atlantic Yards opponent and former Working Families Party (a New York minor party with deep ties to ACORN) activist Patti Hagan to declare, “ACORN is a corrupt organization that had its silence bought by Ratner.” Opposition groups, including Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, have alleged corruption in the past, and even fence-sitting local politicians are questioning the development timeline and the security of future funding, which do not look promising. In fact, a new study estimates that the Atlantic Yards project would take twice as long to complete than Ratner currently claims. But objections from actual neighborhood activists are unlikely to change ACORN’s mind on the project. An ACORN whistleblower says the group stands to bring in at least $5 million annually in housing revenue thanks to a cushy deal brokered by Ratner.

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