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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNYC mayor race, "conservative" media dredges up Acorn...
Backed up by WND and Faux "news" dredging up O'Keefe's fake videos.
Conservative Media Resurrect ACORN Boogeyman For NYC Mayor Race
ACORN, the disbanded community organizing group and conservative boogeyman that was baselessly credited with everything from the financial crisis to stealing the 2008 presidential election, has been resurrected to attack the Democratic nominee for New York City mayor, Bill de Blasio, over his history with the group and its last chief organizer, Bertha Lewis.
The organization, which for decades worked to help the poor, became a favorite conservative media target after discredited conservative activist James O'Keefe released videos purporting to show ACORN employees helping child prostitution traffickers. The "severely edited" videos gave the false impression that O'Keefe visited various ACORN offices in a pimp costume -- a lie that was parroted by mainstream media outlets such as CNN and The New York Times. The videos were so misleading that O'Keefe reportedly paid a $100,000 settlement to a former ACORN employee who filed suit against him, claiming that O'Keefe had illegally taped their conversation in a California ACORN office.
Despite conservatives' assertions that the videos exposed criminality on the part of ACORN, three separate investigations cleared ACORN employees of any criminal wrongdoing -- and law enforcement officials criticized O'Keefe for the misleading nature of his videos.
Reporting throughout 2008, from both conservative and mainstream media sources, also tarred the organization with overhyped claims of voter registration fraud. These reports criticized ACORN for turning in forms from its voter registration drives that were possibly fraudulent. But those reports omitted that many states have laws that require organizations collecting voter registration forms to turn in every single form -- even forms that the organizations suspect are fraudulent. This misleading media narrative was so persistent that a 2009 poll found that a majority of Republicans believed that ACORN stole the 2008 election for Obama.
Now, more than three years after ACORN formally disbanded, conservative media are reviving the specter of ACORN after de Blasio won the Democratic nomination for New York City mayor. A September 24 New York Post story explored de Blasio's relationship with ACORN and Lewis, and quoted de Blasio saying that he is proud of his past work with her.
ACORNBut most of the conservative media stories about their relationship bring up either the discredited O'Keefe videos or the accusations leveled against ACORN during the 2008 election. Birther and conspiracy website WND posted a story on September 16 with the headline, "NEW YORK CITY TO GET ACORN MAYOR?" and said the 2008 accusations against ACORN were "a point of controversy for Obama during his campaign for president." A September 25 Fox News segment called ACORN "the community organizing group that was forced to disband after a series of undercover tapes showed employees giving advice to how to cheat the tax system." And a September 26 article on National Review Online, headlined "The Mayor from ACORN," falsely claimed that O'Keefe's videos "revealed that [ACORN] employees were complicit in illegal activity" -- and then later mentioned that investigations exonerated the employees.
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/09/27/conservative-media-resurrect-acorn-boogeyman-fo/196130
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)65% to 25% is where the race is at. Lhotta is desperate.
Liberal_in_LA
(44,397 posts)hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)raging moderate
(4,302 posts)I have been waiting for some of them to be dumb enough to mention Acorn! I think we should use it to DECK their right-wing lying machine! Acorn has been completely exonerated! Maybe it could be re-started?
Dawson Leery
(19,348 posts)The right wing swift boat campaign is not going to work in NYC.
xfundy
(5,105 posts)They're usually used to call out something suspect and at controversy, such as the lie of the "liberal media." KKKancervative media does exist.
LiberalElite
(14,691 posts)I was worried that the Repug. candidate would win somehow despite my district as well as most of NYC being overwhemingly Democratic. (Yes I'm neurotic.) I relaxed only the night before Election Day when I got a mailing from the Repug jerk trying to tie the Democratic candidate to Acorn. Then I KNEW the Repug was going down in flames. He was in fact annihilated at the polls. When they get to the point of dragging out Acorn they're goin' down.
Festivito
(13,452 posts)So, they must obfuscate.