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Former Head of ACORN Bertha Lewis

bicycleman said:
If nobody was pushing prostitution, why did the tapes I saw indicate differently and why did Acorn fire the counselors involved?
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The tapes you saw were edited.

to clarify: the full audio paints an entirely different picture. The house was pitched as an escape from prostitution. That part was conveniently left out of the final edit. More than one law enforcement agency reviewed the full transcript and audio and concluded that the tapes were edited to fit an agenda and no criminal activity actually took place.
 
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Deuce said:
The tapes you saw were edited.
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*sigh* The unedited versions had the same conversations. And the employees were still fired.
 
Mellie said:
*sigh* The unedited versions had the same conversations. And the employees were still fired.
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(See edit above)

I listened to the full audio and it totally reversed my opinion on the matter. I was on the "holy crap how could they do that fire them all" side.

As for why they were fired, PR is a powerful force regardless of what is true and what isn't.
 
Wow. They should sue the crap out of them for being wrongfully fired then. Could you explain what you heard that was different than what you first heard?
 
Mellie said:
Wow. They should sue the crap out of them for being wrongfully fired then. Could you explain what you heard that was different than what you first heard?
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Deuce said:
The tapes you saw were edited.

to clarify: the full audio paints an entirely different picture. The house was pitched as an escape from prostitution. That part was conveniently left out of the final edit. More than one law enforcement agency reviewed the full transcript and audio and concluded that the tapes were edited to fit an agenda and no criminal activity actually took place.
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Basically that. I listened to the full audio a while ago so the details are fuzzy, but the short of it was the "pimp" was actually pitched as the girl's boyfriend. He also never wore the pimp outfit in the ACORN building. The house they were supposedly trying to get a loan for was pitched as an escape for that girl to get away from an abusive pimp. (pimp not present)

Same deal with the so-called child prostitution ring. They talked about getting those girls out of that situation.

As far as the "tax evasion," what the tax lady was doing was the direct opposite of advising tax evasion. She was advising paying taxes on income from prostitution. Really, the IRS doesn't care WHAT you put on your tax return, I can call myself a farmer or an astronaut as long as I pay tax of the appropriate amount. Not to mention that policing prostitutes is not the purview of the IRS or ACORN.
 
Deuce said:
^^^Hahahh helping poor people register to vote or get housing loans is "a threat."
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No political partisans receiving government funding is a threat, especially when their given important tasks; such as, aiding in census data collection which is used for redistricting.
 
PogueMoran said:
Sting operation? No there was no prostitution or pushing of it. Okeefe edited the tapes to meet his agenda.
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lol I heard and saw ACORN employees telling him how to perpetrate tax fraud in order to run a prostitution ring, the only way any editing would have made a difference is if you are asserting that he dubbed in the ladies voice and then used computer animation to make her lips fit around the words.
 
Agent Ferris said:
lol I heard and saw ACORN employees telling him how to perpetrate tax fraud in order to run a prostitution ring, the only way any editing would have made a difference is if you are asserting that he dubbed in the ladies voice and then used computer animation to make her lips fit around the words.
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Those bastards got caught red-handed, and they know it. That's why they that to change their name.
 
Agent Ferris said:
lol I heard and saw ACORN employees telling him how to perpetrate tax fraud in order to run a prostitution ring, the only way any editing would have made a difference is if you are asserting that he dubbed in the ladies voice and then used computer animation to make her lips fit around the words.
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Tax fraud? They would have had them not file. The IRS doesn't care what your business is as long as you pay your taxes and report what you earn. Once again there was nothing criminal involved other than illegal recording of conversations. Try watching the unedited video from California. It is pretty clear several times that Okeefe was told he couldn't be helped so Okeefe tried to pull out the sympathy card. Also several of the videos aren't clear as Okeefe dubbed what happened with voice overs and provided no context.
 
PogueMoran said:
Tax fraud? They would have had them not file.
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Um no, because the kid said he needed to report his income because he intended to run for public office, so instead of telling him to not file they instead aided him in tax fraud by falsifying his source of income as "entertainment services" IIRC.

The IRS doesn't care what your business is as long as you pay your taxes and report what you earn.
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You still have to list your source of income, since he couldn't report that the source was from pimping the ACORN employee told him to falsify his source of income.

Once again there was nothing criminal involved other than illegal recording of conversations.
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No actually there was an ACORN employee telling the kid to falsify his source of income.

Try watching the unedited video from California. It is pretty clear several times that Okeefe was told he couldn't be helped so Okeefe tried to pull out the sympathy card. Also several of the videos aren't clear as Okeefe dubbed what happened with voice overs and provided no context.
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Ya tell me how he could have possibly edited the portion in which the ACORN employee instructs him to falsify his source of income and to list the underage El Salvadoran girls as dependents sport.
 
Agent Ferris said:
No political partisans receiving government funding is a threat, especially when their given important tasks; such as, aiding in census data collection which is used for redistricting.
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I'm sure you wouldn't mind showing us exactly how ACORN was given the task of "aiding in census data collection".
 
Agent Ferris said:
IIRC after these videos broke the Census department severed its ties with ACORN.
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So, you don't want to answer the question? That's OK, I can understand why you wouldn't.
 
Agent Ferris said:
They were to aid the census bureau by aiding in hiring census workers.
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Well that's close and I do appreciate your making an honest effort to reply.

They were one of about 30,000 'partners'.


Census Bureau public affairs specialist Shelly Lowe elaborated on the hiring process in an interview with FactCheck.org, saying that "partners help us recruit by promoting the fact that we’re hiring," but they have no say in the actual hiring.

ACORN and the Census | FactCheck.org
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Agent Ferris said:
lol I heard and saw ACORN employees telling him how to perpetrate tax fraud in order to run a prostitution ring, the only way any editing would have made a difference is if you are asserting that he dubbed in the ladies voice and then used computer animation to make her lips fit around the words.
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How many times do I have to type it? Read my last posts, I'm not going to explain this to you again. There was no tax fraud and no prostitution ring. More than one law enforcement agency agrees with me. You're just wrong, live with it.
 
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