Sep 17 2009
Enron vs ACORN, Who’s The Worst?
OK readers, I have a question for you to ponder. Who has the most federal indictments and felony convictions: Enron or ACORN. The best answer (with links) will be updated to this post. Clearly, this will be an ongoing race to the bottom since the ACORN scandal is still breaking, one of interest for the 2010 elections.
heh – this is almost like asking which is worse, the crips or the bloods. Totalling the number of Enron convictions would take a good bit of research for someone who wants to put in the time. And of course, we have to decide if Ken Lay’s conviction on 25 counts of fraud count, since they were all vacated on account of his sudden and un-fo-tunate death. Does he count as 1 conviction, 25, or none?
Some people who were *not* convicted – the 250 congressmen who took significant donations from Enron, and Paul Krugman, who took a quite a bit of money from Enron in order to write sympathetic NYT articles about them. Ethics, shmethics.
What I *still* hold against Enron is not the massive theft, as bad as it was, but the fact that it was Enron management (specifically Andy Fastow, who was the warped genius behind it all) who first figured out and began to promote the idea of a Cap and Trade Regulatory environment, an idea they began to use their donation dollars to push.
Enron, of course, knew from the start that this would be the scam of the century, and they figured they were positioned perfectly to take maximum advantage of it.
Enron is gone, but their evil creation, Cap and Trade, stalks the landscape to this day.
It depends on how you look at the comparison. I think Acorn is a horrible agency that needs to be shut down then investigated. They have committed voter fraud and assisted with tax evasion (there is not way that these are isolated incidents). They have promoted criminal activities and should be considered accessories. And this is only what has been uncovered. I applaud Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe for taking on this initiative on their own. They had no backing whatsoever. And Andrew Breitbart allowed them an outlet to show their findings, but did not have a hand in the planning.
I can’t wait to see what else comes out. And there better be criminal investigations in to the two Acorn workers in CA. Tresa Kaelke needs to be brought up on charges for her husbands premeditated murder and her illegal prostitution activities (if their isn’t a statute of limitations). And the man in San Diego should be charged with the assistance of illegal immigration.
All assets of Acorns need to be frozen until there is a massive federal investigation into the workings of this very corrupt agency.
To be fair, Tresa Kaelke might not have actually killed anyone, from what I understand the local police haven’t found any evidence of that yet. (at least one of her former husbands is still alive) Now I think she’s claiming that she was just making up stories – watching the video, I don’t think I believe that. She reminds me of some of the down and out people I’ve met over the years who have both drug and mental problems (not surprisingly the two are often mixed) and who say incredible, outrageous things not because they’re lying but because they live in a world where they actually believe those things to be true.
There’s more of those people out there than you think, and on the streets is where a lot of them end up.
At the very least, doesn’t say much about Acorn’s organizational controls when a borderline paranoid schizophrenic can be put in a position to speak for the organization.
minor technical point about charging the man in san diego – the prosecutor would need evidence of him actually trying to commit the crime, not just talking about it in order to charge him. Words alone usually aren’t good enough for that. On the other hand, they ARE good enough to get some warrants and to start doing some serious digging through his previous activities and associations.
From what I’ve been reading, Big County Blog, has a lot more tapes….and it will expand beyond ACORN.
It seems ACORN and Sieu are tied at the hip also. What’s going on with that Louisiana investigation, anyway?
For this American, it isn’t about Enron or ACORN/SIEU. It is about the corruption in our society and how it has tentacles into our government operations and institutions.
I want it all stopped.
I hope Hannah and James have inspired many.
AJ,
Given a Republican President is elected in 2012 and wishes to pursue the legal matter.
ACORN’s acting as field workers for Democrats in 2008 & later means both the Democratic National Party & many Democratic State Parties are deeply in danger of being put into Federal receivership — a’la the Teamsters — due to their legal vulnerability to Federal racketeering, influence and corrupt organizatios (R.I.C.O.) statutes.
All that is required to be vunlerable to prosecution under federal conspiracy laws is the proof that you agreed to any part of the criminal conspiracy.
Once you have, YOU ARE LIABLE TO ALL THE ACTS OF THE CONSPIRACY.
That is why the Democratic appointee to the Census bureau dropped ACORN like a hot rock when these Big Government videos came out.
He did so on legal advice from the Census Bureau government attourney on keeping him and his agency out of Federal court.
That makes ACORN much, Much, MUCH larger than Enron.
75% HS students can’t name first Prez
http://sweetness-light.com/archive/75-hs-students-cant-name-first-prez
This has to stop also. This is not the Education system Americans want.
We are mad as hell. It goes far beyond Obamacare.
Excellent points Trent, I agree. Do you have a link to the Census Attorney position?
AJ,
That was speculation on my part, and I should have stated it as such.
My bad.
As a rule, all government attorney’s advice to agency heads are privledged.
There will be no public links to any such opinion given unless they are part of an on-going legal action in Federal court or as part of Congressional investigations.
Ultimately? I agree with Trent Trelenko. IF (and it’s a Great Big IF) this is pursued, it will lead to a wholesale rollup of the criminal gang that the Democrat Party has become. And the number of Democrat elected officials NOT implicated will be counted on the fingers of one hand.
Jon Stewart to state-run media: “You mean to tell me that two kids from the cast of High School Musical III broke this story with a video camera and their grandmother’s chinchilla coat and you’ve got nothing?”.
(H/T: Gateway Pundit )
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And sadly, the Industrial Areas Foundation, founded by Saul Alinsky, has groups all throughout the country that are church/synagogue/mosque based that may be contributing the churchmember’s monies to ACORN, as I understand it. This needs to be looked into as well.
Catholics, Baptists, Presbyterians, Jewish, Evangelicals, Episcopalians all belong to these groups. They are local activist groups in Chicago, New Orleans, Dallas, San Antonio, Ft. Worth, Milwaukee, New Mexico, California, Jackson, Ms., Nashville to name a few.
And example is the investigation into Bill Richardson mess. It came down from DoJ in Washinton to stop the investigation and the prosecutor doing the investigation wasn’t really happy about it. It seems that the investigation was quashed right after the trail started to lead to California and Henry Waxman’s district.
It seems like there is a huge scandal under the surface surrounding municipal bonds. Once the trail started to lead to the vicinity of very influential Democrats, it was cut off.
The Democrats are worse than the Republicans ever were. We have never seen corruption on the scale that we see it being done as “business as usual” by the Democrats today.
40-some Democrats (and 1 Republican) brought up on charges in New Jersey is but the latest example. Charlie Rangel’s wife a felon? And Charlie suddenly supporting an amendment to a bill that would benfit one of the people paying bribes to his wife? And he is STILL in congress?
Actually, the Republicans don’t need to argue on any political issues at all right now. There is enough to talk about just in Democrat corruption.
Cross, what about the bond scandal in Birmingham, Al with their democrat mayor? Huge scandal which could lead to the largest municipal bankruptcy in history… hmmm
You think the House Ethics Committee investigation of Maxine Waters will get any traction? Gee, it was just extended by 45 more days. Just like the ethics “investigation” of Rangel that keeps getting extended forever. Never an end to it, never a decision reached, just keep extending it forever.
It is laughable and quite juvenile.
Personally, I think the only real option is a Political Corruption Tribunal along the lines of the Nuremburg War Crimes Tribunal.
A special court, operating outside the normal judicial system. Judges selected for their stand against corruption – and for having no particular future within the Government. And the power of summary judgement without appeal – including the power to condemn offenders to death.
Extreme? Perhaps, but I think that the only way we can break free of the cycle of corruption is to turn the entire affair over to a special tribunal that is totally outside the political framework.
ivehadit,
There is a blog that has been documenting muni bond corruption, I will see if I can locate it.
Ah, here it is. Have a look at this search result on this blog. Over 100 posts on the topic “Muni Bond Scandal” but since it involves mostly Democrats, not a single news organization has run with it. That alone would be the biggest corruption story since Watergate but they won’t touch it.
The Democrats are crooks.
Oops, blew the link. try this.
ACORN is only one avenue via which the Democrats are using government at all levels; local, state, and federal, to rob the taxpayers of their money.
Thanks, cross!