Topic: Newsmax
A Jan. 27 Newsmax article by David Patten falsely asserts that "the blockbuster Democratic stimulus package would provide up to a whopping $5.2 billion for ACORN, the left-leaning nonprofit group under federal investigation for massive voter fraud."
In fact, the Democratic stimulus plan does not even mention ACORN by name, let alone specifically allocate any money to it. Further, the plan requires that the money be distributed through competitive processes, which means that no one group, including ACORN, has a lock on the money, or that conservative groups who do the same things can make a play for that money too.
Patten gets slightly closer to the truth later in the article by hinting that the money is not specifically allocated to ACORN. he cites our old friend Matthew Vadum in claiming that the money is variously "money that ACORN often vies for successfully," part of a program that is "a specialty of ACORN’s," and "reserved for nonprofits such as ACORN." But at no point does Patten explicitly state that ACORN is not allocated the money or that it is in fact allocated via a competitive process.
Meanwhile, the American Spectator article by Vadum that Patten references shades the truth as well. Vadum avoids the explictly false claim, instead throwing in enough qualifiers to make his claims merely true enough: that the money will go to "left-of-center political advocacy groups such as ACORN" and that "Probably chief among the groups to benefit from stimulus spending will be ACORN."
Both Patten and Vadum repeat the misleading claim that Obama "led a voter drive for ACORN affiliate Project Vote." In fact, as we've noted, Project Vote wasn't an ACORN affiliate at the time Obama took part in the voter drive.
