Topic: WorldNetDaily
Jerome Corsi, it seems, is incapable of doing basic, complete research.
For reasons unbenownst to us, Corsi has decided to revisit Barack Obama's relationship with ACORN, even though it's irrelevant to anything going on now and arguably wasn't all that relevant during last year's election. In a May 13 WorldNetDaily article dedicated to portraying ACORN as originating in "a revolutionary strategy developed by two Columbia University sociologists in the 1960s," Corsi writes: "In 1992, while he was working as a community organizer in Chicago, Obama headed the Chicago operations of Project Vote!, an ACORN effort to register voters nationally."
As we've repeatedly pointed out, Project Vote was a separate entity from ACORN in 1992; as ACORN itself stated, "Project Vote had no more connection to ACORN than it did with dozens of other national and local organizations with which it partnered on local registration drives." Project Vote has since become a part of ACORN.
Corsi also asserts that ACORN is "funded heavily by George Soros through his Open Society Institute." That's not exactly true either; as NPR has noted, other organizations and even the federal government are on record as providing more money to ACORN than the Open Society Institute.
In an April 14 follow-up article, Corsi repeats the false claim that Project Vote was "an ACORN effort to register voters nationally" in 1992. He also engages in another misleading claim:
While the Obama administration's $787 economic stimulus package did not funnel federal funds to ACORN by name, the bill signed by the president included some $2 billion for non-profit "neighborhood stabilization" non-governmental organizations. Some of those funds could be allocated to ACORN to buy abandoned or foreclosed homes in impoverished neighborhoods, with the intent to rehabilitate them for resale or rental.
WhileCorsi surprisingly admits that the stimulus package "did not funnel federal funds to ACORN by name" -- as some of Corsi's ConWeb-ites have falsely asserted -- his claim that some of the stimulus funds "could be allocated to ACORN" is highly misleading. As the PolitiFact.com article to which Corsi links as support for his claim details, that claim is listed as "barely true":
If Democrats were trying to steer money to ACORN, say ACORN leaders, they sure picked an odd way to do it. ACORN has never done this type of foreclosure work, and according to ACORN's chief organizer, they don't plan to.
In response to Boehner's statement, ACORN chief organizer Bertha Lewis stated: "We watch with bemusement as he tries to gin up opposition to progressive solutions to America's deep economic crisis by accusing ACORN of doing something we have never done. We have not received neighborhood stabilization funds, have no plans to apply for such funds, and didn't weigh in on the pending rule changes."
Sister organization ACORN Housing Corp. has developed some housing in several cities, but it also has never done any foreclosure work.
"We theoretically could apply," said Richard Hayes, director of strategic projects for ACORN Housing. "But we would have to compete like everyone else. There is no guarantee we would be chosen."
Corsi fails to acknowledge ACORN's statements on the issue in his article. Because Corsi can't be bothered to tell the full truth about this issue, there's no reason to trust his reporting on it -- remember, we've documented him telling numerous lies about Obama. We do wonder, however, to what end Corsi is rehashing this -- for another Whistleblower magazine article, perhaps?
