ACORN’s California Makeover

My latest article on ACORN is in today’s American Spectator.

Here’s the top of it:

With help from docile Democratic politicians and journalists, ACORN is attempting to perpetrate yet another spectacular fraud on the American people.

After the American public saw the true face of ACORN last year, hidden camera videos showing its workers across the nation bending over backwards to facilitate underage prostitution, fraud, immigrant smuggling, and tax evasion in the name of social justice, ACORN realized it needed to take emergency action to protect its revenue streams.

So among other measures the embattled radical advocacy group is changing the name of its largest state chapter in an effort to keep tax dollars and foundation grants flowing into its coffers. ACORN feels it needs to do this because California ACORN is a critical component of the ACORN empire, boasting 37,000 dues-paying members.

With the fallout from the hidden camera videos, congressional funding of ACORN’s election fraud and racketeering business is no longer guaranteed, so ACORN decided to reconstitute its California operation as the “new” group Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE).

ACCE claims that it is “up and running as an independent state-wide organization with no legal, financial or structural ties to ACORN.”

Of course we know that ACCE is lying. […]