{"id":15875,"date":"2009-09-28T12:34:44","date_gmt":"2009-09-28T18:34:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/?p=15875"},"modified":"2009-09-28T12:34:53","modified_gmt":"2009-09-28T18:34:53","slug":"why-we-should-punish-acorn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/09\/28\/why-we-should-punish-acorn.html","title":{"rendered":"Why we should punish ACORN"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Cafe Philos asks<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Although the employees have been dutifully fired, and although there is no evidence that it is ACORN’s actual policy to offer advice on how to evade taxes, set up brothels, and smuggle illegal immigrants into the US, most of us are a bit upset — including me. When I first heard of the scandal — especially the bit about smuggling underage girls into the US for the purposes of prostituting them — I was angry and appalled. What kind of organization offers pimps advice on the best way to do that?<\/p>\n

Of course, ACORN, the organization, has in place neither a policy nor guidelines to offer pimps advice on importing underage girls, or offer advice on other illegal matters. It turns out, the folks who were doing it, were doing it on their own.<\/p>\n

But given that ACORN does not tell it’s employees to offer advice on how to evade taxes, set up brothels, and smuggle illegal immigrants into the US, why should ACORN be punished?<\/strong> <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The answer, of course, is simple: ACORN should be punished for the same reason we punish large corporations whose employees get caught doing bad things, even when those companies disavow the (profitable) actions, and fire the (caught) employees.<\/p>\n

Wait — you mean we don’t do that? You mean, we still let companies that bilk the taxpayers for zillions, who engage in dubious or outright illegal acts, who find themselves targeted by journalistic exposes (not to mention Inspector General reports or actual court case settlements), to win further government contacts (often no-bid) or get further government grants \/ bail-outs or serve meals (or mercenaries) to our folks on foreign soil? Really?<\/p>\n

Huh … that’s kinda screwy.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

(Note: as an employee of a company that does a lot of work as a federal contractor, we have drummed into us contsantly the need to be “beyond reproach,” have to sign off on stringent business conduct policy reviews annually, and are constantly warned that screwing up on said business conduct can bring the wrath of the feds down on us and lead to both future contracts not being obtained and current contracts getting yanked. So I know that sometimes the system does work. A casual review of the newspaper, however, demonstrates that a lot of companies have employees who malfease a lot more egregiously than ACORN did in the current contretemps, without losing their contracts or their support from their political allies and contribution recipients in Congress — from which I can only conclude that it is sheer politics, not to mention the strong whiffs of class and race, behind passing the current anti-ACORN legislation, basically cutting off money to a company for alleged <\/em>— as in “no finding in court” — misbehavior on the part of some of its employees. ‘Nuff said.)<\/p>\n

<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cafe Philos asks: Although the employees have been dutifully fired, and although there is no evidence that it is ACORN’s actual policy to offer advice on how to evade taxes, set up brothels, and smuggle illegal immigrants into the US, most of us are a bit upset — including me. When I first heard of … Continue reading “Why we should punish ACORN”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[35,21,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-business","category-job-jollies","category-politics-law"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11835,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/01\/23\/suggestive_selling.html","url_meta":{"origin":15875,"position":0},"title":"Suggestive Selling","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 23-Jan-08 11:28am","format":false,"excerpt":"Dear Mr. Unsolicited Advice:\u00a0 How do I close the sale with some guy who's rejecting my fabulous offer to drop the $18,000 of services down to $13,000, just because he...","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":134043,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/08\/05\/sessons-picks-away-at-states-with-legalized-marijuana.html","url_meta":{"origin":15875,"position":1},"title":"Sessons picks away at states with legalized marijuana","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 5-Aug-17 4:44pm","format":false,"excerpt":"AG Jeff Sessions' passion against legalized pot (recreational or medicinal) is well documented. Folk have been expecting dire, direct against against states which have legalized one or both kinds since he was appointed, but -- aside from asking Congress pretty-please to let him spend money against states that have medical\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":21,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/07\/12\/going_to_pot.html","url_meta":{"origin":15875,"position":2},"title":"Going to pot","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 12-Jul-03 9:06am","format":false,"excerpt":"Y'know, with the War in Iraq, the War on Terror, and, heck, even the front lines of the War on Drugs, you'd still think Bush and Ashcroft and the DoJ...","rel":"","context":"In "War on Drugs"","block_context":{"text":"War on Drugs","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/war-on-drugs"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":30460,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/10\/03\/because-this-is-so-totally-unlike-acorn-because-its-worse.html","url_meta":{"origin":15875,"position":3},"title":"Because this is so totally unlike ACORN. Because it's worse","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 3-Oct-12 6:43am","format":false,"excerpt":"On the face of it, the voter registration fraud scandal by Nathan Sproul's\u00a0Strategic Allied Consulting, is not unlike some of the things that ACORN was accused of back in 2008 -- voter registration personnel turning in fraudulent registration forms.In some ways, though, it's a lot worse.It's worse because this firm\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":23202,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/10\/26\/unblogged-bits-wed-26-oct-11-1730.html","url_meta":{"origin":15875,"position":4},"title":"Unblogged Bits (Wed. 26-Oct-11 1730)","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 26-Oct-11 5:30pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries .... Occupy Oakland: Iraq war veteran in critical condition after police clashes | World news | guardian.co.uk Taxpayer-Funded 'Crisis Pregnancy Centers' Tell Jewish Woman To Convert To Christianity Or Go To Hell | ThinkProgress -\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marriage Equality"","block_context":{"text":"Marriage Equality","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/marriage-equality"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":131277,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/08\/16\/trump-is-winning-over-his-supporters-from-reality.html","url_meta":{"origin":15875,"position":5},"title":"Trump is winning over his supporters from reality","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 16-Aug-16 1:41am","format":false,"excerpt":"A new Public Policy Polling survey of North Carolina voters is out:http:\/\/www.publicpolicypolling.com\/main\/2016\/08\/clinton-leads-in-nc-for-first-time-since-march.htmlPart of what's fascinating about it is what it says about North Carolina Trump supporters. _69% of Trump voters think that if Hillary Clinton wins the election it will be because it was rigged, to only 16% who think\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/maxresdefault5B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/maxresdefault5B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/maxresdefault5B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15875\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}