A preview article from NewsReal blog. It reads:
ACORN’s anti-democratic, un-American activities are not legitimate political advocacy protected by the First Amendment. They cry out for prosecution under federal racketeering laws. [The push for a racketeering probe got a boost in April 2011 when ACORN was convicted in a massive voter fraud conspiracy in Nevada. The felony conviction came after the book had gone to press. -MV]
Former Chicago ACORN leader Madeline Talbott is a master of the bank shakedown. She bragged about “dragging banks kicking and screaming” into questionable loans. Talbott thought highly of Barack Obama’s organizing work in the Windy City and invited him to lecture her staffers. She also led a mob attack on the Chicago City Council during a “living wage” debate. ACORN demonstrators “pushed over the metal detector and table used to screen visitors, backed police against the doors to the council chamber, and blocked late-arriving aldermen and city staff from entering the session.” Six people, including a defiant Talbott, were led away in handcuffs.
Then-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich had a taste of ACORN’s stormtrooper tactics in 1995, when about 500 ACORN activists took over the Washington Hilton, forcing Gingrich to cancel a speech to 2,500 county commissioners. Demonstrators chanting “Nuke Newt!” grabbed the microphone and commandeered the head table, then cheered when the speech was cancelled.
“ACORN is part of the enforcement wing and the intimidation wing of the left,” Gingrich said in an interview.
Members of ACORN assaulted New York state Sen. James Alesi, a Republican, and his chief of staff, during a raucous 2009 protest. Alesi said an angry mob nearly knocked him to the floor of the chamber and spat in the face of his chief of staff. ACORN was protesting after two Democratic state senators switched parties giving Republicans control of the New York Senate. ACORN’s political party, the Working Families Party, had invested considerable resources in state senate elections in the Empire State. WFP took credit for ending “30 years of right-wing Republican rule” in 2008.
