Ferguson Rent-A-Mobs Exposed

My article in today's FrontPage magazine:

Ferguson Rent-A-Mobs Exposed

By Matthew Vadum

ACORN’s successor group in Missouri has been paying protesters $5,000 a month to generate civil unrest in Ferguson, the troubled St. Louis suburb where black youth Michael Brown was killed by a white police officer last August.

We know this because some of the protesters haven’t been paid and, now, they are demanding what they were promised. They held a sit-in at the offices of Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment (MORE) and posted a demand letter online.

MORE is the rebranded Missouri branch of the former Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) which filed for bankruptcy in late 2010. That ACORN state chapter reconstituted itself in December 2009 as MORE under orders from ACORN’s national headquarters. President Obama used to work for ACORN and he represented it in court as a lawyer. (See my previous article on MORE.)

MORE has been active in the Ferguson protests and in efforts to free jailed demonstrators so they can continue vandalizing businesses, intimidating perceived adversaries, setting fires, throwing projectiles and human waste at cops, and engaging in the Left’s usual modes of so-called nonviolent protest. MORE believes that protesters should be given a blank check to inflict whatever harm they wish on the community in pursuit of social justice.

The unpaid rent-a-mob operatives complain that MORE stiffed them the same way ACORN did to hired protesters throughout its 40 years of radical left-wing rabble-rousing. The ACORN network’s leadership was always predominantly white while its foot soldiers were mostly non-white, a fact that caused tension within the criminal community organizing outfit.

Blogger Kristinn Taylor reported at St. Louis-based blogger Jim Hoft’s website, Gateway Pundit, that “[b]lack activists held a sit-in at the office of MORE … on Thursday to press their claim that groups led by whites have collected tens of thousands of dollars in donations off of the Black Lives Matter movement without paying the Black participants their fair share.”

One of the angry protesters can be observed threatening MORE executive director Jeff Ordower, a bald white man, in a video posted to the Twitter account of @search4swag on May 14 with the hashtag #CutTheCheck.

“We gonna just fuck you up,” she said to Ordower from across a boardroom-style table.

Ordower, an outspoken vote fraud apologist, previously ran Missouri ACORN and oversaw ACORN’s Midwest operations. He was also an SEIU organizer in Texas.

In his online biography, Ordower boasts that he was “one of a group of founders of the Chicago based organization Gender Just, which merged queer, class and racial justice.”  The bio states that he “is welcoming co-conspirators in attempts to scale up numbers of radical organizers who can financially support themselves in the work.”

In other words, Ordower admits that paying organizers isn’t exactly a priority for him.

Is ACORN behind violent unrest in Ferguson?

My article in today's American Thinker:

Is ACORN behind violent unrest in Ferguson?

By Matthew Vadum

ACORN's old Missouri chapter is playing at least a supporting role in the violent unrest and crime wave that has plagued Ferguson and St. Louis, Missouri since the Aug. 9 death of Michael Brown.

With all the pathologies on parade right now in and around Ferguson, really, how could the loyalists of ACORN, which once claimed a membership of 400,000, have stayed away from the opportunity to lynch a white police officer for doing his job?  The recruiting and fundraising opportunities for the cop-hating progressive movement are virtually unlimited.

What's going on in Ferguson is mobocracy at its ugliest. 

Activists are blackmailing the grand jury that is now hearing evidence against police officer Darren Wilson, who shot Brown in August reportedly in self-defense.  If the grand jurors refuse to indict Wilson, radical activists are promising even more mayhem.

The message is unmistakable: indict the cop, and there will be peace.  Don't, and Ferguson will burn.

One of the groups deeply involved in causing chaos in Ferguson is Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment (MORE), a 501(c)(4) nonprofit. 

MORE is the rebranded Missouri branch of the former Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), which filed for bankruptcy in late 2010.  That ACORN state chapter reconstituted itself in December 2009 as MORE under orders from ACORN's national headquarters.  President Obama used to work for ACORN, and he represented it in court as a lawyer.

MORE has been active in the protests and in efforts to free jailed demonstrators so they can continue vandalizing businesses, intimidating perceived adversaries, setting fires, throwing projectiles and urine at cops, and engaging in the left's usual modes of so-called nonviolent protest.  MORE believes that protesters should be given a blank check to inflict whatever harm they wish on the community in pursuit of social justice.

Ferguson Braces for Lynch Mob Revival

My article from the Oct. 10, 2014 issue of FrontPage magazine:

Ferguson Braces for Lynch Mob Revival

By Matthew Vadum

Police in Ferguson, Mo. are preparing for the mayhem and deadly violence that radical activists are promising if a grand jury declines to indict police officer Darren Wilson in the shooting of Michael Brown two months ago.

A grand jury is expected to determine next month if Wilson, a decorated white policeman, will face criminal charges for killing Brown, an 18-year-old black man who reportedly attacked him minutes after robbing a convenience store. The St. Louis suburb has been plagued by violent demonstrations since the Aug. 9 shooting. Hundreds of people, including individuals police call “outside agitators,” have been arrested in nearly continuous protests since Brown’s death.

The politically correct lie that a helpless 6’4″ 292-lbs. Brown was shot in cold blood, arms raised while attempting to surrender to white Wilson, instead of the less convenient truth that Brown was beating the cop while reaching for his gun, won’t die. In the minutes before the altercation with Wilson, Brown was captured on video bullying a much smaller East Indian shopkeeper during a robbery, an act that some might consider a hate crime.

Local agitators connected to the former Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) are knee-deep in the unrest in Ferguson. Missourians Organizing for Reform & Empowerment (MORE) has been active in the protests and in efforts to free jailed demonstrators so they can continue vandalizing businesses, intimidating perceived adversaries, setting fires, throwing projectiles and urine at cops, and engaging in the Left’s usual modes of so-called nonviolent protest.

The MORE front group’s executive director is longtime ACORN organizer Jeff Ordower. Ordower, a vote fraud apologist, previously ran Missouri ACORN. Under orders from ACORN’s national headquarters the Missouri chapter incorporated itself separately as MORE in December 2009.

State authorities are holding two to three meetings a week to draft plans to deal with riots should they materialize.

“We know outside groups visited us in August,” St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar said. “We are expecting that different people will come in from outside the St. Louis area.”

Ferguson Mayor James Knowles said he is afraid that “the unrest is going to be far beyond the city of Ferguson” if Wilson is not indicted.

Activists say if Wilson is cleared by the grand jury, rioting will follow.

Ferguson protest leader Tef Poe told Reuters to expect “carnage” if an indictment is not handed down. “There is a lot of explosive energy.”