Trying to Unravel the ACORN String

For over a week now we've been trying to unravel the ACORN string. We're getting closer, but the one thing is that ACORN is so complex, so intentionally complicated, that we don't even know what we don't know.

But first, let's try to tie together what we do already know. And, keep in mind, we aren't getting caught up in the politics of the voter registration fraud during the election that everyone already knows about. In other words, this is not a Barack Obama vs. John McCain thing; it's a right vs. wrong thing.

This is about corruption and money.

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First piece of string: We had ACORN spokesman Scott Levenson on to ask him some simple questions about some bad things reportedly happening within his organization:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GLENN BECK: Why have you hired people who have been imprisoned for fraud — identity theft?

SCOTT LEVENSON, ACORN SPOKESMAN: Excuse me? I mean, really, excuse me. Do you really want to go and talk about that case?

BECK: Yes.

LEVENSON: Do you want to talk about the furlough program that the state authored?

BECK: Identity fraud.

LEVENSON: Listen, the furlough program...

BECK: Identity fraud.

LEVENSON: The furlough program that the state offered who released these people to work for us.

BECK: It's so hard. I apparently can't do it because it's so hard. How could you hire people with identity fraud?

LEVENSON: When you throw out these numbers like 23,000 — you aren't even clear what the 23,000 was, Glenn.

BECK: Help me out. Identity fraud — you have nobody? Nobody?

LEVENSON: Do you not hear me on the state furlough program?

BECK: Do you not — identity fraud?

LEVENSON: Excuse me?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

But that wasn't it. During the break, the dirtbag had the nerve to call me a racist, so I kicked him off the set.

Later on in the week, I had some much more reasonable people from ACORN on the program. They gave us an insider look at the kinds of problems they ran into just by asking simple questions to ACORN's leadership.

We learned from these current and former ACORN members that ACORN actively looks to hire people from prison. Why? Here's how Washington, D.C.'s ACORN Chair Marcel Reid explained it:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARCEL REID, ACORN: The very same people they were supposed to be enabling are the same people that we sacrificed. So, we can't have that kind of divisiveness there. If we're out to help people, who works for $9 an hour all day long or less? Who works for that kind of money? If you're empowered and if you're not an idealist student or retiree who has a very cushy life, you can't afford to work for that kind of money.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Our guests went on to explain how these people are basically forced to meet quotas, which led to some of them registering "Mickey Mouse" or other fake names over and over again. When ACORN got caught, these people were thrown to the wolves. They explained that this was the protocol for two reasons: First, even if the form said "Mickey Mouse," they still got paid. And second, if the person they threw to the wolves was black, they could always pull the race card. That could help them raise money in these communities by saying, "Look at the evil, conservative, white man keeping the black man down."

Then we unraveled the fact that while ACORN claims not to accept government funding, $10 million in federal money was funneled to them through other organizations just last year.

But ACORN receives a lot more money than that and most of it is virtually impossible to trace. Because of that, the "ACORN 8" started asking questions and they didn't like what they found:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REID: ACORN doesn't need to be funded with any more taxpayer dollars until we find out what happened to the last taxpayer dollars that ACORN was funded with.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

While we don't yet know what's really going on, we do know these ACORN affiliates have powerful friends, like the SEIU — the Service Employees International Union. Actually, they're even more than friends; they're swapping so much spit they're riddled with mono.

The head of ACORN, Wade Rathke, is the founder and chief organizer of SEIU, which donated $33 million to President Obama's campaign last year. We also know that the place the main ACORN affiliate calls home in New Orleans, is supposed to house about 270 related organizations, a mix of corporations and non-profits from California to Louisiana.

Does that former funeral home look big enough to you to house 270 organizations? The owner of the building is a company whose partners are — oh my gosh! — Wade and Dale Rathke (name sounds familiar?)

As I told you earlier, Wade also happens to be the president of ACORN and he and his brother Dale — who's accused of embezzling $1 million — are listed as president or partner in dozens of companies based in that building in New Orleans.

So that's what we know so far. But the big question remains unanswered: Millions of dollars flow into that building every year; where does it go?

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