Ex-ACORN organizer launches reincarnation

[Ban Hammer 12,845]

The former national chief organizer of the advocacy group ACORN has launched a new left-wing group aimed at carrying on ACORN's radical un-American agenda, as predicted by WND author Matthew Vadum.

Bertha Lewis, who last year called the tea party a "bowel movement," has launched the New York-based Black Leadership Institute. The group's agenda is almost identical to that of ACORN, which filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy in November, but with a focus on African-Americans.

Lewis helped to execute ACORN's 40-year plan to transform America into a socialist country, according to a stunning new book, "Subversion Inc.," by award-winning investigative journalist Matthew Vadum.

Vadum, senior editor at Capital Research Center, a think tank that studies left-wing advocacy groups and their funders, has assembled the information from nearly three years of research and hundreds of interviews.

The Black Institute focuses on redistribution of wealth, amnesty for illegal immigrants, and "environmental justice," all of which were priorities for ACORN as well.

The group is staffed with individuals long associated with ACORN.

Labor lawyer Arthur Schwartz, a partner in Schwartz, Lichen & Bright, P.C. in New York City, is on the board of directors. Schwartz was ACORN's counsel.

Mary Sobecki, a program officer with a left-wing charity called the Needmor Fund that funded ACORN for years, is on the group's board of advisers.

According to Vadum's book, Lewis came up with the idea to create a Black Leadership Institute last year as ACORN was in its death throes as an organization.

Lewis is known for her strident speaking style and her in-your-face approach to dealing with enemies. The former squatter first got involved with ACORN after leading a successful home invasion aimed at gaining title to an unoccupied property.

No stranger to controversy, Lewis can be seen on a new video speaking at a church in New York and singing "Walmart sucks! Walmart sucks! Walmart sucks!" ACORN has long despised Walmart because it was never successful in unionizing the Arkansas-based corporation.

The ACORN successor group in New York, New York Communities for Change, has also been fighting Walmart's plans for expansion in New York City. The new group is housed in the same office in Brooklyn that served as headquarters for ACORN.

Lewis received some unwanted publicity in April 2010 when a rant she delivered before the Young Democratic Socialists found its way onto YouTube. YDS is the youth arm of the radical Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), which is closely tied to the Congressional Progressive Caucus, a group of left-wing Democratic lawmakers in Congress. In the video, Lewis gave a rambling speech in which she praised radicalism and harshly criticized conservatives and corporations.

Although ACORN leaders, like all those inspired by the late founder of community organizing, Saul Alinsky, typically resist the "socialist" label because they realize the term carries a negative connotation in American culture, Lewis openly embraced socialism, according to Vadum's book.

"First of all let me just say any group that says, 'I'm young, I'm democratic, and I'm a socialist,' is all right with me," Lewis said. She said to applause that the tea party movement, a grassroots reaction against the big government policies of the Obama administration, was a "bowel movement in my estimation" that is associated with "racism."

The book reports that Lewis also seemed to predict that America would soon enter a period of violent upheaval.

"Right now we are living in a time which is going to dwarf the McCarthy era," she said. "It is going to dwarf the internments during World War II. We are right now in a time that is going to dwarf the era of Jim Crow and segregation."

As ACORN began its decline after undercover videos showed its employees encouraging prostitution and tax evasion, investigators in Washington, D.C., and Louisiana began digging.

According to the book, investigators in Louisiana believed that for months Lewis had been involved in a "civil war" between the group's New York, New Orleans, and Washington, D.C., branches. She had also been hoarding ACORN's remaining assets. Investigators believe the group had about $20 million in cash spread out over 800 bank accounts and that ACORN affiliates held $10 million in property.

Outside of ACORN, no one seems to know where the money went.

link

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Chuck, the WND does bad things to your brain.

[Ban Hammer 12,845]

Chuck, the WND does bad things to your brain.

wnd is a democrat front?

[Darnell 8,478]

Oh Goody. More Fodder to fight the good fight.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

wnd is a democrat front?

Nice try, Chuck. Democrats, they're not. Right wing radicals they are and one can easily find the people who consume their garbage.

[scandal 951]

BFD.

This is America, where anyone can be anyone and do anything they want. First Amendment and all that. The Tea partyers get to party, the NRA gets to salute the sacred 2nd amendment, Wiener gets to wave his wiener. So who cares is the ex-acorners start up Acorn II? It's a free country. No news here.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

ACORN fell because of a RWN hoax. The organization should be re-established.

[Ban Hammer 12,845]

ACORN fell because of a RWN hoax. The organization should be re-established.

powermoney to the people!Bertha Lewis!

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

powermoney to the people!Bertha Lewis!

The smear campaign against ACORN was a hoax. Nothing more. Litigation against the perps - the RWN swindlers, that is - is ongoing. Look at it any way you like but there was nothing but a smear campaign based on lies and fabrications - well orchestrated as it may have been - that brought the organization down. Nothing to be proud of, really.

[The Dude 206]

The smear campaign against ACORN was a hoax. Nothing more. Litigation against the perps - the RWN swindlers, that is - is ongoing. Look at it any way you like but there was nothing but a smear campaign based on lies and fabrications - well orchestrated as it may have been - that brought the organization down. Nothing to be proud of, really.

You mean James O'Keefe was just a jaded douchebag, not an avenger for the truth?

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

You mean James O'Keefe was just a jaded douchebag, not an avenger for the truth?

James O'Keefe wouldn't know the truth if you hit him with it.

[The Dude 206]

James O'Keefe wouldn't know the truth if you hit him with it.

You're right!!

[Ban Hammer 12,845]

The smear campaign against ACORN was a hoax. Nothing more. Litigation against the perps - the RWN swindlers, that is - is ongoing. Look at it any way you like but there was nothing but a smear campaign based on lies and fabrications - well orchestrated as it may have been - that brought the organization down. Nothing to be proud of, really.

so where is the money?

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

so where is the money?

See, Chuck, the problem here is that you take the smear that's presented in a book authored by a WND contributor seriously. I do not. Hence, the question - while it appears to be valid to you - doesn't really present itself to me. There's another book out there by yet another WND freak. It's titled: Where's the Birth Certificate? It's public record and has been even while the book was written. I give no weight to these freaks. None.

Edited June 14, 2011 by Mr. Big Dog

[Ban Hammer 12,845]

See, Chuck, the problem here is that you take the smear that's presented in a book authored by a WND contributor seriously. I do not. Hence, the question - while it appears to be valid to you - doesn't really present itself to me. There's another book out there by yet another WND freak. It's titled: Where's the Birth Certificate? It's public record and has been even while the book was written. I give no weight to these freaks. None.

so where is the money?