[Bobboau]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/09/15/eveningnews/main5313869.shtml

this got brought up randomly in one of our other topics.

the jist:
an undercover conservative filmer caught ACORN workers in several cities providing explicit help in hiding illigal activities from the IRS, specifically he and a girl helping him, posed as a pimp and prostitute and ACORN told them how to get a mortgage and how to hide there activities from the government.

now this comes on the heels of months of conservatives claiming foul from ACORN acting as a voter registration organization AND helping on the Obama campaign. and a billion other things the conservatives are going after them for, that I'm sure someone will flesh out for me before too long, but before we get into that lets all just agree this right here is pretty ****ing bad.

[iamzack]

The voter registration fraud was about individual volunteers who were being paid to go around registering people to vote. To flesh out their individual numbers, they made up voters and registered them.

So people can go ahead and stop freaking out about that.

As for this thing... Doesn't pretty much everyone try to get as many write-offs on their taxes as possible? They weren't telling them to run away to Mexico, they were telling them how to stretch the truth on their taxes. Looking at the "pimp" and "hooker"... they look like a couple of upper middle class teenagers/college assholes at a "ghetto party."

[Bobboau]

I was just mentioning that to establish the conservatives have been assaulting them relentlessly for the last year or so.

and they were telling them how to lie to the IRS, that's 'bad'.

[karajorma]

Monday night the Democratic-controlled Senate voted 83-7 to deny ACORN access to millions of dollars in federal housing funds.

c.f any scandal under the last Republican Senate.

[NGTM-1R]

Prostitution remains a somewhat dubious "crime" for the people who actually commit it.

[iamzack]

It's only a crime if you don't photograph it and sell copies. Dumbest thing ever.

[Bobboau]

I agree that it should not be illegal, but it is, and they were telling people how to get around the law. now I can get down with ignoring a law cause you don't think it's valid, and I can get down with civil disobedience, but I kinda draw a line with an organization getting government money telling people how to break the law and not get caught. but that's just me, and I think we have established that I'm crazy.

[General Battuta]

This definitely sounds pretty shady.

[iamzack]

I can't imagine anyone looking at that pair of morons and believing that they are really a pimp and prostitute.

[Bobboau]

and yet they still told them how to get around the law in detail.

[iamzack]

I would have too, so maybe that's why I'm not bothered.

[Bobboau]

you aren't being payed by the government to do it.

[iamzack]

Though. Why would the prostitute need to say she was a "performing artist" unless she was actually reporting her income? Odd. I would just not report it.

[Bobboau]

in order to get a mortgage you need to prove you have an income, in order to prove you have an income you need to have a tax record.

or at least that is what I believe her reasoning was.

[iamzack]

I see. So (and from here on, I'm ignoring the actual pair who tried this) a couple wanted to buy a house, but their income came from prostitution. So the ACORN employee told them they could call prostitution "performing art" so that they could report their income to the IRS.

I'm even more confused about why this is a big deal now.

[Bobboau]

because prostitution is illegal, you cannot report illegal income to the IRS (because you will be arrested for it because it is illegal), so they told them how to sanitize it i.e. they told them how to launder it.

[iamzack]

In that case, my opinions on ACORN are back where they started: it's a waste of time to think about.

[Bobboau]

try this imagine they were selling ammo for banned assault rifles without a license and that was their only source of income.

[iamzack]

Were they?

[Bobboau]

no, you seem to be having a hard time understanding why this is a big deal, so I changed the context to a hypothetical situation similar to this one only using an illegal act that you would find less palatable. some people don't think that assault riles should be banned, just like you and I don't think that prostitution should be illegal, so if I shift the crime involved to one you don't have such support for, do you suddenly become a hypocrite?