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Sowing the seeds of destruction
Just how nutty is ACORN?

Very, say longtime watchers of the extreme leftwing group that sprouted out of a radical 60s anti-government movement.

For decades ACORN has presented itself as a grassroots network dedicated to improving the lives of the poor.

But there's more to ACORN than its do-gooder veneer.

Just ask the banks, corporations and politicians who've been the target of ACORN's shameless shenanigans over the past 40 years.

Here's how the tiny seed of 1960s radicalism blossomed into a well-funded, national organization with political connections reaching all the way to the White House:...

...*In 1999 Wade Rathke's brother Dale, also a major figure at ACORN, was caught embezzling nearly $1 million from the organization. His plundering was swept under the rug after the Rathke family promised to repay the debt. Both Wade and Dale Rathke remained on the payroll and the group didn't inform any of its board members about the theft, or contact authorities.

*In June 2008 two whistleblowers demanded a full accounting of Dale Rathke's embezzlement, and its subsequent cover-up. When news of it broke, Dale and Wade were forced to leave the organization, which employs hundreds worldwide. Wade remains in control of ACORN International and other subsidiaries of the main group. The two dissident board members were ejected from ACORN and labeled traitors....

...*1993: A vice-chair at the United Missouri Bancshares told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that ACORN tried to "blackmail" his company into lending $25 million to poor neighborhoods, and demanded payment for every mortgage their loan office helped set up.

"ACORN would invade a bank's office, yelling and screaming, and it was pretty difficult for a bank not to say, 'OK, we'll give you a grant, just leave us alone,'" said Hans Von Spakovsky, an analyst with the conservative Heritage Foundation.

"A lot of businesses felt they had to pay up just so ACORN would leave them alone. And ACORN hasn't come under scrutiny for it, which is unfortunate."

*In 1995 ACORN filed a lawsuit to try and claim an exemption from paying its workers minimum wage. The group had launched several successful campaigns to raise the minimum wage across the country and advocated heavily for fair pay and union wages from for-profit corporations. But it shouldn't have to pay its workers a living wage because it would mean hiring fewer staffers, and make employees less in tune with the needs of the poor, ACORN lawyers said. ...

...*In 1998 an ACORN employee was arrested for falsifying voter registration forms in Arkansas. The next year, authorities in Philadelphia confiscated hundreds of registration forms because one ACORN employee wrote them all. This was the first of many voter registration frauds that ACORN would be accused of in subsequent years.

*Since 2004, members of the activist group in as many as nine states have been charged with crimes related to voter registration fraud. To date about 50 people have been arrested, and approximately 30 have resulted in guilty pleas for ACORN-related voter fraud.

*At election offices around the country, ACORN workers are famous for waiting until registration deadline to dump thousands of new documents on overworked clerks — making it harder for them to fully vet the registration forms...

...*In 1992 President Obama headed the Project Vote campaign — an organization affiliated with an ACORN subsidiary — to register 150,000 voters in Chicago. ACORN backed Carol Moseley Braun, the country's first female African-American Senator.

*Barack Obama was one of the lawyers who represented ACORN in 1994 when it sued Citibank on behalf of "all persons who are African-American" and applied for a loan between 1992 and 1995. The group argued that Citibank wasn't giving mortgages in a "race-neutral way."

*A year later Obama again represented ACORN with a team of lawyers when the group sued Illinois, claiming the state was violating federal voting access law.

*In 2008, during the presidential primary, Obama worked with ACORN subsidiary Citizen Services Inc — a consulting firm affiliated with ACORN — to help with voter turnout. He paid the group $800,000....