I was disappointed too. If nothing else, I wish it was funnier. I'm glad they point out the lies and hypocrisy on both sides, but at least with the right they make it humorous. This was more of an expose' seemingly done to please Daily Show critics. Oh well.

What happened to the Bonner investigation.. or was there ever one done? Did that just die off.. You know that was a REAL crime.. They were buying off Government officials.. isn't that blackmail and a potential criminal offense?

I realize that it is possible what those employees did may be against the tax laws.. but that's about it.. from what I have seen.. The ACORN people I mean.. But the Bonner people actually bought off Congress members and affected legislation.. I think that is much more serious.. at least to me it is.

I must say that it's UN-believable how the right is able to make "so much" about slights by ACORN, Van Jones, etc., and get such a hard smackdown on the target in response.

I say that we need to similarly target rightwing organizations, people, etc., and play their game right back! And I'll look for reciprocal punishments for them (not IOKIYR).

I was disappointed as well. I was actually surprised that after a 3 week vacation, he actually went after Acorn. I mean...there was so much to catch up on and like you said Bob, the very powerful, white fat cats have far more dirty laundry that should be examined. jon Stewart has that ability as a member of the non-MSM. I am ok if he critizes the left justifiably - but I too, felt this was just an appeasement to not look "so liberal"

Bob,

The guy who played the pimp was also on Glenn Beck last night. They were going back and forth about how there was "no doubt" in this kid's mind that these weren't just a few rogue employees, and that it was 'almost as if they were being instructed from very high up to act this way,' etc.

It's pretty obvious what this is all about (at least to Beck):
1) Obama's black, they're black
2) Obama was a community organizer, they work at a community organizing group
3) They supported him during the election.
(Jesus people, do the math - do I have to spell it out for you?!)

Therefore, since they're corrupt, and it 'seemed' to this kid that ACORN employees are being instructed to act this way, the Community Organizer in Chief is obviously handing down orders for ACORN to break the law.

Their logic would actually be quite funny if it didn't make me want to punch Glenn Beck in the face until my arm got tired.

Oh, and I was disappointed with the Stewart bit too. Guy's been gone for 3 weeks; there's ALL KINDS of material worthy of their attention...and this is what they come up with? Pheh...I agree w/ LK - this seemed like an attempt to not look too liberal.

Now the folks over at Colbert....godamn, those guys were on fire last night during "The Word" segment and the follow-up interview. Really, really good stuff.

I disagree here. The story should have been aired. The reason is that we need to ensure that all organization get equal treatment.

Yes, there are large organizations that are doing hideous things, but Acorn is an organization that affects poor and middle income families in a unique way. Not spotlighting the corruption in organizations like that allows for organizations like the Dept. of Education and Dept. of Housing to slide under the radar due to the "bigger fish to fry" mentality.

In addition, you need to make sure that all news get as much equal treatment as possible. Acorn is a large organization that takes in federal money; that was crime that we sponsered directly with our tax dollars.

I do hope, as many commenters here noted, that we go after the large institutions with the same level of scrutiny as Acorn, but letting it slide under the radar because we don't deem it as important would not be a good thing either.

Maybe this can build capital for Stewart and other independent investigators to do the reporting we need to get done.

Yeah. I'd never heard of ACORN before the election, and I could not care less what they do, good bad or ugly. I'm sure there are worthwhile things. I'm sure there are shady things. Like literally ever entity that consists of at least one person.

@Chris Koeber: I agree with you. However, it seems to be a fairly clear that things that Dems/Left do are treated far more seriously than things Reps/Right do. I don't know how to police that, but the MSM pushes the meme that ACORN is a bunch of crazy radicals out to game the system, and tea partiers are just hard working Americans and how dare you mention Freedom Works. It's not equal treatment that we're seeing here.

In this case it's not "uppity blacks", it's "lazy blacks".

@J

Correct, but think for a moment here. Conservatives constantly talk about the lower income organizations being bad/evil/etc.

Black Panthers, Acorn, Public Schools, Nation of Islam, etc.

I can go on and on. These are the organizations that interface with the poorest Americans directly. We NEED them to be as "clean" as possible. Otherwise, each and every time one of these organizations actually are bad, the meme for the conservatives becomes stronger and stronger.

Inversly, when organizations that serves the socio-economically disadvantaged organizations well, they become shining examples of what can be done on a national scale. In Los Angeles, for example, there is the UMMA Clinic which is a organization run by Muslims that offers free to very low cost healthcare for the disadvantaged. Excellent work. When we have organizations that shine in these communities the conservative memes are defeated.

In short, we absolutely cannot have corrupt organizations, even if they are offering some good to the communities. Otherwise it becomes extremely difficult to convince people that projects like these will work on a larger scale.

Rogect8 wrote:

Now the folks over at Colbert....godamn, those guys were on fire last night

Colbert is always on fire. I mean, close to flawless. Even if something doesn't work, Cobert makes it work. It's a remarkable feat for a nightly show.

I was annoyed by what Jon did but, only because he didn't make it clear that the only reason fox sent these tools in with their camera's is because YEARS ago when Obama was a community organizer, he worked with ACORN to register voters. On it's own, the story just isn't that big. What I mean by that is that this is the kind of story relegated to the local political reporter. I saw blaring headlines on foxnews.com which said something like "The Biggest Story That No One Is Covering. There was a photo of Charlie Gibson, ACORN and Glen Beck. Actually, I think that was politico. Anyway, while I'm glad they busted these women, I wouldn't assume that the entire company is crooked! Jon got sucked into fox's vortex of shit!

Actually, Colbert fell flat last night with the whole trashing Mexico to get into the Guiness Book of Records. It just wasn't that funny! The Word was pretty funny though, as usual!

Obviously the employees on camera did the wrong thing, but indicting the whole organization for that is short-sighted.

ACORN also operates homeless shelters and temporary housing for the poor.

But I guess in wingnutville, those aspects are unimportant.

El Jefe nailed it. Of course The Daily Show should take the opportunity to jump on a rediculous story from the left too, but why the horror story? Their M.O. is (side splittingly) funny. Since when do they do stark and appalling?

I read that they went to several ACORN locations and were turned away from most. Why isn't that being reported?

I felt the same way about the Acorn bit.
But it is not the first time in past months I have wondered about topics on some Daily Shows. And I couldn't be a bigger fan. I DVR every Daily and Colbert show and never miss them.

I respectfully have to disagree with you on this. I think we need to hold ourselves to higher standards. Just like we need to target and get rid of Democrats who are holding up progress, we need to distance ourselves from organizations that are doing more harm than good in the public eye. There's too much bullshit associated with ACORN these days. The answers simple. Cut them off at the knees and give the money to another organization that does the same thing, only without the stigma that's attached.

And I don't think it's the fear of "uppity black folks" as much as it is the fear of registering voters the GOP do not want registered. Period. It could be a group of Dominican Nuns who go around registering voters and the right wing would call them treasonous, seditious traitors with a hidden agenda. But - BUT - it seems like they certainly are provided with a lot of ammo with ACORN. I mean, they just keep ending up in the news. So, with that in mind, fuck 'em. If they ain't helping the cause they're hurting it. This is war.

roxsteady - Oh man, I couldn't disagree more! The 'Mexico' gag had me cracking up; and I felt like standing up and applauding when I found out that the whole thing was the setup to a dig at Lou Dobbs. Haha...different strokes.

Gotta disagree here. I laughed off all that bullshit about people registering Mickey Mouse and all that crap, because that is what it was.

Even if they went to 50 different offices and attempted this, at least 3 of them wanted to help these people set up prostitution rings, one of which seemed to be a human slave type thing with potentially underage girls. I'm sorry but that shit doesn't just cross the line, it blows it away.

And as others have stated, we should be at a higher standard. If this was Freedumb Works or some other wingnut crew, Bob would be frothing at the mouth, and rightfully so.

I know that Acorn has been unfairly demonized by the idiot parade, but they fucking did this, and now the wingnuts actually have something real over Acorn.

Gotta disagree here. I laughed off all that bullshit about people registering Mickey Mouse and all that crap, because that is what it was.

Even if they went to 50 different offices and attempted this, at least 3 of them wanted to help these people set up prostitution rings, one of which seemed to be a human slave type thing with potentially underage girls. I'm sorry but that shit doesn't just cross the line, it blows it away.

And as others have stated, we should be at a higher standard. If this was Freedumb Works or some other wingnut crew, Bob would be frothing at the mouth, and rightfully so.

I know that Acorn has been unfairly demonized by the idiot parade, but they fucking did this, and now the wingnuts actually have something real over Acorn.

absolutely agree. Those morons over at Fox getting all upset is like King Louis XIV getting upset if a poor farmer poached a quail or something on his land.

Can you blame them? No. Should you blame them? No.

Being the resident sex worker that occasionally comments here id like to add that one of the things that is often swatted around between sex workers is how to pay our taxes. Yeah that's right HOW to pay our taxes.


Sex work might be illegal but not paying your taxes is a much more grievous crime in the eyes of the law, ask any mobster. should the ACORN workers have advocated that the people asking for help on how to pay their fair share leave and continue to cheat the government. basically telling them to commit a crime?

you may not like how sex workers earn a living but really is the angle being taken here by the fox news crowd, NOT to pay taxes on your income and to cheat the government?

"Without impunity"? I don't think that means what you think it means.