Bad ACORN

The recent stories about ACORN — the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now — are pretty amazing.  Only days after one story showed an ACORN staffer in Baltimore advising a would-be pimp and prostitute about how to prepare their taxes and disguise the nature of their business comes a new story about ACORN staffers in Washington, D.C. advising the claimed pimp and prostitute on how to obtain a loan to buy property to set up a brothel.  The scandals have caused the U.S. Census Bureau to nix a plan under which ACORN would have helped the Bureau conduct the 2010 census.

It just goes to show that relying on community organizations can be a risky business.  ACORN calls itself a network of families “working together for social justice and stronger communities,” but in these two cases the actions of its staffer belie its noble-sounding purpose — unless there are people out there who actually think that helping pimps and prostitutes builds “stronger communities” and promotes “social justice.”