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Civil Liberties

More Classy Commentary from ACORN's Bertha Lewis

Damon Root | 4.22.2010 1:22 PM

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I received the email reproduced below from an anonymous source. I just contacted Bertha Lewis and she verified for me that she is indeed the author. What a class act.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Bertha Lewis <[EMAIL REDACTED>
Date: Wed, Apr 21, 2010 at 8:04 PM
Subject: Daniel Goldstein and the 7 year itch
To: [RECIPIENTS REDACTED]

Finally, the itch that was Daniel Goldstein has been scratched and scratched out.   After almost seven years of flawed strategies, smear campaigns, stupid tactics, disingenuous rhetoric and total disregard for people who have lived in the downtown Brooklyn community for years before he even thought about coming here; finally he got what he really wanted.  A Deal.  Not for the community he claimed to love so much, but for the only beneficiary of his community of one, himself, Double Dealing Danny Goldstein.  How utterly despicable for him to be in the newspaper  today whining that he did not have enough time to move, and had nowhere to go because he was being stiffed by the State and Forest City Ratner, when low and behold, all the time, he was negotiating, not for the community , but for himself.  Well good riddance and don't let the door hit ya'.  Low and moderate income people have had to wait years for housing while he obstructed the Atlantic Yards Project that could have been well over half done by now.  He never had to worry about housing so he did'nt care how long other people had to wait.  Behold, the Gentrifier.  He has slandered and denigrated not only me but my organization and my members relentlessly.  What benefit has he delivered to the community?  None except for his own pocket.   Well, the housing at Atlantic Yards will be built, and the day after he moves out, which I hope will be sooner rather than later, the building that he squatted in these past years should be razed to ground immediately, and salt poured into the soil, so that never again can the likes of one of the biggest shakedown artists in Brooklyn return.  We will still be here, we will still be fighting for the all the people that Danny spurned and used for his own enrichment.  We hope that now everyone in Brooklyn and New York can see him for what he really is and can see what his actions cost Brooklyn.  I hope whatever he settled for was worth the pain and misery he caused to so many people who just wanted a decent place to live in Brooklyn and who just wanted a decent job and a place for their family.  Now that the flim flam man is gone, they can finally see it on the horizon. 

--

Bertha Lewis

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Damon Root is a senior editor at Reason and the author of A Glorious Liberty: Frederick Douglass and the Fight for an Antislavery Constitution (Potomac Books).

Civil LibertiesProperty RightsEminent Domain
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  1. Obama   15 years ago

    Those be my peeps, yo!

    1. Bertha Lewis   15 years ago

      Thanks, B.

      Send me more money.

  2. Alice   15 years ago

    Someone kill this lady

    1. ChrisH   15 years ago

      Tea Party violence!! and... and... sexist!

  3. Dan T.   15 years ago

    Goldstein gamed the system well...$3 million for a place bought for around $600,000 back in 2003.

    1. John Thacker   15 years ago

      I think that the domain dan.com should be taken away and given to the poor, you evil bastard.

      1. Jesus Christ monkeyballs   15 years ago

        I dunno John Thacker, dontcha think it would be more fair if a judge decided that?

    2. Hazel Meade   15 years ago

      God forbid someone other than Ratner should turn a profit!

      1. cynical   15 years ago

        "Profit" is a filthy, degrading middle class pursuit. Aristocrats build fortunes through the noble art of politics.

        Of course, aristocrats also get decapitated when people finally get tired of their shit. Take note, Ratfuck.

    3. barfman   15 years ago

      *barf*

  4. The Gobbler   15 years ago

    I take delight in knowing that very often Karma can really be a bitch.

    1. Paul   15 years ago

      I take no delight knowing that Karma doesn't exist. The sheer number of public officials and general fuckwads who never get their comeuppance, who make in excess of six figures, live in large houses and screw lingerie models and die wealthy with smiles on their faces... it makes me sick-- and it proves there is no Karma.

      1. Old Bull Lee   15 years ago

        Karma is cause-and-effect. Like gravity, it has no moral component.

        Sorry, just a pet peeve of mine, I agree with the rest of your point. NO COMEUPPANCE!

        1. Paul   15 years ago

          Karma is cause-and-effect. Like gravity, it has no moral component.

          Sure. Then let me know, like gravity, where and when I can see its effects.

          1. Byron   15 years ago

            You can find it in a dictionary under 'confirmation bias'.

          2. wayne   15 years ago

            Jump off a tall building and gravity's effect will be apparent. Karma, I dunno.

      2. sage   15 years ago

        I believe in Karma. But I also believe in God. For those here that Karma does not touch...God is waiting.

        1. Byron   15 years ago

          It's like an onion of delusions.

        2. Coeus   15 years ago

          If I actually believed in God, I'd probably have to go looking for his absentee ass. Does anyone here know a good vampire sidekick?

      3. Greg   15 years ago

        The real trick to Karma is in reincarnation. Karma can buildup over several lifetimes. Of course you can't prove Karma or reincarnation but it is fun to think about what I'd do if I was in charge of the whole Karma thing. (I think ms. Lewis would come back as a lice infected sewer rat eating the fecal matter from the future slums she is trying so hard to build so then she can get her cut.

  5. Bob #2   15 years ago

    Just think of all those other selfish people keeping their property that could be used for lower-income housing. All those millions of people in Manhattan, for instance. Assholes the lot of 'em.

    1. robc   15 years ago

      Ummm...he lived in one house. So why couldnt all this low and middle income housing be built on the other sections of Atlantic Yards?

      1. robc   15 years ago

        Didnt mean this in reply to Bob.

      2. Enough About Palin   15 years ago

        Because that only left 22 acres to work with.

      3. Hazel Meade   15 years ago

        Why shouldn't the housing that was already there stay there?

        Basically ACORN supported the seizure of middle-class privately owned houses, in exchange for Ratner offering to be slumlord for them.

        1. Enough About Palin   15 years ago

          ^THIS

        2. Marshall Gill   15 years ago

          Basically ACORN supported the seizure of middle-class privately owned houses, in exchange for Ratner offering to be slumlord for them.

          Homes, not houses. It was an apartment.

          1. Bertha Lewis   15 years ago

            And a terrible apartment, at that. All old and shitty. Bad color, rotting framing. Worth way less than $3 million.

            1. Surly Chef   15 years ago

              Everything is worth what the owner is willing to part with it for, not more, not less, you evil piece of shit.

            2. kodos96   15 years ago

              I don't particularly like the color of YOUR house. Can I tear it down?

  6. Enough About Palin   15 years ago

    "and salt poured into the soil, so that never again can the likes of one of the biggest shakedown artists in Brooklyn return."

    Does anyone else find it odd that she'd harbor so much hate for Jesse Jackson?

    1. Episiarch   15 years ago

      You mean Al Sharpton, who is actually from Brooklyn.

    2. JW   15 years ago

      Actually, I was wondering if we could do that to her.

      "This isn't anything like the sea salt rubs I get at Elizabeth Arden!"

      1. rac   15 years ago

        Daniel Goldstein delenda est.

    3. PapayaSF   15 years ago

      The head of ACORN calling someone else a shakedown artist: pot, meet kettle!

  7. Zeb   15 years ago

    "low and behold" is right up their with "tow the lion"

    1. Pro Libertate   15 years ago

      Blow and behold scans better.

    2. Bronwyn   15 years ago

      Just what I was coming in here to type.

      1. Pro Libertate   15 years ago

        I'm a labor-saving device.

        1. VM   15 years ago

          could you FLUSH that out a little more, please?

  8. capitalistrunningdog   15 years ago

    Says the lady paid to shill for the Atlantic Yards. Instead of moving on and trying to help the people ACORN says they represent, she takes time to smear someone who is no longer involved. Sad.

    1. QualityofLife   15 years ago

      yes! Move On, Dot!

  9. J sub D   15 years ago

    I merely note that Daniel Goldstein was investing in that neighborhood before Ratner came along and that he acquired his property without the state mandating that the previous owner sell it to him.

    Poetic justice would be New York doing an Atlantic Yards on Bertha's home.

    1. J sub D   15 years ago

      Oh yeah, we could sure use some gentrification here in Detroit.

      1. Pro Libertate   15 years ago

        With strip clubs in residential basements, I predict that Detroit will soon experience a Renaissance.

        1. prolefeed   15 years ago

          Link?

      2. Paul   15 years ago

        Gentrification would change the character of Detroit and it would lose its character.

    2. Hazel Meade   15 years ago

      Exactly. Goldstein may have been speculating that the house's value would rise, but so what? People do that all the time. I've known dozens of people who purchased a home in a part of town that was run down and in the process of recovery because they thought it would be worth more in a few years. Eminent domain basically hands those profits to a politically connected developer. If the dick doesn't buy the property first, it's his loss. That's fucking life.

      1. Isaac Bartram   15 years ago

        As I have said over and over, eminent domain is not about the money. It is about having no choice in making a sale.

        Some people value their property so highly that no amount of money is sufficient to induce them to sell. The reasons they value their property can be sentimental, utilitarian or any number of things that have nothing to do with money.

        It doesn't matter what Goldstein's motives were (or if he had an exaggerated notion of what his property was worth), if he didn't want to sell his property he shouldn't have to.

  10. P Brooks   15 years ago

    one of the biggest shakedown artists in Brooklyn

    Won't somebody protect this woman from the competition? Maybe there should be a "shakedown artist" licensing board, staffed by *legitimate* community activist/organizers.

    1. Bertha Lewis   15 years ago

      I'm pretty sure we already do these things.

  11. The Mossy Spaniard   15 years ago

    +10/5 on the 3/5ths. That was clever.

  12. ed   15 years ago

    That email has to be legit. Or it's the best satire I've ever read.

  13. Ska   15 years ago

    She won't mind when NYS decides to take her house from her, give her the 1980 FMV for the property, and build a 3 family house there instead, right?

  14. The Rev. Al Sharpton   15 years ago

    You go, girl!

  15. TDL   15 years ago

    What is the deal she is alluding to?

    Regards,
    TDL

    1. David   15 years ago

      He's getting $3 million.

      1. Michael   15 years ago

        None of which will go to cover legal cost over this debacle, I'm certain.

  16. ed   15 years ago

    Date: Wed, Apr 21, 2010 at 8:04 PM

    She was well into her fourth crack bowl by then.

  17. Daniel Goldstein   15 years ago

    "I hope whatever he settled for was worth the pain and misery he caused to so many people who just wanted a decent place to live in Brooklyn and who just wanted a decent job and a place for their family."

    It's a price I was willing to pay. But thanks very kindly for your concern!

    1. Bertha Lewis   15 years ago

      Concern is my job, it's nothing personal.

      Wait, is this really you? Where are you moving to?

      1. wylie   15 years ago

        *as she pulls out her lil-black-book of Urban Blight Committees and turns to the page covering his new area*

  18. Ska   15 years ago

    Off-topic: Those headshots from the reason cruise ad lead me to believe that Matt Ridley is the inspiration for Mr. Garrison.

  19. Rhayader   15 years ago

    What a class act.

    And a fantastic writer to boot.

  20. JW   15 years ago

    Not that she's bitter or anything.

    1. mitch   15 years ago

      Nothing more charming than a sore winner.

  21. not necessarily ed   15 years ago

    "Low and moderate income people have had to wait years for housing while he obstructed the Atlantic Yards Project"

    Roark the Yards!

  22. bleek obummer   15 years ago

    "biggest shakedown artists in Brooklyn"

    Ratner and ACORN fit that description. Big money and big stupid.

  23. Rocket Surgeon   15 years ago

    I wish I could throw up in Bertha's mouth.

    1. .   15 years ago

      But you'd have to get close to it.
      (Shivers)

  24. Tman   15 years ago

    Nothing like some section 8 housing to improve the neighborhood.

    It'll be all sunshine and Unicorns in Brooklyn now!

    Maybe they can relocate some of the folks from Cabrini Green that deserve their fair share of someone else's property. It'll be gentrified in no time!

  25. rac   15 years ago

    You are heartless bastards. Bertha was just feelin' it for the Nets. They need a HOME people. Would you have them wandering the streets of New Jersey for an eternity? Have you ever been to New Jersey?

    1. .   15 years ago

      After they move to Brooklyn, the Nets will be changing their name to the Rats.

    2. John   15 years ago

      I really stuck it to our resident snotty New Yorker the other day. He was making fun of Oklahoma City, where I lived for over a decade. I responded "Oklahoma City has one thing New York does; a professional basketball team". Being a life long Knicks fan, he had no answer.

      1. Ska   15 years ago

        The 1994 Knicks made me give up on basketball early; the current state of the Knicks tells me I made the right choice.

        Not that the NBA isn't the worst professional sports association on top of it.

        1. NBA   15 years ago

          What do you mean, "worst"? Half our teams get to go to the two-month playoffs that last well into June. So our regular season is superfluous!

  26. JW   15 years ago

    "We will still be here, we will still be fighting for the all the people that Danny spurned and used for his own enrichment."

    We're going to need eminent domain to build a new circle in Hell for the **cough** lady.

    "The concentration camp guards are complaining that you'll sully the neighborhood."

  27. ESPN   15 years ago

    This is the first we've heard of this! Sure, we suck pro athletes' balls for a living, but why didn't somebody tell us?

  28. Andrew S.   15 years ago

    How were you able to contact her and keep it civil enough to have her respond? Because if I were to e-mail her I'm fairly sure the string of expletives would destroy any spam filter out there.

  29. Mad Max   15 years ago

    Vehement personal denunciations against someone named Goldstein, blaming him for all the suffering of the oppressed masses, whipping the audience into a frenzy of hatred . . . all of this sounds strangely familiar.

    1. Mad Max   15 years ago

      Link failed, try this.

      1. wylie   15 years ago

        So she's a plagarist too. Orwell's corpse just started spinning a few RPMs faster.

  30. P Brooks   15 years ago

    the housing at Atlantic Yards will be built

    I hope you're holding your breath, Bertha.

  31. Hazel Meade   15 years ago

    Berha Lewis: "We have to destroy homes in order to build them!"

    1. Paul   15 years ago

      New York: We have to destroy civil rights in order to maintain them!

      We can do this all day.

  32. Pro Libertate   15 years ago

    If I were Obama, I'd nominate her for the Supreme Court.

  33. Colin   15 years ago

    He has to move, but she has to live with the name "Bertha" for the rest of her life.

    1. Enough About Palin   15 years ago

      And have you seen her face?

      http://www.commieblaster.com/i.....-acorn.jpg

    2. Bertha Lewis   15 years ago

      Bertha, you big asshole, is my grandmammy's name, and it was her grandmammy's name before that, who was in the Civil War, what exercised eminent domain over the entire South.

      1. cynical   15 years ago

        Slavery could be considered a form of blight.

    3. oncogenesis   15 years ago

      Bertha is German for "bitch", right?

  34. Ken Shultz   15 years ago

    "Low and moderate income people have had to wait years for housing while he obstructed the Atlantic Yards Project that could have been well over half done by now. He never had to worry about housing so he did'nt care how long other people had to wait. Behold, the Gentrifier."

    Again and again, so many issues today seem to boil down to the same thing...

    "What benefit has he delivered to the community?"

    ...the idea that individual rights should be forfeit for the sake of the common good.

    But people are not statistics. We have rights that numbers don't have--that's the difference between individuals and statistics. Recognizing those rights is what separates from the animals.

    I am not a number!

    I am not here to be mined as a resource for the good of society generally.

    And that they may be inconvenient for your Big Plan to better the rest of society, but if society doesn't respect my rights, then it's society that's in the wrong.

    Civil society exists for the sake of individuals--looking at it any other way is necessarily backwards.

    What a sorry state when individuals are treated like a resource to be mined--when an individual's rights are treated like obstacles.

    How can anyone advocate that on principle, and then turn around and say they care about people? It doesn't look like she cares about people to me--it looks like she just care about numbers.

  35. kinnath   15 years ago

    If there is any thing that disgusts me more that a progressive's sense of entitlement it's an angry black progressive's sense of entitlement.

    Call me racist all you want Dan/Tony/Chad/MNG.

    1. Rimfax   15 years ago

      Yeah, actually that's racist. The fact that her race made it worse for you does indeed mean that your perspective sucks even more than Bertha's.

      1. Ken Shultz   15 years ago

        I'm not sure it's worse--I don't know Bertha's take on race.

        But I wish people that hated awful people even more for being awful and black? Would go argue for the other side.

        They make us look bad. They're like people that show up to Tea Party rallies with racist signs--I really would rather they just stayed home.

      2. kinnath   15 years ago

        When the Congressional Black Caucus turns out the lights, I will stop differentiating between progressive politics and black progressive politics.

        It's about group identity, not race. I reject the For-Us-By-Us mentality just as much in Ireland, or France, or Ruwanda, as I do in the US.

        1. Ken Shultz   15 years ago

          "When the Congressional Black Caucus turns out the lights, I will stop differentiating between progressive politics and black progressive politics."

          Well I'm not willing to wait until the Congressional Black Caucus does anything before I make sure I'm not accidentally associated with the likes of you.

          Speak for yourself, but if you don't want to be called out for your racism in an open forum, then don't spew your racism in an open forum.

          Seriously, people like you do the movement so much harm for being associated with you--however wrongly--it makes me wonder sometimes if people like you aren't a plant by the opposition, just to make us look bad.

          1. kinnath   15 years ago

            Perhaps this is too subtle for you, but I don't dislike black people. I dislike black people that automatically assume I owe them something because I am white, regardless of the fact that my Irish ancestors didn't arrive in the US until well after the civil war and experienced nearly the same level of bigotry from the rich and powerful as the former slaves did.

            My issue is with group politics that fly in the face of equal rights of free individuals to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.

            In the US, the group identies do tend to flow along race lines. In Ireland, they flow along religious afilliation. In France, it the real French and the not-so-real French. and so on and so forth.

            Sorry if I embarras you, but Bertha Lewis is a raging cunt. Not because she is black, but because she uses her blackness as justification for trampling the rights of others.

            1. Tulpa   15 years ago

              That's an understandable reaction, but your original presentation of it made it sound incredibly racist, and I'm not convinced it isn't anyway. Do you equally hate progressive Jews who think you owe them something because of the centuries of religious persecution by Christians? How about progressive gays? Progressive albinos?

              1. kinnath   15 years ago

                Yes the post was inflamatory. Bertha Lewis just plain pissed me off. Get over it.

            2. Ken Shultz   15 years ago

              "Perhaps this is too subtle for you, but I don't dislike black people. I dislike black people that automatically assume I owe them something because I am white, regardless of the fact that my Irish ancestors didn't arrive in the US until well after the civil war and experienced nearly the same level of bigotry from the rich and powerful as the former slaves did."

              My ancestors forced slaves to pick tobacco in Virginia. Do you think I'm responsible for what my ancestors did?

              And there's nothing subtle about what you said. Nothing.

              You think hating black people for different reasons means you're not a racist? You think that's subtlety?

              1. kinnath   15 years ago

                an angry black progressive's sense of entitlement

                Ken, if you will take your head out of your ass for just a few minutes and carefully read this phrase, you will see that I did not say that I hate black people. I said I hate the attitude of entitlement held by angry black progressives. People's thoughts and behaviors are fair game, particularly when they spew their thoughts in public forums.

                Feel free to hate my opinions if you want. I don't really care what you think.

                1. Tulpa   15 years ago

                  You said you hate the attitude of entitlement worse when it is held by a black person than a white person. You're spewing racism, and we're going to call you on that. Get over it.

        2. TickleStick   15 years ago

          FUBU: Fucked Up Black Underclass.

    2. .   15 years ago

      Is it her dialect, or the head-swivel?

      1. Bertha Lewis   15 years ago

        It's probably the head swivel, I get that all the time.

  36. Warren   15 years ago

    Why haven't ACORN's assets been seized and sold at auction, and it's officers been tried and convicted?

    1. R C Dean   15 years ago

      I suspect that their former attorney is disrupting air traffic over New York in Air Force 1 as we speak may have something to do with it.

  37. Warty   15 years ago

    Bertha Lewis is a gangrenous pool of semen-adulterated vomit, but I must admit that that's a fairly good fuck-you letter.

    1. fish   15 years ago

      Bertha Lewis is a gangrenous pool of semen-adulterated vomit....

      You have been a model of erudition these last three weeks or so!

    2. Bertha Lewis   15 years ago

      Thank you.

    3. TickleStick   15 years ago

      Bertha Lewis is a gangsterrenous pool of semen-adulterated vomit

      FIFY

    4. Tulpa   15 years ago

      Maybe when she discovers this new linguistic innovation called "paragraphs". If this is the best presentation of their case that the enemies of liberty can muster, I don't feel so threatened after all.

  38. P Brooks   15 years ago

    I am not a number!

    You forgot "I am a free man!"

  39. P Brooks   15 years ago

    I would be extremely curious to hear Mark Cuban's thoughts on this matter.

  40. David   15 years ago

    What the HELL? Does this woman not realize that this family is being forcefully removed from their property by the government acting on behalf of a well-connected developer? If she wants people to be able to have homes, how can she simultaneously advocate the forced removal of people from their homes? It makes no sense.

    1. Bertha Lewis   15 years ago

      That's because you're a shakedown artist and a flim flam man.

    2. kinnath   15 years ago

      I going to be generous and assume that Bertha is bright enough to understand what the system does to the people that get run over.

      Naive progressives that think that a few people getting hurt to benefit the many are one level of evil.

      But cunts like Bertha who are willing to fuck over "other people" to benefit personally while publicly proclaiming to be helping "my people" are many levels of evil worse.

    3. mitch   15 years ago

      Come on David, you don't think of a kulak as a person, do you?

    4. CraigT   15 years ago

      Because Goldstein is too pale and earned too much of his own money to have any rights in Bertha's America

  41. Asian Child Making Your Shoes   15 years ago

    Keep fighting the good fight! The outrageous injustice of having to accept a $3 million check shall never again be supressed!!!!

    LIBERTY!!

    1. heller   15 years ago

      Way to be Bruce Ratner's little puppet! Yeah he doesn't want you and your friends to think that exact thought at all, woohoo!

  42. Asian Child Making Your Shoes   15 years ago

    Keep fighting the good fight! The outrageous injustice of having to accept a $3 million check shall never again be supressed!!!!

    LIBERTY

  43. Slut Bunwalla   15 years ago

    You know, I always try very hard to not resort to "I wish [politician or whoever] would just die" type statements. But in this case, I really do wish Bertha Lewis would die. Actually, not just die, but be killed. In a horribly painful manner.

  44. Enough About Palin   15 years ago

    Fmr ACORN head calls Tea Parties "bowel movement" and claims "they're coming after you"

    Any of these groups that says, "I'm young, I'm Democratic, and I'm a socialist," is okay with me. You know that's no light thing to do -- to actually say, I'm a socialist. You've got to know, actually, we are living in a time that's going to dwarf the McCarthy era. It is going to dwarf the internment of World War II. We are right now in a time that is going to dwarf the era of Jim Crow and segregation.

    They are coming. And they are coming after you. And they are going to be brutal and oppressive. They've already shown it. ... This is not rhetoric or hyperbole -- this is real. ... This tea party so-called movement -- a bowel-movement in my estimation -- and this blatant uncovering and ripping off the mask of racism...

    - Bertha Lewis

    Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer......z0lrX5lAOi

    1. TickleStick   15 years ago

      I think Ken Shultz owes kinnath an apology.

      1. Ken Shultz   15 years ago

        I don't want anybody to read this thread and think I'm okay with hatin' on black Progressives more than the rest...

        And I'm supposed to be sorry about that?

        1. wylie   15 years ago

          Because godforbid some intertube moron thinks you're a racist. Overcompensate much?

          1. Tulpa   15 years ago

            Complaining about other posters' opinions is the bedrock on which all H&R commentary is built. If that's overcompensation, then we're all guilty of it.

            And kinnath's statement was pretty blatantly racist.

          2. Ken Shultz   15 years ago

            "Because godforbid some intertube moron thinks you're a racist. Overcompensate much?"

            I see libertarians smeared as racists every day.

            I really would like to rant against Progressives without being called racist, and no one can ever say I didn't denounce the racism as long as it was coming from libertarians...

            I don't hate Progressives or anybody else because of their race--I certainly don't hate black Progressives more than white Progressives because they're black...

            I hate Progressives because of what they think and what they want to inflict on me and everybody else against our will.

            And I feel free to go on criticizing them for that now--guilt free!

            In the meantime, if you don't want to see libertarian ideas discredited in the public imagination for being racist? I suggest you condemn racism every time you see it--especially when it's coming from self-described libertarians.

            Seriously, if you're a racist? And you're proud of it? Don't tell people you're a libertarian--tell them you're a Baptist!

  45. Contemplationist   15 years ago

    I don't understand. Why couldn't they push this all the way to the Supremes the way Kelo was?

    1. Andrew S.   15 years ago

      Eventually the money runs out. Plus after all these years of fighting, it was likely taking a pretty significant mental and physical toll on Goldstein. It's difficult to keep this up for so long. Don't blame him for giving in; it was done with a gun pushed right into his back.

  46. kinnath   15 years ago

    Seriously, people like you do the movement so much harm for being associated with you--however wrongly--it makes me wonder sometimes if people like you aren't a plant by the opposition, just to make us look bad.

    I know I hold some heretical positions for a libertarian. I like public parks and libraries. I believe that intellectual property is real property and should be protected by the state. But I didn't realize I was helping ACORN do God's business. I feel so flushed with power.

  47. Waggoneer   15 years ago

    "What benefit has he delivered to the community? None except for his own pocket."

    There is the issue, right there. That is your litmus test.

  48. stubby   15 years ago

    I hear you, Slut. Bitch is asking for some painful, painful karma. I just hope it's well publicized because I want to gloat.

  49. R C Dean   15 years ago

    "What benefit has he have I delivered to the community? None except for his my own pocket."

    Project much, Bertha?

  50. bigbigslacker   15 years ago

    Has anyone considered Bertha may not have been taught the difference between right and wrong? She may have grown up too poor to receive a good moral education. You have heard of the digital divide, right? Not everyone can afford to go to a good private school that teaches moral values. This is why it is good for government, with no profit motive, to fill in here. And public libraries are usually decried by libertarians. So I'm afraid you can't resort to them. Because you oppose them.

    Ok, I might have stolen some of my arguments.

  51. Invisible Finger   15 years ago

    For those keeping score...

    Obama's largest campaign supporters were Unions, Wall Street, and ACORN.

    Worst. President. Ever.

  52. Bertha   15 years ago

    Bertha = The Original Sell Out Scum

    Since ACORN is a private corporation, it does not divulge its finances. Further complicating any effort to calculate ACORN's income is the fact that it operates an unknown number of front groups, many of which conceal their relationship to ACORN. Any thorough investigation of ACORN's finances would have to determine the cash flow through each and every one of its front groups. Notwithstanding these obstacles, EPI's October 2004 report The Real ACORN makes some telling observations regarding ACORN's profitability. It notes:

    "?ACORN receives an estimated $7.2 million per year from its 120,000? member families. In addition, ACORN has received at least $16 million in grants from deep-pocket foundations during the last five years. ? The organization also receives considerable support from trade unions. While unions are not legally required to disclose their grantmaking activities in the same manner as private foundations, it is clear that they have given millions of dollars to support [ACORN's] living-wage campaigns."

    To update the figures in the preceding paragraph, as of March 2006 ACORN claimed 175,000 member families on its website, each contributing at least $120 per year. ACORN therefore implies that it receives about $21 million in annual membership fees. This gives us some idea of ACORN's income.

    As for ACORN's expenses, the EPI report reads as follows: "It is estimated that ACORN employs . . . 150 organizers across the country. With each organizer making approximately $20,000, this amounts to a labor cost of only $3 million. With over $10 million a year flowing into ACORN and so little being spent on labor costs or overhead, just what is happening to this mountain of financial support?"

  53. Joe Deplasco   15 years ago

    worst average citizen fighting for his rights and beliefs that a rich overlord developer who bought out the right loud mouth "community leader" so he could pretend to give a crap about poor people and housing ( like jay z and russian oligarchs, and borough presidents who salivate over hot dogs and beyonces' too short skirts, and hypocritical 6 figure pretender of caring about the poor people, phoney organizer, they need a home too) was going to be a boondoggle emperors new clothes promise. ever.

  54. cheap corsets   13 years ago

    Although it is not brand name,wholesale lingerie can be very sexy. Most companies offer a variety of lingerie including bridal lingerie, chemise, thongs, bras, garters, corsets, panties, and others. Wholesale lingerie companies generally provide products for resale businesses. Some companies will not sell to you unless you give them proof that you have a business.

  55. pauloki1   10 years ago

    be worth

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