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April 8, 2009
ACORN/NY Times/Obama Campaign Story: Some Details Not as Reported
Tips-Q
By Warner Todd Huston
The connection between ACORN and the Obama campaign has been seized upon by right-wing pundits. However, ACORN whistleblower Anita Moncrief explains that the story is more complex, especially if one looks at the connections between ACORN, Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner and the NY Times Corp.
The ACORN/New York Times connection seems to run deeper than just a desire to help out the Obama campaign by killing further ACORN stories. Moncrief informed me of some rather cozy financial ties between the Times, the Forest City Ratner corporation and ACORN that she discovered from the inside.
I do feel that The New York Times was complicit in all of this. It wasn’t just in killing the Obama story, they killed several stories in relation to ACORN. Including one where the Forest City Ratner owned by Bruce Ratner, the same people that own 48% of the Times’ building, gave ACORN a 1.5 million dollar loan. This was interesting because that’s news in New York City, there’s been a lot of contention over the Atlantic Yards deal where they’re bringing the Nets to Brooklyn?
Moncrief speculates that another reason that the Times suddenly ceased writing stories that might embarrass ACORN is that one of its leading investors and partners had suddenly become close associates financially with ACORN. This situation occurred because ACORN had done an about face on Ratner’s sports deal and was rewareded by that generous “loan.”
ACORN has also been known to be helping Forest City Ratner to get federal stimulus money since the $1.5 million kickback “loan” that Ratner gave to the community organizers. Sadly, at the same time Forest City Ratner was giving ACORN that princely sum, they were laying off workers claiming they were about to go bankrupt.
NoLandGrab: From the outside, it's not clear that ACORN did "an about face" — certainly Moncrief might know more about the timing of ACORN's position on Ratner's Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn than we would. Suffice it to say, very early on in the process, Ratner reached out to and struck deals with groups that have criticized his projects in the past.
Certainly The NY Times did not report on Forest City Ratner's $1 million loan and $500K grant to ACORN, which came as a surprise to watchdogs when it was later revealed by Moncrief. The financial bailout of ACORN by Forest City Ratner underscores the fact that the signatory of the "historic" housing agreement has a clear financial stake in its relationship with the developer.
Posted by lumi at April 8, 2009 5:47 AM