By now you are familiar with the ACORN Child Prostitution ring scandal. If not watch this video. Or you could watch this video. Among others.

Well ACORN is embarrassed and plans to investigate what went wrong and who is to blame.

ACORN, calling the actions of some of its employees "indefensible," has suspended advising new clients as part of its service programs and is setting up an independent review to see what happened.

ACORN chief executive Bertha Lewis said in a written statement that she was "ordering a halt to any new intakes into ACORN's service programs until completion of an independent review."

One way to tell is to see how they intend to do the investigation.

In addition, she said, "ACORN's independent Advisory Council will help select an independent auditor/reviewer no later than September 18th to review all of the systems and processes called into question by the videos."

In early 2009, ACORN set up an independent Advisory Council to help put together a new management team under Lewis. Lewis was appointed to the job in the fall of 2008 after disclosure of a set of improper management decisions by the founder of the organization.

The Advisory Council includes John Podesta, president of the liberal Center for American Progress; Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, a former lieutenant governor of Maryland; Andrew Stern, international president of Service Employees International Union; Henry Cisneros, a former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; John Banks, vice president of Government Relations Con Ed; and Eric Eve, senior vice president of Global Consumer Group, Community Relations, of Citigroup.

Kathleen Kennedy Townsend? A member of the Kennedy clan. Is she going to make the Democrats look bad by bringing down the hammer on ACORN? Sure. Why wouldn't she do the right thing?

Andy Stern whose SEIU is tied at the hip with ACORN? I'm sure he will show considerable independent judgment. NPR (yeah that NPR) has the story:

ACORN's biggest union backer, the Service Employees International Union, gave more than $4 million to the community organization and its affiliates from 2006-07, according to Dept. of Labor filings. One SEIU local union, the Illinois Homecare Workers and Home Childcare Providers, sprouted from ACORN's organizing efforts and pays rent to ACORN.

ACORN's affiliates also pick up money from the Change to Win labor federation, the Food and Commercial Workers Union and the United Federation of Teachers, among others.

...the Department of Housing and Urban Development gave ACORN Housing Corp. $8.2 million from 2003 to 2006, according to USAspending.gov. ACORN Housing provides counseling, classes, and access to special loans to low-income homebuyers. HUD has given another $1.6 million to other ACORN affiliates since 2003.

John Banks of Com Ed? I got nothing on him. Yet.

Eric Eve of Citi Group? Citi got $45 billion in TARP funds. Are they going to do any thing to unduly embarrass the government and threaten their gravy train? Nope. This particular abortion will get buried as expeditiously as possible with a minimum of fuss.

How about some other connections.

...Project Vote -- the voter mobilization organization that works closely with and draws its leadership from ACORN -- paid ACORN and an affiliate $5.4 million in 2006. But where does Project Vote get its money? Normally it's hard to tell, but we obtained a 2006 tax return showing the nonprofit's funders, including: $4.5 million from the charitable trust of the investment management firm Vanguard; $425,000 from the Bauman Family Foundation, which also gives to the People for the American Way; and $396,000 from the liberal phone company Working Assets.

How about foundations supporting ACORN?

The foundations that give to ACORN & Co. vary widely. There are some classically liberal ones: The Bauman Family Foundation gave $350,000 to ACORN's American Institute for Social Justice. George Soros' Open Society Institute gave $300,000 to that institute and $250,000 to ACORN proper. The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation gave the institute $1.8 million.

But some of the biggest donors are mainstream foundations of big corporations, according to data from the Foundation Center. The JPMorgan Chase Foundation gave $2.4 million to ACORN Housing and the Bank of America Charitable Foundation gave $1.4 million. Citigroup's foundation gave $1.5 million to the social justice institute.

Other major donors include the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which gave $1.4 million for an education reform campaign. The Ford Foundation has given $1.3 million, including $257,000 this year for "public education and technical assistance to grassroots groups working to expand access to the Earned Income Tax Credit, living wage ordinances and paid sick days." Foundations affiliated with the late founder of the United Parcel Service gave a combined $6.4 million.

How about individuals?

The 527 organization Fund for America was set up last year by top liberal donors and operatives to help fund pro-Democratic organizations this election season, but it ended up folding. The Fund, itself bankrolled by George Soros and others, gave $200,000 to ACORN.

ACORN has also had its own affiliated 527s. Communities Voting Together, for example, was founded to "educate and mobilize low income voters in key communities in key battleground states in the run-up to the 2004 presidential elections, focusing on Latino and African-American neighborhoods." The group received $125,000 from film producer Jeanne Levy-Hinte; $100,000 from environmentalist donor John R. Hunting, whose wealth comes from the Steelcase office furniture company; $80,000 from the president of Working Assets, and $70,000 from Linda Pritzker of the Hyatt fortune.

There's a lot more to ACORN's financial picture that we can't complete here. ACORN's network is complex, and money often transfers from one affiliate to another, making it hard for outsiders to keep track of it all. But one thing is for sure: ACORN is busy.

Linda Pritzker has quite a family. Take her Cousin Penny.

...lets start with a well known Chicago name Penny Pritzker. It starts with a bank failure.

Unfortunately, this wasn't the case for the 1,406 people who lost much of their life savings when Superior Bank of Chicago went belly up in 2001 with over $1 billion in insured and uninsured deposits. This collapse came amid harsh criticism of how Superior's owners promoted sub-prime home mortgages. As part of a settlement, the owners paid $100 million and agreed to pay another $335 million over 15 years at no interest.

The uninsured depositors were dealt another blow recently when the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a lower court decision to put any recovered money toward the debt that the bank owners owe the federal government before the depositors get anything.

But this seven-year-old bank failure has relevance in another way today, since the chair of Superior's board for five years was Penny Pritzker, a member of one of America's richest families and the current Finance Chair for the presidential campaign of Barack Obama, the same candidate who has lashed out against predatory lending.

Well there you have it. The team of gynecologists in charge of doing the internal investigation of ACORN. And some of their connections.

In my opinion this will not be over until ACORN, SEIU, Project Vote, and every one connected with them goes down. If you find out stuff about them I can use send it to me. Or blog it yourself. And don't forget to save every incriminating page in your own computer. Just in case they try to disappear the evidence.

Happy hunting.

H/T Instapundit along with many other links.

Cross Posted at Power and Control