All You Need to Know About the ACORN Scandal

[Nbadan]

The Story has faded from the FAUX News headlines and now that the party is over, O'Keefe and Giles better get a damn good attorney...

Mike Stark
Journalist
Posted: October 22, 2009


hz8hwqkbERk


Andrew Breitbart says he cares a lot about the truth, but it appears that's only true when he isn't the one being questioned.

You remember Breitbart as Matt Drudge's junior partner, the proprietor of BigGovernment.com, and, apparently, babysitter for juvenile delinquents James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, the conservative, hidden-camera-wielding duo that went undercover to obtain footage of low-level ACORN staffers.

They continued their media assault yesterday at the National Press Club. With assists from Republican Congressmen Steve King and Thad McCotter, Fox News and the aforementioned Andrew Breitbart, O'Keefe and Giles unleashed their most recent attack.

Let's review their story:

O'Keefe, dressed as a pimp, and Giles, disguised as a prostitute, visited ACORN offices where they asked for assistance purchasing a home. They claimed to have difficulty documenting income derived from the streets. But they had so much money! In fact, it wasn't just the two of them -- they had a whole crew of underage girls from El Salvador turning tricks for them. Hell, they had so much money, they needed help laundering it for the pimp's run for Congress.

Now let's tell the truth.

The truth is that O'Keefe never wore the pimp outfit into an ACORN office. Instead, he posed as a candidate for Congress that wanted to help a young woman caught in the trappings of prostitution. Supposedly, he wanted to help her, and her fellow prostitutes, escape the clutches of a brutal pimp by finding a place for them to live.

=snip=

Finally, in the second video, we learn all we need to know.

After hiding behind the lawsuit and using it as a shield to deflect questions they did not want to answer, they refuse to commit to releasing every full and unedited tape they have in exchange for ACORN dropping all of its lawsuits.

If they really wanted the truth out there, why do they need to edit these tapes in the first place? Why aren't the unedited videos already in the public domain?

Huff (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-stark/all-you-need-to-know-abou_b_330643.html)

[Wild Cobra]

Propaganda Dan...

Come on man...

You know better than to believe something from the Huff and Puff post...

It's just a bunch of hot air!

[spursncowboys]

Philadelphia Story

The Acorn story isn't going away.

By JOHN FUND (http://online.wsj.com/search/search_center.html?KEYWORDS=JOHN+FUND&ARTICLESEARCHQUERY_PARSER=bylineAND)

The Acorn story isn't going away. Yesterday, undercover filmmakers James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles released a video of a sixth visit to an Acorn office this summer. At each stop the young couple portrayed themselves as a pimp and a prostitute seeking help in setting up a brothel using underage illegal aliens. To their astonishment, they were assisted at almost every office by Acorn employees apparently happy to help them cheat on taxes and evade the law.


Acorn officials blasted the videos as "selectively edited." The filmmakers promptly posted the full videos along with transcripts to rebut the charge they had taken quotes out of context. Acorn then claimed Mr. O'Keefe and Ms. Giles had been thrown out of "dozens" of Acorn offices, including one in Philadelphia where the couple was supposedly quickly shown the door.
Yesterday's video of their visit to Acorn's Philadelphia office casts doubt on that contention. The video clearly shows an Acorn employee talking to the filmmakers and handing them a business card during a visit that lasted 32 minutes. However, the audio was kept muted at yesterday's press conference at the National Press Club in Washington. Because Acorn has sued the filmmakers, they said they had to keep the sound turned down to avoid further legal repercussions. But after the tape was shown, Andrew Breitbart, who first aired the videos on at BigGovernment.com, challenged Acorn to allow him to play the audio of all of the tapes that haven't yet been released.


Ian Phillips, legislative director for Pennsylvania Acorn, dodged the request, charging that the Philadelphia video had been manipulated and adding, "It's not on us to say, 'Release the audio.'"


Meanwhile, Acorn remains in its own legal hot water. The group is currently on trial in Nevada for submitting false voter registrations, and Louisiana's Democratic Attorney General is investigating a major embezzlement at Acorn's national office that was allegedly covered up by the group's founder.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704224004574489402021048362.html?m od=googlenews_wsj

[spursncowboys]

taking on the 'democrat-media complex'


the conservative internet entrepreneur on bringing down acorn, hollywood liberals, and embarrassing the mainstream media.


by james taranto (http://online.wsj.com/search/search_center.html?keywords=james+taranto&articlesearchquery_parser=bylineand)

hollywood
dressing up as a pimp and prostitute in order to seek acorn's help in starting a child sex-slavery ring wasn't andrew breitbart's idea. But without the internet entrepreneur's flair for publicity, the hidden-camera sting might not have produced such impressive results. Within days of his publishing the video exposé, government agencies were cutting ties with the left-wing advocacy and community-organizing group, congress was voting to end its federal funding, and news organizations were rushing to catch up with a sensational story they had initially resisted or ignored.


James o'keefe, the 25-year-old aspiring filmmaker who played the pimp in the acorn meetings, came to mr. Breitbart in early august with his videos. They showed mr. O'keefe and his putative partner in crime, 20-year-old hannah giles, asking acorn counselors for advice on how to evade the authorities while setting up a business offering the sexual services of underage girls smuggled into the u.s. From el salvador. It was a shocking and outlandish tale, but employees in at least five acorn offices fell for it and offered to help.


"i had a 20-year-old and a 25-year-old and my integrity on the line if we were going to launch this," mr. Breitbart says. "it was so obvious that the mainstream media, given this information, would not cover it and would, in effect, attempt to cover it up." so he devised an intricate strategy of rolling out the videos one at a time, anticipating acorn's defenses and rebutting each in turn with the next video.


The first, recorded at acorn's baltimore office, appeared sept. 10 on fox news channel and on mr. Breitbart's new web site, biggovernment.com, a group blog that combines reporting and libertarian-leaning polemics. Four more videos followed over the next week. "this plan wasn't just a means to defend against the media's desire to attack the messenger," mr. Breitbart says. "it was also a means to attack the media and to expose them . . . For the partisan hacks that they are." one need not agree with that harsh characterization to acknowledge that mr. Breitbart largely succeeded in catching news organizations flat-footed and embarrassing them into reluctantly covering the story.


Mr. Breitbart, 40, grew up in hollywood, though his parents weren't in show business. (his father was a restaurateur, his mother a banker.) after graduating from tulane university, he returned to southern california, where he dabbled in film production and music journalism before finding his calling online in the mid-1990s. "i just like the internet," he says. "i feel more natural in this environment, where i am part of the media and not a passive receptacle of the media." he worked for a time on the drudge report, and matt drudge introduced him to arianna huffington, now the doyenne of liberal bloggers. Mr. Breitbart designed a web site for her back when she was still a republican.


he held inchoate liberal views until 1991, when the clarence thomas hearings occasioned a conservative awakening. He came to loathe the left-wing show-biz culture, the subject of his 2004 book, "hollywood, interrupted," and of his group blog big hollywood, launched early this year. "these people believe that christians and conservatives and republicans and libertarians are all variations on the nazi theme."


although mr. Breitbart practices a form of journalism, as an independent operator he moves freely across boundaries that would constrain a traditional newsman. He makes no pretense of impartiality and openly engages in political activity. On sept. 12, he took time off from the acorn video roll-out to travel to illinois, where he spoke to a tea-party rally. He works with actor gary sinise on a group called friends of abe (as in lincoln), which brings together hollywood conservatives. You might say he's something of a community organizer.


It was with politics in mind, mr. Breitbart says, that he chose to release the first acorn video on sept. 10, the day after president obama's speech to a joint session of congress. His rationale: "i am going to do what john mccain did the day after the invesco speech," mr. Obama's address to the democratic national convention, by announcing the choice of sarah palin. "i am going to suck the air out of the room on the health-care debate. That was intentional."


mr. Breitbart's work on the story has centered on a sophisticated public-relations campaign. He placed exclusives not only with fox, but with local newspapers in the cities where the videos were made. On his site, he published the raw videos and complete transcripts, lest he and mr. O'keefe be accused of manipulation through editing.


The crux of the strategy was the timing of the video releases. "every step of the way, we wanted to plant traps" for acorn and its defenders, he says. The baltimore video was the first because it was "the most clean-cut of explicating their offer and acorn's ability to help them with the transaction through their intricate networking of tax assistance and street-level advice-giving on how to avoid the law." acorn called the video "false and defamatory" and accused fox of "racist coverage," but also fired the employees who appeared in it.


The video from washington followed on sept. 11. Acorn asserted that it was "slanted to misinform the public," although again it swiftly sacked the employees involved.


Acorn also claimed that mr. O'keefe and ms. Giles had been rebuffed in four cities, including new york and san diego. But on sept. 14, the new york post reported that in fact the pair had received offers of help from acorn's brooklyn office. "it was like, bam! You're a liar again," says mr. Breitbart. Two days later, the san diego video came out (the employee there reportedly called police two days after the visit, though no police report was filed). In between was the san bernardino, calif., video, featuring tresa kaelke, who is white. So much for racism.


The obama administration was quicker than much of the national media in responding to the scandal. On sept. 11, the census bureau announced that it was dumping acorn as a "partner" in promoting next year's enumeration. The first mention of the sting on a network evening newscast—cbs's—did not come until sept. 15, the day after the senate voted 83-7 to deny the group federal housing funds. The new york times reported it for the first time a day after that. (the journal had cited it in a sept. 12 news story.) on sept. 27, times ombudsman clark hoyt published a column in which the paper's managing editor acknowledged having been "slow off the mark" but denied that political bias played any role.


Meanwhile, the internal revenue service joined the census bureau in cutting ties with acorn, and congress voted several more times to defund the group, including a measure to deny it all federal money, which passed the house 345-75 on sept. 17. (this and similar provisions are amendments to various bills, which must be reconciled and signed before becoming law.)
the next monday, mr. Breitbart followed a dictum of saul alinsky, whose 1971 book, "rules for radicals," is the bible of left-wing community organizers: "a tactic that drags on for too long becomes a drag." figuring that a sixth acorn video wouldn't have much impact, he shifted to a different scandal. He published the full transcript of an august conference call in which officials from federal agencies, including the national endowment for the arts and the white house's office of public engagement, urged federally subsidized artists to produce propaganda on behalf of mr. Obama's legislative initiatives. Patrick courrielche, an artist and big hollywood contributor, had recorded the call. By week's end yosi sergant, who had organized the call as the nea's director of communications, was out of a job.


Mr. Breitbart claims victory, and in extravagant terms: "at every step of the way, we were correct. At every step of the way, the mainstream media took the lies of acorn. At every step of the way, the mainstream media attempted to cover up for acorn. . . . If they think that acorn or the democratic party or the nea or the office of public engagement is the primary target, they couldn't be more wrong. It is the democrat-media complex. It is the mainstream media. No jury would need more evidence at this point. The clark hoyts of the world should just put their pens down and retire right now and walk away. They lost."


yet some caveats are in order. Partisanship was not the only reason for media resistance to the acorn story. The approach mr. O'keefe and ms. Giles used—lying to prospective sources or subjects—is grossly unethical by the standards of institutional journalism. Almost all major news organizations, including the journal, strictly prohibit it. To be sure, there is a world of difference between employing such tactics and reporting on the results when others have used them. And there is no question that the pair's findings were newsworthy. But journalistic discomfort with their methods is a sign of integrity, not corruption.


Reporters also were—and still are—operating on incomplete information by mr. Breitbart's design. He refuses to say how many videos he has yet to release, or what is on them, except that "in the end, hannah and james and me will have been truth-tellers every step of the way." he acknowledges that such withholding of information "goes outside the realm of journalism"—perhaps a needless concession, since news organizations do not typically release information prior to publication—but he defends it as necessary to protect mr. O'keefe and ms. Giles from "those that would destroy them."
mr. Breitbart says that some reporters have pressed him for information about the unreleased videos, and these demands make him indignant: "they were the desperate attempts of defense attorneys to say, 'you have an obligation to tell us how many tapes there are.' i said, 'isn't that interesting, because acorn wants to know that too . . . Because they don't know how big the scandal is.'" yet while it's true that journalists have no right to mr. Breitbart's information, one can hardly fault them for wanting all the facts.
Even if one accepts mr. Breitbart's critique of the mainstream media, nobody should root for their downfall or destruction. Their role—that of impartial watchdog and broker of information—is a vital one, whether or not they perform it well. While breitbart-style opinionated journalism can provide healthy competition, it cannot substitute for straight news. As mr. Breitbart himself says, in an unusually modest moment, "i'm not looking to slay the dragon . . . But i wanted to embarrass the dragon into being a more reasonable dragon."
mr. Taranto, a member of the wall street journal's editorial board, writes the best of the web today column for wsj.com.
http://online.wsj.com/article/sb10001424052748704471504574451703003340362.html?m od=rss_today%27s_most_popular

[hope4dopes]

OH but I do hope ACORN sues them I say let's get down to the bottom of this, let's open some books let's see some senators with their pants down.

[boutons_deux]

The "bottom of this" is that Acorn's real sins were against the Repugs and conservatives:

registering 1 million poor people to vote (if they vote at all, tend to vote anti-Repug),

fighting against predatory, deceptive lending by the banks and private lenders,

fighting for better wages for the working poor,

etc.

[hope4dopes]

The "bottom of this" is that Acorn's real sins were against the Repugs and conservatives:

registering 1 million poor people to vote (if they vote at all, tend to vote anti-Repug),

fighting against predatory, deceptive lending by the banks and private lenders,

fighting for better wages for the working poo,

etc.Yeah but you forgot they also helped inner city youth find gainfull employment through managing the proffessional life of underage illegal alien girls in prostitution,......you support human bondage period, all the political double talk in the world isn't gonna put the genie back in the bottle.........YOUR FUCKED..everybody knows what ACORN is about.

[Winehole23]

What underage girls? The ones stuck in your head?

[ChumpDumper]

micca still thinks the conservative filmmakers owned sex slaves?
YOUR FUCKED:lol

[boutons_deux]

"gainfull [sic] employment through managing the proffessional [sic] life of underage illegal alien girls in prostitution"


You really think the Repugs and conservatives give a rat turd about prostitution by anybody?

(other than the prostitutes, male and female, high-class and low-class that they themselves use in DC)

YOUR FUCKED [sic]

[Shastafarian]

These guys still think there were real underage Salvadorian prostitutes?

[Wild Cobra]

These guys still think there were real underage Salvadorian prostitutes?
It doesn't matter that they didn't exist. What matters is that if they did, ACORN employees clearly would have helped them violate the law.

[Shastafarian]

It doesn't matter that they didn't exist.It doesn't matter if underage foreign prostitutes existed? I think the law disagrees with you.

What matters is that if they did, ACORN employees clearly would have helped them violate the law.
But they didn't exist.

[spursncowboys]

It doesn't matter if underage foreign prostitutes existed? I think the law disagrees with you. what law exactly?


But they didn't exist. why do police have vice units?

[Ignignokt]

It doesn't matter if underage foreign prostitutes existed? I think the law disagrees with you.

But they didn't exist.

exhibit b.

[SouthernFried]

Keep bringing up Acorn. We don't want it to get too far from the public consciousness.

[George Gervin's Afro]

Keep bringing up Acorn. We don't want it to get too far from the public consciousness.

Will this be part of the GOP's strategy for 2010? I hope so..:lmao

[jack sommerset]

The story has faded because they have been defunded. Duh. Guess what else has faded. Obamas promises. Obama can fuck some of you in your asshole without as much as a thank you all because you want to blame Bush for all your pathetic little pussy problems.

[Shastafarian]

what law exactly?The one that makes prostitution illegal.


why do police have vice units?It's not to stop imaginary underage Salvadorian prostitutes.


exhibit b.
You just take a hit?

[angrydude]

shastafarian, you're either pretending to be an idiot because you're a partisan hack or you're really an idiot. I can't decide.

[Winehole23]

Angrydude is flummoxed. Is that so atypical?

[Winehole23]

A complaint-complainer should have something to say. Make up your mind, man.

[Winehole23]

Go ahead, angrydude: make your stand. Don't be so wishy-washy.

[Nbadan]

Oh boy, this is embarrassing..


A Congressional Research Service report commissioned by the House Judiciary Committee says ACORN hasn’t violated any federal regulations the past five years.

The report, released by Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers’s (D-Mich.) staff Tuesday evening, also reports that the undercover filmmakers that allegedly caught employees of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now breaking the law may have violated state law in their filming operation.

Separately on Tuesday, a New York federal judge rejected a motion from the Justice Department to reconsider a decision that ruled a bill that stopped funding for ACORN as an unconstitutional bill of attainder.

The CRS report is part of a slew of government inquests into the group, which was swept up in a number of embarrassing situations in the past several months. The Government Accountability Office recently opened its own report, and Republican Reps. Darrell Issa of California and Steve King of Iowa have led the charge in demanding more investigations and hearings into the group.

Politico (http://www.politico.com/reporters/JakeSherman.html)

I wonder if Sean Insannity or OxyRush will mention this report on their shows Monday?

[admiralsnackbar]

Propaganda Dan...

Come on man...

You know better than to believe something from the Huff and Puff post...

It's just a bunch of hot air!

Your credibility would skyrocket i my book if this wasn't your rote diminution of anything brought from that source. Attack the content, not the vehicle it arrives on.... as lib as the HufPost is, they collect data from countless news sources, like any news clearing house.

[SouthernFried]

Acorn is doing the Lord's work man...the Lord's work.

Hallelujah.

[Wild Cobra]

Your credibility would skyrocket i my book if this wasn't your rote diminution of anything brought from that source. Attack the content, not the vehicle it arrives on.... as lib as the HufPost is, they collect data from countless news sources, like any news clearing house.
There are only a two publishers that I flat out dismiss. That is one of them.

[admiralsnackbar]

There are only a two publishers that I flat out dismiss. That is one of them.

I think it's valuable to read everybody's bullshit, but that's me. In the way you only dismiss two publishers, I dismiss any one taken alone, but absorb as much of the "totality" of journalism as I can get at. Both parties want to sucker you on some level... best way to test their cards is to walk around the table, IMO.