Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning
“A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.†– Mark Twain
“All that is needed for the forces of evil to triumph is for enough good men to do nothing.” –Edmund Burke
In a society increasingly dominated by dictatorial and corrupt corporate wealth and power, a collection of community organizations, The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), steps forward to become the voice of the most vulnerable of our citizens — the poor and lower-middle class. It is a national coalition which not only strives to insure that these otherwise atomized and powerless masses retain and exercise their equal right to vote, but a caring organization which seeks a living wage for all citizens; that tries to protect them from predatory lenders and phony foreclosure assistance scams.
At a time when the heartless and uncaring Bush/Cheney cabal left thousands of our fellow citizens to sink or swim in a toxic soup of petrochemicals, flood waters and decaying bodies, ACORN, according to the Congressional Research Service [PDF], stepped forward to assist “in the clean-up of 1,850 homes and” organized “10,000 hurricane survivors into the ACORN Katrina Survivors Association.”
So it comes as no surprise that ACORN has become the target of a years-long relentless right-wing assault, most recently spearheaded by the likes of accused federal felon James O’Keefe and his serial dissembling employer and publisher, Andrew Breitbart. Neither is it a surprise that the phony pimp’s video hit pieces emerged on Rupert Murdoch’s own Fox “News” Channel, which Robert Greenwald so forcefully demonstrated was but the propaganda arm of the GOP in Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism.
It is, however, slightly more surprising, and certainly most noteworthy, that now that they’ve been exposed as hoaxes, even Murdoch’s own New York Post was forced to describe the doctored tapes as a “‘heavily edited’ splice job that only made it appear as though the organization’s workers were advising a pimp and prostitute on how to get a mortgage…[with] many of the seemingly crime-encouraging answers…taken out of context so as to appear more sinister.”
What is truly disturbing, however, is that this concocted tale would be unquestioningly accepted as legitimate by the corporate media and by Congress, which, in their rush to mollify the noisy hard-right, displayed a profound ignorance of basic concepts of fundamental fairness and due process of law.
ACORN was prematurely and inappropriately tried and convicted in the press and in Congress, without so much as a single hearing, vis a vis a grotesque and shameful word-of-mouth propaganda lynch job unseen since the days of Joseph McCarthy, the disgraced, right-wing demagogue who misused his powerful perch in the U.S. Senate to smear “loyal Americans as disloyal” and who falsely “charged that the government was being undermined from within”…
Tried and convicted by partisan hoax
ACORN was tried and convicted in the press and in Congress based on propaganda videos which a former MA Attorney General exposed months ago as a heavily edited hoax. Yet without waiting on a single investigation, or holding a single hearing, U.S. House and Senate Resolutions were passed in an attempt to strip a presumed guilty ACORN of federal funding. Fortunately, those measures were found by a federal judge to be, in all likelihood, unconstitutional bills of attainder. But the finding comes too late for the group which depends on private funders for the vast majority of its work, many of whom have withheld their support following the Republican operatives’ extremely successful smear job.
Had Congress looked before leaping, they would have found that an independent analysis [PDF], furnished by former MA Attorney General Scott Harshbarger, disabuses much of the misinformation that has been propagated about the entire ACORN “pimp” hoax. While the analysis was commissioned by ACORN as an external review, and returned some rather harsh condemnations for some of the groups organizational procedures, Harshbarger found no pattern of illegalities by the organization itself, or any of those low-level employees ensnared by the O’Keefe/Breitbart set up.
Though the so-called “paper of record”, the New York Times, misreported on the O’Keefe/Breitbart hoax time and again, both before and after the release of the Harshbarger report, Harshbarger’s analysis was never so much as mentioned in their pages. They have also refused, time and again, to correct their misreporting, offering one extraordinary excuse after another for not doing the correct, journalistic thing.
As Brad Friedman recently reported, an ACORN spokesperson noted that the New York Times failed to even send a reporter to the telephonic press conference that was held by Harshbarger when his report was released on December 7th of last year — a Dec. 7 that, in terms of the integrity of American journalism, should live in infamy.*
An examination of Harshbarger’s independent analysis helps to unravel the web of deceit spun by these GOP con-artists masquerading as “journalists.”
*The same New York Times which ran with the O’Keefe/Breitbart scurrilous ACORN “pimp” lie, chose to ignore the sworn affidavits of former Blackwater/Xe insiders which not only alleged that Blackwater had engaged in murder, destruction of evidence, weapons smuggling, and corruption but specifically alleged that Blackwater operated a wife-swapping sex ring here in the US, and that, in Iraq, Blackwater had “young girls provide oral sex to Enterprise members in the ‘Blackwater Man Camp’ in exchange for one American dollar.”
Don’t look to the New York Times, either, if you are interested in learning about Sibel Edmonds’ credible sworn testimony implicating members and former members of Congress in corruption and espionage which includes even allegations of nuclear secrets sold to foreign countries on the black market.
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46 federal, state and local investigations find no ACORN-related ‘voter fraud’
According to yet another official report on the matter from the Congressional Research Service [PDF] released late last year, as commissioned by U.S. House Judiciary Committee, as of October 2009, there have been 46 reported federal, state, and local investigations concerning ACORN; 11 still pending. None have established a single instance in which an individual, improperly registered by ACORN or its employees, has then attempted “to vote at the polls.” The study reveals that ACORN themselves is often the initiator of official complaints against employees who defraud them, when they turn in fraudulent registrations.
Nonetheless, the GOP propaganda campaign, aided and abetted by the incurious corporate media, has helped lead the right-wing faithful to believe ACORN is in the “voter fraud” business, despite the complete lack of evidence to support the theory. A recent survey by the non-partisan Research 2000 found that one in five (21%) of self-identified Republicans believe ACORN stole the 2008 Presidential election for Barack Obama. Another 55% are “not sure” if they did or not.
Yet, as Brad Friedman so forcefully argues in the documentary film Murder, Spies & Voting Lies, our greatest concerns — as even the Bush Justice Department found — are not with the rather infrequent problem of “voter fraud”, certainly not at the polls as charged by the right-wing propagandists hoping to disenfranchise millions of legal, largely Democratic-leaning voters with photo ID restrictions. The far greater concern is “election fraud” which can be accomplished by a single insider using electronic voting systems, both paper-based optical scan and Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, usually touch-screen) systems which can be corrupted in a few seconds’ time in such a way that the wholesale manipulation of an election result would likely never be discovered.
Doctored videotapes are not ‘evidence’
I don’t expect all reporters to possess the same level of legal knowledge as those of us who have practiced law for many years. However, I don’t think it too much to expect that major corporate media, with corporate legal departments at their disposal, possess at least the rudiments of concepts embodied in the 5th, 6th and 14th amendments to the U.S. Constitution entailing fundamental fairness, due process of law and the right of the accused to confront his or her accuser.
That didn’t happen in the case of the doctored ACORN videos. O’Keefe, Hannah Giles and Breitbart produced what purported to be a set of videotapes that, per Scott Shane of the New York Times, depicted O’Keefe and Giles, dressed as pimp and prostitute, “visit[ing] Acorn offices in Baltimore, Washington, Brooklyn and San Bernardino, Calif., [where they] candidly describ[ed] their illicit business and ask[ed] the advice of Acorn workers.” CNN’s Abbie Boudreau said, the tapes appeared to show “two ACORN workers…caught on tape allegedly offering advice on how to set up a prostitution ring and evade the IRS” to the disguised pimp and prostitute, while Scott Olshan of the New York Post reported that employees at ACORN’s Brooklyn office were “caught on video helping supposed ladies of the night get loans for their dream houses of ill repute.”
By contrast, former AG Harshbarger reported after carefully reviewing the edited videos:
Harshbarger stated that the “released videos offer no evidence of a pattern of illegal conduct by ACORN employees” and that there was “no evidence that any action, illegal or otherwise, was taken by ACORN employees on behalf of” O’Keefe and Giles.
Last week, Brooklyn prosecutors, who investigated the matter over a span of five months, came to a nearly identical conclusion, adding that O’Keefe and Giles “edited the tapes to meet their agenda.”
As the New York Post noted in describing the DA offices’ comments on their finding of “no criminality”, O’Keefe and Breitbart’s published Brooklyn ACORN video represented a “‘heavily edited’ splice job” where the comments by ACORN employees were “taken out of context so as to appear more sinister.”
Three of the six videos were from offices where ACORN had no control
Harshbarger reveals what one cannot possibly learn by simply watching the doctored videos. “Three of the six videos — Brooklyn, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. — involved only ACORN Housing employees, over which ACORN has no control.” ACORN Housing is “a separately incorporated organization (not a subsidiary or affiliate) with which ACORN contracts for home buyer and foreclosure programs.”
O’Keefe and Giles met not with ACORN employees at the Washington office, for example, but with two employees of the separate ACORN Housing and with an independent real estate broker — a fact rarely, if ever, noted in media mis-reports of the video tapes.
Thus, whatever occurred inside those three offices; whatever was said by the employees of ACORN Housing, has no bearing whatsoever on ACORN’s alleged responsibility. Avoiding that point has been very useful for the right-wing propagandists, but it is a point of what James O’Keefe might otherwise refer to as “journalistic malpractice”.
Harshbarger refutes not only the “dressed as a pimp” canard but demolishes media claims on substantive interactions.
In an appendix, Harsbarger states:
Hannah Giles, O’Keefe’s co-conspirator in this concocted partisan “sting,” has now admitted (once even on video) that O’Keefe never went into any of the offices dressed as a pimp, despite his own purposely-misleading representations and publisher Breitbart’s own written claims that he did.
According to Harshbarger, when they entered the Baltimore office, they first told a part-time receptionist that “Ms. Giles was a dancer and Mr. O’Keefe was a college student trying to help her.” — Doesn’t exactly fit with The New York Times description that the pair “candidly described their illicit business,” does it?
In fact, where the video is replete with O’Keefe voice-overs that imply that the Baltimore ACORN employees readily came up with ways to conceal “prostitution,” O’Keefe and Breitbart’s own published unauthenticated text-transcripts reveal the lengths to which both O’Keefe and Giles sought to initially hide Giles’ supposed line of work, until after they had obtained some useful sound-bites to be used later out of context:
Giles: No who?
O’Keefe: The clients.
Giles: My clients.
Tax lady: No the person that’s paying you.
O’Keefe: The clients.
Tax lady: The job that’s paying you.
Giles: Well people pay me different things every day.
Tax lady: Well there’s a difference between having a job and having your own business. Okay, so tell me.
Giles: Well before I guess it was a job. There was this guy that people would give me money and I would give money to him. But now…I am trying to get away from that guy.
O’Keefe: I am trying to help her out; maybe give her a place to go where she can perform her work, maybe a house where she doesn’t have to get targeted by this other guy. You know what I am saying?
Tax lady: …Does the business have an ID number?
O’Keefe: No.
Tax lady: Okay. So there is no taxes and nothing being put to government so the government really knows nothing about this business?
Giles: No. They don’t know about me — hopefully.
Tax lady: So you are just starting the business.”
When this is placed in the context of their initial representation that Giles was a “dancer,” you begin to understand why the ACORN tax lady is having so much trouble making head or tails about just what “business” Giles is actually in.
The transcript captures O’Keefe and Giles, whispering to one another, on how best to entrap this part-time ACORN employee into giving advice on write-offs, etc. Fourteen pages into the transcript, after these slick hustlers secure a statement that the part-time tax employee is looking for the appropriate code for Giles’s theretofore undefined “business,” O’Keefe blurts out, “There’s a code for prostitution?” — a word they had, until then, adroitly avoided.
Note: Where O’Keefe and Breitbart claim this is the complete transcript, it contains conversations with only two ACORN employees. Harshbarger interviewed numerous ACORN employees who were not captured on the audiotapes. He identified a third; a receptionist. From Harshbarger’s description of interactions with other offices, it appears likely that either Giles or O’Keefe called in advance to make an appointment, which is likely the time when the “dancer” representation Harshbarger refers to was made.
In this first person description from Philadelphia’s ACORN Housing employee, who met with O’Keefe and Giles — and who filed a police report after they left — it’s clear the pair did not represent themselves as either “prostitute” or “pimp” when misrepresenting the intent of their interviews. “Mr. O’Keefe lied to get his appointment. He was not dressed like he is on the Internet. And when we got suspicious about the questions he was asking at the Philadelphia ACORN Housing office, we called the police and filed this report,” the employee, Katherine Conway Russell states on tape.
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According to the unauthenticated text transcript, O’Keefe and Giles elicited tax advice on the young girls coming from El Salvador by telling the part-time employee in Baltimore that they were trying to provide them with shelter. O’Keefe waits until after the employee discusses the possibility of claiming some of the girls as dependents before vaguely slipping in the word “tricks” with the ambiguous “they,” to which the part-time ACORN employee responds not with tax advice but with you shouldn’t be telling me that.
It is not entirely clear that the part-time ACORN employee actually understood that Giles was considering putting these underage girls to work as prostitutes. It is clear that, at that point, she should have thrown both of these clowns out of the office. She did not, and, as a result, ACORN management terminated her employment the moment it learned what occurred. As the organization has noted, their own written protocols appear to have been violated by several of the low-level employees, none of whom were either organizers or supervisory level workers.
Where the New York Post initially reported that ACORN employees were “caught on video helping supposed ladies of the night get loans for their dream houses of ill repute,” Harshbarger reveals (1) that these were employees of ACORN Housing, the separate entity; that (2) the employee complained about Giles’ inappropriate attire; told her to go home and change; that (3) Giles said she couldn’t return to change because she would be beat up by her pimp (who was not O’Keefe, but rather the abusive man O’Keefe was purporting to help her escape from), and that (4) when Giles said she wanted to buy a house to protect the 13-year old girls her pimp was said to be recruiting into prostitution, the ACORN Housing tax-counselor told her “she could not buy a house because her income derived from illegal activities.”
Harshbarger reports that in the San Diego office, O’Keefe and Giles took advantage of an employee who was barely conversant in English and whose participation amounted to little more than nods and saying, “okay.” In the San Bernardino office, the ACORN employee, fearing for her own safety, gave O’Keefe and Giles her own line of B.S., stating, Harshbarger reports, “she had killed her husband and had previously run an escort service. In fact, her former husbands are alive.” As soon as she was rid of them, the employee locked the door.
Though Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com published the video on September 15th, 2009, in yet another remarkable example of Breitbart and O’Keefe’s blatant “journalistic malpractice”, they have failed to add notice that the county sheriff’s office quickly disabused the public of the notion that the worker had murdered her husband. To this day, the video as originally published on Breitbart’s site is posted without notice that the information offered by the ACORN worker seen in it was completely bogus.
That tape, similarly to the others, is reprehensibly titled “ACORN San Bernardino Child Prostitution Investigation”.
Also, as Harshbarger notes, while the videotapes depicted the outside of the ACORN office in Philadelphia, O’Keefe took care not to reveal that the Philadelphia ACORN Legislative Director was onto his scam from the moment he called to set up an appointment; that O’Keefe and Giles had to make a quick departure before the police arrived.
These are just a few examples of how O’Keefe and Giles grossly misrepresented and misreported what they captured on their secret recordings and edited video tape releases. Brad Friedman recently highlighted yet another sharp example.
America’s “paper of record,” having amplified the O’Keefe/Giles/Breitbart scam by irresponsibly repeating their lies without bothering to independently validate them first, has not simply ignored the Harshbarger findings — and those which can be quickly discovered with even a bare minimum of actual, responsible fact-checking — but they have also out-and-out refused to retract their demonstrably erroneous articles, even after being directly confronted with the conclusive evidence showing that they were simply wrong.
The broader context: a totalitarian nightmare
Suppose you did your banking at Bank of America. When you went to make a deposit at your bank, you handed cash and a deposit slip to the teller, who pretended to make the deposit, but pocketed your money. If the bank, upon discovery of the embezzlement, fired the teller, turned the teller over to the authorities and restored your money, would the Bank of America itself be considered guilty of a crime?
Or consider the recent stories that have emerged in which female members of the U.S. armed forces have been raped by fellow soldiers. Are we to then assume that the U.S. military itself is little more than a criminal band of rapists and cut-off all further funding to that “criminal organization?”
ACORN consists of some “400,000 member families organized into more than 1,200 neighborhood chapters in about 75 cities across the country.” Harshbarger reports that O’Keefe and Giles conducted their subterfuge at only 3 ACORN offices; that there were “extenuating circumstances in two of them;” that the “ACORN employees captured on video were members or part-time staff. They were not organizers or supervisory level employees;” that ACORN promptly dismissed those part-time employees. How is that any different from the bank or US military scenarios–except that, unlike the soldier/rapists, ACORN’s part-time employees have not been found to have violated any laws?
Renowned political scientist Hanna Arendt is said to have defined “totalitarianism as the triumph of politics over truth.” Arendt believed that “propaganda or the systematic attempt to conceal the truth was the fundamental ploy of totalitarian politics.”
The ease with which the deceptive ACORN ‘pimp’ hoax was propagated as “truth”, once again demonstrates that our once-thriving democracy is dangerously close to devolving into the depths of a totalitarian nightmare.
Restated: The ease with which these illogical, deceptive, relentless and vicious assaults on a benevolent, if imperfect, community organization succeeded in the press and in Congress; the triumph of hard-right politics over truth, coupled with the post-9/11 erosion of civil liberties and the rule of law, the increasing domination of mass communications by corporate wealth and power, Orwellian elections in which votes disappear inside the black holes of e-voting systems whose secret, unobservable source-code is allowed to determine the winner of elections without a verifiable count, and brownshirt-like tactics of easily misled “tea-baggers,” suggests that our once thriving democracy is dangerously close to devolving into the depths of a totalitarian nightmare.
With the corporate sector of the media having abandoned its fourth-estate responsibility of protecting the public against cynical assaults and the despicable corruption of our very democracy, it has been left to alternative media, such as The BRAD BLOG, whose coverage of this entire sham over the last many weeks — even the last many years — has helped to expose these democracy-destroying lies.
Oh, I do realize that this blog does not have the reach of The New York Times or of Fox “News”. But truth does not need to be amplified to be heard. Its essence speaks volumes.
Without the light of truth piercing the darkness wrought by right-wing propaganda that is designed to destroy organized opposition to totalitarian corporate societal control, like the citizens of New Orleans in the wake of Katrina’s wrath, each of us, every man, woman and child, will be left to fend for ourselves against the harsh realities of a greed-driven, corporate security state whose heartless and corrupt leaders could care less whether we sink or swim. We, at The BRAD BLOG, are determined to see that this does not happen.
If the above has depressed you, as much as it depresses me, take heart momentarily with one bright outcome of all of this — perhaps one of the funniest Stephen Colbert bits ever, as aired on 3/4/10, on the heels of a world finally becoming aware, thanks in no small part to this blog, that the O’Keefe/Breitbart ACORN “pimp” hoax was exactly that…
And now that you’ve had a good laugh, here’s an 03/08/10 clip in which Rachel Maddow debunks the “deather” lie, one of the latest examples of right-wing, democracy endangering propaganda, or what Joseph Goebbels called “The Big Lie” technique…
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
And, finally, to understand how close we are to emulating the last days of the Weimar Republic, another segment from the 3/8/10 Rachel Maddow Show in which you can see the brownshirt-like tactics of the wing-nuts, shutting down one of the oldest forms of democracy, the town hall meeting…
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
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Ernest A. Canning has been an active member of the California state bar since 1977. Mr. Canning has received both undergraduate and graduate degrees in political science as well as a juris doctor. He is also a Vietnam vet (4th Infantry, Central Highlands 1968).
Thanks for posting Rachel Maddow and helping explode the myth put forth by the right and believe it or not some liberals like Jon Stewart, that MSNBC’s Maddow/Olbermann/Schultz are the “FOX ‘news’ of the left”. The difference is they don’t lie, they actually expose things, and they expose lies of the right and how their lies get into the mainstream media. They’re populists who also attack Democrats (like Stupak) that are hypocrites and against the good of most Americans. They would LOVE everyone to think they’re the “FOX ‘news’ of the left”, which is false. For starters, they don’t LIE, make things up, or distort and mislead like rightwing media.
Just the latest episode of The Shock Doctrine.
But instead of Dick Cheney and the Patriot Act, we’re stuck with cowards like Barney Frank and a bill of attainder.
We’re still putting up with the goddamn Patriot Act, and we’re still putting up with cowards like Barney Frank.
And the New York Times stands tall beside them all.
The last paragraph of Ernie’s article says it all…
I’m right in between the two camps that either; want to find a commonground way to work with the tea-baggers/right wing or dismiss them as blind tools of the fascist right wing propaganda machine. I understand the need to find commongraound with those whose views differ from ours.
But I’m dumbfounded about how to reach those whose brainwashing won’t let them consider another’s viewpoint at all…and whose whole position is based on falsehoods. As myself and David Lasagna have debated. I feel it’s intellectually impossible to see another’s point of view if that other isn’t sincere or willing to give your point of view full consideration. It’s like you’re bargaining from a losing position to begin with…
I do know that the truth ALWAYS wins out…and our present circumstances are no different. “They” want us to believe it’s over and their lies have won. But outlets such as Bradblog and others refute that everyday…the truth tide will turn….SOON!
God I hope it’soon…This country can’t stand much more.
New York Times editor Clark Hoyt is a barefaced liar and a coward with an obvious far-right agenda.
Ernest,
This is truly an outstanding summary of the whole ACORN hit job promulgated by Breitbart, O’Keefe, Giles, and then propagated by the NYT and other supposedly reputable news sources.
Some thoughts:
1) I am sorry that any ACORN employees got the axe due to O’Keefe’s and Giles’ hoax. While it may be true that some of them did not act according to ACORN guidelines, nevertheless we should remember that they were conned. They were led to form a sympathetic relationship with Giles and O’Keefe first and then slowly and artfully led deeper into knowledge of the imaginary prostitution business through innuendo and careful insinuation of phrases and bogus information. I can’t help but wonder if the employees who were fired would have acted that way in any other circumstance. Like the lobster that doesn’t try to climb out of the pot if you raise the temperature slowly, they were gradually taken in.
2) I believe the illicit-underage-immigrant-sex-trafficking angle was the reason this hoax was successful in forcing Congress’ hand so quickly. The right wing has been trying to smear ACORN for years and they were largely unsuccessful until now. It took the insinuation of sex of the most abhorrent kind — trafficked undocumented foreign children as prostitutes — and our governing body just lost its head. They wanted to make it go away — and fast. Due diligence went out the window. Brilliant move on Giles’ part, who apparently thought of the scheme, and O’Keefe who may have racheted it up a few notches.
3) You have to wonder. Let’s see, the NYT and other papers and news outlets who ought to know better perpetuated this damaging hoax and have either ignored the facts when they emerged or outright refused to issue retractions (with a few exceptions). EVEN THOUGH these same outlets seem to have no problem issuing retractions when they are clearly wrong in other news reporting.
Are they just stubborn? Or do they just not care? Or were they told not to get involved in correcting the facts about ACORN? I don’t know. (Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean they ain’t out to get us!)
Superlative job, Ernest. Well done. Will circulate and tweet.
A nice companion piece to Ernest’s that highlights the thrust of BlueHawk’s (#3) and Lora’s(#5) above comments from Bob Cesca, today:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/the-tea-party-is-all-abou_b_493929.html
Exactly.
Cesca could’ve been writing solely about O’Keefe / Breitbart, there.
Jeanie Dean @6
Spot on….
Ernie – So many words, so many distortions and untruths. Patterico has a post up today which blows large sections of your post completely out of the water, but he ignored a lot.
“Had Congress looked before leaping, they would have found that an independent analysis [PDF], furnished by former MA Attorney General Scott Harshbarger, disabuses much of the misinformation that has been propagated about the entire ACORN “pimp” hoax.” – Not really, Ernie. Congress acted in September and ACORN voluntarily shut down certain operations in September. Why did they need to wait for Harshbarger’s report to come out in December since we are not operating in a court of law, contrary to what you contend later. Harshbarger’s report did not use the word hoax, that is your terminology for something you deem meaningful, but he did find the acts of the various employees very troubling and did not deny that they occurred, even with the admitted editing.
“there have been 46 reported federal, state, and local investigations concerning ACORN; 11 still pending.” – Ernie, I believe there are a lot more than 11 investigations pending when you include the county level investigations, but you might want to check my math. Also, the CRS report did not clear ACORN of illegal behavior as you and Brad have been citing in past references. They were not tasked with that investigation. The CRS for the most part merely searched news stories referring to ACORN.
“Doctored videotapes are not ‘evidence'” – Ernie, we are not in a court of law. As someone who claims to be an attorney, you should know that. If there is a legal proceeding, then you would have a legitimate point. The rapes should be described as edited and not doctored, but thanks for the hyperbole.
“ACORN Housing is “a separately incorporated organization (not a subsidiary or affiliate) with which ACORN contracts for home buyer and foreclosure programs.” Ernie, I find this a very curious part of Harshbarger’s report and defense of the organizations. Maybe you can help me out. Immediately after the videos started getting released, Bertha Lewis started hitting the airwaves and issuing press releases making what turned out to be completely false claims about the activities of O’Keefe and Giles on behalf of ACORN and ACORN Housing and talking about terminating employees of the organizations. She was also the one who was quoted in the press release about shutting down operations. How could she do that for both operations if they were completely separate Ernie? Something doesn’t smell right there. I call bullshit.
Chew on these comments and read Patterico’s post, Ernie.
Enjoy!
DaleyRocks spewed:
And thank you for the brilliant Freudian slip! First time to date you’ve been darn near correct in your continuing defense of accused felons, con-artists and admitted fraudsters! Good up the good work! The hoaxsters are counting on your support!
Daleyrocks said @8
“Ernie – So many words, so many distortions and untruths. Patterico has a post up today which blows large sections of your post completely out of the water, but he ignored a lot.”
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Not even close there Daleyrocks.
Patterico, aka Deputy LA County DA Patrick Frey, was so overwhelmed by the logic of my well-researched and well-written piece that he was reduced to complaining that I did not add “according to sources” when I accurately quoted an article that appeared in Ruppert Murdock’s New York Post after the Brooklyn DA revealed that the ACORN employees had not violated any law.
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Daleyrocks complains that he thinks there were more than 46 investigations of ACORN
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It would be helpful if you paid better attention.
I accurately reported that the Congressional Research Service had listed 46 federal, state and local investigations of ACORN; 11 still pending as of Oct. 2009, and further reported that, per the Congressional Research Service, none of them, nada, zero, zilch, showed that a single individual improperly registered by ACORN or its employees actually showed up at the polls to cast a vote.
Understand the math supplied by the Congressional Research Service, Daleyrocks? 49 investigations, zero cases of ACORN-related voter fraud.
Hello!!!
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Daleyrocks wrote:
“We are not in a court of law.”
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I agree, which is all the more reason why you don’t try and convict people in the press or in Congress, let alone a nationwide organization of 400,000 member families on the basis of this idiotic hoax which took place in only three ACORN offices, 2 of which Harshbarger reported there were extenuating circumstances and one which led to the immediate dismissal of the part-time employees for violating ACORN’s written protocols.
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Daleyrocks wrote:
“the NYT and other papers and news outlets who ought to know better perpetuated this damaging hoax and have either ignored the facts when they emerged or outright refused to issue retractions (with a few exceptions).”
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Precisely!
But what troubles me, Daleyrocks, since you seem so obsessed with sex scandals is that you ignored the following from my piece:
I’ll bet your pal Patterico never covered that little piece of information on his site, did he?
DaleyRocks,
If Patterico had such a solid argument, why are the likes of Ernest and I banned from commenting on his site?
On the other hand, you & Patterico have been allowed to come on to Brad’s site and make your arguments.
It really betrays who has a lack of confidence and fear of embarrassment regarding the validity of the arguments being made.
Still waiting for Alan Grayson and congress to apologize.
Aww how cute Patterico’s lackeys are now coming over to comment with the same misconceptions. I learned all I needed about Patterico’s frame of mind when I went through his Schiavo section where he talks about a balanced article he came across. I started reading the article. Within the first several paragraphs it accused Michael Schiavo of causing his wife’s condition. If that’s Patterico’s idea of balanced I sincerely question his judgment.
The fact is Patterico has to cherry pick much like O’keefe to try to make arguments then accuses others of the same thing.
As for patterico’s blog he moderates his comments before they ever appear. Brad’s blog allows comments without filtering them unless you break the rules.
“As for patterico’s blog he moderates his comments before they ever appear.”
Bob – That would be false unless you have done something against the blog rules such as using multiple screen names after having been warned – then your comments go into a filter before they appear.
“If Patterico had such a solid argument, why are the likes of Ernest and I banned from commenting on his site?”
MacSwain – Patterico has publicly stated Ernie the Attorney is not banned, stop making shit up. Using multiple screen names will get you in trouble – If you believe you are banned, email Patterico and ask why and ask to be reinstated. Stop whining.
Brad – Thanks for pointing out my typo and avoiding the falsehoods you and Ernie keep perpetuating here.
Ernie – Your distortions continue to overwhelm and your reading comprehension continues to underwhelm.
Patterico, aka Deputy LA County DA Patrick Frey, was so overwhelmed by the logic of my well-researched and well-written piece…..that the ACORN employees had not violated any law.” Ernie, you have such an inflated sense of you abilities that you completely missed the point Patterico was addressing with your inadequate disclosure. Lying by omission is still lying, but as a purported lawyer you should know that.
“We are not in a court of law.” – Ernie, since you agree with this point, why do you keep harping on it. Nobody is trying to convict 400,000 ACORN members of anything, that’s just a strawman argument you concocted to distract from the current discussion. The videos at hand were enough for Congress, the IRS, and the Census Bureau to act. Harshbarger did not call the tapes a hoax. The Brooklyn DA said O’Keefe and Giles were posing as a pimp and prostitute. It’s only fringe lefty losers such as yourself and MMFA who are defending an organization the employees of which advised people on tax evasion, child sex slavery and mortgage fraud. Take a look in the mirror. What is wrong with you people! Have you no shame!
Your point about ACORN and ACORN Housing being separate entities is debatable – you failed to address my point.
“Daleyrocks wrote:
“the NYT and other papers and news outlets who ought to know better perpetuated this damaging hoax and have either ignored the facts when they emerged or outright refused to issue retractions (with a few exceptions).”” Ernie, I did not write that. You need to be more careful as a purported officer of the court.
Ernie – You can choose to be obsessed with Blackwater if you wish. I don’t see the connection to the ACORN videos. You guys love conspiracies over here, though.
BlueHawk @ 3
said “I understand the need to find commongraound with those whose views differ from ours.
But I’m dumbfounded about how to reach those whose brainwashing won’t let them consider another’s viewpoint at all…and whose whole position is based on falsehoods.”
I suggest a different approach though unable to say how it can be carried out.
We need to bypass logical arguments with many regressives. I think we need to rely eg on Franti / Spearhead and others striking directly at the emotional level…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Franti
“Daleyrocks complains that he thinks there were more than 46 investigations of ACORN”
Ernie – I forgot that you screwed up on the above too. I said that I thought there were more than 11 investigations pending in the CRS Report. See, if you look at the wording of the report, when they total the pending investigations, they exclude the county level investigations, of which there are a boatload.
Try to avoid the reflexive patellar partisan responses Ernie. They just make you look like an ass when they prove you don’t know what you are talking about.
Why can’t visiting blogs ever play nice?…
(#17) – Aren’t you the one who comes over here and whines about articles you don’t even bother to read? The one impervious to independent thought? Who’s been proven wrong over and over again and isn’t embarrassed enough by it to realize he’s shredded his credibility here?
Are you so gray-matter challenged and surrounded by general stupidity that you think we won’t remember you from two posts ago?
Well we do.
So even before Ernie is gracious enough to take the time to put your above absurd-isms way out to pasture where they were illegitimately birthed by braindead bullies who hate that poor people can vote – consider: You’ve shamed yourself here many times in front of the whole class.
daleyrocks wrote @15
“If Patterico had such a solid argument, why are the likes of Ernest and I banned from commenting on his site?”
MacSwain – Patterico has publicly stated Ernie the Attorney is not banned, stop making shit up.
___________________________
What Patterico “publicly stated” and what he “did” are not one and the same. When I initially called him out at Ponterico’s Pontifications for his refusal to admit the obvious — that the Baltimore ACORN transcript reveals, beyond a reasonable doubt, that O’Keefe did not pose as a pimp, Patterico blocked my IP.
I know that because when I sought to respond to him, and went to post, my post simply vanished; never to appear.
Obviously, some time after I complained about it at this site, Patterico reinstated my “privilege” to post at his, which I did today so that his readers can see for themselves.
While I know that someone who is ideologically blinded by the right will come in here and try to challenge the cold facts I have left on this piece, I am truly hopeful that there are a few who have been taken in by hard-right propagandists will come here with their minds at least open enough to take in the truth that appears throughout this blog, and not just in my pieces.
If you wish to cling to your delusions, that’s your choice.
Meanwhile, if you go to the top of this blog you will learn from the new piece I just posted that, today, a federal judge ruled that Congress had violated article I section 9 of the U.S. Constitution when it sought to strip ACORN of funding.
Finally, I have twice asked Patterico why he did not call out one of his right-wing followers for posting what amounted to a thinly veiled terrorist threat against me at his site. Since he is a Deputy DA, I’d have expected nothing less.
Yet, Patterico aka Patrick Frey has never responded to that simple question.
Perhaps, if you have any sense of decorum, you’ll take that up with him.
daleyrocks said @17
Your point about ACORN and ACORN Housing being separate entities is debatable.
____________________
There’s no debate here! Read the Harshbarger report. Go to law school, my friend. Study corporate law. They are separate entities. The fact that they both use the name “ACORN” in their title is meaningless. ACORN Housing is neither a subsidiary or division of ACORN. ACORN Housing is a separate entity that enters contracts with ACORN.
As to the balance of your points, and I mean this with the utmost respect, you are so ill informed that it is simply a waste of my time to converse with you. When you have something of substance to say, I’ll consider responding further.
Out!
The only comments of Ernie’s sitting in moderation at my blog violate my posting rule against slandering me professionally because of my blogging.
The only comments of Brad’s sitting in moderation at my blog violate my new, special rule, enforced only against Brad Friedman, for knowing misstatements of fact.
Why do I have that special rule only for Brad? It’s called tit for tat . . . sort of, because I never told any falsehoods — but if he is going to claim I have, and then come tell actual falsehoods at my site, then yeah, I’m going to apply his rules to him.
If I applied the “knowing falsehoods are banned” rule to every leftist at my site, I would have no leftist commenters.
But since my comments here sit in moderation until they are too old to have any force, on the justification that I am saying truths that Friedman doesn’t like, I have decided that the gander can enjoy the same sauce enjoyed by the goose.
That’s about all I have to say. I have given up commenting here because of Friedman’s erratically imposed rules, which penalize conservatives but leave liberals who commit the same offenses untouched. If daleyrocks were not spending his time here being lied to repetitively, I wouldn’t bother.
My time is better spent composing posts revealing the multiple falsehoods told her. The volume of falsehoods here is so overwhelming I don’t know if I can keep up.
Great Job, Ernie!!
San Diego is my favorite so far. Bears repeating.
The interviewer, Juan Carlos, took a bunch of pictures of Hannah when she and O’Keefe were leaving. This seemed to greatly disturb O’Keefe.(from transcript)
When they got to their car O’Keefe said(among other things)to Giles,”I thought he was gonna call his thug Mexican friends and come over and beat us up.”(from the transcript)
When they finally did leave Juan Carlos called his cousin the cop to get his advice on what to do about the couple he thought were human traffickers visiting his office.(from the Harshbarger report)
Soon it was all revealed as a hoax.
The edited and completely misrepresentative video of these events is then entitled–Acorn San Diego Child Prostitution Smuggling.
Don’t understand how that is not libel. Don’t see why O’Keefe and Breitbart shouldn’t be spending some uncomfortable time in court.
Very sound points, David Lasagna.
There is certainly an intriguing question pertaining to defamation of ACORN by O’Keefe, Giles, Breitbart, Fox “News” and perhaps multiple other media outlets that ran with this story, especially when they refused to retract it after it unraveled.
O’Keefe, Giles and anyone who conspired with them to secretly record what looks like confidential communications without the knowledge or consent of the ACORN and ACORN Housing employees may have opened themselves up to a charge that they committed a criminal violation of CA Penal Code 632.
Thus, these two scam artists may not only face days in court, but days in the slammer.
Daleyrocks,
It must be a hard reality for you to accept that your idol misstates facts to justify his bogus bannings and that, in reality, he bans progressives who have exposed him for making false statements or weak arguments.
I know from personal experience that Patterico doesn’t moderate comments based on “rules” violations. When I found out he was moderating my comments, I challenged him on it and he said it was because I was telling lies. Of course, this is a serious charge and I asked him to identify just one lie, much less multiple lies. You’d think that if a person – indeed a lawyer – made such an inflammatory charge he’d have some evidence to back it up. Yet, Patterico never could identify a single lie. In reality, he began moderating my after I proved he made repeated false statements about John Kerry not releasing his military medical records to the media. He knows what happened and why he ran from further debating me. It’s actual a quite common tactic of rightwing bloggers.
Its sweet that you feel the need to carry Patterico’s water. Anytime he wants to debate any of us “losers” in person, we’re all available and not hiding from anyone.
Dep. D.A. Patrick “Patterico” Frey @ 23:
Just like a wingnut. Change the rules to suit whatever you like. Versus our rules policy which is clear, simple, and linked at the top of every comment form as it has been for years.
Your whining and dissembling is pathetic, but no longer a surprise. You can’t support your positions, so you make things up, call people names, and block comments from those who you do not agree with.
You’ve still miserably failed to answer the one single question I’ve asked you more than a dozen times now: Since you are a Los Angeles County Deputy D.A. you know very well what constitutes “evidence” and you know how to authenticate it. What steps have you taken to authenticate the “unedited audio” that you claim includes exculpatory evidence for the accused felon and admitted hoaxster that you are shamelessly blogging in defense of?
You have referenced that “unedited audio” over and again to suggest it “proves” something or other, but you have failed to offer a modicum of information as to how you, as either a blogger or Deputy D.A. have bothered to ensure it’s authenticity as being “unedited”.
I guess we can all assume you have done no such thing, and have chosen to believe the accused felon and admitted fraud. Good stuff there, counselor!
Finally, you refer to “penaliz[ing] conservatives but leave liberals who commit the same offenses untouched”. The charge is absurd on two levels. We “penalize” nobody, unless they violate the simple rules for commenting here, and that only after several warnings.
Moreover, last I checked, conservatives were interested in the Rule of Law, as I am. I have so far seen absolutely no evidence that you are actually a conservative, otherwise you would be demanding that your own office investigate and prosecute what appear to be very clear crimes by O’Keefe and Giles within your own district of Los Angeles.
Instead, you are defending them pseudonymously and shamefully on the Internet.
You’ll find real conservatives on this blog, Patty. Calling for the enforcement of the Rule of Law and the Constitution. You are nothing of the sort. You are a pretend conservative who, in reality, is nothing but a party-before-country rightwing propagandist.
Good luck to ya, counselor. And shame on you.
“ACORN Housing is neither a subsidiary or division of ACORN. ACORN Housing is a separate entity that enters contracts with ACORN.”
Ernie – If it is separate and independent, why was Bertha Lewis speaking for both organizations, in particular about personnel matters? Harshbarger’s report says they dropped the number of subs from the 200+ from their lawyers report in 2008, with interlocking boards, etc., down to a madageable level, but provides no detail on when or how this was done – most probably deliberately.
“you are so ill informed that it is simply a waste of my time to converse with you.” Ernie – That’s pretty funny coming from you with all the outright lies and distortions in your posts on this subject. I don’t think you can stand someone scutinizing your screeds who isn’t on your team and willing to overlook your blatant fudging of facts and lies, but that seems to be what this blog is all about.
Brad, you will note that in addition to his repeated refusal to answer your question, Patterico aka L.A. County Deputy District Attorney Patrick Frey has refused to answer multiple direct questions I’ve put to him.
These include the following:
1. Whether he believes that his office should be investigating O’Keefe and Giles for a possible PC 632 violation;
2. Whether he ever spoke with O’Keefe directly, especially as it pertained to O’Keefe’s methodology applied with respect to the audio tapes in order to assure their authenticity;
3. Why he failed to admonish a right-winger who posted a comment on his site that amounted to a veiled terrorist threat against me.
Pat keeps saying that I “slandered his profession.” I’m not entirely sure what he means by that, but since both Pat and I are attorneys, it would seem a bit self-defeating for me to slander my own profession.
I did ask Pat whether his defense of an individual who could potentially become the subject of a PC 632 violation by his office raised any ethical concerns on his part. Is that what he means by slandering his profession?
Pat’s modus operandi is to level a personal attack on anyone and everyone who doesn’t accept his rather myopic world view.
I think you are quite right. He is not a “conservative,” unless you accept John Dean’s descriptor of a “conservative without conscience.” I believe it more apt to simply suggest that his is typical of the hard-right, totalitarian mindset that does not tolerate anything or anyone who does not agree with him.
If he actually believes half of the crap that he has spewed these past few weeks, then I fear he is suffering from some deep seated, psychopathology. If he does not believe what he is saying, then he is simply a dishonorable propagandist.
At this point, I’m really not sure which descriptor aptly fits the man.
It seems to me that the rightwing barometer for ACORN anger has reached an all-time high since their Republican Wisconsin AG and the Wisconsin “task force” investigation that they so hoped would prove ACORN was a fraudulent organization came up so woefully short.
Moreover, as Patterico is the self-appointed arbiter of truth, one must wonder why his site continues to link approvingly to a post by Ed Morrissey accepting an allegation by the criminal defendant, who the right accepts is a fraud, as factual (the sex and special treatment allegation) without any other substantiating evidence. I guess when you’re smearing ACORN, truth be damned.
DaleyRocks @ 17 said:
Good point, Daley. Be sure to mention that next time L.A. County Deputy D.A. Patrick “Patterico” Frey brings up his canard about my having “lied” to NYT Public Editor Clark Hoyt about the “audio”. There are a few words, both before and after his selectively quoted phrase, (not to mention a rather clear explanation at the top of what he’s deceptively quoting from), that, um, should leave you calling him a liar.
If you suddenly decide to become intellectually honest with yourself, in any case.
MacSwain,
As I recall, you praised me for correcting re Kerry. Shall I roll the tape or would you like to retract now and save yourself the embarrassment?
Whoops, one other point for…
DaleyRocks @ 17:
If by “conspiracies” you mean several sets of criminal allegations against Blackwater and it’s top-most officials alleged to have conspired to run actual prostitution and child prostitution rings with federal tax-payer dollars — more of which they receive in a single day than ACORN has received in its lifetime — and to even cover up murder and so forth and massive defrauding of the federal government. If so, then no, we don’t “love” conspiracies, but we do feel it’s our patriotic duty to help expose them and hold the criminal conspirators accountable.
You do understand these are allegations, in court, from several sets of company employees and the charges have not been exposed by the company itself (as with ACORN when they turn in folks who have defrauded them to officials), but against the company itself and its CEO, etc.
I’d have thought as a supposed “conservative” you’d be in favor of cracking down on such things. Ya know, holding folks to the rule of law, fighting against massive government waste and corruption and stuff.
Yet none of this stuff appears at Patterico’s site, or at any of the “Andrew Breitbart Presents…Big Doings” sites for some strange reason. It’s as if he and you and they don’t care about this stuff at all.
But perhaps you’re busy chasing partisan political agendas and ghosts with ACORN, ACORN, ACORN instead of the actual, massive corruption going on under your nose, and presumably, to your liking??
Daley,
Also be sure to explain “lying by omission” the next time Patterico suggests O’Keefe didn’t lie when Steve Doocey introduced O’Keefe on Fox as wearing exactly what he wore to the ACORN offices when O’Keefe was wearing his outlandish, “stereotypical” pimp outfit.
Friedman:
Did you write Hoyt and say O’Keefe would not release unedited audio? Yes.
Did you correct your misstatement? No.
Evidence forthcoming.
With Hot Air and Instapundit links to my posts revealing your mendacity, you are building yourself quite a reputation as a purveyor of falsehoods. Congratulations!
Rico (since we’re only using last names now),
I always thought this grand debate on blogs and their associated comment sections was good fun. There was a time when he seemed to be able to laugh and roll with this rough and tumble world.
But, dude, that last post seems to reveal a troubled soul. It appears you truly believe that you, Instapundit and Hot Air are some kind of grand arbiters of truthfulness that can simply bring progressive bloggers to their knees. That is simply a bizarre view. And the whole juvenile, tattle-tale thing … Wow!
Honestly, you may want to consider taking a break from this blogging thing for a while. You might be surprised to learn that the world can continue without your posts and you don’t have to shoulder this burden of going through these extreme mental gymnastics in your efforts to describe all progressives as liars.
MacSwain ~
Righto! I didn’t know this guy from a hole in the wall before I read his hostile-aggressive responses to Brad’s recent devastating expose of O’Keefe’s ACORN hit-job / hoax. Regretting I do now – he makes me want to wash my brain with some kind of chemical solvent.
At first, I thought he was some unhinged fringe-y. Now? Now I do some more. And yet I’m told he’s a public official of some kind. (I wouldn’t believe that ’cause it seems too much of a stretch – but then Brad reported it, so…just another daily installment of his jaw-to-floor-dropping, dead accurate coverage.)
Not sure if “Co” (why stop at the implied insult of using just last names? Why not just last SYLLABLES?) – not sure if Co knows (or cares) how crazy he reads, but it has been suggested (and the record will show) that he needs help.
Daley there must be some odd delsy then on patrick’s site I refreshed the page several times waiting for my comment to appear.
As for Patrick he whined over at his blog that he was put into moderation for knowing misinformation as opposed to the real reason. That he was personally insulting other posters and was warned multiple times to stop.
Patrick, how is an article about schiavo balanced if the first few paragraphs accuse Michael of strangling his wife and putting her in that condition?
That should be odd delay. Phone has small keyboard.
Bob Ross–
I like the sound of “delsy”. And as it sounds odd all by itself, an “odd delsy” is doubly emphatic.
Patterico wrote:
Did you write Hoyt and say O’Keefe would not release unedited audio? Yes.
Did you correct your misstatement? No.
Evidence forthcoming.
_____________________________
What “evidence”? Brad has repeatedly asked you what, if anything, did you do to authenticate that the audio was not edited. The mere fact that accused federal felon James O’Keefe and his serial dissembling employer and publisher Andrew Breitbart say that the audio tapes were not edited does not establish that they were not edited.
Since you are obviously the very competent attorney you claim to be, then surely you took steps to authenticate the audiotapes before you called Brad out on the issue.
How much longer do we have to await your “evidence” of authentication?
I suspect the answer is, until pigs fly.
Well, there you have it. After repeatedly refusing to answer my straight forward question as to whether he believed James O’Keefe* should be investigated by his office for what appears to be a violation of CA Penal Code 632 when he secretly recorded confidential communications inside three ACORN offices, Deputy DA Patrick Frey aka Patterico wrote at his blog:
This would be the same Patrick Frey who denigrated the efforts by former LA County Deputy DA Vincent Bugliosi to set forth a legal case as to why George W. Bush should be tried for the murder of the deaths of U.S. service personnel occasioned by the lies Bush told to take us to war in Iraq as “politics.”
Clearly, Deputy DA Patrick Frey believes that one’s political leanings provide the litmus test for determining whether an individual can be charged with a crime.
Scary, a man who has taken a solemn oath to enforce the law, sees enforcement as a question of one’s politics.
*Of course, in addition to the possible PC 632 violation James O’Keefe has been accused by federal authorities of committing a felony when he entered the office of a U.S. Senator with the intent to tamper with her phone system. But obviously, in Patterico’s way of thinking, since the Justice Department is currently under the leadership of someone appointed by a Democratic President, any charges against O’Keefe are simply political.
It’s been questioned here whether Daleyrocks is just misguided or deliberately lying.
I just read his comments here trying to answer this question, and I must confess I am impressed.
Daleyrocks is as slippery as an eel (that’s a compliment, not an insult).
I will address one paragraph from comment #17:
“We are not in a court of law.” – Ernie, since you agree with this point, why do you keep harping on it. [If you scroll back to comment #8, Daleyrocks brings up the point that we are not in a court of law: “Why did they need to wait for Harshbarger’s report to come out in December since we are not operating in a court of law, contrary to what you contend later.” It is disingenuous of Daleyrocks to accuse Ernie of “harping on it.” ] Nobody is trying to convict 400,000 ACORN members of anything, that’s just a strawman argument you concocted to distract from the current discussion. [Sure, Daleyrocks. Pretend that Congress’ action didn’t affect 400,000 members of ACORN. Oh,oh, wait…they weren’t convicted, just punished (this is not a court of law)….my bad.]The videos at hand were enough for Congress, the IRS, and the Census Bureau to act. [Sadly, yes.] Harshbarger did not call the tapes a hoax. The Brooklyn DA said O’Keefe and Giles were posing as a pimp and prostitute. [Disingenuous slippery Daleyrocks ignores all the evidence presented here which discredits the whole “O’Keefe posed as a pimp” canard. And he ignores the fact that all sorts of people were taken in by it, including the Brooklyn DA.] It’s only fringe lefty losers such as yourself [sadly methinks this was meant as an insult] and MMFA who are defending an organization the employees of which advised people on tax evasion [questionable — the transcripts show that in some cases the employees were advising how to pay taxes on money earned — but of course Daleyrocks knows this], child sex slavery [ok Daleyrocks, where in the transcripts does it show this? They don’t and you know it] and mortgage fraud [and you mean exactly what by this?]. Take a look in the mirror. What is wrong with you people! Have you no shame? [Daleyrocks, the last three sentences apply to you!]”
Just to set the record straight:
The quote which Ernest attributed to Daleyrocks:
“the NYT and other papers and news outlets who ought to know better perpetuated this damaging hoax and have either ignored the facts when they emerged or outright refused to issue retractions (with a few exceptions).”
is in fact mine from comment #5.
MacSwain,
As I recall, you praised me for correcting re Kerry. Shall I roll the tape or would you like to retract now and save yourself the embarrassment?
Dear Lora @ 43
At the risk of making myself and everyone else crazy again I will repeat–
I believe the kind of magic thinking you are trying to deconstruct here is endemic.
Rachel gives new examples almost every night of the serial dissembling coming out of Washington. And this is dissembling that easily crosses the aisle(not much distance there, I’ll grant you)in Washington.
Having also witnessed this kind of thinking first hand for years in my family and in relationships I will say again–there is an awful lot of this going on. I think the field of inquiry needs to be opened up a bit. I believe there are psychological/emotional factors being manifested here that just don’t give two hoots and a damn how much sense and reality you have on your side.
Please, please don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. Truth, sense, and reality must be championed. I think we’re doing a hell of a job, all of us here, with that part. But my sense is if there is to ever be any agreement on common ground, if there is ever going to be anything other than a battle of wills, other factors may need to be considered.
For instance as Robert Jensen writes concerning literal interpreters of the Bible–
“That is rooted, I believe, in a fear of a world that is complex beyond our understanding, a fear of the fact that uncertainty is the defining characteristic of human claims to knowledge. In such a world, it’s not difficult to see why people would want to believe that there is a source of ultimate understanding that can reveal itself to people, rather than a contingent source of understanding that we must work hard to grasp, knowing that a definitive understanding is always just beyond our grasp. The second fear concerns the reaction to any challenge to such a belief; if the instinct to believe in this fashion is rooted in fear, a challenge to that belief is likely to intensify the fear. It usually is frightening for us all whenever we have to ponder the possibility that a central tenet of our belief system is illogical.”
I suspect this applies to rigid, fear-based political thought as well.
I’m not sure it’s possible to address what I’m suggesting/advocating here in this cyberspace format. Maybe the back and forths we’re doing with the other side is the best we can do in this medium. I’m just trying to say that this ongoing political discussion/argument may not be in the slightest what is taking place internally between all the participants.
Patterico says: MacSwain,
As I recall, you praised me for correcting re Kerry. Shall I roll the tape or would you like to retract now and save yourself the embarrassment?
I don’t know if you have a reading comprehension problem or are intentionally dissembling. Nowhere did I say you did not correct your false Kerry posts once busted or that I initially complemented you on the correction. I claimed you were embarrassed by being busted and began moderating my comments thereafter. Of course, if I knew you were going to flip and begin moderating my comments, I wouldn’t have complemented you at all.
I also claim you accused me of telling “lies” and have never produced a single one. Why don’t you roll the tape on that one?
You’re making yourself look worse when your sole defense is to submit goofy strawman arguments that have never been made. How many hours did you spend researching your takedown of an argument that was never made? Doesn’t that tell you something about yourself you might seriously want to consider?
Lora – The Brooklyn DA’s press release about the investigation specifically describes O’Keefe and Giles posing as a pimp and prostitute. This whole “hoax” narrative was concocted by losers like Boehlert, stolen by Brad who did not do his homework before he began writing about it, merely as a means of discrediting the videos after the racism attacks did not work. The “hoax” narrative only works on those who did not watch the videos as they came out or are too stupid to understand what they are seeing since it was clear from the first video O’Keefe did not wear the gaudy pimp outfit into the ACORN offices and that footage was edited onto the beginning and end of each video for effect. Ignorance or stupidity, take your pick. Like the piece in FAIR today, it’s clear the writer has not watched the videos and is merely ripping and rehashing Brad’s lies.
Brad and Ernie – Since Ernie agrees we are not in a court of law, what purpose does perseverating over the questions related to the standards of evidence related to the unedited transcripts and audio serve at this point. You jerks will just keep raising objections no matter what is put forward and continue lying, which is why Breitbart hasn’t released the unedited videos, but you know that. It is pretty funny to watch an actor lecture an assistant DA about standards of evidence, though. Brad, don’t ever change.
Ah I get it Daley Brietbart won’t release unedited tapes simply because he’s afraid people will actually look at them. Kind of like how the Schiavo family never released the hours of footage they have because then people might actually pay attention to them.
I find it funny that you’d take O’Keefe at his word after he already went around on TV saying he dressed in that outlandish costume. He already lied to you guys once yet you’re willing to believe the hoax. Even so what actual crime did ACORN part timers commit?
Do you hold the same standards for John Yoo and Alberto Gonzales?
Dear David @ 45,
I will consider what you say. I don’t think I am taking it wrong. I think you believe there are other factors at work here that facts and logic don’t begin to address. That may be true. I’m sure it’s true for some “believers.” I guess I hope to sort out the “believers” from the “deceivers.” I think they are two different breeds and I fear the “believers” are sorely used and manipulated by the “deceivers.” I guess I hope that by exposing the “deceivers” we can hope to reach and influence the “believers.”
Dear Daleyrocks @ 47,
I went on youtube and watched all the videos I could find. If you are looking for O’Keefe in his button-down shirt and slacks, you can find him. However, it was NOT “perfectly clear” as you say that O’Keefe did not wear his pimp outfit into the ACORN offices, especially after he appeared on FOX in that very same pimp outfit and we were told he was. Countless media outfits reported it. O’Keefe himself played part in this deception. This evidence has been presented over and over again right here. If it was “perfectly clear” as you say, then kindly explain why nearly everyone got it wrong. O’Keefe himself lied about it on FOX; hence we are perfectly justified in calling it a hoax. It is also a hoax because the transcripts and eyewitness accounts are so out of line with his heavily edited videos.
As for ignorance and stupidity, I agree with you if you are referring to the NYT and other so-called reputable news and media outlets. They should have done some fact-checking. It does seem painfully clear that they did not watch the released videos at all carefully, or perhaps even at all. I release the general public from the “ignorance and stupidity” label, as they should have been able to trust the so-called reputable news organizations to give them the straight story.
However, Fox and Breitbart and O’Keefe and Hannity and Giles get the label of deceivers and slanderers. They knew the truth was not anywhere close to what they were telling us, yet they chose to tell us anyway with the purpose of taking ACORN down.
The rationale you put forward in your next comment to Brad and Ernest as to why Breitbart won’t release the unedited videos makes no sense. The unedited videos will be the closest we have to the truth of what really happened. Folks can reach their own judgment about ACORN’s and O’Keefe’s and Giles’ behavior. Unless Fox and the NYT spread falsehoods about what is happening on the unedited videos like they did on the edited ones, there will be no need to raise objections.
Daleyrocks @47 wrote
The “hoax” narrative only works on those who did not watch the videos as they came out or are too stupid to understand what they are seeing since it was clear from the first video O’Keefe did not wear the gaudy pimp outfit into the ACORN offices and that footage was edited onto the beginning and end of each video for effect.
___________________
What a load of crap!
O’Keefe wore the outfit outside one ACORN office; spliced it into every video, used voice-overs to make answers to what had been innocuous questions appear as if the ACORN employees were giving advice to a pimp and a prostitute when, in fact, they had posed, in the Baltimore office, for example, as a “dancer” and a “college student.”
O’Keefe, who not only refused to turn over the unedited videos, also refused to be interviewed by former AG Harshbarger.
O’Keefe appeared on the Fox Propaganda network wearing the cheesy pimp outfit, and sat with a smug look on his face as Steve Deucy announced that he, O’Keefe, was wearing the exact same outfit he wore into the ACORN offices.
Obviously O’Keefe told Deucey that he wore the pimp outfit into ACORN; otherwise why would Deucey have said it? (Or do you think Deucey pulled that line out of his ass?).
Even in the highly unlikely event that O’Keefe did not tell Deucey that he wore the pimp outfit into the ACORN offices, O’Keefe’s smug silence when Deucey said that this was the exact same outfit he wore into the ACORN offices is what is known in law as an “adoptive admission.”
Yeah, I know, Daleyrocks. We’re not in a court of law — which is precisely what makes it so terrible that ACORN was tried and convicted in the press and in Congress without so much as a single hearing on the basis of nothing more than these deceptively doctored videotapes and the McCarthy-like smear job of Republicans (and some gutless Dems) in Congress.
Worse, O’Keefe, Breitbart, Fox News, Patterico and you — yes I’ve read some of your earlier comments at Patterico’s Pontifications, as part of this deceptive scheme, have sought to use the distorted images of these doctored videos; a few words extracted out of context out of a 46 page transcript and reassembled to make it appear as if the ACORN workers had done something illegal — they had not.
You and your ilk, in McCarthy-like fashion, then used this disinformation to smear an entire organization consisting of 400,000 member families in 75 cities.
The real question, Daleyrocks, the one you have no doubt never addressed is why, since there were no published reports of illegal ACORN prostitution schemes before O’Keefe & Giles launched the “Great Pimp Hoax,” the motley pair went into ACORN with their hidden cameras in the first place?
The answer is as plain as the snot dripping from your nose. ACORN registers voters who do not vote for Republicans. ACORN assists the poor and lower middle class. ACORN is the class enemy that a billionaire-funded hard-right was and is Hell bent on destroying.
For years, the hard-right tried to destroy ACORN by bogus “voter fraud” claims, but as the Congressional Research Service study reveals, there has not been a single instance in which a voter, improperly registered by an ACORN employee, cast a ballot at the polls. In fact, ACORN, the victim of the fraud, is the one that turns people in for registration fraud.
Since the bogus voter fraud charge didn’t work, the lying scum that make up the hard-right came up with this phony pimp hoax, and that is why they went into the ACORN offices in the first place with their hidden cameras.
There is no question but that this was a deceptive hoax. The only unanswered questions are how much money and how many people are implicated in this deceptive hoax and whether, at least in California, the perpetrators of the hoax will eventually face charges for a criminal violation of CA Penal Code 632.
Your many dissembling comments, Daleyrocks, call to mind the words from an old Paul Simon tune, “Who do you think you’re foolin’?”
What’s next, Daleyrocks? Will you be coming in to join with the rest of the loony right in claiming that Obama was not born in the U.S., or are you going to simply join with the likes of Sarah Palin in claiming that the health care reform bill contains “death panels?”
Oh, but how can I say Obama was born in the U.S.? After all, this “is not a court of law.”
DaleyRocks asked:
Thanks for asking. While the paper trail of when, how and where this repeated question has come up is readily available on the net both here and at Patty’s site — along with LA County’s Dep. D.A. Patrick Frey’s flat out unwillingness to even acknowledge the question, much less answer it — I’ll briefly recap to help you understand the answer, presuming you actually want one.
“Patterico” Frey has continually called me a “liar” for this and that, which is what he does, apparently, in lieu of actual substantive criticism on just about anything. So that part is expected. But, in general, he has referred to the “unedited audio” as “proof” or “evidence” that I am “a liar”. He’s done that over and over again.
Now, never mind that he’s completely misrepresented that unauthenticated “unedited audio” and the unauthenticated text transcripts, both posted by the admitted hoaxters and accused felon, over and over again by deceptively stitching and reassembling parts of them to make his case (while ignoring the vast majority of both which do quite the contrary), as shown here in responses to his comments over and again.
The point is that while that “unedited audio” seems to be the basis for his silly accusation that Ernie and myself (and Eric Boehlert and anybody else who does not agree with Patty’s partisan, rage-filled, anti-ACORN derangement syndrome) are “liars”, he has failed the basic benchmark for evaluating “evidence” before using it as “proof” of anything.
As a reporter/blogger/political pundit, he should certainly know better. That is, after all, what I’m quite certain he has likely been critical of Dan Rather for in the past. But as a Deputy D.A., of all things, he has absolutely NO excuse for not understanding what constitutes “evidence” and how such things are authenticated.
Thus, I’ve simply and politely asked him, over and over again, what steps he has taken to authenticate the “unedited audio” which he cites, over and over and over again, as “evidence” for me having “lied”.
He has refused to answer the question, which ought to help you understand how you’ve been connned and dishonorably mislead by this man. It also underscores that the basis of “evidence” which he has tried to use to attempt to label me as a “liar” — evidence which, even if authenticated, actually doesn’t prove me to be a liar, but never mind that — is wholly speculative and is based on taking the word of the admitted scammers, and an accused felon for chrissakes!, in order to absolve those scammers and felons of guilt.
His arguments, in other words, in either a court of law, or in the court of public opinion, or in the court of legitimate blog comment FAIL from the get go.
He knows this, of course, which is why he won’t answer the question, because he has failed to do even minimal due-dilligence. Instead, he simply screams “LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR!” and counts on his readers being too lazy, or intellectually incurious enough to bother to go figure that out.
If you buy into what Patty has been selling, you are being scammed plain and simple. He may be disingenuous, but he’s not stupid. He knows exactly what he’s doing, and he knows that he is hoping to con you guys, plain and simple.
From reading comments over at his site, including yours, it seems that con is working for at least some of the people, much of the time.
Hope that answers your question, and thanks for asking it. Now go ask him what steps he’s taken to authenticate the “unedited audio” which he uses as virtually his ENTIRE basis for attempting to disprove the independently verifiable and authenticated FACTS I’ve used from day one to illustrate the entire ACORN “pimp” hoax scam.
You jerks will just keep raising objections no matter what is put forward and continue lying, which is why Breitbart hasn’t released the unedited videos, but you know that. It is pretty funny to watch an actor lecture an assistant DA about standards of evidence, though. Brad, don’t ever change.
“It also underscores that the basis of “evidence” which he has tried to use to attempt to label me as a “liar” — evidence which, even if authenticated, actually doesn’t prove me to be a liar, but never mind that”
Brad – You are a shameless liar. I listened to Larry O’Connor’s radio show live and the lies were coming out of all your orifices simultaneously. You could not keep them straight.
Just because the tapes were edited does not mean that something called unedited, has flaws in it because you have created some fabulist narrative about the tapes which even the liberal house organ, the NY Times, does not find credible. Labelling O’Keefe an accused felon also does not diminish the credibility of the unedited audio and video. Unless you have some specific claim which raises doubts about their authenticity, you are are again perfectly illustrating why Breitbart made the right decision about not releasing his videos. I’m sorry if you are too dense to understand that. Perhaps an illustration will help.
Ernest keeps claiming that Giles and O’Keefe did not present them selves as a prostitute and a pimp in Baltimore, that she posed as a dancer. Complete and utter BS. Dancing was mentioned, but prostitution was clearly part of the discussion, hence the discussion of condom expenses. Also the underage Salvadorans turning tricks and turning over their money – whaddaya know – a pimp. Ernie has been shown those lines several times but keeps repeating his BS denying it. I call him a liar for his continued claims.
Lora @50
You seem like a reasonable person, just a little confused.
“However, it was NOT “perfectly clear” as you say that O’Keefe did not wear his pimp outfit into the ACORN offices, especially after he appeared on FOX in that very same pimp outfit and we were told he was. Countless media outfits reported it. O’Keefe himself played part in this deception. This evidence has been presented over and over again right here. If it was “perfectly clear” as you say, then kindly explain why nearly everyone got it wrong.” I don’t know who countless media outlets are. The citations here and at MMFA totaled something six to eight – hardly enough to “drive” a story. If you’ve got more, bring ’em on as they say. Nearly everyone I know understood that the pimp outfit was part of B-roll footage, so I don’t understand your claims of people missing it other than my theories of ignorance or stupidity I outlines above. Liberals are not known for their senses of humor.
“The rationale you put forward in your next comment to Brad and Ernest as to why Breitbart won’t release the unedited videos makes no sense.” Lora, it absolutely does and Brad and Ernest are vindicating it every day with their continued posting of fabulist nonsense about “hoaxes” and the tapes. Sorry if you can’t see that. Even the NY Times finds the narrative the narrative Ernest and Brad are constructing not credible. Go figure.
I’m also sorry you can’t figure out that advising someone they can choose not to file a tax return if they want is tax fraud or manufacturing expenses or personal exemptions (Salvadorans) to reduce the income they report to Uncle Sam. Lying on a mortgage application, about the source of your income or other matters is mortgage fraud.
With respect to defunding ACORN, were the grants for mortgage counseling from HUD intended for existing members or for outreach? Do you have any idea Lora? Tell me how the defunding was specifically disadvantaging the members.
(#54) You’ve been neutralized here again and again. Dude, stay down.
“Liarliar lie lie lying liar.” Why not continue to completely drain the word of all meaning some more by repeating it over and over when it clearly doesn’t apply?
–Liar. Liar lying to liars.
–Am not.
–Are too, Liar. You’re lying because I said so.
That is how you sound.
Grow up or go away.
Or grow up AND go away.
That’s because you’re theory of ignorance or stupidity doesn’t include you as part of the empty set. Your scientific sampling is corrupt.
Maybe THAT’s why Lora and I (and the New York Times and Washington Post and the Boston Globe and every other media outlet who got it wrong) are confused (and even more REASONABLY) doubtful of your stats.
Wha..? Now you’re just shootin’ blanks.
I guess you guys have really taken over the Vegas Strip with conserva-flop Dennis Miller.
Daley a pimp finds clients for his prostitute. If he was posing as a pimp he would have come out and said it from the beginning instead of beating around the bush. Unless you think Okeefe is some kind of pussy? Instead of claiming he was some college student and she was his girlfriend. As for “turning tricks” Okeefe got his wording wrong he said performing tricks. In the end what crime was committed here other than the breaking of the recording consent laws.
Do you think someone Dyncorp should be defunded for actual crimes of child prostitution.
Bob Ross @58. You reference actual crimes of child prostitution committed by Dyncorp.
While I discuss the sworn affidavits of former Blackwater that make such an allegation, I’m not aware of any against Dyncorp.
Would greatly appreciate a link if you have it.
Thanks.
Oh, and Jeannie Dean, I really chuckled at your “shooting blanks” observation as it applies to Daleyrocks, as there certainly appears to be a degree of impotence in his superficial mumblings.
Another nonsensical post #53 from the Brad Blog’s most nonsensical poster, Daleyrocks, responding to Lora #50:
_____________________
That sort of reasoning reminds me of the words someone had written on a men’s room wall at UCLA when I was a student there in 1971. It read:
On behalf of my dear intellectually challenged friend, Daleyrocks, I will repeat what should have been all the evidence required to determine that O’Keefe was not dressed as a pimp when he entered any of the ACORN offices:
DaleyRocks @ 55 said disingenuously:
Of course you know who the countless media outlets are. As I just explained in a comment to you on another thread, where you similarly tried to use the same laughable red herring:
Thanks again for stopping by to help demonstrate how absurd the arguments are for the apologists of admitted hoaxters and accused felons. Looks like Patterico could no longer support his own nonsense he was posting here, so had to retreat back to the “friendlier” territory of his own blog where folks like you have a tendency to believe whatever he tells you without bothering to look into the facts.
Here’s hoping your next political scam will targets orphans and cripples! Those bastards and their “evil organizations” are really living large on the federal government tax-payer dollar and need to be stopped immediately!
America couldn’t be prouder of you guys. Impressive stuff.
DaleyRocks @ 54 said:
Cool! That appearance is online, so you should have no trouble pointing out any of those “lies” to us! I look forward to them. Or, you could do what seems to be the M.O. for you and L.A. County Dep. District Attorney Patrick “Patterico” Frey and Andrew Breitbart and James O’Keefe and all the rest of the wingnut scammers do, and just say stuff and then declare that it’s true on the basis that you said it, so it’s got to be true!
Let’s proceed as if the above sentence makes sense. You and Patty have based your defense of the admitted hoaxters on the basis that the “unedited audio” tapes “prove” somethign or other. Among them, you and he have claimed that they “prove” O’Keefe “posed as” and/or “represented himself” as a pimp.
Among the reasons you make that dubious claim is because at some point in the unauthenticated “unedited audio” and unathenticated text transcripts, you point to a moment when O’Keefe said something about “turning tricks”.
That phrase, however, is not acknowledged by the ACORN Housing worker who is heard responding to “making money” but not to “turning tricks”.
Did she even hear the words “turning tricks”? Did O’Keefe even actually say it? If you’re going to hang your weak argument that though O’Keefe represented himself as the girl’s college student law school boyfriend over and over again, he was actually “posing as” and/or “representing himself” as a pimp, based on two words that come near the very end of a 46 page transcript, should you — or the Dep. D.A. Patrick Frey — have bothered to ensure that “unedited audio” was actually authentic and “unedited”? Shouldn’t you and/or he have done the minimal due dilligence to ensure that not only did O’Keefe really say that, but that the person he was talking to actually heard him say that?
These are basic, Journalism 101 and District Attorney 101 matters. But neither you, nor ne, nor anybody else hanging your pimp hat on this remarkable thin “evidence” have bothered to do step one of the most obvious, and responsible fact-checking before making your arguments which are, so far, disputed by one official law enforcement agent after another who have looked at the same material.
Well, we could simply take O.J. Simpson’s word for it that he didn’t kill his ex-wife, or we could bother to more closely examine his claims, since he’s been proven to be a liar on several occassions, just as both O’Keefe and Breitbart and Giles have already been proven.
As to withholding evidence from law enforcement, evidence said to demonstrate serious crimes, as O’Keefe and Breitbart are both claiming and doing, I’m not sure how you’d want to be an apologist for that either. But as you are clearly so enraged by Anti-ACORN Derangement Syndrome (AADS) that you are willing to justify anything, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that you’ve also figured out how to reconcile being in favor of withholding ‘damning’ evidence of ‘crimes’ from law enforcement, since doing so continues to help justify your partisan political agenda.
I’ve already discussed that point above. The burden is on you and Breitbart and O’Keefe and Deputy D.A. Frey to prove your point. As Breitbart himself has said over and again (though only about O’Keefe and his arrest in New Orleans), folks in this country are innocent until proven guilty. You have failed to prove your point to a single law enforcement official. All of them who have looked at those claims have derided them as laughable, phony, and trumped up.
And yet, you are hanging your hat on a transcript and audio which has been supplied by admitted liars without even taking the time to authenticate the transcript and audio you are relying on.
Isn’t that the exact same thing you folks claimed that Dan Rather did, and called for him to be fired because of? Why yes, it is.
Double standards? “Double” may be too few for you guys.
If you’ve got a legitimate story or scandal of corruption and child prostitution on the government dime, please let us know! Oh, look, here’s one! But for some odd reason, neither the L.A. County Deputy D.A. Patrick Frey, nor Andrew Breitbart on all of his “Andrew Breitbart Presents…” websites has bothered to report any of it, even once, to my knowledge. Now I wonder why that would be?!
You guys can continue putting politics and party before country. We’ll continue to fight for democracy — even your democracy — whether you wish us to or not. You’re welcome.
Brad, I’ve come to the conclusion that further dialogue with the serial dissembling Daleyrocks is pointless.
Like the wing nuts who shut down one of the oldest forms of American democracy, the town hall meeting, Daleyrocks has arrived at the intersection of Brad Street and Democracy Blvd., seeking to tie us up with one idiotic point after another.
When you refute him point by point, he just denies reality, poses a new set of passive aggressive questions, like the suggestion that we have to keep coming back to demonstrate what has already demonstrated, i.e., the irrefutable evidence that this entire scam was a hoax; the number of media outlets that erred in covering this story, etc.
When I pose a direct question as to whether there was any evidence that ACORN was involved in prostitution before O’Keefe & Giles conducted their deceptive sting, Daleyrocks, without a link, suggested that I simply go to another site where O’Keefe supposedly stated his reasons for starting up this hoax in the first place — as if the burden is on me to search through an entire site to find an answer when Daleyrocks could have directly answered (or admitted that he did not know the answer) — that is the nature of the beast we are dealing with here.
They can’t compete with the facts or the law, so they repeatedly raise bogus points, time and again, hoping that, if nothing else, they can get the two of use expending enormous time chasing facts they are already fully aware of — or, in the case of Daleyrocks, misquoting me out-of-context, thereby forcing me to make the same point I had already provided in the body of this piece.
I believe this blog’s policy precludes the deliberate act of posting comments known to be false. Daleyrocks has become a serial violator of that policy. He should be warned, and if this unacceptable tactic continues, he should be placed in moderation.
Ernest writes:
FINALLY! Have you, really? I hope so because:
a) it is.
b) we have(almost)unanimous concensus on that.
c) you guys have neutralized him in thread after thread, only to spend wads of your time reassembling long arguments to his same lame, already debunked, patently absurd allegations / name calling / insulting and stupid posts…
d) …which, obviously, these hacks never actually READ, and I’m now skipping over because you’ve already said it quite well in the thread before that and most importantly because:
e)you both have bigger fish to Frey than Frey.
And yes, these Deceivers(*) are hyper-aware of what they’re doing. The INTENT is to keep you (and us) posting round in circles, on the defensive, arguing for fact as if it’s an intangible, repeating their echo chamber of lies, hold our debate captive to their derision, make us play partners to their chest-beating, stooping, bravado. We have all been bearing witness in these threads, and there is no question that they are intentionally ushering in the Age of Duh.
Enough.
You are right, Ernest – any other commenters would have been long banned for so many despicable turns of tide. While I wouldn’t mind seeing that happen, I am not advocating it. I very much appreciate that you and Brad are giving them every benefit of the doubt to post here in good faith(as they do not extend the same) and every good grace to try to make their case based here based on the merits of rational debate (as they can not rise to meet you in the same) no matter much they whine and wheeze and call foul.
So keep them around if you must. But try to economize your responses to them. Instead of prepping mini-essays, provide a Hot Link to this series as rejoinder for new readers, and count on your regular readers to do the same on your behalf. We have to find ways of keeping their lies in check without allowing them to usurp you.
Don’t continue to feed their egos by giving them your bully pulpit, your valuable time, your beautiful deductive reasoning and super-solid, loving logic. They piss on such gifts. (Oh, and it should be painfully obvious by now that they are NEVER going to answer your fine questions. Ever. They can’t, so they won’t, as Ernest rightly reasons above.)
Friends. You have defeated them. They are unraveling in front of us. I know you meant to hoist them on their own petard, but haven’t they successfully hoisted their own petards to the moon and back by now?…
(*Props to Lora for her important distinction between what she termed “Believers and Deceivers” – I think that terminology is a keeper.)
…I just read that their petards were last spotted sailing over the Euphrates at 30,000 feet.
(I’m not sure that sentence reasonable applies to petards, as I’m not really sure what petards are. Can they fly? Hm. Well, if they can, then these ones sure are.)
Wiki: as a verb:
Wow! I’m an accidental genius. Must’ve transchanneled that term from some very funny, French patriot, fairy-muse hovering about.
Ernie 59: Rachel Maddow has done a few pieces regarding Dyncorp being twice caught for illegal prostitution rings on the taxpayer dime as well as child prostitution. Here’s one article
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11119
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=DynCorp
“Kathryn Bolkovac, a United Nations International Police Force monitor, filed a lawsuit in Britain in 2001 against DynCorp for firing her after she reported that Dyncorp police trainers in Bosnia were paying for prostitutes and participating in sex trafficking. Many of the Dyncorp employees were forced to resign under suspicion of illegal activity. But none were prosecuted, since they enjoy immunity from prosecution in Bosnia.”
“Ben Johnston, a DynCorp aircraft mechanic for Apache and Blackhawk helicopters in Kosovo, filed a lawsuit against his employer. The suit alleged that that in the latter part of 1999 Johnson “learned that employees and supervisors from DynCorp were engaging in perverse, illegal and inhumane behavior [and] were purchasing illegal weapons, women, forged passports and [participating in] other immoral acts.”
The suit charges that “Johnston witnessed coworkers and supervisors literally buying and selling women for their own personal enjoyment, and employees would brag about the various ages and talents of the individual slaves they had purchased.” “DynCorp is just as immoral and elite as possible, and any rule they can break they do,”
Some of the girls were as young as 12-15
Slippery Rocks @ 55 writes,
“You seem like a reasonable person…” Yes, I am.
[Lora:] “If it was “perfectly clear” as you say, then kindly explain why nearly everyone got it wrong.”
[DR:] “I don’t know who countless media outlets are. The citations here and at MMFA totaled something six to eight – hardly enough to “drive” a story. If you’ve got more, bring ’em on as they say. Nearly everyone I know understood that the pimp outfit was part of B-roll footage, so I don’t understand your claims of people missing it…”
C’mon.
From an article by James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board (emphasis added):
“I’m also sorry you can’t figure out that advising someone they can choose not to file a tax return if they want is tax fraud or manufacturing expenses or personal exemptions (Salvadorans) to reduce the income they report to Uncle Sam.”
Bull-loney. Totally out of context. Been there, done that, not going to revisit it.
“Lying on a mortgage application, about the source of your income or other matters is mortgage fraud.”
OK
“Tell me how the defunding was specifically disadvantaging the members.”
By Michael B. Farrell Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor / September 19, 2009: