Echoing the recent report of the Kings County, NY, District Attorney who completed a five-month probe finding “no criminality” seen in video tapes secretly taken of low-level ACORN and ACORN Housing workers last year in New York, California’s Attorney General has now reached a similar conclusion regarding videos recorded in three different cities in the Golden State last Summer, according to a report released today which finds the workers “committed no violation of criminal law.”
While describing “highly inappropriate behavior” by some of the workers caught on secret video tapes made by Rightwing activists, CA AG Jerry Brown’s report finds that “the evidence does not show that the ACORN employees in California violated state criminal laws in connection with their conversations” with activists posing as a prostitute and her boyfriend.
In a press release announcing his 28-page report [PDF] (and accompanying 55 pages of attachments and exhibits [PDF] with it), the AG’s office says the publicly released videos taken in Los Angeles, San Diego and San Bernardino were “severely edited.”
Brown’s statement in the announcement is highly critical of Rightwing activists James O’Keefe III and Hannah Giles, who posed as a prostitute and her law school boyfriend in the videos posted on Rightwing media mogul Andrew Breitbart’s “Big Government” website last year and played extensively on Fox News, as well as other non-partisan media outlets.
“The evidence illustrates that things are not always as partisan zealots portray them through highly selective editing of reality,” says Brown in the statement. “Sometimes a fuller truth is found on the cutting room floor.”
His report notes that the office’s “investigation has involved attorneys from all three legal divisions – Criminal Law, Public Rights, and Civil Law – as well as Special Agents from the Department’s Bureau of Investigation and Intelligence” and included a review of “the unedited recordings made by O’Keefe and Giles.”
In exchange for “immunity from prosecution,” O’Keefe and Giles provided “the full, unedited videotapes” to Brown’s office who, therefore, “did not determine if they violated California’s Invasion of Privacy Act” when secretly recording the ACORN workers. Those workers, he notes in his report, may still “be able to bring a private suit against O’Keefe and Giles for recording a confidential conversation without consent.”
O’Keefe, Giles, and Breitbart have previously refused to release the unedited footage of their videos publicly. Brown’s report details why they likely did not wish to, as important, often exculpatory details from each encounter were not included in the edited versions, released to much partisan fanfare last year.
The unedited California videos have now been posted on the CA Attorney General’s website. (They are also linked at the end of this article.) The press release also notes that the AG has unedited tapes from other cities outside of California as well. The BRAD BLOG has made a request for those videos from the office of the Attorney General.
‘Severely Edited’
The description of the videos as “severely edited” also echoes the Brooklyn D.A.’s office, which was quoted as describing them as a “heavily edited splice job” when his report was released several weeks ago.
Brown’s report also echoes an independent investigation [PDF] released by former MA Attorney General Scott Harshbarger early last December, but unreported in the New York Times and many others. That report was commissioned by ACORN as an external review. In it, Harshbarger found serious organizational concerns with the four-decade old community organizing group, but “no pattern of criminality” as seen in any of the highly-edited, heavily-overdubbed video tape releases.
Despite repeated official investigations finding a complete lack of criminality in any of the O’Keefe/Giles/Breitbart tapes — other than by the filmmakers themselves, who may have broken the law in at least two different states by secretly taping workers — ACORN recently announced that the publicity from the hoax videos had succeeded in drying up their private funding, and forced them to shutter their doors as of today.
Of the four ACORN employees O’Keefe and Giles met with in three different California cities, none “committed, solicited or conspired to commit any criminal acts,” says Brown in his report. “There is no evidence that any of the ACORN employees had the intent to aid and abet such criminal conduct or agreed to join in [O’Keefe and Giles purported] illegal conduct.”
The Attorney General also confirms that O’Keefe never appeared in any of the offices “dressed as a 1970s Superfly pimp,” as he had been edited to appear at the beginning and end of each of the videos. Neither did O’ Keefe ever claim to be a pimp to any of the workers whose good natures, AG Brown says, O’Keefe and Giles preyed upon…
Misreported ‘Pimp’
“In his actual taped sessions with ACORN workers, [O’Keefe] was dressed in a shirt and tie, presented himself as a law student, and said he planned to use the prostitution proceeds to run for Congress. He never claimed he was a pimp,” [emphasis added] the AG’s office says.
The BRAD BLOG has been covering the media’s misreporting of this story since late January, and was recently successful in forcing the New York Times to issue a partial correction to multiple stories in which they repeatedly misreported O’Keefe dressed as, or “posing as,” a pimp. Though it took two months — and several long email exchanges with both the “paper of record’s” Senior Editor for Standards, Greg Brock, as well as with their Public Editor (ombudsman), Clark Hoyt — their partial correction was finally published just last week, after ACORN had already announced they were being forced to shut down.
The paper is still standing, misleadingly, by the notion that O’Keefe “clearly represented himself as a pimp” to the ACORN workers, even though in every case he represented himself instead as Giles’ law school student, or sometimes banker, boyfriend, trying to help rescue her from an abusive pimp who had tried to stalk and kill her. Scores of other media outlets have followed the Times’ lead in misreporting the facts.
Brown’s report notes what the NYTimes and most other media outlets have failed to report:
While speaking with the various ACORN workers, Brown’s report notes:
Brown goes on to explain that O’Keefe’s edited video tapes from the Los Angeles ACORN office, “did not include all Giles statements regarding the abusive pimp, her tragic life, and fear for the underage girls, or [ACORN worker Lavelle] Stewart’s statements that ACORN could not help.”
According to the AG’s review of the unedited videos, of the 4 ACORN workers O’Keefe and Giles spoke to in three different California cities:
- One instructed them that “no bank would fund the couple based on an illegitimate prostitution business and ACORN would not get involved with an illegitimate prostitution business.”
- One, after being told that Giles had been “sold by a pimp in Miami to a pimp in Los Angeles” who was “extremely abusive” brought Giles to an office door marked “Program for Torture Victims” and told Giles “she should speak with the people working there.”
- One, after realizing she was being hoaxed, told O’Keefe and Giles “that ACORN would not approve of their business or of her giving them advice, but that she personally supported legalizing prostitution.” She then went on to explain how she had murdered her husband, though both of her ex-husbands, as the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s office would later report, are still very much alive. She also “told O’Keefe he resembled Princess Diana.”
- One, who “speaks limited English … went along with the conversation in hopes of getting information from the couple that he could provide to law enforcement in the event they were telling the truth.” After the couple left the office, the worker immediately telephoned his cousin who is a detective at the National City Police Department to report the matter. He later reported the incident to a fellow employee and to an ACORN board member. The matter was then reported to the San Diego Police Department’s human smuggling division.
That’s it. That’s all. And in every case, O’Keefe withheld important details from the edited versions of the video tapes he released, and reprehensibly titled as “ACORN Child Prostitution Investigation.”
Immunity from prosecution
In regard to immunity given to the Rightwing scammers, Brown states that following a request to investigate the matter by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, it was determined that his office “needed the complete, unedited video and audio recordings made by O’Keefe and Giles.” The pair sought, and received, a deal for immunity from criminal prosecution before they would turn over the tapes, according to the AG’s report:
He goes on to note that “the facts presented” in this case “strongly suggests that O’Keefe and Giles’s violated state privacy laws and provides fair warning to them and others that this type of activity can be prosecuted in California.”
‘O’Keefe did not act as a journalist’
In conclusion, the AG’s report highlights the hit job pulled off by the three partisan activists, and takes pains to note that despite the adament claims of O’Keefe, Breitbart and other Rightwing media outlets’ absurd suggestions to the contrary, O’Keefe “did not act as a journalist objectively reporting a story”:
O’Keefe stated he was out to make a point and to damage ACORN and therefore did not act as a journalist objectively reporting a story. The video releases were heavily edited to feature only the worst or most inappropriate statements of the various ACORN employees, and to omit some of the most salient statements by O’Keefe and Giles. Each of the ACORN employees recorded in California was a low level employee whose job was to help the needy individuals who walked in the door seeking assistance. Giles and O’Keefe lied to engender compassion, but then edited their statements from the released videos. Would it have been best had each ACORN employee simply refused to deal with the couple and shown them the door when their story came out? Of course.
ACORN was not the criminal enterprise described by O’Keefe in his “Chaos for Glory†statement – it did not receive billions in federal funds and did not control elections.
In fact, ACORN had received an average of just $3.5 million in federal tax dollars over each of the last 15 years. Moreover, there is no evidence that any vote was ever cast illegally, in any election, following an improper registration by an ACORN worker. In most cases, such improper registrations were discovered by ACORN themselves and reported to authorities.
Nonetheless, the anti-poverty organization of 400,000 low- and middle-income member families in 75 cities was successfully targeted and put out of business by Republicans; the long, concerted smear campaigns intended to do little more than undercut ACORN’s successful voter registration drives. Those drives had succeeded in legally registering hundreds of thousands of low- and middle-income voters, many of whom tend to vote Democratic. For that, for enfranchising Americans to participate in their own democracy, the GOP had to put them out of business.
Mission accomplished.
Documents from the CA Attorney General…
Previously unreleased, unedited video and audio tapes…
- San Diego 1 [
VIDEO 167890 kb / 40 min] - San Diego 2 [ VIDEO 70339 kb / 16 min]
- San Diego 3 [
AUDIO 20998 kb / 40 min] - San Diego 4 [ AUDIO 4797 kb / 9 min]
- San Bernardino 1 [ VIDEO 157314 kb / 40 min]
- San Bernardino 2 [ VIDEO 29212 kb / 6 min]
- San Bernardino 3 [ VIDEO 65321 kb / 15 min]
- Los Angeles 1 [ VIDEO 6062 kb / 20 min]
- Los Angeles 2 [ VIDEO 53884 kb / 18 min]
- Los Angeles 3 [ VIDEO 191634 kb / 24 min]
- Los Angeles 4 [ AUDIO 4918 kb / 9 min]
- Los Angeles 5 [ AUDIO 3337 kb / 7 min]
- Los Angeles 6 [ AUDIO 11747 kb / 7 min]
- Los Angeles 7 [ AUDIO 720 kb / 1 min]
- Los Angeles 8 [ AUDIO 1322 kb / 2 min]
Two independent investigations come to the conclusion that committed no wrongs. To the contrary, it would seem that O’Keefe, Giles, and Breitbart conspired in an act of willful malicious defamation of ACORN. That defamation has cost ACORN its $3.5 million per year of federal assistance that we know of. Were I on the board of ACORN, I would be in touch with a law firm to sue for damages.
ooops!
Edit: “conclusion that ACORN employees committed”
Where is Patty-small-frey and DaleyRocks on this? No doubt(they think) this is some super-partisan Democratic snowjob to whitewash the unclean ACORN, right guys? LOL. So I guess this means Brad wasn’t lying? He really isn’t a big liar? Wow, big surprise there. Just another example where Brad was right on the money, and critics were full of shit.
Excellent job, Brad.
Now if we could just coerce the media to not be quite such douche-bags and traitors to the nation
and to DO AN HONEST JOB FOR ONCE!!!
Fat chance.
We live in a corporatocracy.
Our nation run by the corporations, for the corporations.
I was kidding but sure enough from the comments at pattericos site on this subject(it is not pattericos comment) they even used the words partisan, and whitewash. LOL.:
Submitted to Digg, mostly as a followup to the fun of taking on the deep thinkers there who believe ACORN is evil as much they believe President Obama interned with the Chicago mob.
The Los Angeles Times covered this story in “California probe clears ACORN of criminal activity.”
I did not find any mention of this story in today’s New York Times.
Yeah, I hope ACORN, or whatever entity now remains, sues the ass of these racist bastards. Still can’t get over how sickeningly racist this whole episode was. And how many people I know who were right-wingers that just delighted in sending me all of the dirt from Faux News on how corrupt these ACORN workers were, shades of welfare queens all over again. It remains thoroughly disgusting.
The last two times James O’Keefe committed “journalism,” he had to cop a plea to stay out of the slammer.
breitbart is at it again with the fake egg throwing videos they’re putting out to diminish the violence of the right. even jon stewart fell for it…again.
i hate false equivalency in news…and comedy
here’s a hint…
anytime you see a cut in ANY video from breitbart okeefe etc. ANY CUT. Even a quick cut…The video is fake
If it’s not raw video, it’s a fraud. period.
Top notch reporting and analysis, Brad.
After my 6 decades of life it is sad to see what this country has come to, or refuses to rise above. How is that deception and lies, lies now proven to be lies, can continue to result in the institutionalized loss of voting rights by minorities and the poor.
Will Congress undo their crime against the now disbanded Acorn? Do those in power even give it a passing thought?
Yes, where is Patterrible to claim his boss is a partisan white-washer, as his readers claim. Gee, who would give them that impression?
I would like to hear what Patterico has to say and what he would say of AG Brown
Oh it was racist? LOL. you guys are something.
You idiots will support anything on the left. Such lunatics. I am sure the AG Brown can be trusted. /
Solid reporting, Brad.
Anyone else note how odd it is that the MSM and the Dems in Congress jumped on this fraudulent story with such alacrity but have managed to ignore so many true stories of corporate abuse?
“In most cases, such improper registrations were discovered by ACORN themselves and reported to authorities.”
Brad – I keep seeing this statement and keep asking if there is any support for it other than the self-serving statements of ACORN itself.
BTW, did you help Moonbeam write his report? It sounds like he lifted portions of your posts almost verbatim but you did not get an acknowledgement at the end. Too bad for you.
Continue defending an organization the employees of which Brown acknowledges were advising Giles and O’Keefe on child prostitution and tax fraud. I can never get enough of lefties occupying moral high ground like that. Next time maybe everybody can take it a step further take it to the prosecutable crimes stage in Brown’s eyes.
Again Daley did you read the full report. Okeefe edited a lot out including multiple times they were told that Acorn couldn’t help them. So we’ve gotten to the point where bad advice is a crime. Where was your belly aching when Yoo, Addington, and Gonzales were giving advice on how to willingly break the law, not theoretically.
Bob Ross ~
I don’t think Daley reads. Period. At least evidenced by his abysmal, embarrassing track record of wrong-i-tudes, here. No, it would seem to me that his bad intel comes directly to him via Breitbart-blood brother-transfusion. How else could he (ahem) “continue defending Breitbart’s employees (after which) even Breitbart admits he was scammed by them”. Not to mention all the reputable sources now piling on in light of O’Keefe n’ Clan’s demonstrable lies (NYT notwithstanding). But it sure is nice of you to give him the benefit of the doubt, Bob!
While it may be true that O’Keefe will never do any real time and his criminal record will be sanitized thanks to his associations – this, his career-defining scam, has completely unraveled.
Credibility severely chipped.
Amy Goodman picks up on AG Jerry Brown’s report, today:
http://www.democracynow.org/
(Acorn info starts @ 9:25)
..happy to report she has now corrected her phrasing (thanks to Brad) to “videos that APPEAR to show ACORN employees giving advice…”
Good girl.
Sure do wish she’d have Brad on.
…oh, and Daley – the only reason the Left can claim the moral high ground? Not because they deserve it, but because their opposition are all such delinquent bottom feeders they can’t float up to fight by light.
Enjoy your subterfuge!
DaleyRocks wrote:
Actually, it’s you who seems to be defending the New York Times, ironically enough. That said, did you bother to read the report? Or even my report on the report? For example, where the CA AG notes that the ACORN workers “committed no violation of criminal law”?
Or where he wrote (contrary to what you, Patty and the rest of Andy Breitbart’s Tea Bag Boyz have been inaccurately claiming for so long), “There is no evidence that any of the ACORN employees had the intent to aid and abet such criminal conduct or agreed to join in [O’Keefe and Giles purported] illegal conduct.â€
Did you miss the part in the AG’s report, or in mine where I described the four ACORN workers that O’Keefe were able to find in the entire state of California?
+ One who told them ACORN couldn’t not help them do anything with prostitution money.
+ One who turned them into a detective after they left.
+ One who played them for idiots by claiming she murdered her husband (which Breitbart/O’Keefe still haven’t corrected on their posting, btw).
+ And the last one who tried to convince Giles to seek help for tortured abuse victims?
What was the crime you are so concerned about here? Because so far, the only crimes appear to have been carried out by O’Keefe and Giles, and yet I don’t see you much concerned about that. So we know it’s not the Rule of Law you give a damn about it. What is it exactly? Proving that you and Dep. D.A. Patrick “Patterico” Frey and Andy Breitbart and the rest of the Tea Bag Boyz were right, when the facts and reality and all authorities have shown you otherwise?
Do you really feel that down on urself that you need such validation? If so, I understand there’s a torture abuse program in San Diego where you may be able to get some help.
Jim @ 14 said:
I don’t trust him. I hope you don’t either. I don’t trust anybody.
I trust evidence that I can independently verify. So of that evidence — and we finally have some available since O’Keefe and Giles agreed to turn over unedited tapes in exchange for immunity from criminal prosecution — what do you not trust? Looks to me, as based on that evidence, that AG Brown was right on the money.
Got evidence to show us otherwise? Thanks in advance for it, if so!
Brad,
…Except that I thought we established here a week or so ago that the Times did, in fact, run a story mentioning the Harshbarger report — “Acorn on Brink of Bankruptcy, Officials Say”. Right? A nit, but still.
I’m no lawyer, but…
If O’Keefe misrepresented to the Attorney General the contents of the unedited audio — perhaps by way of fudged transcripts — he probably broke the terms of his immunity deal and thus can still be prosecuted.
Immunity? WTF? Why couldn’t they be compelled to provide the tapes and thrown into jail upon refusal? How nice that Brown can cut this deal not to prosecute for the privacy violations. Shouldn’t maybe the victim be given a say in this matter? You know, since it like shut down Acorn and stuff? Mission accompliced.
Brad, I have a couple of questions that you might want to look into:
Did any of the ACORN employees have an employment contract (as opposed to at-will employment) with ACORN? And if so, could they sue pimp-daddy James O’Keefe for tortious interference with a contract?
LOL, The Kangaroo COurt system never ceases to amuse me!
Lou
http://www.anonymous-surfing.us.tc
It’s high time that O’Keefe, Giles and Breitbart be exposed for what they are, what they really have done, and who they really did it to.
They need to see the faces of the innocent people they’ve crushed in order to get their precious sound-bytes for their bs smear campaign.
I’m glad the AG’s report has called them out for the liars that they are.
But the tragedy is that a solid (even if imperfect) service for impoverished Americans has been axed, just because Giles, O’Keefe and Breitbart all have refused to be forthcoming with their “evidenceâ€, and have lied to get their way.
James was a liar from the get go.
James cant help it, he lies about everything (even the fact that he is, indeed, a conservative.) And his behavior (coupled with Breitbart’s hysterical rhetoric) should have made it apparent that his “evidence” required the most thorough scrutiny (personally, when I first saw the tapes I could tell that something wasn’t real about it at all.)
At least now it’s officially clear what the “work” by James and his crew is REALLY all about- constructing fictitious propaganda to take down their political targets… “Abu Gharaib of the Great Societyâ€, indeed! What hog-wash!
Now they plan to attack Detroit HUD. As someone from the Greater Metro Detroit area, i am APPALLED by that.
O’Keefe and Basel claim to go to Detroit as “investigators”, and bypass all the poverty, disinvestment, and chaos which has plagued that city for so long.
Do they care that the city is littered with abandoned buildings and houses, but that SO MANY PEOPLE ARE VISIBLY HOMELESS? Do they care about the under-ground arms trade, the drive-by’s, the gangs etc…? Do they care that there are people actually living the nightmare which they callously mock in their anti-ACORN theatrics?
Do they care at all?
The fact that O’keefe could walk right past places like Cass Corridor or Del Rey, and try to smear yet ANOTHER service for the poor (one which remains a lifeline for most poor Detroiter’s) speaks volumes as to the kind of sociopath we are dealing with.
He’s like something out of Dickens, “Are there no prisons? Are there no work-houses?†I mean, how many more people does this guy want to kick out onto the streets? He seems to get-off on that sort of thing.
I hope someone can hit O’Keefe and Giles with a RICO lawsuit. Not to mention civil lawsuits where you just need a simple majority to win.
The CONTROLLED MEDIA is making it obvious that FASCISM has indeed confirmed itself.
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/38690
Definitely ACORN was defamed by O’Keefe’s doctored, falsely incriminating videos. Definitely his bogus videos were used as the reason Congress cut ACORN’s funding, costing the organization millions of dollars.
Sounds like a solid basis for a lawsuit. Doesn’t ACORN have any lawyers?
Slippery Rocks #16 sez:
Slippery Rocks,
Now that the raw unedited videos from the CA “interviews” are available so that we can all make up our own minds up about what the ACORN reps were doing (AND what Giles and O’Keefe were doing!) perhaps you can point us to a particular video and a particular time in that video that backs up what you say?
*plays jeopardy theme music again, again*
I look forward to seeing them all. It may take me a couple of days to get through them all.
So far, I’ve seen the 1st two from LA. I saw O’Keefe ask a rep from ACORN housing over and over again if ACORN would discriminate against them because they were in a prostitution business, and if he or ACORN would help them get set up in a house so they could run their prostitution business. The answer was consistently “no” to both questions, even after Giles “clarified” that she needed the house to be safe from abuse.
Great work Brad. Of course, your new mission, should you chose to accept it, is to make sure Brown and Schwarzenegger both are politically disgraced.
Brown could have worked with prosecutors to file criminal charges and compelled production of the evidence in discovery.
As it is, both B-S (that can’t be accidental) had an interest in making sure ACORN was neutralized politically and they purposely pursued this in a way that left them and these two scumbags off the hook.
“I can hire one-half of the working class to kill the other half.” widely attributed to railroad magnate Jay Gould during the Great Southwest Railroad Strike of 1886.
Was O’Keefe only granted immunity from violation of privacy laws? If so, isn’t he still liable for prosecution for falsely representing that a felony was committed? In San Diego, the matter was even reported to SDPD human smuggling division. In most places, isn’t falsely representing the commission of a felony also a crime? If his immunity is limited to the privacy laws, I would think he is still subject to criminal prosecution in California.
Bead – You use an awful lot of misdirection and obfuscation to mask a simple difference of opinion. You are defending an organization the employees of which were caught on video advising Giles and O’Keefe how to maintain a child prostitution business, commit tax fraud and mortgage fraud. I am against such activities because I have a moral compass. The IRS, the Census Bureau, both houses of Congress and apparently ACORN’s major donors agree with me. Even ACORN itself voluntarily shut down last September due to the scandal.
In order to take your position you have constructed a narrative out of whole cloth five months after the videos were released that the affected parties could have taken on day one yet they did not. They knew it was a losing battle.
You stand on ridiculous points such O’Keefe did not claim he was a pimp in the videos. Guess what Brad, I don’t see on your web site where you explicitly claim to be a shill for any and every progressive left cause, but people can see that you are from the videos you post and posts that you write. It’s the same with the ACORN videos. O’Keefe posed as a pimp. The Brooklyn DA confirmed it in her news release saying there would be no prosecution. There are no if, ands, or buts about it. People do not have to see him say the words “I am a pimp” to understand his function relative to Giles no matter how much you obfuscate.
You keep repeating that the videos were heavily edited. So what. How does the editing change the substance of what was originally released? Nobody has shown that it does. Brown makes the point that O’Keefe was not objective. So what? How does that change the appalling conduct revealed of the ACORN employees? It doesn’t. Brown’s report itself is not objective. It reads like an apologia for ACORN rather than an objective investigation, but why should we be surprised.
Does the fact that Brown found no prosecutable crimes in his limited investigation matter? Not in the least. As I indicated, people with a sense of shame made their decisions last fall, ACORN’s donors, Congress, the IRS, the Census Bureau, ACORN itself, and numerous others. You and your loony fringe lefty chorus are welcome to create your deluded narrative to defend a corrupt organization. As I said, I can’t get enough of the left defending that moral high ground.
Brad – I have not seen you address the dismissal of the illegal recording suit ACORN filed in Maryland against O’Keefe and Giles. It was dismissed by the judge due to the lapse of time. ACORN never served it on the defendants. Why was that?
Also, I’m still waiting for support on your statement that ACORN identifies questionable voter registrations for state election authorities, other than ACORN PR releases. Do you fact check anything here?
Teabag in a wing-nutshell:
“You keep repeating that the videos were heavily edited. So what.”
… DALEYROCKS said on 4/3/2010 @ 12:10 pm PT…
#34~
Seriously?… You can’t read and you’re Google-immune?
That info is common knowledge, referenced in just about every (legitimate, non-Foxified) report filed on the subject. Not that you will read them, you won’t. Or dare to consider any independent sources outside of your already discredited propagandists as anything BUT “Acorn PR”…I know you won’t.
You’ve got a “Truthiness” problem, and it’s widely on display in these comment threads. What is true, and what you wish was true, are square pegs to round holes and we have all seen you blindly kamikaze divebomb the full weight of your intellectual heft on the task of forcing a fit. (Ballsy for a feather-weight, so kudos!)
But here are just a few (non ACORN PR) related links to whet your high frequency dog whistle:
http://prorev.com/2008/10/acorn-office-raided-over-alleged-false.html
http://www.progressillinois.com/2008/10/18/indy-star-acorn
Oohhh – here’s a right wing / anti-ACORN rag – you’ll like this one (outside of the part where they validate that ACORN flags it’s own fraudulent registrations and turns them over to B.O.E.’s…)
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-complete-guide-to-acorn-voter-fraud/
and
Are you as sick of yourself as we are? Maybe the reason you don’t know what the rest of us do and keep getting you ass handed to you in these sad attempts at debate is that your SOURCES SUCK at telling you the truth. Pretty clear to anyone with a pulse that you shouldn’t continue to trust them, let alone defend them.
I guess your moral center has a cloak of invisibility button. How convenient.
Found this recent article doing DR’s (#34’s) homework. Huff Po’s Peter Dreier (w/ John Atlas) has a robust article on the ACORN Hoax / HOYT’s deception:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-dreier/why-acorn-fell_b_510285.html
(DR, this one isn’t for you. It’s clearly ACORN PR so don’t bust a nut not reading it, forming an uneducated opinion about it, and mouthing off about it, anyway. It’s becoming so passe for you.)
Sorry, but it seems once I pop, I just can’t stop!
Here’s a GEM of a piece from MEDIA MATTERS regarding Foxs News’ outright debunking / belittling / poor reporting of this very fact that DR and the rest of his nefarious, nutty-bunches of cluster-buddies have such trouble ingesting:
http://mediamatters.org/research/200810140010
Adding this shocker: I found NO (0) Google hits for reports of this very salient fact from Fox News.
(Lora, righto! Now that the unedited videos are out, it’s so game over. We can flash mob the internet with the most appalling displays of O’Keefe’s / Giles’ entrapment / the extent to which they played on the sympathies of fellow humans to meet their meanest ends. I look forward to your further video analysis.)
…and what’s with Megyn Kelly’s “Jive Turkey” comment? From Micky Mouse to Jive Turkey? Wow.
Now THAT’s improv.
#36 One of your funnier ones, Jeannie 🙂
dear bradblog
I am still loving the content of your website as an informative and factual source of information. You are still one of the best investigators around and doing good work on this issue where the nyt is falling flat on it’s face.
I however am having a issue today.
I was wondering if u could release those vidoes in a mp4 or ogg movie format as i am using a non microsoft operating system that does not reconize wmv format. If it is not up to you could u please ask who responsible to do so. If there is some other issue that prevents you from doing so please mention it so i know why it had to be that way.
oh, and keep up the good work brad. You are definitely someone who’s blog i visit in the future!
signed… newmexicofan
NewMexicoFan – Thanks for the kind words. It’s mutual (I like New Mexico! 🙂
The CA AG released the videos in WMV format. The process of converting and re-uploading is somewhat of a chore at this point. However, there are many free converters available out there that you should, if you like, be able to use.
If you’re not and someone else reading this has the opportunity to do so, and wants to send me the links to converted versions, I’ll be happy to add links to them.
If you’re unable to do the conversion on your own, and nobody else steps up, I’ll take a look at doing such conversions myself. It’s not difficult, just a fairly time-intensive slog. Perhaps once I get the unedited versions from the other states I can try to do them all at once for ya if its still necessary.
Slippery Rocks @ 34’s rant did not include a single reference to any part of any of the unedited videos to back up his repetitive assertions that O’Keefe posed as a pimp, the behavior of the ACORN reps was appalling, and ACORN is a corrupt organization. Now we’re supposed to believe that Brown’s investigation was worthless and that the editing didn’t matter.
I have now watched part 3 of the LA videos (and studied the transcript, as the sound quality was terrible) and I can report on the “appalling behavior” of LaVelle, who wanted Giles to speak with someone from the Program for Torture Victims after Giles described the abuse she received at the hands of her pimp. (Gee, the “pimp” was NOT O’Keefe! O’Keefe expressed a desire to set her up “independent.” And Giles expressed a wish to be independent.)
LaVelle also said that “God is good” because Giles was still alive. Later, O’Keefe asked LaVelle again for the umpteenth time if ACORN would discriminate against them because of prostitution, this time making mention of the 14-15 year-old girls:
James:
A lot of people say, you know, they hear about the 14, 15-year-old girls, and they’re like, are you kidding me? I’m not gonna touch that. Like you’re not gonna be judgmental about those 15-year-old girls coming overseas?
LaVelle (Acorn):
Well you know what? You know what I’m not gonna be judgmental of the fact that this lady who’s in front of me wants to help them.
Although LaVelle eventually offers to “do research” as a personal favor for Giles and her business, she doesn’t actually give out any advice on the prostitution business at all. She remains friendly, polite, and non-committal during the majority of the interview and seems genuinely concerned for Giles’ welfare and impressed with Giles’ expressed desire to help the girls coming from “overseas.”
Truly appalling, isn’t it?
Daley 34… Again you rant and rave about supposed moral problems you have with bad advice that was not criminal. Your rant basically says that nevermind that OKeefe constructed a false narrative, lied, bullshitted, defamed an organization, the ends justify the means. I find it funny how you go on and on about Acorn being “morally corrupt” yet have no complaints to what O’keefe did which by your logic would be equally morally corrupt.
You complain on and on about your supposed values, which we both know are selective and nonexistent; meanwhile you have no overzealousness towards corporations such as Haliburton and Dyncorp which rob the average taxpayer for vasts sums of money while they have been guilty of running prostitution rings, hurting our troops, building faulty facilities. Not a peep from you instead you’ll focus on supposed “moral crimes” that you think Acorn committed. Donors and congress acted based on little to no information. That’s how propaganda works, it’s based on the ignorance of the viewer. I wouldn’t expect your extremist brethren to understand that.
I doubt you read any reports on the voter registration issue Daley. Acorn was defrauded by their own employees who were fired and prosecuted. Why do you whine so much about a company with no power and a 25 million dollar annual budget while other companies fuck over the average taxpayer 100 fold every year while committing real crimes. Where is your moral compass then?
Maddow gets it! Friday night’s broadcast devoted a full 10 min segment to the ACORN HOAX / Climategate and the fake outrage these Fox supported scandals have ginned up:
“Rachel calls bull-pucky”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show
She’s calling it the “unmooring of politics from fact”…
Jeannie @37 – I understand there is a requirement for people registering voters to turn in all completed forms, but thanks for repeating the obvious. That’s not the point I was questioning. It is the point I have seen unsupported by all but one person other than ACORN with direct knowledge of the facts, that ACORN flags suspicious voter registrations for election officials. It is an urban myth on the left that this is a fact because it has been repeated so many times, usually by ACORN or its apologists.
I have only seen one election official touch on it, one from Indiana, who said ACORN flagged some suspicious registrations. I can’t tell if that is the same one you excepted. Your Atlas and Dreier quote is a pure fabrication on their part. Check out the exhibits to the DOJ investigations into ACORN that were just spiked. They show only 20-30 of registrations are QC’d. You can find the material at Judicialwatch.org.
Dreier is also a consultant to ACORN and Atlas has done work for them in the past as well.
So now that Brad has the unedited video he was clamoring for, what part of it contradicts the “heavily edited” portions released publicly? That would be fun to hear about.
Brad – Did O’Keefe pose as a pimp? That’s a simple yes or no question.
#46 Once again you keep repeating the same question which was already answered. I answered this for you last time you asked it in another thread and you never responded to it. NO Okeefe did not present himself as or pose as a pimp. He presented himself as a college student, a law student, or a banker. He did not state that Giles would work for him, that he owned her or that he would get clients for her. Each of those things a pimp does and in fact he stated he was not her pimp that someone else was. So no he never posed as her pimp and thus far even the unedited videos from California prove such. You continue going on and on about something you have little knowledge of.
Even Pajama media said that ACORN flags suspicious voter registrations. Your lack of knowledge on the subject is appalling. Even one official commenting on it is more than enough yet you continue going on and on with your rants as if you somehow know better than that official in Indiana.
Did you even watch the unedited video from California? They were told repeatedly NO. Which destroys the false narrative that you’ve commented on that every office was willing to help. They weren’t. Continue running your mouth Daley you have no legs to stand on. You support someone who in your logic is morally corrupt and only targets organizations that help the least of us. I’m waiting to see his expose on charities run by the church next since he has a penchant for targeting poor people.
DaleyRocks has NO moral compass because he has no problem with ACTUAL AND ADMITTED child abuse committed by GOP pols, funders, military contractors and the Catholic Church! Here is a possible fitting new gig for O’Thief and Hoochie Ho Hannah: CATCHING CATHOLIC CLERGY on camera abusing kids! — what!? the dastardly duo aren’t interested?? Oh, I see! — O’Thief and Holy Ho’s idea of vigilante justice is SMEARING ABUSE VICTIMS as “liars and gold diggers”! I hope victims punk the CRIMINAL duo soon with their own hidden cameras. Fair is fair.
It is astonishing how little real scrutiny Rove-wannabe O’Keefe has received by the corporate media.
O’Keefe and friends seem to have engaged in a very elaborate and lengthy plan to take down ACORN, by hook or by crook. So was Breitbart funding all these involved sting attempts, and video editing sessions? Who was funding Breitbart?
I spent my life growing up in Southern California and interacted with the judicial system regarding both civil and criminal matters on a host of issues throughout my life. My personal interaction is in addition to having a father who recently retired from the district attorney’s office in Los Angeles and having lifelong friendship with the top prosecutor in the Redondo Beach office, Bud Smith. In all my experience with the courts and knowledge of their procedures, that plus, just knowing the normal prosecutors rigid guidelines and procedures, make it painfully obvious what a scam O’Keefe and Breitbart on all Americans. How are they capable of contaminating the entire judicial process here, so much that they were given a blanket immunity for what resulted in their breaking the law, in order to frame an innocent organization and undermine the district attorneys office who gave immunity without prior knowledge or screening of material is just outside anything imaginable of our judicial to do. Such an act is not possible without a serious bribe. These people are a cancer, just like their main contaminant host FOX.
In order for our society to regain its Independents and people once again appreciate real freedom we must have access to an impartial judiciary capable of withstanding outside monetary influence and we must regain control over the airwaves, OUR AIRWAVES! They began the attack on the judiciary with the recent Supreme court decision US citizens, this will allow judges to accept corporate funds and eventually exclude citizens access to the courts. They already have the airwaves and we allowed our society to lower its standards to that of the Fat Fascist of Florida and his counterpart equal in ability to lie on any issue. Lie with wreck less abandon regardless of the destruction associated with the lies. There is NO TIME LEFT. if you enjoy freedom and like to own property, use it without fear of someone just taking it from you , GET UP OFF YOUR ASS. Fascist take what they want, when they want it. Women you think things are bad now, just look at what happened to women under Stalin, Hitler, or with the Shaw of Iran, in the Philippines under Marcos. There are countless examples where you can observe the changes from beginning to end. Any true American could not last living under some were hungry tyrant like Glen Beck, Rush Bimbo, etc.. Stop the COUP!, NOW!
Thomas – The Attorney General’s office granted immunity, not the DA. Reading Jerry Brown’s biased report I think it highly unlikely he was bribed in any way by Breitbart et. al. Even though his report suggests otherwise, more likely he knew he had a crappy case. What expectations of privacy do people have conducting conversations in hallways or conference rooms with open doors? In the Maryland illegal recording case ACORN filed against O’Keefe and Giles, ACORN did not even go to the trouble of serving the defendants and it was dismissed by the judge due to the passage of time.
Partisan agendist DaleyRocks @ 51 said:
Other than the facts that you don’t like the findings in it, what is “biased” about it? He lays out his case, supplies the evidence for it. So what is biased about it? (Other than, as I said, you don’t like his findings, even though they are in synch w/ every other official body that’s looked at the same case so far).
Every expectation. Particularly as O’Keefe asked if the conversations would be confidential, and the ACORN workers assured as much. Nice try though. Seriously, is it simply beyond the capacity of you, LA County Deputy D.A. Patrick “Patterico” Frey and the rest of Andy Breitbart’s Tea Bag Boyz to see anything other than through your partisan goggles on anything? Seriously.
Democrats could use some serious opposition out there. You guys are letting them get away with murder (literally, in many cases), because you’ve become such a joke. I wish to hell a grownup would appear somehow, somewhere in your party to pull it out of the 7th grade, and back to the needed job of legitimacy. This country dearly needs it.
Slippery Rocks @ 46 sez:
OK, Slippery Rocks, time to ante up. How about YOU support your implication that ACORN did NOT flag suspicious voter registrations? Why do you think that they did not? Where’s your evidence to support this, other than Fox or Breitbart’s say-so? Talk about your urban myth, orchestrated and perpetuated by the right-wing haters.
Sorry, too late to watch another unedited ACORN video tonight. Maybe tomorrow. But clearly the LA videos do not show anything close to resembling appalling conduct by members of a corrupt organization. In fact, the only appalling conduct I saw was by O’Keefe and Giles, who kept pushing and badgering ACORN housing reps, trying to play on their sympathy and friendliness to get admissions that could be twisted around to look like they were happily encouraging morally bankrupt behavior.
I have worked in customer service for a very long time. You do NOT give people bad advice, you do NOT say in private what you would not say in public and they should have been detained on the premises which is what would have happened HERE. ACORN has to take responsibility for badly trained Customer Service officers. They have only themselves to blame for making ACORN appear to assist a prostitute and her boyfriend in illegal matters. If It was the kind of organisation you portray it to have been, Brad, no amount of attack by “right wingers” could have done any damage.
There are options as to what one’s lawyer can do post-conviction. Reading this gives the viewer a sense of what steps can be taken afterwords.
Shirley @ 54 writes:
“I have worked in customer service for a very long time.”
“You do NOT give people bad advice,…”
Bad Advice From ABC News
“…you do NOT say in private what you would not say in public…”
Hannah (Eden):
Um, the pimp that I worked for in Miami
LaVelle (Acorn):
Uh huh
Hannah (Eden):
sold me
LaVelle (Acorn):
Okay.
Hannah (Eden):
to a pimp in Los Angeles.
LaVelle (Acorn):
Okay.
Hannah (Eden):
Um, I was extremely upset about that because I loved Miami,
LaVelle (Acorn):
Okay.
Hannah (Eden):
and I’m having a tough time adjusting here.
LaVelle (Acorn):
Hmm.
Hannah (Eden):
Um, and I kind of be also transportation being shipped across the country, um, gave me a desire to be on my own.
LaVelle (Acorn):
Hmm,
Hannah (Eden):
And not subject to
LaVelle (Acorn):
Good.
Hannah (Eden):
and, and the guy here is extremely abusive.
LaVelle (Acorn):
Okay.
[LaVelle has been growing restless during this conversation — here she gets up and starts to move the conversation out of the public front-desk area to the relatively more private hallway — on their way to the door that says “Program for Torture Victims.”]
“…and they should have been detained on the premises…”
For example, California Penal Code mandates:
Which of these three reasons applies here?
“ACORN has to take responsibility for badly trained Customer Service officers. They have only themselves to blame for making ACORN appear to assist a prostitute and her boyfriend in illegal matters.”
I suppose repeated badgering, insisting on help and advice, asking questions over and over again to get an answer that they could twist with their selective biased editing had nothing to do with it then….
brad,
You seem like an angry young white man. Give it a rest. Get you facts straight. Fox aired unedited video months ago. It seems to me all you and your ilk want to do is keep blacks and others down where you think they belong. I pray for you.
Sincerely in Christ,
Leesa C.
Eph.2:8,9
Proud black Hispanic 3rd generation republican
Leesa @ 57 incorrectly wrote:
Of course, they absolutely did not. Which is why AG Brown ended up trading immunity from criminal prosecution in exchange for the unedited videos which O’Keefe, Giles and Breitbart had previously refused to release publicly.
We have a rule against the posting of ‘knowing disinformation” in comments here on The BRAD BLOG.
While I don’t know if you actually knew that information was incorrect previously, now you do. So please consider yourself warned. Post the same disinfo again, and you will not be commenting here for long.
Thank you.
“This is racist. It really isn’t open to interpretation.â€
Damn right it is. Keep spinning, teabaggers. You’re just re-confirming what a lot of people believed already.