Wednesday, April 07, 2010
Friday, April 02, 2010
CA A.G. FINDS 'NO VIOLATION OF CRIMINAL LAW' IN 'SEVERELY EDITED' ACORN 'PIMP' VIDEOS; RELEASES RAW TAPES FOR FIRST TIME
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 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.
M.C.L Comment: While they maybe protected from legal prosecution, if I was ACORN I would sue the holy hell out of O'Keefe, Giles, Breitbart and Andrew Breitbart's corporate/right wing think tank masters. Whatever money I have left I would take them to court and make them pay with their pound of flesh.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
NY Times admits being played for fools on ACORN
By John Amato
It's too bad ACORN had to suffer at the hands of fools.
New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt said in a column published online yesterday that it was "easy to see" why the Times described conservative merry prankster James O'Keefe going into the offices of ACORN "dressed so outlandishly that he might have been playing in a risqué high school play" -- after all, "a host" on Fox said that pimp-styling O'Keefe was "dressed exactly in the same outfit he wore to these Acorn offices" and O'Keefe "did not argue."
Now that ACORN faces bankruptcy, O'Keefe faces federal charges in another attempted sting, and Hoyt faces e-mails he attributes to "liberal groups," Hoyt has revisited the situation, reviewed the publicly available material, and far below the fold, concludes that the Times was wrong.
As you know, ACORN is screwed because of this. Here's what Clark Hoyt says:
Here is what I found: O’Keefe almost certainly did not go into the Acorn offices in the outlandish costume — fur coat, goggle-like sunglasses, walking stick and broad-brimmed hat — in which he appeared at the beginning and end of most of his videos. It is easy to see why The Times and other news organizations got a different impression. At one point, as the videos were being released, O’Keefe wore the get-up on Fox News, and a host said he was “dressed exactly in the same outfit he wore to these Acorn offices.” He did not argue.
But Breitbart told me that, after doing his own examination, “I am under the impression that at no time was he ever dressed as an elaborate pimp” in the offices. Because O’Keefe was apparently carrying the hidden camera, he is generally not visible in the videos, but he is seen briefly entering the Baltimore office wearing a blue shirt and chinos.
I could not reach O’Keefe — who is facing federal criminal charges of tampering with a Democratic senator’s phone in a different attempted sting — or Giles. But I am satisfied that The Times was wrong on this point, and I have been wrong in defending the paper’s phrasing. Editors say they are considering a correction.
The reason the story took off was because O'Keefe dressed up like a pimp and presented himself to FOX and to the world as if that's how he went into ACORN's offices. He doctored the film footage to make it look that way. But, that doesn't change Hoyt's mind on the merits of the story.
Acorn’s supporters appear to hope that the whole story will fall apart over the issue of what O’Keefe wore: if that was wrong, everything else must be wrong. The record does not support them...read on.
Anyway he wants to slice it, the NY Times were made to look fools as did much of the MSM and ACORN suffered for their lack of professionalism. The hoax O'Keefe perpetrated on ACORN caused Congress to cut funding and now they are in financial trouble. Sick bastards like Breitbart rejoice that many ACORN employees will now lose their jobs because of the BUSH economy and this hoax. That's really a shame. But remember, conservatives can do NO wrong.
M.C.L Comment: I have an idea for ACORN to get that money back, sue James O'Keefe, sue Hannah Giles and sue Andrew Breitbart along with his corporate masters.. Come on now you think Andrew Breitbart cooked this stuff up by himself? Right wingers can't even take a piss without someone telling them how to and why would this be any different.
Granted the right wing has legal funds for James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles but with the evidence that O'Keefe made things up and Giles took part knowing what they were doing were bogus the right wing legal fund can hire freakin Perry Mason for them and they're still be screwed.
The outcome I predict if ACORN pushes hard for legal payback is that Andrew Breitbart to save his own ass or at least his masters' collective asses he would sell both O'Keefe and Giles down the river because young right wingers like O'Keefe and Giles are a dime a dozen. Or Giles out of the fear of being some server at Denny's for the rest of her life to pay off the settlement she's going to owe to ACORN she would flip on Breitbart and O'Keefe.
Thursday, March 04, 2010
O'Keefe, Giles, and Breitbart 'Buried the Truth' About Their ACORN 'Pimp' Hoax Video Tapes And the New York Times is STILL helping them do so...
By Brad Friedman
It's not particularly worth my time, or anybody's time (unless they are involved in suing or pressing charges against the GOP hoaxsters), to get into the detailed weeds on how the ACORN "pimp" hoax videos were doctored to show something other than what they really were, in comparison to what the text transcripts (which may or may not be accurate) actually show, since: - the entire scam was a political hit job and a scam from the jump, and;
- since accused felon James O'Keefe and his employer and publisher Andrew Breitbart have refused to release the unedited video tapes, and;
- since three investigations (one from the Congressional Research Service, one from MA's former Attorney General, and the latest, just this week from the Brooklyn, NY District Attorney) have all found no criminal wrongdoing by the low-level ACORN employees caught on secret video, and;
- since nobody but low-level workers and volunteers are even seen on the tapes, and;
- since ACORN immediately fired those who violated the organization's own written protocols.
As The BRAD BLOG has been detailing over the last several weeks, the highly-edited, heavily-overdubbed, secretly (and likely illegally) taped videos, and those who published them, have already proven to have discredited themselves.
Now that O'Keefe's ACORN "pimp" hoax has been acknowledged, even by Andrew Breitbart, as a deceptive fraud --- where he once called it Pulitzer Prize-worthy "journalism" he now compares it to Borat --- it doesn't seem to matter to the same rightwing bloggers who trumpeted it in the first place that O'Keefe lied about playing his now-infamous 70's-era blaxploitation "pimp" character in ACORN offices. What's important, those foolish enough to keep backing O'Keefe and Breitbart now claim, is not that the purveyor of the information has been shown to be a fraud himself, but what he purports to have caught ACORN workers saying and doing on his highly-edited video productions.
But even those charges don't hold up to even the quickest scrutiny...
One of the few foolish enough to stay on the Breitbart/O'Keefe fraud train, rightwing blogger "Patterico" (who, as Los Angeles Deputy D.A. Patrick Frey, should know better) was initially shown to have been massively and embarrassingly wrong. But after having been played for a chump by Breitbart, he has been busy doubling down ever since, in one silly article after another, in hopes of saving face, apparently.
All of that, even after the Brooklyn D.A. on Monday found "no criminality" in the Brooklyn videos, and a law enforcement source was quoted as confirming what any intellectually honest person already understands by the now: "They edited the tape to meet their agenda."
[Update: Even Rupert Murdoch's NYPost confirms DA source that the video was a "'Highly edited' splice job ... with seemingly crime-encouraging answers...taken out of context so as to appear more sinister"]
Nonetheless, it seems Patterico has determined to make his own private industry out of continuing to misrepresent the now-discredited ACORN tapes and the independently verified and verifiable information that myself and others, like Media Matters' Eric Boehlert, emptywheel's Marcy Wheeler, Digby at Hullabaloo and Dave Johnson at Campaign for America's Future have been presenting over the last several weeks. His strategy, like O'Keefe's, seems simply to be to mislead his gullible wingnut readers with tons of smoke, mirrors, out-of-context quotes, and demonstrably inaccurate claims, on the fairly safe bet that they won't be bothered to look too closely at the actual facts.
You'd only know much of Patty's nonsense was demonstrably inaccurate if you had the time, inclination, or interest to lower yourself far enough down into the dirty weeds to notice.
This won't take long, and I don't plan on spending much time doing it, given the discredited nature of the entire affiar, as I've mentioned above, but allow me to give just one very quick example of just how deceptively and dishonestly the Breitbart/O'Keefe ACORN "pimp" hoax tapes have been presented to the public, and as they are still supported, incredibly enough, by wingnut bloggers like Patrick "Patterico" Frey, Deputy D.A..
'Bury the Money?' --- Bury the Truth...
Hannah Giles, who played the "prostitute" in the tapes to O'Keefe's law school student boyfriend trying to save her from an abusive pimp (as we now know, he never actually posed as his infamous 70's-era "pimp" character in those offices, though the NYTimes has yet to correct its repeated misreporting on that), had this to say on Sean Hannity's show on September 14th last year, the same day Breitbart and O'Keefe published their Brooklyn ACORN tape, deceptively titled as "ACORN NYC Child Prostitution Investigation":
The Brooklyn videos --- both parts 1 and 2 --- open with the seemingly startling, but out of context, comments , and a graphic suggesting the ACORN Housing workers (ACORN Housing is a separate organization from ACORN itself) were instructing Giles on ACORN's non-existent "Rule #8": bury the prostitution money in a tin in the backyard to "hide the money from government," as Giles lied on Fox "News".
That moment is often alluded to when the Rightwing propagandists and fellow defenders of the videos try to claim (inaccurately) that the workers advised them to evade taxes.
Here's the very damning, if entirely misleading (and misspelled) graphic O'Keefe uses at the beginning of Part II of the "ACORN NYC Child Prostitution Investigation" video:
Trouble is, the entire thing --- including Giles' comments to Hannity --- is a deceptive hoax.
A very quick review of just a few lines of O'Keefe/Breitbart's own unauthenticated text transcript [PDF] on that point, reveal immediately how the tapes "were edited to meet their agenda", as noted after the Brooklyn D.A. concluded his investigation on Monday.
As you'll see in the quick transcript snippet below --- the one from which, presumably, the "BURRY [sic] THE CASH-MONEY IN THE BACKYARD" comments were taken out of context for use in the doctored video --- the low-level ACORN Housing tax/mortgage adviser did not advise hiding money "from the federal government" as both Giles and O'Keefe claimed publicly, and as the gullible wingnuts and their enablers in the irresponsibly uncritical media have portrayed.
Instead, the worker was advising Giles on how she could keep the money from her fictional psychotic pimp --- who O'Keefe represented himself as trying to help rescue her from --- after that pimp had beaten her up, threated to kill her, stalked her, etc.
Here's the actual comments (at least as seen in O'Keefe and Breitbart's own unauthenticated transcripts):
Hannah (Eden): which I have been
Volda (loan counselor): you have to start thinking faster than even the person who put you over there. Quick, quick, quick, you know that
Hannah (Eden): I mean I do think fast but this whole thing
Volda (loan counselor): when you buy, let me tell you something when you buy the house with a back yard. You get a tin if Jo [* see ed note below -BF] is going to come beat you and want money you get a tin and bury it down in there and you put the money right in and you put grass over it and you don't tell a single soul but yourself where it is
Hannah (Eden): so a tin I put the money in a tin
Volda (loan counselor): in a tin and put it in there
Milagros (counselor) and put the grass
Volda (loan counselor): and put the grass over it
Hannah (Eden): I saw a movie one time where he put all the money underneath the dog house
Volda (loan counselor): you don't put it under no dog house
Hannah (Eden): but I don't have a dog
Volda (loan counselor): good so you put it where you can get it and he cant get it from you if he wants to come and rip up the place and all the like
Hannah (Eden): okay
* The reference to "Jo" in the transcript section above is actually heard as "Tom Jones" in the edited video. According to the Urban Dictionary, "Tom Jones" is defined as the "First man to bring prostitution to the US". Elsewhere in the transcripts, Hannah (Eden)'s abusive pimp is referred to as "Sonny". But it's clear that the ACORN worker was not referring to "the government" as Giles had asserted to Sean Hannity.
So after reading the above, read again how Giles lied about it on Fox "News" on the same day the tape was released, and on the same day O'Keefe also appeared on Fox in his "pimp" get up, representing that it was the same one he "wore in these ACORN offices up and down the Eastern Seaboard":
Other than that, O'Keefe, Giles and Breitbart --- who all knowingly lied about the ACORN videos --- are completely legitimate, the tapes and transcripts are to be trusted, but Dan Rather had to go.
'He who knowingly enables and facilitates the fraud is as guilty as he who originated it'
Remember when the modern day wingnut blogosphere scored their first great political take-down with Rather? Never mind that there is no evidence that he ever believed he was using fraudulent documents questioning George W. Bush's National Guard service, or that conclusive evidence exists to prove that the documents were actually fraudulent, or that, to this day, nobody from the Dubya White House ever directly challenged the substance of Rather's report itself. Because the wingnuts believed the documents were fraudulent, Rather's entire report was labeled as "a fraud" to be discredited, and Rather and everyone involved in the report needed to be fired immediately.
For example, Texas attorney and rightwing blogger William J. Dyer, who blogs as "Beldar" screamed (in all bold) about Rather and his CBS employers back in 2004: "He who knowingly enables and facilitates the fraud is as guilty as he who originated it."
That same blogger has yet to call for the firing of James O'Keefe by his employer Andrew Breitbart, despite Breitbart's own latest claims that even he was duped by O'Keefe's pimp hoax. In fact, none of the rightwing bloggers have called for O'Keefe to be fired by Breitbart as far as I know, even after all that we now know, and even as he's facing federal felony charges for his alleged scheme to tamper with the phone system of a Democratic U.S. Senator.
We'll have more on the deceptive nature of the entire ACORN "pimp" hoax in the coming days. But it's necessary to remind that the real point of all of this is not how the partisan liars and operatives lied --- we expect them to do that --- but, rather, how the non-wingnut, purportedly-legitimate mainstream media fell for the entire scam, hook, line and uncorrected sinker, and how they still refuse to cop to their serious and damaging failure, even now that the hoax has been demonstrated to them in no uncertain terms.
"He who knowingly enables and facilitates the fraud is as guilty as he who originated it."
If the mainstream corporate media won't acknowledge they were hoodwinked now --- and it wasn't just the NYTimes, it was also Baltimore Sun, CNN, New York Post, Washington City Paper, Philadelphia Daily News, NPR, Dallas Morning News and many more --- then they are enabling the fraud, and will fall for the same scams again in the future. In fact, they already have.
Despite the NYTimes' Public Editor Clark Hoyt telling me, via email just two weeks ago, that he was "recommending to Times editors that they avoid language that says or suggests that O'Keefe was dressed as a pimp when he captured the ACORN employees on camera," the paper has already done so again.
Reporting Monday night, on the wrap-up of the Brooklyn D.A.'s five-month probe finding "no criminality" in the O'Keefe/Giles/Breitbart Brooklyn ACORN tapes, the Times' Andy Newman wrote:
District Attorney Charles J. Hynes said in a statement on Monday that “no criminality has been found” in his investigation of the three employees, who had appeared to advise the woman, who was scantily dressed and identified herself as an “outcall” specialist, not to tell prospective lenders that she was a prostitute and to funnel her earnings to her “pimp” through a third party so that he would not be tied to her.
Newman also used the exact same misleading rhetoric earlier in the day, in a shorter article for the Times' "City Room Blog".
No context or clarity was given for accuracy to the reader, or to adhere to Hoyt's recommendation. Never mind that the only references to a "pimp" in O'Keefe's own Brooklyn transcript is to the one that O'Keefe represented to workers that he was trying to save Giles from:
The BRAD BLOG is doing its best to hold the media accountable for their seeming inability to report credibly and critically on the Rightwing propaganda that they so eagerly pass on to the public. Unless they can be held accountable, as the 2010 general election nears, you can look forward to more spoon-fed phony wingnut stories about non-existent "ACORN voter fraud", and much much more such horseshit, from all of these previously-legitimate media outlets.