Frauds!

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Thursday, April 8. 2010

This is interesting. Saw it on the The Rachel Maddow Show Tuesday. It has to do with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now — A.C.OR.N. They are the association that was used to try and derail Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, was pilloried for the way it registered voters — they used the same resources as the Republican Party, they hired people to collect signatures—and then last year, lost their government funding and finally out of business due to an under cover, “investigative” series of videos showing A.C.O.R.N. workers trying to help a couple set up prostitution businesses. With underage girls.

Anyone who watched the videos would know they were heavily edited, but the footage — DANG! — it was so damaging! Those A.C.O.R.N. people were really going to help a pimp and prostitute start a prostitution ring. Or were they?

First of all, as it turns out, the pimp and prostitute, James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles, didn’t wear the 70’s style pimp and prostitute outfits into the offices of A.C.O.R.N. around the country. No, they dressed pretty conservatively when talking to the community organizers. In some of the videos you can see the A.C.O.R.N. workers laughing, knowing what’s going on is a joke. Maybe they thought they were being punked. Some guy comes in with an attractive woman asking about how to set up an illegal business, yeah, I’d think someone was playing a practical joke. I would have demanded a blowjob from Ms. Giles, just to press them on the joke. And possibly get a blowjob.

Turns out though, at least a couple of those A.C.O.R.N. workers, after doing the interviews with O’Keefe and Giles, alerted the police. In one that took place here in San Diego, the community activist called his brother, a police officer with the National City Police Department, to report O’Keefe and Giles after listening to the two phonies talk about smuggling underage girls across the Mexican border to start a prostitution ring. Gee, that part of the story didn’t make it into the reports on FoxNews. Or any other network that was creating sensational segments on it.

So far, Maddow’s program on MSNBC is the only TV program reporting on the fraud. California Attorney General Jerry Brown investigated the claims made by O’Keefe and Giles and found the videos to be heavily edited, making them appear to be something they are not. And in his investigation Brown found that the A.C.O.R.N. workers in those videos weren’t trying to help two people commit crimes and defraud the government, they were actually gathering evidence that was then passed on to the police.
 Although Maddow is the only TV program to report on the fraudulent video sting, it has been reported on the Huffington Post and Media Matters.

So far, FoxNews isn’t reporting that part of the story.

A few months ago it was reported that A.C.O.R.N. was going out of business. The truth is, the organization closed its local chapters but has maintained its national office and will continue operating, using all the media at its disposal, including the Internet, to further the organization’s community activism. And eventually they will open local chapters again. The kafuffle over the phony pimp and prostitute and their fraudulent investigation didn’t bring down A.C.O.R.N.

On the other hand, James O’Keefe and several of his friends are facing felony charges for entering the Louisiana office of Senator Mary Landrieu disguised as telephone repairmen to plant listening (and other surveillance) devices. Shades of the Plumbers of Watergate.

One of O’Keefe’s co-conspirators in that case, Robert Flanagan, is the son of the U.S. Attorney general in Shreveport, Bill Flanagan. Be interesting to see how that plays out. Does the son of an important figure in government get a pass? And if he gets a pass, do his co-conspirators get the same treatment?

There’s a rarely mentioned patron in all of this, one who claims to have no knowledge or complicity in either the A.C.O.R.N. adventures or the Senator Landrieu misadventure: Andrew Breitbart. He has a website with little sub-sites. Breitbart claims he has nothing to do with O’Keefe, Giles and the others, but you know he’s lying; James O’Keefe is a paid contributor to Breitbart’s Internet fiefdom.

Let’s see if this part of the story has legs, but it’s doubtful. There’s a mine disaster in West Virginia, due to a mining company’s arrogant disregard for safety. That story will have legs for a while — 25 people died in the tragedy.
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Today would have been our Mother’s 89th Birthday! Thanks Mom!

Posted by Tim Forkes in NEWS and POLITICS at 00:01 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

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