LA Times report further undermines ACORN videographers' credibility
On September 23, Los Angeles Times media critic James Rainey reported that ACORN official Lavelle Stewart "told me this week" that when conservative videographers James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles came to Stewart's ACORN office in Los Angeles disguised as a pimp and prostitute, Stewart "tried to get the 'prostitute,' who claimed she had been beaten by her pimp, to go to a women's center." Stewart's reported statement and a police report filed by officials at ACORN's Philadelphia office undermine O'Keefe's and Giles' claims that they were never rebuffed at any of the ACORN offices they visited, and the videographers have yet to release the Los Angeles and Philadelphia videos.
ACORN's Stewart reportedly said: "The fact she was not taking the help I offered ... raised a red flag"
From Rainey's September 23 Los Angeles Times column:
And visits to other ACORN offices have gone almost entirely unmentioned. Lavelle Stewart, a fair-housing coordinator in the group's Los Angeles office, told me this week that she tried to get the "prostitute," who claimed she had been beaten by her pimp, to go to a women's center.
"The fact she was not taking the help I offered her made me think something was not right," Stewart said. "It raised a red flag."
Evidence undermines videographers' claims that they were not rebuffed at any ACORN office
LA, Philadelphia accounts rebut videographers' claims that they were not rebuffed at any ACORN office. O'Keefe, Giles, and Andrew Breitbart, who publicized the videos, appeared on Fox News programs to claim that the videographers were never turned away at any ACORN office. But those claims are undermined by Rainey's report of what happened at the Los Angeles office and the fact that officials at ACORN's Philadelphia office contacted the police in response to O'Keefe's appearance there.
Philadelphia ACORN Housing official: "[W]e called the police and filed this report." In a YouTube video, Katherine Conway Russell, ACORN Housing Corp.'s Philadelphia office director, stated that O'Keefe visited the office "[l]ast July" with "another woman." Russell stated that "[a]fter asking several general questions, [O'Keefe] began to veer off into suspicious territory." Russell said that O'Keefe eventually "asked about bringing girls from El Salvador and getting them papers, et cetera," but that "I told them that there was nothing we could do to help them, that I didn't know anything about what they were asking about. ... I then told them that they had to leave." Russell also said that after she contacted another ACORN official and it became clear that O'Keefe "lied to get his appointment," they contacted the police. ACORN also released a copy of the police report, which claimed that "James O'Keefe" created a "verbal disturbance" at the ACORN office.
San Diego ACORN official also reported duo to police following encounter. In a September 22 article, the Associated Press reported that California police said an ACORN worker contacted them about "possible human smuggling":
Police say a worker with the activist group ACORN who was caught on video giving advice about human smuggling to a couple posing as a pimp and a prostitute had reported the incident to authorities.
National City police said Monday that Juan Carlos Vera contacted his cousin, a police detective, to get advice on what to with information on possible human smuggling.
Vera was secretly filmed on Aug. 18 as part of a young couple's high-profile expose.
Police say he contacted law enforcement two days later. The detective consulted another police official who served on a federal human smuggling task force, who said he needed more details.
The ACORN employee responded several days later and explained that the information he received was not true and he had been duped.
Videographers reportedly engaged in selective editing, and O'Keefe has reportedly done so before
O'Keefe's dismissal of ACORN's claim that "the videos were doctored" undermined by report that they were. O'Keefe reportedly dismissed ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis' claim that the secretly filmed videos were doctored, stating, "They've lied every step of the way." But one video that reportedly "left out" an ACORN employee's statement that it would have nothing to do with a prostitution business undermines O'Keefe's claim. According to a report by CNN's Casey Wian that aired on the September 17 edition of Lou Dobbs Tonight, the videographers edited San Bernardino ACORN organizer Tresa Kaelke's statement that ACORN would not associate itself with prostitution. Wian said: "Left out of the originally released tape but included in a transcript the filmmakers later released is Kaelke's statement that ACORN would have nothing to do with their prostitution business."
Report: O'Keefe friend said she "grew disillusioned" with his tactics after being asked to doctor transcript of a past film. In a September 18 article, The New York Times reported that Liz Farkas, a college friend of O'Keefe's while at Rutgers University, "said she grew disillusioned" after O'Keefe "asked her to help edit the script" of a video involving a nurse at UCLA. The Times reported: " 'It was snippets to make the ... nurse look bad,' Ms. Farkas said. 'I said: "It has no context. You're just cherry-picking the nurse's answers." He said, "Okay" -- and then he just ran it.' "
Republican hypocrites are best at wide stances, teabagging, extra-marital affairs and making fools of themselves at dance shows on TV.
EVER.
THANK YOU.
njguy93@yahoo.com
THANK YOU.
njguy93@yahoo.com
The point is, this couple had the kind of ideas about Acorn that you might get if you watch the Black Conspiracy channel all the time. For you, Acorn is kind of like the Black Ku Klux, or the Illuminati or something. Actually, they are an organization that has been around for years to help poor people. By finding, after some effort, a few bad apples, you've in no way invalidated the organization. What the Dems did in Congress was cowardly but inevitable in politics. You scored your demagogic point, but let's not make any real mistake of accepting your weird worldview.
Of the five, one, Baltimore, did try to help him with his claimed plot. That was inexcusable and they were fired.
San Bernadino one woman was friendly and helpful, but she said Acorn would have nothing to do with it and her supervisor would shoot it down.
San Diego the man they spoke with told them outright he worked with the district attorney's office. When O'Keefe said that was not good, he backed off, got contact information, and got rid of them. He called a relative who is a police detective who referred him to the officers involved in human trafficing. They asked for more information, and when he tried to get it he discovered O'Keefe was a fake.
The NYC and DC offices O'Keefe did not bring up the child prostitutes.
In Philadelphia Acorn reported them to the police.
In LA the acorn rep tried to get the woman to go to a woman's shelter, which apparently torpedoed O'Keefe's attempt.
Philadelphia and LA are the two O'Keefe did not release the videos for.
IOW, Acorn had one office went bad, and were fired. All the others did *NOT* try to help O'Keefe in his child prostitution business. Two called the police on him, two he did not mention child prostitution, and one tried to help his girlfriend escape prostitution.
And although ACORN does apparently have some housekeeping, reorganization, etc. to do, this all seems like "much ado about nothing", vis a vis some of the real and breathtaking scandals that could and should be focused on.
But alas, helping working families, the poor and disenfranchised is seen as anathema to the current crop of conservatives who see poor people as the enemy.
Call me quirky, but it just seems like some people's priority towards their fellow humans and countrymen/women is a tad skewed, cynical and downright mean spirited. Not to mention a smidge atnithetical to their own supposed religious values.
s/b antithetical
I'm so very contrite ;-)
The problem with ACORN may be in their inability to self-govern and promote the philosophy of doing the right thing even when no one's looking...because someone may be.
Currently, ACORN's leadership is unworthy to recieve our support. Discrediting the messengers will not change the facts.
The organization has had some obvious growing pains and has some housekeeping to do. But this so called huge scandal is actually pretty dinky.
So maybe you should quit drinking the kool aid, think for yourself, and try to grasp the bigger picture of exactly why ACORN is being targeted.
And repeating it ad infinitum won't make it true.
I guess that fraud is upsetting to him/her? Well, perhaps it's time we looked into the fraud of our military contractors as well? Halliburton received in ONE DAY what ACORN earned in 20 years in govt funds!! What's good for the goose is good for the gander? Maybe we should cut them loose as we do with ACORN? If not, why the double standard?
Fraud is fraud, right? We abhor it all? Right?
Maybe we should demand a congressional investigation or independant prosecutor?
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Conservative over-reach once again
I think, if these 2 "journalists" had taken these videos, then showed them to ACORN leadership, asked for comment, wrote and showed the story, and included ALL of the pertinent facts (as in, they went to "X" number of offices, and got these results), it would be a lot more viable as a story. As such, they did it the wrong way, good thing Giles went to conservative journalism school to learn how to manipulate, and not tell the entire story, which of course would have ruined their entire argument.
I'm still awaiting the proof that ACORN itself went out of its way to make prostitution its new mission statement!
Until then, this is a clear case of the lunatic right-wing using their favorite tactic... Guilt by association!
And I'm pretty damn sure that at some point, it will become apparent that James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles will have been found to have done something illegal (or is that the case already and I've simply missed this part?) and may find themselves in huge legal??
The best way to shut right wing lunatics from this tactic is by turning it on them.
Obviously you don't believe your own eyes and ears. Unless of course it is evidence against someone on the right. Luckily even the dems who control Congress are not as naive as you.
What flavor kool aid would you like next?
Hey Faux Liberal......look over there! Ha!
Oh yeah...well at least the carefully weighed the measures in the bill to be sure nothing unintended was done.
Oops again.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/24/the-unintended-consequenc_n_298540.html
Politicians are such jackasses.
On another note - I find it hilarious that this website is dedicated to what FOX NEWS is doing. C'mon! Can you do your own research or scoop your own stories? Geeze -- on the front page of this website alone, Fox News, Beck or Hannity are mentioned an astounding 40 TIMES!!!!
9/18/2009
In Brief: If You're Gonna Ban ACORN Funding, You Oughta Ban Catholic Charities Funding:
Some things are easy to put in perspective: We have a case in Albany, NY, where Catholic Charities funds were used as part of a settlement on a case of molestation by clergy. In Cleveland in 2002, at a Catholic Charities-supported child care center, five workers were arrested on charges of sexual abuse of children. The number of cases of molestation by workers, of the cloth or not, at Catholic Charities-run or -owned facilities could go on and on and on, as the abuse did for years.
In August of this year, Catholic Charities received a federal government contract for $100 million over five years to work with victims of natural disasters.
And the outrage is...where exactly?
// posted by Rude One @ 12:17 PM| DiggIt!| Del.icio.us|
Does it bother us to privatize jobs in the military and farm them out to companies that charge us huge fees AND commit fraud?
As Rachel Maddow pointed out Friday night, the Constitution prohibits laws that target specific individuals (and corporations, even non-profit ones, are considered "individuals" under the law). Since the law as passed bans funding any organization that's involved in fraud and illegal activities, this means that federal contracts to KBR, Halliburton, Blackwater, and a long list of others who've been convicted or plead guilty to such crimes.
Finally, we may have a way to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In any event, as the Los Angeles Times has been documenting over the past few days - but, for some reason, other MSM have avoided covering as an Occidental College study reveals - the putative scandal regarding ACORN has been little more than a right-wing attempt to smear and slander a community group that does nefarious things like provide legal aid to the poor, file lawsuits against usurious lenders who prey on the poor through things such as payday loans, fight slum landlords and engage in voter registration.
Remember, it was the Bush White House that fired US Attorneys who refused to launch frivilous investigations of voter registration fraud by organizations such as ACORN. This latest smear job by two con artists is just the latest attempt of the right wingnuts to deal with political opponents.