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ACORN capitalizes on O’Keefe’s arrest
WORLD Washington Bureau reporter Emily Belz reports on the arrest of conservative activist James O’Keefe, who was known for his incriminating videos of ACORN employees:
The Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN), recently disgraced by O’Keefe, saw an opportunity to discredit his unflattering videos of the organization’s employees. ACORN President Bertha Lewis said in a statement that the arrest shows O’Keefe’s “total disregard for the law” in “pursuit of his extremist agenda.”
Lewis added, “From the day that O’Keefe’s undercover ‘sting’ videos came out, ACORN leadership pledged accountability for its own staff while pointing out that the videos had been shot illegally and edited deceptively in order to undermine the work of an organization that has empowered working families for four decades. Unfortunately, during the rush to judge ACORN, both the media and Congress failed to question the methods, intent and accuracy of Mr. O’Keefe’s videos.”
Read Emily’s report in its entirety here.
back to top33 Comments to “ACORN capitalizes on O’Keefe’s arrest”
One test of integrity is being able to “call out” people on your own side when they are not good examples of appropriate behavior.
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#1 Conservatives do that every day. Anyone who breaks the law should pay the price. It is as simple as that. I am sure everyone here would agree with that except for liberals. The left is above the law.
One thing this shows is that Louisiana state offices are more secure than the White House.
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If he broke the law he should be held accountable, but is a different case. It has nothing to do with ACORN.
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Good timing for ACORN to get ready for the next election.
Another arm for Democrats that “Middle-Class” taxpayers fund.
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You are correct RANDOM.
They did wrong and should be prosecuted.
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Hmm…I wonder…. O’Keefe otherwise seems to me an intelligent young guy. He has brains, and ambitions, as his college conservative career demonstrates. He wouldn’t have pulled off the Acorn videos if he was an idiot.
So what is really happening with this arrest? He doesn’t strike me as a fool who would just try to tap into somebody’s phones. Sen. Landrieu? Why is she so important, apart from $300 mil health care deals?
I would expect some intelligent journalist folks to ask deeper questions about this, more than just the usual “ooh, a conservative did something naughty!” angle. Why was he there? What was going on? Why be so stupid as to get caught doing something relatively idiotic?
Hopefully, we’ll get the stories fairly soon…
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Nothing messes with somebody’s future like multiple felony charges. Even if O’Keefe and each of his accomplices raises $1Million from their FOX NEWS legal defense funds, there are so many defendants that one of them is bound to rat. The US attorney only has to put them all in a box and record the resulting behavior.
There aren’t any felonies in the ACORN case, so far as I know of. Are there even any misdemeanors? In any event, ACORN’s attorneys should have no trouble obtaining continuances pending the disposition of the more serious offenses.
All this begs the question of what O’Keefe was trying to lure Landrieu’s office into. My guess is, something to demean victims of Katrina.
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If he broke the law he needs to go to jail.
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OK, two points:
1. Media Bias – I’m hearing about this story from all sides, whereas when the videos came out, the mainstream didn’t even report on them until Congress had cut ACORN’s funding because of them. This isn’t a story because of what happened, but because of who did it – and the only reason it is being trumpeted is because he is a conservative. It’s being billed “Lousiana Watergate” already. Seriously?
2. ACORN gave advice on how to run a brothel of underage girls trafficked from South America. It gave advice on how to break the law. Whatever O’Keefe’s later actions are, that stands on it’s own.
O’Keefe will be held responsible for his choices, but you can’t ignore what has already come to light.
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SeanMT – Obama and the party in power will find away to give ACORN the power to be involved in the election.
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ACORN’s position is that he mislead people by editing and dubbing over the video to make false accusations. Is there claim that he is a liar helped by him being arrested in a criminal conspiracy to commit what might end up being called espionage? It certainly will for a lot of people.
Now considering that independent review found ACORN broke no laws, and ACORN has been accused of no laws by DOJ, and congresses action terminating their contract has been ruled unconstitutional…it doesn’t really matter how much credibility the felon has!
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It’s also kind of “interesting” (read filthy and dishonest in accordance with Mickey’s traditional style of reporting) that World is reporting ACORN’s reaction to O’Keefe’s arrest, and not the actual crime.
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I just love the mealy-mouthed “If they broke the law…” line coming from the self-righteous preachers around here. No one dares to say that someone “on their side” might have done…what’s the word…oh yes…WRONG. No one seems to care about the moral quality of these advocates’ actions. No one wants to condemn entering someone’s office while pretending to be a work crew. No one cares about lying, deception or breach of trust. It’s only subject to condemnation if it broke the law.
What a joke and a betrayal of any religious vows whatsoever.
And then there are the blog writers who turn the arrest under highly suspect circumstances of an individual whom 31 Republican Congresspeople recently sought to honor with a Congressional resolution into some kind of debate on a DIFFERENT organization.
Hypocrisy and amorality run rampant…
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“All this begs the question of what O’Keefe was trying to lure Landrieu’s office into. My guess is, something to demean victims of Katrina.”
There plan was so naive (”Um hello we’re from the phone company! D’oh”) that it might be tempting to assume his motives were only to embarrass Landrieu. But try and remember that if they had succeeded, he would have tapped the phone of a member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee!
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Ok, I’ll be the odd guy. What the big deal here? I did this when I was in junior high. My friends did it back to me. Its trivially easy. If you are stupid enough to discuss sensitive information on a landline phone, you deserve to have it get out.
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If anyone was expecting a link to the rather detailed FBI affidavit, they won’t find it here. Why is that?
Honesty is not a conservative value for O’Keefe & friends. The ACORN videos were edited heavily and they are being sued for misrepresenting what happened.
Note – ACORN officials who wasted even one cent of taxpayer money, those responsible should be charged with felonies.
That said? These self-entitled little turds, funded by Breitbart, bailed out by their daddies, pandered to by people who represent every problem America has today – deserve to do time.
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DDL – you’re not just odd, you’re scary.
Senators deal with matters related to the security of their state, including funding for anti-terrorism, who gets state contracts, and pending legislation that might affect particular businesses.
It’s not discussion over whether Judy stuffs her bra or Sammy had a zit. Junior high is over for most of us.
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DDL: It sounds like you might still be in high school. Someone “deserves” to have their phones tapped? And someone who then does it is okay with you?
Thomas @ 16: Watch you language, please.
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#17: “Senators deal with matters related to the security of their state, including funding for anti-terrorism, who gets state contracts, and pending legislation that might affect particular businesses.”
If they are stupid enough to discuss this stuff over the phone then they shouldn’t be in there current position. I’d be fired if discussed various thing I deal with at work over the phone.
#18: I’m not saying it is okay, merely that this story is overblown. And yes there comes a point when people are so stupid that they deserve what comes to them (but no, that does not make it okay).
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Arcadia, if there was an edit function, I’d do a word replacement. This time.
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DDL – hilarious.
If they are stupid enough to discuss this stuff over the phone then they shouldn’t be in there current position.
How should they discuss it? Recorded email? Untraceable cellphones (which can also be tapped)? Meetings in a dusty abandoned grain silo?
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And if there was an edit function, I’d fix my grammar. Oh well, that what I get for being busy.
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DDL’s logic = If Mary Landrieu is stupid enough to discuss federal business over a federal phone, protected from wiretapping by federal law…than she deserves…to have sensitive security information compromised and the lives of Americans potentially endangered.
Grow up, DDL.
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Most of the news reports were that they were charged with wiretapping. In other words, their intent was a Watergate style break-in to wiretap phones.
However, they WEREN’T charged with wiretapping. This is probably because they had no wiretapping equipment with them. O’Keefe had a video phone. Two guys were dressed as phone repairmen and lied about it. Another guy was downstairs with listening equipment.
One theory (from FOX) about the motive is that they were going to video Sen. Mary Landrieu’s phone ringing and ringing unanswered, because she has refused to answer her phone since she got the corrupt backroom sleazy deal called the Louisiana Purchase.
Their tactics are illegal, for which they should pay. A crime is a crime is a crime. But here are three interesting observations about the left’s response:
1. The left wants terrorists to be treated like royalty, but they scream uncontrollable if a conservative isn’t pronounced guilty before any facts of the case are known.
2. Acorn now thinks that all of their sins are forgiven and wants all charges to be dropped and funding restored. Here is the liberal moral equivalence disease at work again.
3. The motive of the crime, that the Washington sleaze machine greased the palms of Sen. Mary Landrieu to buy her vote, won’t get a single spec of ink by the left-wing media.
This is merely a sociological observation about the pathology of the left. No one is exonerating the crime.
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An observation and prediction about the media and legal double standard.
Tareq and Michaele Salahi crash the party at the White House and for the media it is all a big laugh. Comedians had fun with it. No one was fired for security breach. It was all just a big “Oopsy Daisy!” But a conservative who made Acorn look bad will be excoriated and sent away for a while.
Prediction: The Salahi’s will be let go with a slap on the wrist. Terrorists will continue to be given full rights as American citizens, tropical vacations and sent back to try to kill Americans again. O’Keefe will be going away for a while.
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Here is another link about the motive.
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#25 Xion,
I think your prediction will come true.
Everyone should recall how Scooter Libby was treated compared to the way Sandy Berger was treated
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XION:
Only someone as fond of mortification and suffering as you proclaim yourself to be could possibly conceive of indefinite incarceration without trial and “enhanced interrogation” in a military prison as a “tropical vacation”.
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#28 Arcadia Overlooking that false ad hominem rhetoric, let me try to clarify:
I wasn’t calling incarceration or “enhanced interrogation” a tropical vacation. A number of Guantanamo detainees were sent to tropical islands, such as Palau and Bermuda. They were given housing and jobs, funded by the American taxpayer.
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I have seen most conservatives almost universally preface such comments with “if he/she did the crime.” Especially Christians, since we are commanded not to judge people or assume guilt before it is proven.
As others have mentioned, numerous examples could be listed of liberals’ jumping from the accusation to the condemnation. Look how quickly Trent Lott was out of the Senate, just for saying something nice about Strom Thurmond. Look at how Bill Clinton was presumed innocent, but Clarence Thomas was considered incontrovertibly guilty. (The truth APPEARS to be the other way around!)
There’s hypocirsy all right, but not from most conservatives.
I join those who say that if O’Keefe broke the law, then I hope he is punished to the full extent of the law. That’s not usually the tack taken by liberals. They usually get upset if convicts don’t get enough channels on their cable TVs or enough filet mignon on their dinner trays.
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A few notes;
It seems some here are speaking for the other team, in a distorted manner, and then criticizing the other team on their basis of their generalization. Setting up strawmen and then beating them may give someone pseudo intellectual feelings of superiority but it really isn’t healthy or effective. Similarly this applies to predictions based on strawmen.
The compensation given to several people for their unjustified stay at Gitmo does include new identities, jobs and homes on tropical islands. People who are unjustly imprisoned usually get compensation and in the case of the Uighurs they can hardly be sent back to China.
Finally, O’keefe has gone to the well once too often. As political stunts go you should quit while you are ahead.
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They usually get upset if convicts don’t get enough channels on their cable TVs . .
You jest. Rep. William Jefferson and Gov. Blago cannot be sent to Gitmo soon enough for us. We want Jefferson waterboarded until he suffers brain damage. We want Blago’s “aggressive discomfort” to result in major organ failure.
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#31 HRW “The compensation given to several people for their unjustified stay at Gitmo does include new identities, jobs and homes on tropical islands. People who are unjustly imprisoned usually get compensation and in the case of the Uighurs they can hardly be sent back to China.”
How do you know it was unjust? Nearly a quarter of those released return to terror. So were they terrorists or not? Two of these poor “innocent” people who had an “unjustified” stay at Gitmo were involved in trying to take down an aircraft over Detroit a few weeks ago.
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