On Why I Don’t Return Phone Calls from an Intrepid CNN Producer
by James O'KeefeAs read on “The Rush Limbaugh Show”:
So far CNN has only reported on the breaking story on blatant ACORN CORRUPTION from angles that attempt to extricate the government funded “community organizing” enterprise from the extreme crime we caught on videotape.
First CNN pushed the false ACORN line that “[t]his film crew tried to pull this sham at other offices and failed.”
To set that record straight please check the Washington D.C. tape we dropped today at BigGovernment.com, which is also being aired on your cable news competitor with curiously higher ratings.
Now that ACORN lied to you, Jonathan Klein, what are you going to do?
Here’s what I have noticed from your coverage: You brought in the damage control crowd to FRAME the story. Before even airing our damning Baltimore video. You know your audience would turn on ACORN if you showed them the evidence. So instead you put your competitors in journalism in the crosshairs instead of airing a blockbuster report making massive waves elsewhere.
You even trotted out shameless Clinton era apologist Joe Conason to challenge the ETHICS of our expose. Unreal.
What about the ethics of those at ACORN caught on tape trying to help create a brothel featuring illegal immigrant age range 13-15 from El Salvador?
What about the countless laws broken on tape from a group that stands to get billions from President Obama’s “stimulus” package?
Why don’t we wait to have the Columbia Journalism School debate on “journalistic ethics” after you do actual journalism.
When you air the raw ACORN footage that is now viral on the Internet, and being played on FOX NEWS and countless talk radio shows, then and only then — when America can see, hear and smell the stench we have exposed — will I subject myself to a CNN hit job.
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611 Comments
Amen.
Well Said! God Bless You!!!
Good work. Is there enough footage to make reality show?j
You sir, are a badass. More of you and less of the wastes of skin we call "journalists" and this country stands a good chance to retain it's exceptional character.
Just heard this read on Rush–AWESOME job!! Thank you for posting this!
Well said!!
I see that CNN has removed their ACORN story from their news home page. They are outdated. Get ready to start your own show/station.
nice
Wow! Well done!
Just heard El Rushbo read this on the air. Give 'em HELL, Mr. O'Keefe! It's refreshing to see REAL journalism outside the confines of Fox News, and you're doing yourself proud (and you're shaming the hell out of the MSM).
Just remember this motto: Veni, Vidi, Spurius Brutus Deitrum Cowi.
I Came, I Saw, I Tore The Thick Bastards Limb From Limb.
Tear CNN, and the rest of the MSM, a new one for all of us!
[...] cut off funding now and call for hearings. Beck scores again. And it’s going viral. The stenographers aren’t happy. Is O’Keefe the new Drudge of Youtube? PermaLink | Rebel Yells (0) | [...]
Keep up the great work!
James: Who is the famous community organizer you quote in your first article yesterday?
I think we are finally getting it. I commend you at playing them at it's own game. It took long enough for us to finally figure this out. You are truly a modern day American hero in my opinion. Keep up the great work, I hope more is to come!!
Spot on Patriot….would you be interested in politics…this country needs truth talkers and oath keepers. God Bless You
It's time to boycott the MSM until they start doing their jobs properly
great job okeefe keep it up
Thank you for exposing these crooks for what they are. Can only wait and see when the rest of Obama's media finally follows.
Oh, do I wish you have even more of these incriminating videos! I bet ACORN is doing some serious hand wringing now, in anticipation of another shoe dropping!
Kudos to you! I love to see corruption exposed!
Thanks for having the intestinal fortitude (guts) to stand up to these enemy forces.
Thanks for exposing ACORN for what they truly are.
GOOD JOB JAMES!! CNN is a lousy company. I'd call them a news company, but the last thing they do is report real news.
Rough day at CNN today!
This is amazing that these people did not think twice in advising in criminal activity. Acorn is misguided and needs full investigation. What agency can take action on them at this point?
Just heard this on Rush…thank you for exposing this garbage!
God love ya! This is sooo sweet! Thank you & thank Hannah!
Score another one for David, so far Goliath's score: a big zero!
You name it, you got it. You have no idea how large of an audience you have. Let us know what we can do to help, I just bought Saul Alinsky's book (buy USED, don't put a penny in his pocket…better yet, rip it from online).
Good for you! So nice to see the Forces of Truth , (Justice) Justice, and the American Way… grow and develop a real set of cajones.
Continued success to you, Mr. Flynn, Mr. Breitbart and all of the people affilliated with the construction of , and content, on this site. It is right at the top of my must see list.
I've passed this link along to a ton of people, because you guys are inspirational.
Wow, talk about hope and change….
Well done folks. You've moved up to become my browser home page. After two days no less.
I am calling my senators and congressman immediately. I urge all to do likewise.
Obama is going down and his minions who support him are getting ready to take a bite from a shit sandwich and it will be great to watch them chew.
CNN,ABC,NBC,CBS is it no suprise that no one watches your propoganda from the Obama adminstration. Joe Wilson and you have the balls to say what needs to be said.
Potential captivity and sexual expolitation of children…there is no gray area here…either mainstream media supports it or they are against it. If the mainstream media chooses not to show the footage and report on this organization's depravity, we can only assume they support and condone the actions of ACORN!
Please tell me you have more of these. They fired the two Baltimore, "workers," in an effort to minimize the perception as being a local problem with those two individual people. The D.C. tape released the next day was brilliant. I noticed that the D.C. was from July. Is there more? I hope so.
Going on a channel other than Fox is a waste of time. We have all seen the hit pieces they have made famous. Until they actually do real journalism I do not need their opinion.
CNN can choose to investigate and report. Till they decide to do that goodbye. We have no use for them.
Great power in truth! Great work exposing corruption!
Great job … You define what journalists should strive for.
It surly shows this nest has the same trainers.
I am so glad Mr. O'Keefe is not giving CNN any leverage on this. If we don't attribute to them any significance, then their significance will fade. And indeed this is happening. People are seeing on the alternative media things that they don't from the Propaganda Ministry, and they are telling their friends, who are also tuning in.
For years, the dominant media have solidified there control of the news for decades, until they became overconfident and even arrogant. Instead of conveying the news, they have colluded to promote an agenda until they forgot their original trade. Instead of discovering news items and reporting them, now they resort to manipulating news items according to their collective agenda, and now that arrogance is evident.
All it took is a few men and women and their microphones, dedicated to reporting the news, not manipulating it. Thank you Mr. Okeefe, for teaching us how to play hardball with these guys. Keep it up!
Robert J Roushar Jr.
Obama??
GO JAMES GO! Never give up, never give in, and always have faith!
Bravo, great work and long overdue. Finally someone along with talk radio and Fox shining a light on these people and their association with the ONE
That would be Saul Alinsky
BTW, I heard about this on Rush too!
Col. I was hoping the same thing…where is next Acorn office that has fallen into this, I hope Okeefe has another 5-10 offices already on tape…
Great Job! thank you.
The American people deserve the truth from journalists. The msm has proven once again that journalism in the true sense of the word is dead. You deserve a Peabody and Pulitzer for upholding true journalism. CNN, WAPO, NYT etal deserve chapter 7 bankruptcy as they are professionally and morally bankrupt. ACORN should NEVER receive another dollar of taxpayer money. They should be prosecuted under RICO as a truly criminal enterprise.
Great job for you and your partner, first in exposing the garbage of Acorn and second in exposing the garbage of MSM and CNN, if possible their ratings will go even lower as the public looks to you and others like you for the real news.
Congratulations on the courage to film this and the brains to do several centers to expose and show this is not isolated. Will they just keep firing the few you have exposed ignoring the bigger issue?
Mr. O'Keefe,
If you should need us anytime, anywhere, call us. I'll be there. This is far grander than Watergate. Your investigation exposes the fraud that government can regulate anything it starts. Keep going, give them more of the Saul Alinski they put off on the average person.
Awesome! Not sure what I love more the fact you finally busted ACORN with concrete evidence we need to shut them down OR the fact that CNN has been finally caught for what they are…..in the tank for Obama.
Keep the facts coming….the truth will save us all.
Outstanding response. The MSM needs to be responded to like this more often.
I heard that your personal savings accounts were drained for the making of this EXPOSE.
Where do I senf my check to help you guys out ???
A job well done !!!!!!
I am thinking MSNBC will go on the attack tonight with Olbermann or whoever it is that they have on the air now. I might actually watch to see the nuts on that station make an arse of themselves….
TA-DOW!
Okeefe, do you have more???? Go get em…
You have a very bright future ahead of you, James. Don't give up the fight.
James: I love it, I love it, I love it. Sock it to them. Continuously. Relentlessly. Convincingly. America Needs You! I pray for your continued success.
Beautifully expressed!
Thank you for your excellent work! I know that this site has been a real blessing to many and I have seen some of the impact of your effort through the post "Advance the Cause of Child Prostitution? YES! WE! CAN!" at http://firebreathingchristian.wordpress.com/2009/...
Thank you again and keep fighting the good fight!
CNN does not have time to investigate ACORN. They are busy monitoring the U.S. Coast Guard… but again.. they rushed to judgement! They called it a"teaching moment"! !?!
Finally!
One of the most dispiriting things we’ve seen over the last few years has been truth-tellers trying, futilely, to get outfits like MsNBC an CNN to cover their activities accurately, appearing on these networks and their ‘news’ programs only to be ambushed by what amount to propagandists for the Democratic Party and their ilk.
In a weird way it’a almost like high school, when the ‘in-crowd’ clique, no matter how arrogant, cruel, or shallow they are determines who is ‘in’, and people desperately try to win their approval (usually without success).
It’s time to quit treating these ‘news’ outfits as if they were the arbiters of public respectability. CNN is bad, MsNBC is worse (when your public face is Keith the Snarl, you don’t deserve to be taken seriously), FOX is better but far from perfect, but compared to the first two they’re the epitome of good journalism.
Very nice work! This is really the way we should battle these guys. I am currently fighting a local beach community with a vacation rental. The local government has taken control of the council and the mayor's position and have implemented VERY complicated Vacation Rental Codes now standing at 60+ Pages. We in the vacation rental owners have now realized that they are working to eliminate all vacation rentals from the community. Since the vacation rentals cause unnecessary noise and smell and traffic.
We are mostly confused since in this small beach front community, there is no industry! With their new rules one of the local rental owners has lost all 7 of their vacation rentals through these new codes at a cost of over $7 million dollars. It would be great to talk to you all about this to see if we can set something up to trick them into issuing their citations (At $1000 per day) against something that for the most part is really depressing the local community even more. (Most people don't realize that any beach community lives and dies by their vacation rentals since these are the base people that bring in other friends and family that stay at hotels in the area.)
At the end of the day, they will create a ghost town in 2-3 years with the highest unemployment in the state. The crime rates will sky rocket and since no money is coming into the city to support the police, the crime will go on without anyone stopping it. So the local retires who have been pitted against the vacation renters will find themselves living in crime ridden neighborhoods. A nice change indeed from the smell and the noise they suffered with people whom brought money and a life to the otherwise sleepy coast.
I would love to see if this might be something that we could uncover or if I could work with someone to uncover this issue… I suspect that many cities around the country are under this kind of illusion of allowing local government communities to destroy segments of the marketplace in the name of some cause…
Publius
Good thing you didn't go on CNN. Nobody's watching them.
It seems there's debate as to whether the ACORN employees can be charged, since some say it was only theoretical, that a completed crime wasn't committed. That may be true or not true.
In any event, I feel the case files of said ACORN employees should be investigated to ascertain if possibly the ACORN employees gave illegal advice to previous clients, so as to determine if said clients are currently in violation of the law(s) and/or might be able to serve as prosecution witnesses.
Further, I think the ACORN employees performance evalutions should also be investigated/reviewed so as to determine the basis for their ratings and if in fact supervisors were possibly complicit or cognizant of the illegal advice these employees were dispensing.
Whoa, man. Nice to see someone refuse to give them face time when you don't need it anyway. Nice.
I am so proud to see all this come about. God Bless you and everyone who has the guts to do the right thing by exposing all this disgusting rot that is going on in this administration.
I put the Left Wing Media in the same category as these derelicts caught on tape for keeping it off their front pages.
KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK FOR ALL OF US.
ACORN FRAUD = President OBAMA FRAUD. KICK HIM OUT OF OFFICE.
Fantastic! Keep up the great work!
This story is great. I wish all journalists were like you and Hannah. You are a fabulous reporter and writer. When I heard Rush say your were invited on CNN, I thought to myself, ‘He better not go'. To my surprise, you didn't. Finally, someone not willing to be part of our dysfunctional media. Even if CNN does show the footage, I don't think you should go. They are not worthy of the high ratings they will get from you making an appearance.
Yes, O'Keefe. Please set up a donation website so we can fund your independent filmmaking!!
Acorn needs de-funding. Mr. Eric Holder, our Attorney General, needs to lead the charge to bring this down or he needs to step down. It may be time to put the screws to Congress to do their job and hold the administration accountable for their Art. II, sect.3 duties that state that " he ( POTUS ) shall take care to faithfully execate the law".
Thank you doing the work the MSM will not do. Keep it up. I can only hope you have more footage to release.
The only time I tune in to CNN and the like is when I want to hear Stepford Reporters tell fairy tales about how Democrats are the champions of women, children and minorities.
Great job Mr. O'Keefe! Well done.
CNN? What is CNN? Never heard of them…
Well done!
Stay the course and watch your backs. Obama and his ilk will not let this stand so please be cautious BUT continue to reveal the truth about these kind of organizations and people. None of us is perfect but this kind of illegal, blatant "in your face" dealing makes me furious. I'm praying for you!
My new hero! Awesome!
Two thumbs WAY UP Sir! Keep up the brilliant work — let this expose crescendo until NO ONE can ignore it anymore!!
The WhiteHouse scolded CNN this morning for its jumping to the gun regarding the Coast Guard incident.
My gut feeling is this is a diversion for not reporting on this acorn scandal. Make it seem like Obama and crew are not in bed with CNN and all the other MSM. You Lie!!!
Young Man, you are providing a great service. This country needs more Journalist and fewer hacks that just copy things from the bloggers. I could not agree with you more on standing on your principals.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.
You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatreds.
You cannot establish security on borrowed money.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man's initiative and independence.
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.
William J. H. Boetcker, 1916 (often attributed to Lincoln)
BRAVO! You and your partner are outstanding! Keep up the good work.
Please, please, please tell me that you did this in other ACORN offices and that those videos will be made public over the next few weeks! Let that organization continue to be exposed for what it is….
Journalism rose to prominence by exposing frauds, cheats and wrong doing – from horrible practices in the slaughter houses of yesteryear to child labor or Watergate. Indeed, one of the jobs of the media in this country is to EXPOSE corruption. Unfortunately it's been too long since we've seen that from the vast majority of media.
I hope you continue to expose any of these crooked organizations. Get yourself a show and do a weekly expose. Don't let the word out who will be "outed" before the show starts and you'd have HUGE ratings as all of us tune in to see what fraud has been exposed. (whether its one supported by Dems, Republicans or Independents)
Corruption is rampant in big government, you should have plenty of potential organizations to explore, and expose, if they're found to be corrupt. Think of it a more interesting political or business version of the primetime show that catches pedophiles coming to the house of what they think is a young victim, only to be caught and confronted on camera…….
Well done and applause for your fine effort of putting CNN front and center as they attempted to attack you. Let them stew in it now. Don't give them anything. Make them air BOTH tapes and then you'll agree to do only a live interview.
They are clearly upset and trying to find a way to discredit you as good liberals must do. This strikes at the heart of Obama and they are trotting out the old propaganda machine to do so. Instead of airing the tape, they go and trot out the old angry smear merchant Joe Conason.
You don't need to give them anything actually. The word is out, it's spreading and the truth is now exploding.
Congrats to you and Hannah.
Be very careful – the people doing this probably aren't interested in whether or not they're bankrupting the community – in fact, that's probably why the regs are in place – they then through a shell company buy the distressed properties and before you know it, you have another Telluride or Lake Tahoe situation where all the old owners are gone and the billionaires have moved in.
I'd get a very good conservative law firm to represent your interests.
God bless you sir! Keep up the fight!
Just wish you had done this at a dozen different locations… or maybe you did! Just two should at least
get the ball rolling on these crooks. Is abetting international sex slave trafficking a crime…I think so?
You two are true patriots!
Quoting Alinsky was TOO brilliant for words. Dropping the second tape on them today was off the charts. The fake fur was a stroke of genius. And all this leading up to the 9/12 gathering of activists who would LOVE to get fired up with something this hot. I am in AWE of this whole effort!
Thank you, James. I hope you and Hannah go to work full time for Glenn. You guys are the best. Keep those dominoes falling!
This is why I will NEVER watch any of the main stream media outlets. They are so in bed with the left. Keep up the good work!
Amen! Bring on the BigGovernment Network!
That's right. Why is CNN attacking the messenger? A couple of college age youngsters with a microphone, a hidden camera, what's the budget here?, a few hundred bucks?, and a whole lotta balls and creativity and they show up the juggernaut CNN. The "professionals" that no longer hold the government and the government's handmaidens accountable, just got bested by the "ametuers" Now who's the professional?
Great job to you both!! It is amazing that it only takes 2 people with courage, integrity and common sense to show to the rest of America the scum that ACORN is!! Where is the main stream media? If this organization was connected to the Republican Party like they are to the Democratic Party, the Main Stream Media would be ALL over this story, everyday 24/7-365 days……………………………..shame on them!!
Keep up the good work and be careful out there!
Where have you been!!! Thank god you are here to expose this stuff. Keep up the good work!! Can't wait to see who you target next.
This is despicable! I wonder; if I started a Conservative Community Organization, could I get over 8 BILLION DOLLARS of stimulus money? Highly unlikely! This is pure BS and funding for this group with tax payer money should stop RIGHT NOW!
Dateline January 23, 2010
From Acorn Headquarters:
This misleading gotcha foolishness must stop
This is not indicative of what we stand for here at ACORN
this simply a mistake from now 132 independent office and does not represent our public direction.
and the 3000 pages accidentally thrown in the trash and recovered indicating we are receiving money directly from the PRC is a joke or fraud, which ever you are willing to believe
Pwned………..Keep up the good work sir.
YAY!!!!!! Facts and Details!!!! Alive and kicking!!!!!!!! the little pissants of MSM, cable drones will continue to canabalize themselves.
Good Luck, we are with you.
Heard about your post from Rush! Way to b#$ch slap CNN for their negligence and then their abhorrent behavior after the fact. Fortunately we have Fox News whose ratings SMOKE the liberal media sources, oftentimes combined.
Continued success,
Thank you James. Your name had sky rocketed to the top of Obama's enemy list in 2 days.
This is a GREAT website Andrew! And excellent job by James…Finally someone has called out CNN for what it is. Hit job after hit job. And this CNN is the only station most colleges play for their students. Thank God for the internet.
Bravo! All of you deserve a standing ovation!
Can anyone tell me why ACORN has removed their office locations from their website? Also any contact information is unavailable.
They have not, however, removed their donation page…
Kudos Mr. O'keefe. CNN is just as exposed as ACORN is for being the corrupt propoganda outfits that they are
Hey CNN!!! There's two five year old boys flailing and shooting cap guns at each other. Get it on the air now. I haven't heard anything on the scanner about it being an exercise, but I'll bet they're Republicans.
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