Court Dismisses ACORN Suit vs. ‘Pimp’, ‘Hooker’ and Breitbart.com

Ben Sheffner, at Copyrights and Campaigns Blog, has the breaking story:

A state court in Baltimore has dismissed ACORN’s lawsuit against James O’Keefe, Hannah Giles, and Breitbart.com LLC after the plaintiffs failed to serve the complaint on the defendants within Maryland’s 120-day limit.

28218713-ACORN-v-O-Keefe-Docket

It was with great fanfare that ACORN, along with two recently-fired employees of its Baltimore office, sued last September over thesurreptitious taping of the employees advising O’Keefe and Giles on running a prostitution business out of a house. ACORN’s general counsel, Arthur Schwartz, told the Washington Post at the time that the defendants, young filmmakers O’Keefe and Giles, plus Andrew Breitbart’s Breitbart.com LLC, which disseminated the videos, had committed “clear violations of Maryland law” against audio recording without consent from all parties. But ACORN appears to have lost interest in the case since filing it, confirming my suspicion that it was little more than a press release on pleading paper.

(more…)

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Tags: ACORN, ACORN lawsuit, acorn scandal, ACORN videos, Andrew Breitbart
Posted Mar 11th 2010 at 11:35 am in ACORN, Justice/Legal, News | 87882134 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/publius/2010/03/11/court-dismisses-acorn-suit-vs-pimp-hooker-and-breitbart-com/Court+Dismisses+ACORN+Suit+vs.+%27Pimp%27%2C+%27Hooker%27+and+Breitbart.com2010-03-11+19%3A35%3A21Publius

Should Christians Use Saul Alinsky’s Tactics in Exposing Corruption?

A Christian pundit, Dawn Eden, thinks my daughter Hannah Giles and her partner James O’Keefe should not have used Saul Alinsky’s deceptive tactics against ACORN because Saul was “evil,” his methods sneaky, and he dedicated his book, Rules for Radicals, to Lucifer.

In addition, Eden took a swipe at Lila Rose, Planned Parenthood’s main pain in the butt, for being deceptive in her undercover vids which exposed Planned Parenthood’s illegal activity. Oh, and I almost forgot: Dawn also busted on Hannah for being un-Christlike for wearing a miniskirt and dressing like a hooker.  Sounds a little catty to me—and a wee bit like Dana Carvey’s Church Lady—but I digress.

First off, Ms. Eden, if you ever drum up the nerve to expose a scandalous multimillion dollar Obama-backed, taxpayer-funded organization for doing illegal crap and then undergo death threats (versus sitting on the sidelines and simply critiquing those who have the cojones to do so) you will find that the lawbreakers are rather reticent in telling journalists, who are intent on exposing and destroying their world, exactly how they’re breaking the law.  Yeah, I know.  It’s weird, eh?

You’d think that nefarious organizations would just spill their guts, throw up their hands, give up their hard drives, refrain from dumping tens of thousands of documents in a dumpster, and just cooperate to the fullest extent with the FBI and the DOJ, but alas, they don’t because they’re criminals, and criminals, generally speaking, aren’t known for truthfulness, contrition and full disclosure with cops.

(more…)

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Tags: abraham, ACORN, ACORN videos, canaanites, christian beliefs
Posted Mar 7th 2010 at 6:07 am in ACORN, Culture, Featured Story | 85378263 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/dgiles/2010/03/07/should-christians-use-saul-alinskys-tactics-in-exposing-corruption/Should+Christians+Use+Saul+Alinsky%E2%80%99s+Tactics+in+Exposing+Corruption%3F+2010-03-07+14%3A07%3A59Doug+Giles

Subprime Mortgage Crisis Hits Whorehouses

It looks like Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes is on track to win another endorsement from ACORN!

This week, Hynes announced that “no criminality has been found” after his investigation of the videotapes made by investigative journalists James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles, which show ACORN employees counseling the pair on getting a mortgage for a house of prostitution.

(They got a choice of government loans: Phat Fannie Mae, Prince Freddie Mac or Barney Fresh Daddy Frank … aka “Sir Fix-A-Lot.”)

I’m just glad to know that Hynes conducted a thorough “investigation” first. Who did he have screen the videotapes, Gov. Paterson?

If his investigators had actually watched the videotapes, they would have found ACORN employees apparently advising a pimp and prostitute on how to defraud mortgage lenders, deposit prostitution money in a bank, hide money from the government and avoid detection while running a whorehouse with teenage girls from El Salvador.

I’m not a lawyer — oh, wait, yes, I am — but I count approximately a half-dozen state law crimes being discussed on those tapes, from money laundering to advancing prostitution.

(more…)

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Tags: ACORN, Barney Frank, Brooklyn DA, Charles Hynes, Eliot Spitzer
Posted Mar 4th 2010 at 1:54 pm in ACORN, Justice/Legal, News, Politics | 84442103 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/acoulter/2010/03/04/subprime-mortgage-crisis-hits-whorehouses/Subprime+Mortgage+Crisis+Hits+Whorehouses2010-03-04+21%3A54%3A38Ann+Coulter

What Happened to That ACORN Investigation Jerry Brown Promised?

California Attorney General Jerry Brown seems to be getting a lot of reminders from his gubernatorial challengers Steve Poizner and Meg Whitman about his failed governorship of the state from 1975-1983 when Californian’s endured high unemployment, home foreclosures, large scale labor strikes and fuel shortages at the gas station. Recognizing the failed policies of then Governor Brown, California voters revolted and passed Proposition 13 which is a landmark initiative that limited politician’s ability to arbitrarily raise taxes on California residents.

Over a week ago, Attorney General Jerry Brown got yet another reminder, this time coming from the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The report “Follow the Money: ACORN, SEIU and their Political Allies” focuses public attention on AG Brown’s failed investigation of ACORN. While some of Brown’s gubernatorial challengers talk of the need for a California Governor to have a spine of steel, AG Brown has instead crumpled like an aluminum can cowardly hiding behind state bureaucrats and a wall of state agencies.

On October 1, 2009, Jerry Brown publicly announced that an investigation had been opened concerning undercover videos that were obtained by citizen journalists James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles who videotaped ACORN employees at two California offices. ACORN employees were filmed providing advice regarding tax evasion, prostitution and human smuggling of underage girls. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was informed by AG Brown in a letter that he had “opened an investigation of both ACORN and the circumstances under which ACORN employees were videotaped.” Since that announcement, AG Brown has found himself at the center of a controversy surrounding the mismanagement of the investigation as well as a potential scandal due to a double standard involving one of his own state employees secretly recording conversations with reporters.

Shortly after ACORN had been alerted to the immanent investigation as a result of AG Brown’s public announcement, ACORN employees at the San Diego, CA office were caught engaging in a massive document dump on October 9, 2009. Those records were retrieved from an unsecured shared public dumpster where they had been thrown revealing sensitive personal, financial and banking information for both clients and employees in addition to revelations about the political inner workings of ACORN’s relationship with major U.S. banks and labor unions.

(more…)

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Tags: ACORN, ACORN document dump, ACORN San Diego, acorn scandal, ACORN videos
Posted Mar 1st 2010 at 5:27 am in ACORN, Big Labor, Featured Story, Justice/Legal, News, Politics, State Politics | 8130688 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/droach/2010/03/01/what-happened-to-that-acorn-investigation-jerry-brown-promised/What+Happened+to+That+ACORN+Investigation+Jerry+Brown+Promised%3F+2010-03-01+13%3A27%3A41Derrick+Roach

Did Andrew Breitbart ‘Breakdown’ At CPAC?

Several videos of Andrew Breitbart attending CPAC 2010 are making the rounds on the interwebs. Salon.com has posted an article entitled “Breitbart’s breakdown: A video tour”, based on four of the clips floating around.

In these videos, a visibly angry Breitbart tears into Progressive writers Max Blumenthal, Mike Madden, and others, in response to their baseless charges and innuendos of racism surrounding Breitbart, Hannah Giles, and James O’Keefe.

Apparently, Salon.com doesn’t think that anger and outrage are normal reactions for a human being to have in response to being falsely smeared and branded a racist.

Salon.com sees the videos of an angry Andrew Breitbart as not much more than an opportunity to ridicule someone with whom they disagree.

By using these videos in this particular way,  Salon reveals that it considers the righteous indignation of a man falsely accused to be funny.  A real knee-slapper.

That’s very revealing because the videos that the folks at Salon.com are promoting clearly demonstrate why Breitbart is so furious. He explains it to their cameras repeatedly. Perhaps the editors at Salon.com are too politically tone deaf to hear the message.

Just in case, we’ve produced a little video to help illustrate what we’re talking about.

(more…)

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Tags: Andrew Breitbart, CPAC, Hannah Giles, James O'Keefe, Max Blumenthal
Posted Feb 26th 2010 at 5:31 am in Culture, Exclusives, Featured Story | 80814307 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/amarcus/2010/02/26/exclusive-video-did-andrew-breitbart-breakdown-at-cpac/Did+Andrew+Breitbart+%27Breakdown%27+At+CPAC%3F2010-02-26+13%3A31%3A52Andrew++Marcus

Max Blumenthal, You’re Being Booger-Boarded

Max Blumenthal has an amazing thesis:  All conservatives and Republicans are beneath contempt.  He also has an amazing line of work.  He is underwritten by various media organs to prove his thesis.

In a previous era, Blumenthal and said media organs (Salon, Independent Film Channel, Huffington Post, etc.) were able to get away with this pathetic arrangement.   But now, we are on to Max, the spawn of Sid “Vicious” Blumenthal – he who attempted to ruin Monica Lewinsky’s life by falsely portraying her as Bill Clinton’s “stalker.”

The Blumenthal operation is now under the extremely close scrutiny of a camelid named “Retracto.”

The movement formerly known as the “Tea-Baggers” (with their flip cameras and new media skills) and various conservatives who have had enough with the excessive Alinsky tactics used most egregiously by Max and Sid but representative of main stream media’s odious guilt-by-association, repeat-the-same-lie-until-it-sticks, smear-any-conservative-as-racist-sexist-homophobic skill set, are now fighting back.

If the last two weeks have not humiliated him enough — and this Huffington Post rage-fest from yesterday with its title “Feeling the Hate at CPAC 2010 With Andrew Breitbart, Hannah Giles and the Crazy Mob” suggests they have not – then perhaps this coup de booger will tell him that we say what we mean and we mean what we say.

Max gallivanted around CPAC looking for prey.  He was treated with respect as he sought to make good and decent people look foolish on camera.  He decided he would go after a 20-year-old girl, one Hannah Giles.  And perhaps due to sexism or ageism he underestimated her ability.  Max should have called Bertha Lewis before he went after this young heroine.  Instead, he went to a gunfight with a knife – and a dirty nose.

Ladies and gentlemen, the much awaited, “Max Blumenthal Picks a Booger Out of His Nose at CPAC” video:

Max Blumenthal, this is what you do for a living. I can do it too (**wink **wink** Independent Film Channel).

Salon has already corrected his initial attempt to paint James O’Keefe as a White Nationalist.  They corrected his baseless assertion that O’Keefe planned the “Race and Conservatism” forum held at Georgetown Law Center, but he continues to hold that James O’Keefe is a racist, and that he was in some way involved with the “execution” of the forum.  His source for this claim?  Daryle Jenkins, whose credibility was recently eviscerated by Kevin Martin from Project 21.

(more…)

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Tags: "gotcha journalism", Andrew Breitbart, Bertha Lewis, Booger-Boarding, CPAC
Posted Feb 24th 2010 at 6:45 pm in ACORN, Featured Story, News, Politics | 80026248 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/abreitbart/2010/02/24/max-blumenthal-youre-being-booger-boarded/Max+Blumenthal%2C+You%27re+Being+Booger-Boarded2010-02-25+02%3A45%3A04Andrew+Breitbart

Andrew Breitbart’s Address To CPAC 2010

Below is the full length speech Andrew Breitbart delivered to CPAC 2010. We have also taken the liberty of breaking out some of the best soundbites from the speech.

1. Mr. Podesta, we are watching you!
2. What I learned from Kurt Cobain
3. E Pluribis Unum
4. The Frankfort School roots of multiculturalism and political correctness
5. Big Education
6. MSM – You are not on the American team!
7. CPAC cuts Breitbart short

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Tags: Big Education, Columbia University, CPAC 2010, David Shuster, Frankfort School
Posted Feb 22nd 2010 at 5:41 pm in Culture, Featured Story, History, Media Criticism, News, Politics, Tea Party | 78850104 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/amarcus/2010/02/22/andrew-breitbarts-address-to-cpac-2010/Andrew+Breitbart%27s+Address+To+CPAC+20102010-02-23+01%3A41%3A32Andrew++Marcus

Frances Fox Piven: ACORN-style Mass Movement May Deepen Foreclosure Crisis, Forcing Government & Banks to Address Homeownership Rights

The original Cloward-Piven Strategy, born in a 1966 article in The Nation magazine, was to overwhelm the welfare system by flooding the rolls with new recipients.  The government would not be able to keep up (this was a time when a government could actually go bankrupt), the system would crash and a Democratic presidential administration would be “forced” to implement a “guaranteed annual income” for Americans.

Fast forward to the 21^st Century.  America’s in the midst of a home foreclosure crisis.

Piven’s new strategy?  Force the government and banks to deal with the problem by convincing approximately two million people to refuse to leave their homes.  ACORN has been implementing this strategy with its Home Defenders program.

Is it possible ACORN sting man James O’Keefe could have spoiled the implementation of this new strategy?  The O’Keefe-Giles videos surfaced at precisely the right time to disrupt the Home Defenders scheme.

The organization was rocked by the major scandal and knocked on its heels politically and financially.

(more…)

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Tags: ACORN, Cloward-Piven Strategy, Frances Fox Piven, Hannah Giles, James O'Keefe
Posted Feb 10th 2010 at 5:47 am in Culture, Economics, Featured Story | 72538153 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/kolson/2010/02/10/frances-fox-piven-acorn-style-mass-movement-may-deepen-foreclosure-crisis-forcing-government-banks-to-address-homeownership-rights/Frances+Fox+Piven%3A+ACORN-style+Mass+Movement+May+Deepen+Foreclosure+Crisis%2C+Forcing+Government+%26amp%3B+Banks+to+Address+Homeownership+Rights2010-02-10+13%3A47%3A41Kyle+Olson

Sorry, Wade: James O’Keefe’s Actions Don’t Excuse ACORN

ACORN founder Wade Rathke has been gloating on his blog about the recent arrest of James O’Keefe in Rathke’s hometown of New Orleans.

Andrew Breitbrat and his www.biggovernment.com site stopped pretending that James O’Keefe, bungler-in-charge, was not his boy, and realized that he needed to stop shouting and start ‘splaining.

Breitbrat?  Zing!  How adult of you, Wade.

Similarly, current ACORN chief organizer Bertha Lewis issued a statement upon the news:

The recent arrest of James O’Keefe, is further evidence of his disregard for the law in pursuit of his extremist agenda. 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.

It’s as if O’Keefe’s problem somehow is vindication for the corrupt web of organizations she oversees.

Bad news, Bertha: it’s not.

(more…)

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Tags: ACORN, ACORN embezzlement, ACORN videos, Andrew Breitbart, Bertha Lewis
Posted Feb 3rd 2010 at 2:17 pm in ACORN | 69466219 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/kolson/2010/02/03/sorry-wade-james-okeefes-actions-dont-excuse-acorn/Sorry%2C+Wade%3A+James+O%E2%80%99Keefe%E2%80%99s+Actions+Don%E2%80%99t+Excuse+ACORN2010-02-03+22%3A17%3A03Kyle+Olson

ACORN Filmmakers Giles, O’Keefe Sued in Philadelphia Federal Court

From America’s Right:

Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe III, the independent filmmakers behind the series of videos which swept the nation in 2009 and exposed internal corruption and illegality within ACORN Housing Corporation, were sued today in federal court in Philadelphia by an ACORN employee featured in one of the pair’s films.

The plaintiff is Katherine Conway-Russell, a Philadelphia resident who has worked for ACORN since March 2008 as an office director.  It was Conway-Russell who met with Giles and O’Keefe, posing as a prostitute and pimp as they had in ACORN offices nationwide during other installments of the undercover video series, for a private interview in her office at ACORN’s facility in Philadelphia on July 24, 2009.  This is the first such suit filed against the filmmakers by an individual ACORN employee.

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Tags: ACORN, ACORN Housing Corporation, ACORN Philadelphia, acorn scandal, acorn video
Posted Jan 21st 2010 at 5:36 pm in ACORN, Featured Story, Justice/Legal, News | 63746231 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/publius/2010/01/21/acorn-filmmakers-giles-okeefe-sued-in-philadelphia-federal-court/ACORN+Filmmakers+Giles%2C+O%E2%80%99Keefe+Sued+in+Philadelphia+Federal+Court2010-01-22+01%3A36%3A42Publius

Telegraph: Breitbart #21 Most Influential US Conservative

From the U.K. Telegraph:

2009 was the breakout year for the irrepressible Andrew Breitbart, 40, a conservative firebrand operating deep in enemy territory in Los Angeles, and the sky will be his limit in 2010. A regular presence on Fox News and a Washington Times columnist, Breitbart cut his teeth working for Matt Drudge’s eponymous website and also had a spell with the Left-wing Huffington Post. He took on Hollywood in his group blog site BigHollywood and broke the ACORN scandal when the young unknown filmmakers Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe approached him with undercover footage of employees of the Left-wing community organising group condoning under-age prostitution by illegal immigrants. The mainstream media were slow to pick the story up but eventually they could not ignore it. (more…)

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Tags: ACORN, Andrew Breitbart, BigGovernment, BigHollywood, Breitbart.com
Posted Jan 14th 2010 at 10:17 am in ACORN, News | 5984682 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/publius/2010/01/14/telegraph-breitbart-21-most-influential-us-conservative/Telegraph%3A+Breitbart+%2321+Most+Influential+US+Conservative2010-01-14+18%3A17%3A30Publius

The Mediaite 50: Innovators And Influencers Who Shook Up 2009

From Mediaite:

14. Andrew Breitbart, Breitbart.com

Though he’s not exactly a household name, Andrew Breitbart has long been a power player in the sphere of Internet influence and opinion. The former editor of The Drudge Report, and lead researcher and developer for The Huffington Post, Breitbart has since set out on his own, creating a number of sites that both aggregate and report from what he describes as a center right point-of-view. When Breitbart provided an exclusive interview with Mediate this year, he revealed big plans to grow his “Big” network of sites beyond Big Hollywood and Big Government (which he launched this Fall.) Big Journalism is set to launch next January, with more to follow in the coming year.

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Tags: ACORN, ACORN videos, Andrew Breitbart, Big Government, Big Hollywood
Posted Dec 23rd 2009 at 10:41 am in Culture | 5143066 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/publius/2009/12/23/the-mediaite-50-innovators-and-influencers-who-shook/The+Mediaite+50%3A+Innovators+And+Influencers+Who+Shook+Up+20092009-12-23+18%3A41%3A55Publius

I Am Stage Right

It has been almost one year since I began writing here at the Big Blogs of Breitbart.com.  When it all began, I was motivated by the events that brought down Sacramento Music Theatre executive Scott Eckern.  Ironically, his story, which inspired this new avocation also served as a real-life lesson in the new political world we inhabit.  You see, Mr. Eckern was forced to resign his position because it was discovered that he donated money to the anti-same sex marriage Prop. 8 campaign.  Knowing that, I would have been a fool to put my name on the things I’ve written here.  So, “Stage Right” was born.

Since then, I have been fortunate enough to have free-reign on all things theatre at Big Hollywood (gently guided by the collective wisdom of Andrew Breitbart and John Nolte) and I’ve had a fantastic time writing about the industry, about the non-profit world… even about my favorite shows.  But now, things have changed just a bit.

It started with Patrick Courrielche’s now famous expose’ on the NEA Conference Call.  Just like the Scott Eckern story, what bothered me most at the time was the media and especially the left-leaning theatre writers’ attack on Patrick.   Instead of showing any level of skepticism over the appropriateness of staff members of the NEA and the White House coordinating discussions with artists about how they can help move the President’s agenda by creating works of art in favor of specific issues, Patrick was attacked and libeled for the sin of telling the truth and bringing the subject to light.

Next came the media’s reaction to James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles’ blockbuster series of videos exposing the corruption at ACORN offices from sea to shining sea.  Again, the venom and outrage is directed at the messenger while the message gets rationalized and obfuscated.  This story raised my ire to such a degree that I began posting at Big Government. (more…)

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Tags: ACORN, Adam Lambert, Andrew Breitbart, andrew lloyd webber, beauty and the beast
Posted Dec 23rd 2009 at 9:29 am in ACORN, Culture, News, Politics | 51350No Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/sright/2009/12/23/i-am-stage-right/I+Am+Stage+Right+2009-12-23+17%3A29%3A14Larry++O%26%2339%3BConnor

‘Independent’ ACORN Apologist Applauds ‘Independent’ Investigation Conclusion

Professor Peter Dreier, an ACORN apologist who portrays himself as an independent analyst, is really anything but.

As Andrew Breitbart articulated on BigGovernment November 25th, regarding a “study” Dreier produced critical of media coverage of ACORN:

At the end of the piece Professor Dreier offers the following biography: Peter Dreier, E.P Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics and director of the Urban & Environmental Policy Program at Occidental College.

Why did Professor Dreier choose to leave out the critical information regarding his advisory relationship to ACORN? Isn’t sitting on an advisory committee of ACORN the definition of a conflict of interest in writing a fair and balanced piece on the organization? In fact, Dreier has been shilling for ACORN at least since 2003.

So when Dreier proclaimed ACORN “Not Guilty” in one of his recent columns on TalkingPointsMemo, I must admit I threw up a bit in my mouth.  Some of Dreier’s most pathetic conclusions:

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Tags: ACORN, ACORN Investigation, acorn scandal, Alliance for Justice, Andy Stern
Posted Dec 11th 2009 at 12:07 pm in ACORN, Big Labor, Media Criticism, News, Politics | 4474253 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/kolson/2009/12/11/independent-acorn-apologist-applauds-independent-investigation-conclusion/%27Independent%27+ACORN+Apologist+Applauds+%27Independent%27+Investigation+Conclusion2009-12-11+20%3A07%3A44Kyle+Olson

DOJ Defends ACORN Funding Ban While Gutting It

The Harshbarger investigation is getting a lot of attention this week; and rightly so.  ACORN hired former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger to conduct an “independent” review of the organization in an effort to provide ACORN some cover to show that they were serious about reform.  The Harshbarger report concludes that ACORN was not at fault, rather the blame should rest with its founder Wade Rathke, the intrepid aspiring journalists Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe who revealed ACORN’s most recent corruption, and the low level ACORN employees and members who were featured in the videos.

This attempt to whitewash ACORN and its employees’ wrongdoing has been appropriately decried by Representative Darrell Issa, the Republican National Lawyers Association, and contributors to Biggovernment.com.

ACORN’s pending litigation against the federal government has received less attention.  Last week, unbeknownst to all but avid court or ACORN watchers a pivotal moment occurred in the lawsuit.  Peter D. Leary, an attorney at the Department of Justice filed a brief defending the Congressional efforts to defund ACORN.  His brief defended the defunding, while severely narrowing its scope and application.

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Tags: ACORN, ACORN defunding, ACORN lawsuit, acorn scandal, acorn video
Posted Dec 8th 2009 at 3:21 pm in ACORN, Justice/Legal, News, Politics | 4303021 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/cberg/2009/12/08/doj-defends-acorn-funding-ban-while-gutting-it/DOJ+Defends+ACORN+Funding+Ban+While+Gutting+It2009-12-08+22%3A21%3A23Chris+++Berg

The Recycled ACORN Whitewash: Wade Rathke Responds

The internal report issued by former Massachusetts Attorney General is out. Clearly, here’s what the headline will be.

The high-profile lawyer hired to investigate ACORN has found no pattern of intentional illegal conduct in the community organizing group — a finding that was dismissed as “damage control” by one of the two filmmakers who, posing as a pimp and prostitute, videotaped staffers offering advice on how to operate a brothel .

This was immediately mocked by conservatives in the media.

Harshbarger has determined — wait for it — that ACORN engaged in no wrongdoing
depicted in the nationwide undercover stings conducted by BigGovernment.com / James O’Keefe III and Hannah Giles.

In fact, everyone is getting into word games here. ACORN did in fact engage in no criminal wrongdoing by offering advice to a “pimp” and “prostitute” about how to hide assets and their business practices. Simply offering such advice is not illegal. If that’s what Harschbarger was brought in to do, I could have saved everyone plenty of time. In fact, if that’s what he was investigating, then it’s clear they gave him a scope that would lead to a conclusion that would maximize their positive press. In fact, these videos occurred at no less than five offices. That’s a pattern of behavior for which management, and not merely those on the videos, must take some responsibility. That’s at the heart of the series of exposes by Giles and O’Keefe. It’s not about whether or not the behavior on the videos is or is not technically legal. It’s about what it says about an organization when a “pimp” and “prostitute” can so routinely walk into just about any office and be offered advice that the advisor knows is illegal if implemented. That reality is barely acknowledged and not really addressed.

(more…)

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Tags: ACORN, ACORN 8, ACORN audit, ACORN Housing, acorn review
Posted Dec 7th 2009 at 2:17 pm in ACORN | 4219446 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/mvolpe/2009/12/07/the-recycled-acorn-whitewash-wade-rathke-responds/The+Recycled+ACORN+Whitewash%3A+Wade+Rathke+Responds2009-12-07+21%3A17%3A51Michael+Volpe

AP Whitewashes My Public Statement on Whitewashed ACORN Investigation

Pete Yost of the Associated Press asked for my comment regarding the findings of the ACORN “internal investigation.”  Here is what I emailed him:

ACORN is a corrupt and criminal organization, and anyone with open eyes can see this. Yet SEIU’s Andy Stern and left wing puppetmaster John Podesta, of the Soros-funded radical leftist think-tank, the Center for American Progress, chose to architect a whitewashed ‘internal investigation’ by a Democrat Party hack from Massachusetts, and have put immense efforts into launching a two-pronged propaganda  campaign and legal assault against the filmmakers of the ‘pimp and  prostitute’ exposé and the story’s publisher. BigGovernment.com  continues to expose ACORN’s illegal activity and has helped to  illuminate how corrupt organizations like ACORN, SEIU and HCAN are coordinating the efforts to shove radical health care reform down an unwilling  majority of Americans throats.

Here is the sole excerpt from the above statement chosen for the article:

The report is “a whitewashed ‘internal investigation’ by a Democrat Party hack from Massachusetts,” said conservative columnist Andrew Breitbart, who is being sued by ACORN along with James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles, who played the prostitute and her boyfriend in the videos. Breitbart posted the videos on his Web site.

I wanted the BigGovernment.com readers to see that’s it’s not just the internal investigators who are whitewashing the magnitude of the ACORN scandal, it’s the mainstream media writ large.

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Tags: ACORN, acorn scandal, Andrew Breitbart, Associated Press, Center for American Progress
Posted Dec 7th 2009 at 1:19 pm in ACORN, Media Criticism | 4220670 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/abreitbart/2009/12/07/ap-whitewashes-my-public-statement-on-whitewashed-acorn-investigation/AP+Whitewashes+My+Public+Statement+on+Whitewashed+ACORN+Investigation2009-12-07+20%3A19%3A03Andrew+Breitbart

The Complete ACORN Whitewash Report: Nothing to See Here Folks, Move Along…We Have to Pass ObamaCare

Well, ACORN retained a law firm to investigate its operations and, surprise, the law firm found that ACORN hadn’t done anything wrong in the undercover videos filmed by James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles. The review, overseen by former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harschbarger, a long-time ally of ACORN, found that any problems within ACORN are, gosh darn it, simply because ACORN was too successful, i.e. grew too big and too fast. The problems are also mostly, conveniently, the result of people who are no longer employed by ACORN, i.e. Wade Rathke.

Full report below:

ACORN Report –

The entire report can be summed up: Wade Rathke really made a mess of things. The current management, i.e. Bertha Lewis, has been trying to reform the organization and she is really, really committed to it now. ACORN has a “roadmap” for reform that, while it may take a while to implement, will really fix everything you thought was wrong with ACORN. Just trust them.

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Tags: ACORN, acorn scandal, Andy Stern, Bertha Lewis, Center for American Progress
Posted Dec 7th 2009 at 10:43 am in ACORN | 42122203 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/mikeflynn/2009/12/07/the-complete-acorn-whitewash-report-nothing-to-see-here-folks-move-along-we-have-to-pass-obamacare/The+Complete+ACORN+Whitewash+Report%3A+Nothing+to+See+Here+Folks%2C+Move+Along...We+Have+to+Pass+ObamaCare2009-12-07+17%3A43%3A26Mike+Flynn

Sweetheart, Get Me Frank Ross: Crouching ACORNS, Hidden Cameras

On Monday, I discussed some of the background in the ongoing journalistic argument about the tactics used by James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles in their ACORN takedowns, first released here at Big Government.  This is part two of that discussion.

Since the freewheeling days of the 1920s celebrated in The Front Page, there has been a profound shift in the way journalists view themselves and their societal role.  We might locate its origins in the 1947 report by the Commission on the Freedom of the Press, known today as Hutchins Commission after its chairman, Robert M. Hutchins, of the University of Chicago, and funded by Henry Luce of Time Inc.   In answer to the question, “is the freedom of the press in danger,” the commission answered yes, and issued “five ideal demands”:

1) A truthful, comprehensive, and intelligent account of the day’s events in a context which gives them meaning.

2) A forum for the exchange of comment and criticism.

3) The projection of a representative picture of the constituent groups in the society.  (“The Commission holds to the faith that if people are exposed to the inner truth of the life of a particular group, they will gradually build up respect for an understanding of it.”)

4) The presentation and clarification of the goals and values of the society.

5) Full access to the day’s intelligence. (more…)

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Tags: ACORN, acorn scandal, acorn video, Ben Bradlee, Bob Woodward
Posted Dec 2nd 2009 at 8:11 am in ACORN, Culture, History, Media Criticism, Obama, Politics | 3949016 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/mwalsh/2009/12/02/sweetheart-get-me-frank-ross-crouching-acorns-hidden-cameras/Sweetheart%2C+Get+Me+Frank+Ross%3A+Crouching+ACORNS%2C+Hidden+Cameras2009-12-02+15%3A11%3A14Michael+Walsh