Anti-ACORN Activists Release New Video
Two conservative activists released a new undercover video targeting the community-organizing group ACORN on Wednesday, an attempt to reignite a simmering political controversy surrounding the Democratic-leaning organization.
The new videotape shows filmmakers Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe, posing as a prostitute and her boyfriend, soliciting advice about a possible housing loan from workers in the Philadelphia office of ACORN Housing Corp.
Previous videos showed the same pair, also posing as a prostitute and her boyfriend, visiting ACORN offices in other cities.
The Philadelphia visit is significant because of a dispute over statements ACORN has made defending what took place when Giles and O'Keefe visited the Philadelphia office last summer.
Supporters of O'Keefe and Giles said ACORN has lied about whether the two were thrown out of the Philadelphia office, how much time they spent there and whether they explicitly told ACORN workers that Giles was a prostitute.
At a Washington news conference, O'Keefe went through an edited version of what he said was a 32-minute visit to the Philadelphia office.
"At no point were we kicked out, at no time were we asked to leave," O'Keefe says on the tape of the Philadelphia visit.
Neil Herrmann, ACORN's lead organizer in Philadelphia, was quoted in news accounts last month as saying that an employee at the office had asked O'Keefe and Giles to leave. On the edited tape released Wednesday, the couple were not asked to leave.
ACORN spokesman Brian Kettenring said in an e-mailed statement: "We've always been clear about Philadelphia. We got them out of the office as quickly as possible, and filed a police report on them within minutes."
Kettenring said that ACORN's political enemies are trying to keep the controversy alive.
"In this era of journalism-lite, plenty media are willing to oblige," said Kettenring.
In the video, the voice of the ACORN employee was muted for legal reasons. ACORN is suing O'Keefe and Giles and conservative columnist Andrew Breitbart, who posted the videos on his Web site.
After Tuesday's news conference, O'Keefe called on ACORN to state publicly that it has no objection to the public release of any its employees' oral statements on the latest tape.
ACORN has repeatedly asked that O'Keefe release all of the tapes he possesses unedited.
ACORN, short for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, portrays itself as a successful advocate for tens of thousands of low-income and minority homebuyers. Republicans describe it as a pro-Democratic group that among other things, is violating the tax-exempt status of some of its affiliates by engaging in partisan political activities.
Some of the previously released videos show ACORN employees giving O'Keefe and Giles advice on how to disguise the source of their income to get housing aid. In some videos, the ACORN employees are visited by the make-believe hooker and her boyfriend seeking advice about establishing a brothel with underage hookers.
The release of the videotapes has resulted in the cutoff of some federal funding to ACORN and increased pressure on the community activist group, which faces federal investigations and accusations of voter fraud. Conservatives have tried to make the group a symbol of Democrats' excesses and government waste.
According to a transcript they released on the videotape of the Philadelphia visit, O'Keefe and Giles start referring to prostitution, with the ACORN employee in response coming across as at times unconcerned, at others anxious to end the meeting.
"A lot of organizations won't give us the clear go ahead because of who she, I .... you know like what she does for a living," O'Keefe says of Giles, according to the videotape.
In the transcript, the ACORN employee responds by offering the two a flyer about an upcoming workshop on housing.
"Your line of work it's really ... as long as you can prove that you have income steadily coming in," says the ACORN employee, according to the transcript.
At the news conference, Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, spoke out on behalf of O'Keefe and Giles, saying that ACORN is a corrupt, criminal enterprise and that he has been trying for four or five years to get Congress to stop funding it.
AP The new videotape shows filmmakers Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe, posing as a prostitute and her boyfriend, soliciting advice about a possible housing loan from workers in the Philadelphia office of ACORN Housing Corp.
Previous videos showed the same pair, also posing as a prostitute and her boyfriend, visiting ACORN offices in other cities.
The Philadelphia visit is significant because of a dispute over statements ACORN has made defending what took place when Giles and O'Keefe visited the Philadelphia office last summer.
Supporters of O'Keefe and Giles said ACORN has lied about whether the two were thrown out of the Philadelphia office, how much time they spent there and whether they explicitly told ACORN workers that Giles was a prostitute.
At a Washington news conference, O'Keefe went through an edited version of what he said was a 32-minute visit to the Philadelphia office.
"At no point were we kicked out, at no time were we asked to leave," O'Keefe says on the tape of the Philadelphia visit.
Neil Herrmann, ACORN's lead organizer in Philadelphia, was quoted in news accounts last month as saying that an employee at the office had asked O'Keefe and Giles to leave. On the edited tape released Wednesday, the couple were not asked to leave.
ACORN spokesman Brian Kettenring said in an e-mailed statement: "We've always been clear about Philadelphia. We got them out of the office as quickly as possible, and filed a police report on them within minutes."
Kettenring said that ACORN's political enemies are trying to keep the controversy alive.
"In this era of journalism-lite, plenty media are willing to oblige," said Kettenring.
In the video, the voice of the ACORN employee was muted for legal reasons. ACORN is suing O'Keefe and Giles and conservative columnist Andrew Breitbart, who posted the videos on his Web site.
After Tuesday's news conference, O'Keefe called on ACORN to state publicly that it has no objection to the public release of any its employees' oral statements on the latest tape.
ACORN has repeatedly asked that O'Keefe release all of the tapes he possesses unedited.
ACORN, short for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, portrays itself as a successful advocate for tens of thousands of low-income and minority homebuyers. Republicans describe it as a pro-Democratic group that among other things, is violating the tax-exempt status of some of its affiliates by engaging in partisan political activities.
Some of the previously released videos show ACORN employees giving O'Keefe and Giles advice on how to disguise the source of their income to get housing aid. In some videos, the ACORN employees are visited by the make-believe hooker and her boyfriend seeking advice about establishing a brothel with underage hookers.
The release of the videotapes has resulted in the cutoff of some federal funding to ACORN and increased pressure on the community activist group, which faces federal investigations and accusations of voter fraud. Conservatives have tried to make the group a symbol of Democrats' excesses and government waste.
According to a transcript they released on the videotape of the Philadelphia visit, O'Keefe and Giles start referring to prostitution, with the ACORN employee in response coming across as at times unconcerned, at others anxious to end the meeting.
"A lot of organizations won't give us the clear go ahead because of who she, I .... you know like what she does for a living," O'Keefe says of Giles, according to the videotape.
In the transcript, the ACORN employee responds by offering the two a flyer about an upcoming workshop on housing.
"Your line of work it's really ... as long as you can prove that you have income steadily coming in," says the ACORN employee, according to the transcript.
At the news conference, Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, spoke out on behalf of O'Keefe and Giles, saying that ACORN is a corrupt, criminal enterprise and that he has been trying for four or five years to get Congress to stop funding it.
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A video of the lobbyists doing their thing for the tax welfare for the wealthy might be interesting.
Maybe a video where Bush told the head of the FCC to allow the law protecting the internet against takeover by big corporations to be dropped.
Some videos of a meeting between Cheney and Halliburton executives about contracting in Iraq would be alright I guess.
Man if we had videos of Bush and the Republicans that would really open our eyes.
But let's stick to the REALLY important stuff like ACORN.
With as many white middle class votes that he got does anyone actually think Obama would not have won without ACORN?
Really? Guess those people think Bush actually won his first election too.
LOL
I'm not an ACORN advocate, but I know ALL organizations, whether government funded or not, contain bad apples. This video actually did ACORN a favor by allowing them to discover these low level bad apples and get rid of them. Most companies could use undercover surveillance like this, a method to discover and dispose the unethical thieves.
The dark side of the American character.
But then "the right" was hijacked by those who saw the American people as being "only" labor who were to be exploited and then discarded when they broke.
...then the right decided that making themselves money was job #1, even if they had to give away America's (dual-use) technology to do so.
...then the right decided that making themselves money was job #1, even if they had to give away America's manufacturing infrastructure - the same infrastructure that built us the arms we needed to win World War II and any future large-scale war.
...then the right decided that making themselves money was job #1, and paying taxes detracted from that goal, so even letting America's public infrastructure - also dual-use - go to hell in a handbasket was OK if it saved them a buck.
...then the right decided that making themselves money was job #1, even if that required doing Business in China - a communist country - and giving them the technology required to shoot satellites out of the sky - which they promptly did.
...then the right decided that making themselves money was job #1, and paying the taxes necessary to have an educated workforce capable of building, maintaining, and operating the weapons of high-technology was a threat to the rate at which they could accumulate more wealth.
...then the right decided that...
I could go on for a while.
The David Lettterman of social programs.
Republicans themselves find nothing wrong with cheating, adultery, and prostitution. Newt Gingrich gave a free-enterprise award to a porn industry (He really wanted to meet the CEO.) Dan Vitters has frequented brothels. John Enseign, Henry Hyde, and Mark Sanford all had extramartial affairs. Mark Foley propositioned congressional pages. (FOX news laveled both Mark Sanford and Mark Foley as Democratis - so much for "honest" reporting.) This is just an example of Harper Valley hypocrisy.
In addition, look at what's happening with health care. All of the opponents of health care reform - Mitch McConnel, Orrin Hatch, Chuck Grassley, Joe Wilson, Jim DeMint, Mike Enzi - all get bribes from health insurance companies and Big Pharma. So do the Blue Dog Democrats. (See Center for Responsive Politics for details.) And you are paying their salaries everytime you or your employer pays for health insurance. And your health insurance rates are rising because 2010 is an election year and health insurance companies need to make generous campaign contributions.
So who are the real pimps and prostitutes? Remember GOP = Greedy Old Prostitutes. So to the GOP, I dedicate that old country Western classic, The Harper Valley PTA.
It seems to me that you statement is full of contradictions.
The state of the nation screams that "free trade" - as it is structured now with all of its inequities - is a direct attack upon the American family, is a direct attack upon the ability of Americans to get a job where they can work hard.
In fact, the support of "free trade" even as you espouse family and hard work is a hypocritical display of dishonesty.
That is not only a reasonable request, it is the American way.
Why do you think that you are required to "swear that you will tell the truth, the WHOLE truth, and nothing but the truth" in a court of law in America?
To refuse to release anything but edited tapes strongly suggests - screams, even - the fabrication of lies.
It is certainly un-American, at a minimum.
You are so vested in seeing harm come to any organization that strives to see that all Americans are able to exercise their right to vote that you are willing to call CBS liars?
Lest you be accused of being dirty.
ACORN offers advice to low income people, some of whom could be prostitutes. I think its sad that conservatives would bait people in this way. I won't defend the morality of those ACORN staffers who took the bait, but can't say what I would do, and neither could these conservative activitists.
You obviously do defend their morality or actually lack of morality. If you can't say what you would do in a situation where someone is asking advice on how to operate a bordello using 13 year old slave girls you have some serious moral issues.
As far as the morals of the two parties you have absolutely no room to preach. When Charlie Wrangle's little corruption was unearthed last month, there were PLENTY of democrats would wanted his resignation as Chairman of the House Ways & Means Committee. Selective memory is what you suffer from as do ALL republican extremists.
First off it wasn't last month. The House "Ethics" committee has had an investigation going for about a year now. And Rangle is still there. The obvious tax cheat is still writing law. So much for Queen Pelosi's most ethical congress.