James O'Keefe

Breitbart Blasts MSM on ACORN Coverage; Reveals Defense Fund Initiative
By Jeff Poor | September 24, 2009 | 9:56 PM EDT

If you haven't been under a rock the last few weeks, or relying on the mainstream media as your sole source of news, you are likely aware of some of the questionable circumstances surrounding the organization Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN).

A pair of intrepid investigative reporters, James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, with the help of Andrew Breitbart, made it possible for the public to be aware of these practices by ACORN. However, the embattled organization, in a retaliatory maneuver, has filed a suit against O'Keefe, Giles and Breitbart. Breitbart appeared on Fox News Channel's Sept. 24 "The O'Reilly Factor" and responded to the suit.

"So, all I can see is that this lawsuit is an attempt to stifle free speech and the First Amendment and an attempt to make sure that the American people don't see the rest of the tapes and there are more tapes," Breitbart said.

NBC Profiles O'Keefe for ACORN Sting, Mentions Planned Parenthood Racist Phone Call Story
By Brad Wilmouth | September 24, 2009 | 7:57 AM EDT

On Wednesday’s NBC Nightly News, correspondent Mara Schiavocampo filed a report based on her interview with video producer James O’Keefe, famous for his recently released video clips which exposed the willingness by a significant number of ACORN employees to give advice on breaking the law to O’Keefe, who posed as a pimp, and his friend Hannah Giles, who posed as an underage prostitute.

Breaking News Open Thread: ACORN Suing Breitbart Over Hidden-camera Recording
By NB Staff | September 23, 2009 | 5:34 PM EDT

From a breaking news e-mail by The Politico.:

ACORN has filed a lawsuit in Maryland against James O’Keefe, Hannah Giles and the Web site Breitbart.com for secretly videotaping the organization’s employees at its Baltimore office.
WaPo to O'Keefe: Sorry We Called You Racist in ACORN Story
By Ken Shepherd | September 22, 2009 | 4:12 PM EDT

<p>The Washington Post today published on page A2 a correction to a September 18 article on James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, the duo behind &quot;<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/17/AR200909... target="_blank">The $1,300 Mission to Fell ACORN</a>&quot; (h/t NewsBusters tipster Sean O'Brien):</p><blockquote><p>A Sept. 18 Page One article about the community organizing group ACORN incorrectly said that a conservative journalist targeted the organization for hidden-camera videos partly becase its voter-registration drives bring Latinos and African Americans to the polls. Although ACORN registers people mostly from those groups, the maker of the videos, James E. O'Keefe, did not specifically mention them.</p></blockquote><p>In other words: sorry we tagged you as a racist by putting words in your mouth.</p><p>Of course, the original Post article didn't say race was &quot;partly&quot; the impetus for O'Keefe's hidden-camera piece, it suggested it was the only reason and that other conservatives despise ACORN for racially-motivated reasons. Here's the original offending passage in the article: </p><blockquote>

Poor 'Liberal Leaning' ACORN: AP Plays 'Pin the Blame on GOP'
By Tom Blumer | September 18, 2009 | 12:34 PM EDT
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Leave it to the Associated Press to drive the establishment media's attempt to portray ACORN's serious impairment as almost entirely the product of the Republican Party.

Never mind that Democrats control the Senate, which voted 83-7 to pull HUD funding from the group earlier this week, meaning that the vast majority of Democrats supported the measure. Never mind that the House, including about 70% of Democrats, yesterday voted to totally defund ACORN by 345-75.

In the world of Jim Abrams and the Associated Press, it must be almost all the GOP's fault that this happened. Check out the headline (frequently used elsewhere, as seen in this Google Web search on the exact title in quotes) at the reporter's story:

Jon Stewart Mocks Media on ACORN Story: ‘Where the Hell Were You?’
By Noel Sheppard | September 16, 2009 | 1:39 PM EDT

"ACORN appears to be a corrupt organization that aids and abets criminals and gets millions of dollars in taxpayer money."

Such was reported Tuesday evening, but not by one of the mainstream television news outlets.

That was Jon Stewart on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show," who in a fabulous six-minute segment not only covered the story of ACORN representatives giving business advice to folks trying to set up a child-prostitution ring, but also lambasted the media for getting scooped so embarrassingly by "two kids from the cast of ‘High School Musical III.'"

After walking through some of the videos captured at numerous ACORN offices by James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, Stewart said (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript):

AP Report On Census Bureau's Firing of ACORN Ignores Second O'Keefe Video Sting, Minimizes Impact of First
By Tom Blumer | September 12, 2009 | 11:39 AM EDT
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Early this morning (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), I posted on the Associated Press's treatment of the firing of two employees at ACORN's Baltimore office. These employees were successfully stung by undercover filmmaker James O'Keefe, who posed as a pimp (one who said he has plans to use the money from his "enterprise" to run for Congress), and Hannah Giles, who posed as a prostitute.

In a pair of videos (full script here) released on Thursday, viewers saw the two helpful ACORN Baltimore employees tell O'Keefe and Giles, among many jaw-dropping things, that:

  • Giles should call herself a “freelance performing artist” for tax purposes.
  • That they should claim three of 13 underage girls the pair planned to bring in from El Salvador to work as prostitutes as dependents.
  • That the prostitute should also claim child tax credits for those declared as "dependents."

O'Keefe and Giles piled on Friday morning by releasing a second pair of videos showing that they had pulled off a similar sting at ACORN's DC office.

But if we're to believe the Associated Press's Hope Yen, Friday's out of the blue decision by the Census Bureau to sever its ties with ACORN in connection with the 2010 census had nothing or at most very little to do with what O'Keefe and Giles pulled off. Instead, Yen portrayed the decision as a cave-in to the minority party in Washington known as Republicans. Uh-huh.

AP Story On ACORN Sting Video Firings Contains De Facto Commercial (Update: There's a Sting II)
By Tom Blumer | September 12, 2009 | 12:41 AM EDT
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Thursday night, the Associated Press reported on the Baltimore ACORN sting carried out by James O'Keefe of Andrew Breitbart's new BigGovernment.com web site. A paragraph near the end of the report is virtually a de facto commercial for the controversial group.

As to the sting itself, in case you missed it -- in two devastating videos originally posted here that you must see, O'Keefe and Hannah Giles posed as a pimp and prostitute who, as summarized in original Fox News coverage, told officials at ACORN's Baltimore office that they "wanted to secure housing where the woman could continue to maintain a prostitution business."

ACORN said Thursday that it has fired the two employees who are seen on tape telling O'Keefe and Giles the following, among a host of sickening howlers: