Nut buster busted

[lindajdunn]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100127/...office_arrests

NEW ORLEANS – Four men accused of trying to tamper with Democratic U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu's office phones shared a common experience as young ideologues writing for conservative publications.

Federal authorities said two of the men posed as telephone workers with hard hats, tool belts and fluorescent vests and walked into Landrieu's office in a New Orleans federal building Monday. A federal law enforcement official said Wednesday one of the hard hats was rigged with a tiny camera. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

The most well-known suspect is James O'Keefe, 25, who posed as a pimp for a hidden-camera expose that damaged the reputation of the liberal community-organizing group ACORN and made him a conservative darling.

........

[Hauptman]

And one of them is a the son of a U.S. attorney who is a political opponent of Landrieu's; very ugly scene.

On a related note, does anyone know if O'Keefe's videos of ACORN ever appeared in UN-edited form anywhere? I would really like to see the raw footage.

[thereom4]

That's what they get. They thought it was TV. This is the real world. Sure their "undercover" sting worked on the people at Acorn, (I don't know how. I mean they were dressed like an Adult Swim version of a pimp and a hoe) but the type of espionage they were attempting is only successful movies. Not so smart now are they? They can now however report from prison on whether or not "tossed salads" are actually served in jail. Eeeww I know. Sorry about that.


@OP, nice thread title. I couldn't rep you.

[Philistine]

And one of them is a the son of a U.S. attorney who is a political opponent of Landrieu's; very ugly scene.

I don't think the father is a political opponent. He's only an acting-USA, and only been in office a little more than a week. He's a career prosecutor.

On a related note, does anyone know if O'Keefe's videos of ACORN ever appeared in UN-edited form anywhere? I would really like to see the raw footage.

It has not.

{snip}
@OP, nice thread title. I couldn't rep you.

That was a good title.

--Philistine

[Purple Fencer]

What....Slim, BB, and Chase haven't said anything yet???

[Hauptman]

I don't think the father is a political opponent. He's only an acting-USA, and only been in office a little more than a week. He's a career prosecutor.

I know he's just acting US attorney, but I read somewhere that he was very outspoken about Landrieu and involved in local politics.

I'll have to see if I can find where I read it.

[erik_blank]

What....Slim, BB, and Chase haven't said anything yet???

Hopefully they weren't caught up in the net...

[lindajdunn]

The Justice Office has allegedly found no intention to wiretap which leads to questions about what they WERE planning to do with the phone system.

Straight from the O'Keefe's twitter:

Govt official concedes no attempt to wiretap

I don't know how reliable that is but it's an interesting development and esp. so since the court allegedly told him not to discuss the case.

I get the feeling that this young man doesn't think the rules apply to him.

MSNBC is reporting they were going to turn the phone off.

From another source: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/32138.html


“Don't just respond to news, but actually create your own headlines,” he said. “Make demands upon your professors. Make demands upon your university to actually change things. Don't just wait for something to happen and sit back and report on it.”


The institute, which trains conservatives in activist journalism and more general organizing techniques, provided hands-on training and $500 apiece to O’Keefe and two of his alleged co-conspirators – Joe Basel and Stan Dai, both 24 – while they were still college students to help them start conservative newspapers at Rutgers University, the University of Minnesota-Morris and George Washington University, respectively.

Note Flanagan interned for Rep. Mary Fallin (R-Okla.)

[lindajdunn]

Gotta love attorney spin:

J. Garrison Jordan, an attorney for one of the men, denied they were trying to disable or wiretap the phones in Landrieu's office. The four, including activist James O'Keefe, known for posing as a pimp and using a hidden camera to target the community-organizing group ACORN, were arrested Monday.

"You're dealing with kids," Jordan said. "I don't think they thought it through that far."
====

Ahem... I think they're going for the "my client wasn't a criminal, he was just stupid" defense.

Huffington has some nice quotes from those defending the... ahem... 24+ year old "children" involved.

I wonder if they'll try them in juvenile court.

It appears the court does seem to be buying into this line of reasoning, however, as it's ordered one kid to move home with his parents.

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmem...fe_to_live.php

And from the NY Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/29/us...9landrieu.html

Ms. Landrieu said her staff was immediately skeptical of the men who came to the office on Monday dressed as repairmen, and walked them to the offices of the General Services Administration, which are on the same floor. The agency is in charge of the phone system at her New Orleans office, the senator said.

“Thank goodness I have very good staffers,” Ms. Landrieu said.

===

Ms. Landrieu said she remained curious about the men’s motives, and said people should not necessarily “buy their spin” about their intentions.

“The fact is that they entered a federal building under false pretenses, period,” she said. “And it’s wrong. And it may be illegal.”

====

This is the one I love. It's a FEDERAL building folks. Think of Oklahoma City and the recent episode at Ft. Hood and you might understand why they're disinclined to let them off lightly.

I sincerely hope the publicity and the penalties will be sufficient to discourage others from committing similiar errors in judgment.

[Slim]

NEW ORLEANS – Four men accused of trying to tamper with Democratic U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu's office phones shared a common experience as young ideologues writing for conservative publications.

Federal authorities said two of the men posed as telephone workers with hard hats, tool belts and fluorescent vests and walked into Landrieu's office in a New Orleans federal building Monday. A federal law enforcement official said Wednesday one of the hard hats was rigged with a tiny camera. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

The most well-known suspect is James O'Keefe, 25, who posed as a pimp for a hidden-camera expose that damaged the reputation of the liberal community-organizing group ACORN and made him a conservative darling.

........

That should read "further damaged an already shady reputation".

[Purple Fencer]

Gotta love attorney spin:

"You're dealing with kids," Jordan said. "I don't think they thought it through that far."

Prob with that is....they're all in their mid-20s or so....hardly kids.

[lindajdunn]

From the NOLA.COM:

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.s...ested_for.html

According to the FBI affidavit, Flanagan and Basel entered the federal building at 500 Poydras Street on Monday about 11 a.m., dressed as telephone company employees, wearing jeans, fluorescent green vests, tool belts and hard hats. When they arrived at Landrieu's 10th-floor office, O'Keefe was already in the office and had told a staffer he was waiting for someone to arrive.

When Flanagan and Basel entered the office, they told the staffer they were there to fix phone problems. At that time, the staffer, referred to only as Witness 1 in the affidavit, observed O'Keefe positioning his cell phone in his hand to videotape the operation. O'Keefe later admitted to agents that he recorded the event.

Politico has an interesting story that shows some of their funding sources, their training, and their methodologies.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/32138.html

Founded in 1979 by veteran Republican activist Morton Blackwell, the Leadership Institute has worked with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Karl Rove and Grover Norquist. The group raked in $6.6 million in 2008, according to its most recent publicly available IRS filings, which doesn’t list donors.

After the institute helped launch the student conservative papers started by O’Keefe, Basel and Dai, all three took the reins of their publications and turned to the Collegiate Network, another conservative non-profit, for continuing funding,


IRS filings show the group raised $2.2 million in 2007, and over the years has received nearly $5 million from conservative foundations including the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Kirby Foundation, Carthage Foundation, and the John M. Olin Foundation.


Douglas Minson, executive director of the network, said his group provided training to the three fledgling papers and also funded printing costs. He declined to say how much, or whether he was comfortable with O’Keefe’s post-collegiate journalism tactics.

[lindajdunn]

Apologies for multiple postings but I've just caught up on some of the news.

O'Keefe's full statement is here:

http://biggovernment.com/2010/01/29/...-james-okeefe/

The government has now confirmed what has always been clear: No one tried to wiretap or bug Senator Landrieu's office. Nor did we try to cut or shut down her phone lines. Reports to this effect over the past 48 hours are inaccurate and false.

[Slim]

Prob with that is....they're all in their mid-20s or so....hardly kids.

Based on what I've seen here....20's is still a kid.

[Philistine]

Based on what I've seen here....20's is still a kid.

Heck, if you go by what you see here, 60's is still a kid....



That being said--judge's are generally not real sympathetic to "youthful indiscretion" from 25 year olds. That being said, I'll be shocked if the sentence isn't probation.

--Philistine

[lindajdunn]

You know that pimp costume? It seems it wasn't worn inside ACORN offices.

http://washingtonindependent.com/770...titute-outfits

Both O'Keefe and Hannah Giles were at CPAC (O'Keefe had permission from the court to attend) and Giles received a "Buckley Award" at XPAC section at CPAC on Friday, affirming her status as a young conservative leader.

A reporter from the Washington Independent reports:

I asked Giles about a criticism that’s often been leveled against them — that they hyped up the video by wearing outrageous clothes in promotional materials and the videos’ introductions that they didn’t wear in the actual stings.

“We never claimed that he went in with a pimp costume,” said Giles. “That was b-roll. It was purely b-roll. He was a pimp, I was a prostitute, and we were walking in front of government buildings to show how the government was whoring out the American people.”

I didn't know what b-roll meant so I looked it up. It was not in my thick dictionary nor in the online dictionary I normally use. From Googling:

B-roll, B roll, or Broll is supplemental or alternate footage intercut with the main shot in an interview or documentary.

This is video that enhances or tells the story. It was originally used to cover a jump cut in editing. It is now more commonly used to add dimension to a story. Example: If a person is talking about a new school, the B-roll will include video of the new school.

Extra video taken to “color” a story, set an overall scene or add visual detail. In productions with more than one news camera, B-roll is taken by the secondary camera. In news, B-roll is edited in with A-roll to prevent visual boredom.

Wikipedia has quite a bit about its history and notes: The term "B-roll" is now limited to secondary footage that adds meaning to a sequence or disguises the elimination of unwanted content.

This agrees with the statement made by others that O'Keefe didn't pose as a pimp during the ACORN stings. He wore khakis and claimed to be the college student boyfriend of a prostitute, Giles, who was trying to get away from her abusive pimp.

Breibart, their legal adviser, has conceded O'Keefe never wore the pimp costume into an ACORN office, as stated earlier.

“I have to apologize to the nation because the pimp in the pimp and prostitute video apparently wasn’t dressed like a flamboyant pimp,” said Breitbart, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “I’m so sorry to this nation. I don’t know what to say.” He pivoted to an attack on the people criticizing his reporters. “Bring it on! Mr. Podesta, we’re watching you! Mr. Podesta we are so sick of your Alinsky tactics and politics of personal destruction.”

http://washingtonindependent.com/771...mp-im-so-sorry

I end with my usual complaint: I miss real journalism. I miss Walter Cronkite. I miss being able to believe that what I see is a real new article and not some Candid Camera trick with some tech-savy Allen Funt wannabe behind the scenes, slicing in video like the producer of Forrest Grump, who made it appear that Forrest shook hands with President Kennedy.

It's growing more and more difficult to separate the truth tellers from the spin masters.

[erik_blank]

Why am I not surprised that they highly edited their video? Brings their entire 'report' into question.

[lindajdunn]

Hannah Giles has not been served but she's started a fundraising effort for her defense anyway. Base Connect, a firm that does work for many Republican campaigns, produced the mailing.

http://washingtonindependent.com/784...ing-for-donors

I don't know who created that letter but they've overdone it with the pink pen highlighting, etc. I guess it's supposed to look like it was written by a teenage girl but I find it a little over the top and think it's hurt the effectiveness of the appeal.

I also like Colbert's take on the "editing" of the video.

http://popwatch.ew.com/2010/03/05/co...nnity-hat-tip/

I note that ACORN has been cleared in Brooklyn.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010...stitute-video/

http://washingtonindependent.com/646...adelphia-sting

The muting of the ACORN worker’s voice led to a strange presentation; O’Keefe simply told reporters what Conway Russell was saying whenever the audio cut out. Blogger Mike Stark asked Breitbart if the whole, unedited video would be released.

“James O’Keefe is the producer of it,” said Breitbart, “and since he’s in a lawsuit, I can’t have that discussion with him right now. But I would certainly be open to that possibility.”

This was back in October and we still haven't seen any unedited tapes. The voiceovers and the muting fuel the claims that Giles and O'Keefe manipulated the videos. I know they don't have Avatar's budget, but after seeing Forrest Grump, I am no longer willing to accept any edited videos as proof of anything. I want to see the original, unedited footage and I was an unbiased professional to attest that it's unedited.

It's not about being liberal, conservative, or whatever. It's about desiring the unedited truth, which is something that's becoming increasingle difficult to acquire and/or recognize.

Assume my usual rant about the loss of true journalism and longing for the days of newscasters like Walter Cronkite. Ah... back in the good old days when reporters REPORTED the news rather than created the news. Back in the good old days when opinions were in the editorial pages. Ad Infitium.

[erik_blank]

interesting article here referencing an investigation by the CA Attourny general:
http://news.firedoglake.com/2010/04/...eavily-edited/

Amazing how we heard all about O'Keef's edited video, but nothing about what the CA AG saw when he looked into the raw footage.

Too bad that he had to agree not to prosecute O'Keef in order to get ahold of the raw video.

[lindajdunn]

So the unedited tapes are finally available at

http://ag.ca.gov/newsalerts/multimedia/index.php

I need to buy a headset and watch them.