"He never claimed he was a pimp," the CA AG pointed out after reviewing the unedited versions of the tapes...

So there you have it from the CA AG. But I won't hold my breath waiting for Patterico aka LA County Deputy DA Patrick Frey or his BRAD BLOG invading stooge, Daleyrocks, to concede the obvious.

And, of course, The New York Times has still failed to mention either that O'Keefe and Giles probably violated CA Penal Code 632 and that they escaped prosecution only because the CA AG unnecessarily granted them immunity from prosecution in order to obtain the voluntary release of the unedited videotapes --- this despite the fact that the CA AG could have simply subpoened the tapes.

Hey, this is just like Happy Days. One day Richie and Joanie Cunningham have a brother named Chuck, and the next day Chuck never even existed.

The New York Times could use a good sit-down with "Mr. C." right about now. You know, the guy who issues corrections.

If a Clark Hoyt jumps the shark, and no one is around to see it, will he be permitted to jump again?

(to be continued...)

Thanks, Brad. I emailed each of the NYT crew (again), and this time not only asked them to issue a retraction, correction, and apology, but said that O'Keefe never posed as a pimp and I am wondering why they are posing as editors and a reporter.

Billy said:

Hey, this is just like Happy Days. One day Richie and Joanie Cunningham have a brother named Chuck, and the next day Chuck never even existed.

ROFL! And at the rest of your note as well (including the "to be continued" inside joke!

Rachel did another great piece on Acorn tonight.

What I have not seen is lawsuits filed against our fake pimp or the "News" agencies that propagated the story without first checking the facts. The fact that they continued to pursue the story even after being notified of the inaccuracy would seem to diminish any claim against a lack of malice against ACORN and its employees. In the case of the "News" agencies that always seem to have a right wing agenda and have been calling for ACORNS demise for years, this is probably even easier to prove.

When the fake finger in the Wendy's chili was exposed every news agency rushed to denounce the deception. That couple was sued in civil court for the loss of business to Wendy's and was sentenced to 9 years in prison. The news companies were not sued but they also did everything they could to inform the public that it was just a criminal scam.

I am not a lawyer yet(bar in July) but I would be happy to assist those that would like to stop this type of fake journalism from continuing. There must have been thousands of victims that lost their jobs once ACORN lost its funding and was forced to close its doors.

Hi Clint. Good luck with the bar exam. Been a long time since I had to take mine (1977). Come May and June, you'll be hitting the bar review books so heavily, you'll be lucky to see the light of day.

On the topic at hand: The damage caused by the ACORN scam and the corporate media failure to report the truth goes well beyond the losses suffered by the organization and its employees. As I pointed out in The Real Targets of the ACORN Smear Campaigns: Verifiable Truth, American Democracy, democracy itself was both the target and the victim.

Without the light of truth piercing the darkness wrought by right-wing propaganda that is designed to destroy organized opposition to totalitarian corporate societal control, like the citizens of New Orleans in the wake of Katrina's wrath, each of us, every man, woman and child, will be left to fend for ourselves against the harsh realities of a greed-driven, corporate security state whose heartless and corrupt leaders could care less whether we sink or swim. We, at The BRAD BLOG, are determined to see that this does not happen.

Clint Curtis, Esquire! Nice. If you think our electoral system is corrupt, it can't hold a candle to our just-us system. I've had Ass't. U.S. Attorneys, threaten a witness, subpoena perjury, tamper with transcripts, and every other dirty trick in the book, and they all got promoted. And that was back in the '80s. It has to be a lot worse since the purges. My best advice if you're entering the ring is to stay on the offensive, go for the knock-out, and keep in mind that our corporate government always fights dirty and never plays by the rules. Also that the judges were bought off before they were "randomly" selected, and that the primary tactic of government and corporations in litigation is to outspend and outlive you, which, seeing as they have unlimited funds and are immortal, they can easily do.

Congrats on your new career!

Oh yeah, and as Delbert Africa explained to Mumia Abu Jamal (recounted in Mumia's book, Jailhouse Lawyers), if you've retained enough faith in the system to think that just because you have the facts, the evidence, and the law on your side, you have any chance of winning a case, you're apt to end up "crazier 'n a bedbug" when it doesn't happen, so be prepared and have a good support system. Also try not to accept consent decrees, as they're rarely enforced, and try to avoid settlements that come with gag orders. If you're at all interested in corporate law, I recommend http://www.mofo.com/news...pressreleases/15100.html

Over at patterico's, almost every post I make ends up in the "spam" filter and has to be "fished" out. Nice! I hadn't really been over there much, but I really found out what a fantastically informed and bright group of people are over there when one asked me how his ballz taste. Naturally I told him that I presumed salty, but he should really ask his mom, and that this was really mature of both of us. That was the only questionable thing I posted, and since it was in response to that...

Chris Hooten was posting a link (and no text beyond the link), or a cuss word, and he's using a server that is on a blacklist, or something like that.

Every comment he's made has been fished out quickly. Patterico's Pontifications is upgrading their site and having a lot of technical problems, and many of my comments are also winding up in the filter. Chris Hooten is aware of this, and he knows he's not being censored for political speech, or being treated differently for his strange views or refusal to back up his claims.

Yeah, sometimes it takes 5 minutes for his comment to appear. Why would that be a big deal? Indeed, Chris has learned that Patterico's blog has some well informed readers who are willing to engage him politely and clearly. He has refused to prove his points, despite claiming he has proof. Go to Patterico's technically inferior blog to learn more, and to see just how hard it is to be censored there. I challenge every reader here to post a liberal comment and see.

Awright Clint,
Glad you're still in the ring.
Hope all y'all emailed all the NYT folks, as I did. "Paper of record," sheeeeszch...
Maybe ACORN can somehow rise from the dead. We seem to have less and less weapons in the never ending fight against the big money and big power. Thanks Brad for staying on this and on the '07 Iraq chopper murder story. I saw that one made front page on Yahoo today. It was because of you and citizen journalists like you, I'm sure.

Patterico aka LA Deputy DA Patrick Frey has blocked posts from both Brad and I because any effort to confront his right-wing propaganda with truth serves to demolish his credibility with his blinded-by-the-right followers. One of my posts he deleted did no more than link to an article I posted over here --- an article which Patterico claimed rewrote the history of O'Keefe's fraudulent scheme.

Patterico, the propagandist, promised his readers he'd provide a follow-up to prove my so-called factual errors; then never followed through.

Patterico also failed to so much as admonish one of his wing-nut followers for posting what amounted to a thinly veiled terrorist threat against me.

Oh, and Mark Smith, I hope you won't paint all lawyers with the same broad brush. Yes you can point to an abusive prosecutor, or the corruption that existed in, for example, the politicized Alberto Gonzales-led Justice Department, but there were throughout that same period lawyers working tirelessly at the Center for Constitutional Rights, the ACLU and even military defense lawyers, striving to protect the rights of those who fall victim to governmental abuse.

Dustin I've seen the level of discourse over there. Everyone is called a lefty even without talking about any views on Social or Economic issues. Disagreement warrants ad hominems from JDS. Then you have people talking about philosophical breaking of laws.

Or we could take for instance Cantor's claim his office was directly targeted, which it wasn't. I then had to resort to posting links to articles, information on Cantor's district, etc only to see others on Patterico's blog push it off topic.

In the article above it states, "Acorn employees were shown advising a young conservative activist, who posed as a prostitute, how to conceal her criminal activities in the course of trying to buy a house." I believe, from what I read in earlier articles, that an ACORN employee advised Giles on how to hide supposed money from her pimp and told Giles that she would still need to pay taxes even if the money was from illegal activities. If this is true, then the NYT is still misrepresenting the facts.

@Ernest A. Canning: Hey, I'm not prejudiced--two of my best friends are lawyers.

Well, actually one, as the other decided that teaching school was more honest. The other does court appointed death penalty appeals and occasionally manages to save a life.

It is our system, not just our adversarial just-us system that is corrupt, but the larger system of which it is a part.

I'm 70 years old and it has been a very steep learning curve. Like most, I started out thinking that our system was, or at least had been designed to be a republic, a form of democracy in which supreme power is vested in the hands of the people who exercise their supreme power through their elected representatives. So, like many, when I saw corruption, I first blamed individuals, then faith-based, unverifiable, easily rigged elections, then political parties ande their big corporate donors, etc., etc., and it took a long time for me to peel back the onion layer by layer and realize that we never had a republic, that what we've always had is a Constitutional oligarchy, and that a Constitutional oligarchy is, by its nature, undemocratic and corrupt.

In no democratic form of government would nine unelected clowns be able to issue edicts which, no matter how irrational, unprecedented, and unjust, cannot be appealed. In no democratic form of government would the people lack the power to hold their elected representatives accountable DURING THEIR TERMS OF OFFICE, without which power there is no way for the people to exercise their will through their representatives. Voting for new ones after the damage is done and cannot be undone, is locking the barn door after the horse is stolen and cannot be mistaken for a democratic form of government.

This is not to say that there might not be a good outcome in some instances of litigation--nothing on this prison planet is perfect and even our just-us system is probably no more than 99.99% corrupt. I mean it only as a kindness to Clint to try to ensure that he is aware of the percentages. It is quite possible that Morrison Foerster may win their case against the government, as they have not only the facts and the law on their side, but they have the money and corporate power to fight it through the twenty or thirty years it may take. None of their clients will still be alive of course, and nobody responsible will be punished, but "just-us" will be done. Less powerful individuals, attorneys, and law firms can expect less positive outcomes.

Notice the GOP governor had asked for the investigation and then as Canning points out the hoaxters were falsely granted immunity from prosecution. Just another GOP act.
For Clint - read "The Corrupt New York Supreme Court Judges," an out of print paperback, but available. I also know a lawyer who quit and now teaches law instead.

I got FAIR's e-newsletter today, and posted a comment on Peter Hart's story. Despite the typo (claimed instead of claim), I rather like my comment, so I'm reposting it here:

http://www.fair.org/blog...5/more-on-nyt-and-acorn/

Mark E. Smith Says:

April 9th, 2010 at 4:21 pm
The lesson to be learned here is, in my opinion, that the New York Times is a criminal organization. It has repeated lies even after being presented with proof that they were lies. It has still not issued a formal retraction or correction of its many published lies, and what appeared to pass for an apology was nullified when their slanted coverage continued.

I know that if anyone had presented the Times with allegations about Bush, they would have fact-checked before publishing, but they didn't fact-check to ensure that O'Keefe's videos hadn't been edited. And their most recent item, since they can no longer claimed that O'Keefe posed as a pimp, which he did not, stresses that his female companion posed as a prostitute. But since they don't fact-check, how do they know that she was merely posing? We know that she was taking part in a deliberate and nefarious scheme to hurt poor people, we know that she was paid, we know that she lied numerous times--why does the Times assume that she was merely "posing" as a prostitute? Have they consulted any D.C. madams to see if she is on their call-girl lists? Have they had her investigated to make sure that she wasn't free-lancing? Maybe she was posing, or maybe prostitution is another of her immoral sources of income, but since the Times doesn't fact-check, nobody should take their word for anything or assume that any information presented in the Times as fact is actually true.

What I'd like to know is why are New York Times staff members posing as editors and reporters when they are incapable of fulfilling those job descriptions?