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Anti-ACORN Filmmaker Arrested
Federal authorities have arrested four men on felony charges for attempting to infiltrate Sen. Mary Landrieu's New Orleans office, including one filmmaker who targeted the community group ACORN last year in undercover videos.
In a Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2009 file photo, activist James O'Keefe attends a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington. O'Keefe was among four people arrested Monday, Jan. 25, 2010 and accused of trying to interfere with phones at U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu's New Orleans office. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari, File) Among those arrested was 25-year-old James O'Keefe, the conservative filmmaker, along with Joseph Basel, Robert Flanagan and Stan Dai, all 24. They were charged with entering federal property under false pretenses and attempting to gain access to the Democrat's office by posing as telephone repairmen, according to a copy of an FBI affidavit unsealed Tuesday.
The complaint said that Flanagan and Basel each entered the premises, wearing light green fluorescent vests, denim paints and blue work shirts, tool belts and hard-hats. They informed a member of Landrieu's staff that they were telephone repairmen and requested access to the main telephone at the reception desk.
At that point, the two men allegedly attempted to manipulate telephones and accessed the telephone closet, saying they needed to work on the entire system. The men, who said they left their credentials in their vehicles, were arrested by the U.S. Marshal's Service soon afterward.
According to the FBI, the four men could each face up to 10 years and a fine of $250,000 if they are convicted.
O'Keefe made waves last year when he posed as a pimp and taped ACORN employees discussing a prostitution ring, embarrassing the group and forcing many of its supporters to spurn its ties with it.
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94 Comments so far
Show AllLOL...MADE MY DAY!! Those who ignore/revise history are doomed to repeat it. This kid reminds me of a younger, dumber, meaner G. Gordon Liddy. He will probably be just as bald when he gets out...He should be charged under the terrorism laws he loves so much, and shipped off to Gitmo for "questioning"
Anyone have an address where I can send this little fascist an extra large tube of Analease, to make his stay in the federal pen more comfortable?
I'm sure the African American inmates are eager to discuss his ACORN film making efforts...IN DEPTH
Except the only deepthroat in this story will be what this little racist does for cigarettes in prison
That was very mean... and very funny... ;-) or should it be ;-0
the Conservative Filmmaker? How about racist bigot filmmaker? oh, yeah...
You're too shy. Tell us how you really feel. :)
I'll tell you how I REALLY FEEL: *%#¤) /)= "!¤ ¤##"*" +?$@$€!!! - @$$#¤£€!
F***, I thin k my K eyb oard blew uP.
Mainstream media is just as racist-enabling... but much more subtle. O'Keefe's main "crime" is that he is too transparent in his self-glorifying racial representation.
He should look more carefully at the major TV networks and Hollywood: they manage to portray the poor, blacks, and Arabs in a very negative light, but they do it with that all important subtlety. And that subtlety allows them to keep a respectable social standing - which permits them their critically important authority.
Subtle propaganda is much more effective than blatant propaganda.
It would appear as if this era's version of the White House Plumbers just had their Watergate moment. Expect the loony tune right to call them heroes.
They're probably organizing a campaign for contributions for bail and attorney's as we speak. Their new icons have been born.......
I hate to say it but I am basking in the shadenfreude of this hateful, little, person's demise.
Speaking of...
What happened to Ralph Reed?
PeaceLoveTruthBeauty!
Jack Chase
The money trail attached to these guys is probably very interesting, yet traced to the "usual suspects."
My question exactly: Who signs his checks?
"Petard." That ought to be spelled with an acute accent, but my comp isn't speaking French at the moment. Refers to a machine for blasting through the gates of a city; occasionally some chaps blew themselves up using such a machine.To be HOISTED ON ONE'S OWN PETARD means to be undone by one's own devices. From the old French peter (to break wind); thus "pet" refers to the breaking of wind. That comes from the Latin "peditum," the neutral past participle of "pedere," to break wind. From Wikipedia. I hope it's accurate.
You bet it is. It's good to explore etymologies and figures of speech. Less chance you'll make an ass of yourself using them (words and figures of speech )in civil conversation. The last people able to do so on the right were Bill Buckley and Bill Safire. There aren't any intelligent ones left on that side. Those two may have been way off base, but at least they were coherent.
Intellect has disappeared from the Girondist side of the chamber.
I always thought it meant to "smell their own fart"...try the alt key and 0233 for the accent thingie (é)
"embarrassing the group and forcing many of its supporters to spurn its ties with it"
O'Keefe's mischief didn't force ACORN's supporters to spurn their ties with ACORN. Rather, ACORN's supporters' unspoken contract with elitevil forced them to spurn their ties with ACORN.
This contract with elitevil is worded effectively like so: We who squat on (i.e. claim to represent) the left side of the political spectrum consent to everything on your, the elitevil extreme right gutter scum's, agenda as long as you let us share power occasionally and pretend that we are opposing you in order to perpetuate the illusion of democracy.
It's an illegitimate contract. And the media doesn't want to talk about it.
So - ACORN's phones are fixed now?
Considering how hard good telephone repairmen are to come by, maybe the Democrats should've just gone with the flow?
Were these telephone repairmen busted by the NSA-taps?
Anyone notice how crooked O'Keefe's face is? The left side is all scrunched up, including a squint. Interesting that it's on the left side.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
looks the idiot kid Alfred E. Neuman.
It's like how Cheney's face and mouth is all twisted. It shows a demented mind inside.
I can't stop laughing!
Instant Karma's gonna get you,
Gonna knock you right on the head!
I wonder why this didn't make headline news!
This raises a much more interesting point as to who in the past has bugged representatives´offices. Does the legislative staff regularly sweep their workplaces for hidden mikes? The FBI has been eavesdropping on their conversations for years. An ex agent, surfing bum from California, wrote a book about exactly that back in the 60´s.
If you remeber a rat in Orin Hatch's office was caught hacking Ted Kennedy's computer. What happened? Nothing the guy walked and Hatch apologized!
The people grew fat and got lazy and now their vote is a meaningless tool, they babble about law and order but it's all just an echo of what they've been told, yea theres a monster on the loose, it's got our heads inside the noose, and it just sits there watching. (Steppenwolf)
Good, boil their butts!
Oh, my bad, I thought this was about the supreme court throwing out this guy's case on some corporate sponsorship cause.
Gee, who believes that perhaps Glenn Beck and El Rusbo will form some sort of 'defense fund' so that they can channel hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend these geeks?
As Alice's Queen of Hearts was known to say, "Off with his head!"
(LOL)
The poor, dumb, kid. He better plead guilty and make a deal to be sent to a country club/white collar prison, because he won't enjoy being locked up with African-Americans. He might learn more than he ever wanted to know about prostitution and pimps.
Just because you get locked up with african americans doesn't mean you will suffer anymore than anybody else. It all depends on the facility and how you handle yourself. This guy is just a tool for those in power who would dis-empower the working half of our country. The real story is how officials let corporations of death like Xe and corporations that are supposed to reconstruct war torn countries of the hook, but are willing to go after an organization that could take those billions and keep people in their homes.
Yes, this guy is pathetic but i would sentence him to 10 yearns of community service with ACORN.
Wow, great idea. Nothin' like seeing how the other half lives...
too easy...
let him spend time with the way-too-high-percentage of incarcerated blacks... and other minorities... the closest he ever gets to is with cheap imported offshored labor produced clothes...
by doing what he did to acorn... little lily white boy set decades of community organizing backwards...
acorn... organized... in part... to get some leveling of the playing field for minorities when it came to the courts' system...
this little fucktard at 23... would have trouble finding which hand to jerk off with...
i say send him to pelican bay for a few years...
looks a little like lee atwater... and may he meet the same destiny...
he's fucked with REAL people's lives... black men who get run up on charges for years... while most whites get a little community service...
let a black man out... and give this guy his cell... THAT would tech the little punk a few...
I disagree. Jail never taught anybody anything. Ten years working for ACORN, helping poor inner city folk register to vote, offering tax advice, etc...
Now, THAT would be an education.
He obviously hates people on Medicaid too. Since this was about to be another one of his big exposes.
Maybe they could send him to volunteer in a free clinic with long lines. Bring his video equipment to document all the people in need of health care in Louisiana.
With his ingenious sleuthing skills, MAYBE he can figure out what's happening there.
fuck an education... this guy needs to be made an example of...
he IS educated... edcuated enough to get in the FRONT DOOR o a U.S. Senator's office in braod daylight...
he should NOT be give one ioat of sympathy... redemption... or any other goddamned thing...
isn't 30+ years of getting fucked over by republicans enough...
what... is EVERYONE on the left part of the battered wife club...
these bastard republicans have destroyed millions of people's lives the past 30 years.. go take a walk though hundreds of towns in the midwest... where fully able bodied people are living in shelters...
letting this guy do "service" means he gets to go "home" every night... and work on his next dirty trick...
mark my words... this guy will keep popping up on the radar for years...
remember goodfella's when henry got popped... and didn't squeal... and the mob met him at teh release...
i say... send him up... and let him do a little squealing for a real pimp...
Why? So he could get a second crack at taken down Acorn?
Not old enough to know what they are doing, but old enough to be brainwashed and certainly old enough to go to jail and grow up the hard way!
"...10 years and a fine of $250,000 if they are convicted.
O'Keefe made waves last year when he posed as a pimp..."
send him up... but methinks... "pretty boy" wouldn't be the "pimp" up in a federal penitentiary...
and the left... time to get cajones... hold this one out up front...
"The GOP At Work"
"Freedom & Liberty - to tap your phones"
let's jump on it progressives... get some "front" groups... like... "Descendants of Watergate"...
no time to be mealy mouthed... or politically correct... or redemptive...
i say send 'em all up to a privatized prison for the max... make 'em pay for their own jump suits...
Screw the little Re-Pubs and throw away the key.
They'll proably go up river to some white collar criminal's country club. For a few years and then out.
Our 'Senators' gave Big Telecon retroactive impunity to wiretap every citizen's telephone without court aproval - how do they like reciprocity now?
On the plus side, this guy's a reporter trying to expose fraud. We have precious little of these guys around. Mostly we have stupid film crews at car crashes hoping for blood.
On the minus side, he's a felon now. Felons usually serve hard time. I have no doubt that he's going to be coddled by an activist conservative judge, one of the same idiot judges that gave corporations more rights than citizen/voters. When corporations kill citizens they don't go to jail for manslaughter, so why should this committer of a felony go to jail? Mark my words, slap on the wrist.
He is NOT a "reporter trying to expose fraud." Never was. He's a sleaze who presented a farcical street-theater skit, secretly video-taped the reactions of ACORN employees — none of whom believed for a minute he was actually a pimp — and then edited clips to create a false impression of the ACORN employees.
That's not exposing fraud, it's committing fraud.
Apparently it worked so well the first time, he wanted to try it again. I'm sure he intended to record hundreds of hours of phone calls, out of which he would manufacture one minute of "evidence" of something that would be useful to Republicans.
10 years and a $250,000 fine for each count? Ummmm, how many phones did Bush bug?
They are but sacrificial piss ants like Martha Stewart.
All the Ant Eaters walk away.
This is a-too-weird-shades-of-Nixon story. These guys went in like this to a Democratic Senator's office in broad daylight, dressed like phone repair people, saying they were there to fix the phones?
Or Election repair people...