David Shuster is a Douchebag

Allahpundit has a report from Fox News citing sources close to James O'Keefe who claim the young man who exposed widespread corruption at ACORN is not charged with wiretapping.  Andrew Breitbart asks the media to wait for the facts before pronouncing O'Keefe guilty.

The left wing media and bloggers have been positively joyful since hearing the news of O'Keefe's arrest and have been vigilantly watching the right wing bloggers for signs of hypocrisy:

Can someone tell me how long it took Shuster to report on ACORN? It's no secret the media did everything humanly possible to ignore the ACORN scandal.  Truth be told, nearly every blogger has reported the story and issued some statement condemning the use of illegal means.  That is not good enough for the likes of David Shuster who can't wait to condemn the 25 year old, meanwhile FT Hood shooter Nidal Hassan got the benefit of the doubt.  Here is a selection of Shuster's tweets on O'Keefe:

He flat out admits he is enjoying it.  Whatever O'Keefe ends up being proved guilty of remains to be seen, Shuster, however, just proved himself to be a hypocritical douchebag.  Sorry, douchebag was the nicest term I could think of to describe him.

James O'Keefe Arrested

Note:   Due to a few minor computer issues, this post was intended to go up much earlier
Via Memeorandum
NOLA broke the big news that set the blogosphere on fire today, James O'Keefe arrested along with three others for entering federal property under false pretenses and another more serious charge:

Whoever willfully or maliciously injures or destroys any of the works, property, or material of any radio, telegraph, telephone or cable, line, station, or system, or other means of communication, operated or controlled by the United States, or used or intended to be used for military or civil defense functions of the United States, whether constructed or in process of construction, or willfully or maliciously interferes in any way with the working or use of any such line, or system, or willfully or maliciously obstructs, hinders, or delays the transmission of any communication over any such line, or system, or attempts or conspires to do such an act, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

 The FBI affadavit outlines the sequence of events leading up to O'Keefe's arrest and appears quite damaging:

O'Keefe became famous when he and Hannah Giles  posed as a pimp and a prostitute in order to report on corruption at ACORN.  Andrew Breitbart, who first released the tapes that uncovered the corruption at ACORN discovered through Giles and O'Keefe's investigative reporting, has issued a statement:

“We have no knowledge about or connection to any alleged acts and events involving James O’Keefe at Senator Mary Landrieu’s office.  We only just learned about the alleged incident this afternoon.  We have no information other than what has been reported publicly by the press.  Accordingly, we simply are not in a position to make any further comment.”

Breitbart was interviewed  by Hugh Hewitt where he revealed O'Keefe has been paid by Breitbart in the past and Breitbart holds  first rights of refusal  for O'Keefe's work.  Breitbart maintains he had no knowledge of O'Keefe's actions in New Orleans and hadn't spoken to him for several weeks.
Michelle Malkin reported immediately and issued the following caution:

But for now, let it be a lesson to aspiring young conservatives interested in investigative journalism:
Know your limits. Know the law. Don’t get carried away. And don’t become what you are targeting.

 Michelle also had this video embedded of an eight minute local news report:

Pointing Fingers at Beck is Easier than Journalism

Ben Cohen at HuffPo is under some wild delusion that Rupert Murdoch might actually cut Glenn Beck loose because the lefty boycott has been so effective or something. If Beck is such a lunatic why does the left spend so much time and energy focusing on him? Conservatives can get riled up over an Olbermann report, but there has been no real effort by conservatives to boycott his sponsors. A quick google search shows a mention of a desire to boycott his show on a conservative forum SodaHead. The rest of the entries for boycotts against Olbermann come from liberals. Democratic Underground has discussions on three separate boycotts against Olbermann. The Clinton campaign organized another against fellow MSNBC host David Shuster. The liberals sure seem to enjoy a good boycott.

Fox cleans up in the ratings compared to MSNBC. Dan Riehl mentions that Joe Scarborough has recently outperformed Beck in the radio ratings in the New York market, however. I would point out though, Scarborough is a moderate while Mika Brzezinski, his co-host is quite liberal. That they might beat Beck in the New York market seems not terribly surprising. Beck has a large cable audience and has attracted quite a bit of media attention. Whether it is positive or negative that type attention drives viewers to Fox. Many advertisers have merely shuffled their ads from Beck's show to others. Murdoch is not losing a thing.

If liberals are so concerned about Beck, perhaps they should consider giving him less attention instead of feeding the Beck frenzy. Of course they will not and their fury will only draw more conservatives out of the woodwork to see what the fuss is all about. Those in the media, Joy Behar for example, love to point to Beck as insane, while they ignore it in their own backyard. Beck's association with the toppling of ACORN as well as the Van Jones and Yosi Sergeant resignations have infuriated the left and shown the main stream media to be asleep at the switch.

Beck hasn't done any of this single-handedly, Big Government has done quite a bit of the heavy lifting. As with Beck, the focus of investigation doesn't turn to the corruption they have called to public attention, the investigation instead focuses on Breitbart, Giles, O'Keefe and Beck. What an incredible waste. If the left would like these people to shut up, they could start by cleaning their houses. It is an entirely Democratically controlled government right now. Screaming about Beck or focusing investigations on Breitbart reveals how seriously they take that responsibility.  There is a sure fire path available to the leftist media and liberals to silence Beck; leave him nothing to talk about or prove him wrong as he challenges in the following clip.  I doubt Beck is holding his breath 



H/T: Memeorandum

ACORN Gives New Meaning to the Old Adage "A Fool For a Client"

Here is a copy of the lawsuit filed by Acorn against Hannah Giles, James O'Keefe and Breitbart. The first page has been removed to protect personal information of all parties:


Click on the arrow in the top right corner to expand PDF
Zero Sheep's  has a full analysis of the law involved and assesses ACORN's case.  I won't summarize, it is best to read for yourself.  His conclusion:

My first thought was that ACORN would have some trouble showing standing and damages. After looking at the text of the complaint, my thought changed to, “Are you freaking kidding me?”

My original thoughts are still valid, I think, but the complaint is so bad that I am having a hard time believing that this isn’t all just a joke (albeit a dry and not very funny one only a lawyer would get).

Zero sheep mentions the analysis at NRO that was also linked by Ace.  Zero disagreed on a minor legal point, but agreed on most points.   It's an interesting analysis and worth a read, here is the bottom line:

In short, Learned Hand once said that he feared a lawsuit more than death or taxes. With good lawyering from the defendants (which I'm sure their going to get), ACORN is about to find out what Hand meant. ACORN has very little to gain and a lot to lose.

Far from believing the defendants have anything to fear, Greta Van Sustern actually wishes ACORN would file such a suit against her. She, of course, is thinking as a journalist here but is informed by her legal background:

By filing a lawsuit, ACORN just opened itself up for FULL DISCOVERY!! They are going to get hit with interrogatories, requests for production of documents, depositions etc. And who will get deposed? Just about everybody! And if discovery produces evidence of a crime? You can be sure that the evidence will be fed ex'd to the Justice Department!

As a journalist, she relishes the thoughts of what full discovery of ACORN might produce.   She did have a moments pause, however, when first reading the suit.  Greta was torn as to who was the bigger idiot, "the ACORN official making decisions for ACORN about a lawsuit? or the lawyer who is advising ACORN and who filed suit? or is it a tie?"

I will admit that my first impression was that the defendants may have broken the law but ACORN had more to lose than they would ever gain from a lawsuit. After reading the legal opinions I linked above and hearing Greta Van Sustern literally LOL'ing for 5 minutes tonight with Tucker Carlson over the sheer stupidity of the suit, I changed my opinion. This is only going to give Giles, O'Keefe and Breitbart a higher profile and bring some well deserved self-inflicted heartache to ACORN. Please weigh in with a comment, I would love to hear predictions on the outcome.

Latest Video from Giles and O'Keefe

So the pimp and the prostitute loaded up the truck and moved their undercover investigation of ACORN out to California. Let's just say if this was a television production, people might have a hard time believing it. As they say though, truth is stranger than fiction:



Be sure to visit Big Government Hannah Giles has a piece on the theoretical process behind the sting. There is plenty on Boehner and Cantor's call to the the IRS to sever ties with ACORN immediately.

As Allahpundit said, ACORN will no doubt respond to this with claims this woman is a raving loon. I have reservations about her mental health as well. Nevertheless, she is awfully specific about dollar amounts and seems pretty familiar with the field of prostitution.  Perhaps she is just following guidelines in the ACORN manual and thinking on her feet, reacting and adapting to situations toward the ultimate goal of "organizing the unorganized. " Who knew they meant organizing the unorganized underage prostitution rings?

More Advice for the Pimp and the Ho from Helpful ACORN Workers

UPDATE:   Scroll down for the latest news

This time from the ACORN office in Brooklyn:



This is the group that was designated to receive $8 Billion of the stimulus dollars we borrowed from China.  Yes, billions, unbelievable.  Megan McArdle thinks ACORN is not long for this world, we can only hope. Pat at And So it Goes in Shreveport has the latest ACORN statement from Bertha Lewis claiming tapes are doctored and poor ACORN is a victim of the relentless attacks of the evil FOX News, awwww.  Michelle Malkin has more on the history of the corruption surrounding ACORN.

Be sure to watch the rest of the video at Big Government.  Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe are both contributors at this new website devoted to our ever expanding big government.

Via Michelle Malkin  Senate is voting on an amendment introduced by Senator Mike Johanns to defund ACORN of Federal taxpayer dollars for mortgage counseling.  Many Democrats voting AYE, this amendment looks as though it will pass.  The undercover videos by Big Government contributors Giles and O'Keefe were cited as proof ACORN could not be trusted with Federal money for mortgage counseling.