HUD next O’Keefe Video Sting Target

[PJABBER]

Work at HUD in Detroit or Chicago? Maybe know someone working there?

Better think back if you hosted a punk looking guy a while back ago. You might be YouTube famous real soon now.

You know, the college guy that came in asking for housing advice that might have gotten a few free hints on how the paperwork could be "fixed" so that the full $8,000 of tax credit money would be a lock on a property that wouldn't flip for $1,000, much less $80,000. (Hey, it's Detroit! Property values are a STEAL!)

I don't know about the rest of the denizens here, but doesn't anyone in lib land watch Fox News? O'Keefe's face has been as regular a feature as Sacha Baron Cohen doing Ali G and Borat.

But, you won't see this story on MSNBC, so it doesn't exist.

Does it?

Wired Magazine, Conde Nast Scoop Breitbart, the ‘Bigs’ — HUD next O’Keefe Video Sting Target

Posted by Michael Walsh
Mar 11th 2010

Credit where credit is due: Wired Magazine’s Noah Shachtman and Conde Nast have a scoop on their hands.

In the course of researching his new and largely fair piece on Andrew Breitbart and the “Big” websites, during which he was given unprecedented access, Shachtman learned of a new project-in-progress by ACORN stingmeister James O’Keefe involving the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) offices in Detroit and Chicago:

This time, there are no prostitutes involved, just a shady, and serious, tax-fraud scheme. The ploy involves the Obama administration’s 10 percent tax credit to first-time home buyers. The law says that the credit maxes out at $8,000 for an $80,000 home. But at the Detroit office of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the rule seems open to interpretation. O’Keefe asks a staffer, What if I bought a place for $50,000, but the seller and I agreed to write down $80,000 as the purchase price?
​

“Flip it any way you want,” the staffer replies.
​

What if the place is worth much less — like only $6,000?
​

“Yup, you can do that.”
​

O’Keefe and fellow activist Joe Basel ran the same sting at HUD’s Chicago office and at several federally supported independent housing groups. Breitbart paces the parquet floor. The video is damning but not exactly Acorn-explosive.
​

Then O’Keefe stops the playback. “Oh yeah, I forgot,” he says. “We went to the Detroit Free Press, to the managing editor. We told her the whole thing. She said she wasn’t interested. Wanna see the tape?”
​

Breitbart starts to cackle. Of course he wants to see the tape. Sleazy HUD administrators are important, sure. But media covering up sleaze? That’s entertainment. “Dude, that’s the most important part!” he says. “I have seepage coming out of five parts of my body right now.”
​

O’Keefe hits Play. A world-weary Freep editor listens to O’Keefe’s kickback story and politely declines. There could be a thousand reasons why, but to O’Keefe and Breitbart, there’s only one explanation: liberal bias. Breitbart slaps the walls like they were congo drums, grinning. “OK,” he tells O’Keefe, “now I officially adore you.”
​

Down memory lane:

​

Realizing that he had a major scoop on his hands, Shachtman then quickly posted an additional story today on the Wired blog:

Late last year, O’Keefe and fellow activist Joe Basel went into the Detroit and Chicago offices of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) with a hidden camera. They pretended to be scam artists, asking employees there to participate in a complex kickback scheme involving federal incentives for first-time home buyers. In the excerpted footage shown to me by O’Keefe, the staffers seemed only to happy to comply.
​

The law says that the tax credit maxes out at $8,000 for an $80,000 home. On the tape, O’Keefe asked a staffer, “What if I bought a place for $50,000, but the seller and I agreed to write down $80,000 as the purchase price?”
​

“Flip it any way you want,” the staffer replied.
​

What if the place is worth much less — like only $6,000?
​

“Yup, you can do that.”
​

I wish I could provide more details — like the names of the staffers, or the exact dates of the recordings. But O’Keefe showed me the tapes just once, and quickly. O’Keefe did mention, however, that he was surprised he was able to avoid the federal buildings’ security systems.

A HUD spokesman said he was unaware of the tapes — or of any ongoing investigations into fraud at the department’s Chicago or Detroit offices. “First I’ve heard of it,” said HUD’s Jerry Brown.
​

So let’s summarize: just as in the stories about ACORN — for which the news just keeps getting worse — we have HUD officials turning a blind, indolent apparatchik’s eye to a proposal of blatant illegality involving a federally funded project: talk about “waste, fraud and abuse” –​

​

​

And these are the same people to whom President Obama is proposing we turn over our heath-care system?

We also have an unnamed editor at the declining Detroit Free Press passing on O’Keefe’s proffer and thus on Wired’s scoop. As Shachtman notes, there could be “a thousand reasons” why the Freep decided to look the other way about possible abetting of criminal behavior at HUD

— look! it’s Monica Conyers, wife of one of the most powerful members of Congress, heading off to jail! –

As I was saying, there may be “a thousand reasons” why

— look! it’s U.S. Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, mother of the city’s disgraced ex-mayor, answering a summons to appear before a federal grand jury!

As I was saying…

Stay tuned.

 

[Sacrilege]

“I have seepage coming out of five parts of my body right now.”

Sounds like he spend a night with Matt Drudge.

 

[sandorski]

More heavily Edited Tape?

 

[rudder]

The guy has balls... HUD has some serious fire power. It is not just the Dept of Education buying weapons.

 

[Tristicus]

More heavily Edited Tape?

More liberal anger?

 

[zsdersw]

More liberal anger?

More Tristicus inanity?

 

[Slick5150]

We're supposed to take this guy seriously after his first video was found to be completely edited, and was then arrested for trying to illegally wiretap Mary Landreau's office?

Thanks, but no.

 

[CitizenKain]

People still believe this guy? He's a liar but rightwingers constantly line up for he's offering. I guess thats what happens when you consider critical thinking something that only liberal elities do.

 

[Pens1566]

We're supposed to take this guy seriously after his first video was found to be completely edited, and was then arrested for trying to illegally wiretap Mary Landreau's office?

Thanks, but no.

People still believe this guy? He's a liar but rightwingers constantly line up for he's offering. I guess thats what happens when you consider critical thinking something that only liberal elities do.

Kind of pointless to comment any further than this. Although I'm sure the usual suspects will continue to drop to their knees anytime this clown does anything.

 

[her209]

You know how the saying goes:

Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice... you can't fool me twice.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Con 'Gotcha' Media? The Barracuda will be so proud.

Once he gets out of prison I'm sure he has a great future at Fox.

Let's hope he is honest and checks 'Yes' on his job application to the question, "Have you ever been convicted of a felony?"






--

 

[PJABBER]

More heavily Edited Tape?

LOL at the constant criticism that O'Keefe edits the raw video.

You do know that EVERYTHING you see on TV is edited, don't you?

You do know that EVERYTHING you read in the print, web, wire, etc. press is edited, don't you?

I happen to think that O'Keefe's videos aren't edited enough! At least for playing those oh so informative 10 second bites on national news.

The kid put out videos that include 15 -20 minutes straight of tape roll, without interruption, of ACORN managers and employees rambling on about how to set up houses of prostitution with underage Salvadoran girls, hiding income, avoiding due taxes, burying money in cans in the back yard, lying on financial disclosure statements, etc.

What exactly are you hoping to find was edited out?

"Thanks for coming by and having this nice chat about setting up your whore house locally! BTW, all that advice my boss and I gave to you? We were just joshing. Go to church and beg forgiveness. Hmmmmk?"

These videos were made in New York, Baltimore, San Bernardino, city after city after city. Everywhere they went ACORN was advising them to break local, state and federal laws against child prostitution, mortgage fraud and tax fraud.

I am sure the HUD tapes will be edited and, based on the WIRED story, I am sure that you will clearly hear HUD staff giving advice on committing fraud.

I guess we should be grateful we won't hear more about how easy it would be to exploit kids for money. THAT is an ACORN exclusive.

 

[Pens1566]

deflection deflection deflection

Did you say something?

 

[Sclamoz]

LOL at the constant criticism that O'Keefe edits the raw video.

You do know that EVERYTHING you see on TV is edited, don't you?

You do know that EVERYTHING you read in the print, web, wire, etc. press is edited, don't you?

I happen to think that O'Keefe's videos aren't edited enough! At least for playing those oh so informative 10 second bites on national news.

The kid put out videos that include 15 -20 minutes straight of tape roll, without interruption, of ACORN managers and employees rambling on about how to set up houses of prostitution with underage Salvadoran girls, hiding income, avoiding due taxes, burying money in cans in the back yard, lying on financial disclosure statements, etc.

What exactly are you hoping to find was edited out?

"Thanks for coming by and having this nice chat about setting up your whore house locally! BTW, all that advice my boss and I gave to you? We were just joshing. Go to church and beg forgiveness. Hmmmmk?"

These videos were made in New York, Baltimore, San Bernardino, city after city after city. Everywhere they went ACORN was advising them to break local, state and federal laws against child prostitution, mortgage fraud and tax fraud.

I am sure the HUD tapes will be edited and, based on the WIRED story, I am sure that you will clearly hear HUD staff giving advice on committing fraud.

I guess we should be grateful we won't hear more about how easy it would be to exploit kids for money. THAT is an ACORN exclusive.

http://www.proskauer.com/files/uploads/report2.pdf

"The unedited videos have never been made public. The videos that have been released
appear to have been edited, in some cases substantially, including the insertion of a substitute voiceover for significant portions of Mr. O’Keefe’s and Ms.Giles’s comments, which makes it
difficult to determine the questions to which ACORN employees are responding. A comparison
of the publicly available transcriptsto the released videos confirms that large portions of the original video have been omitted from the released versions. To date, the videographers have declined or ignored our interview requests. "

"1. Three of the six videos – Brooklyn, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. –
involved only ACORN Housing employees, over which ACORN has no
control.
2. The released videos offer no evidence of a pattern of illegal conduct by
ACORN employees. In fact, out of the three videos involving ACORN
employees, at least two involve extenuating circumstances."

http://washingtonindependent.com/77096/hannah-giles-explains-those-pimp-and-prostitute-outfits

“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.”

 

[PJABBER]

http://www.proskauer.com/files/uploads/report2.pdf
"1. Three of the six videos – Brooklyn, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. –
involved only ACORN Housing employees, over which ACORN has no
control.

Whut???? ACORN has no control over ACORN Housing employees?

An ACORN is an ACORN is an ACORN. Despite setting up over 300 shell companies, like any good organized crime operation trying to hide ties between ACORN divisions, SEIU and WFP, the employees and managers jump from one entity affiliation to another at will. Easy enough to track - they all use the same address!

2. The released videos offer no evidence of a pattern of illegal conduct by
ACORN employees. In fact, out of the three videos involving ACORN
employees, at least two involve extenuating circumstances."

Whut?? The videos were made in more than half a dozen ACORN offices in cities throughout the country. More than two instances is a pattern, sorry Charlie.

What extenuating circumstances? The staffs of over a half dozen ACORN offices each went to work on only that one particular day when O'Keefe and Giles showed up deciding that they were going to give the absolutely goddamn best counsel they could to anyone that walked in the door planning to set up a child prostitution business?

http://washingtonindependent.com/77096/hannah-giles-explains-those-pimp-and-prostitute-outfits

“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.”

The ACORN incriminating tapes show both O'Keefe and Giles as well as the oh so helpful ACORN staff. Watch them yourself on YouTube. You have seen them, haven't you?

Is your deflection that the intro and the end pieces of the videos show the two puttin' on the Ritz with O'Keefe in his Huggy Bear outfit? THAT'S IT???

Let me get this straight. You work for ACORN, don't you?

:awe:

 

[Sclamoz]

Whut???? ACORN has no control over ACORN Housing employees?

An ACORN is an ACORN is an ACORN. Despite setting up over 300 shell companies, like any good organized crime operation trying to hide ties between ACORN divisions, SEIU and WFP, the employees and managers jump from one entity affiliation to another at will. Easy enough to track - they all use the same address!


Whut?? The videos were made in more than half a dozen ACORN offices in cities throughout the country. More than two instances is a pattern, sorry Charlie.

So if more than 2 republicans are gay that's a pattern?

What extenuating circumstances? The staffs of over a half dozen ACORN offices each went to work on only that one particular day when O'Keefe and Giles showed up deciding that they were going to give the absolutely goddamn best counsel they could to anyone that walked in the door planning to set up a child prostitution business?

Thats a report done by the MA attorney general so ask him. You're ignoring the part about O'Keefe and Giles editing questions into the videos so for all we know they never asked that question, hence why people want the unedited tapes.

http://washingtonindependent.com/77096/hannah-giles-explains-those-pimp-and-prostitute-outfits

The ACORN incriminating tapes show both O'Keefe and Giles as well as the oh so helpful ACORN staff. Watch them yourself on YouTube. You have seen them, haven't you?

Is your deflection that the intro and the end pieces of the videos show the two puttin' on the Ritz with O'Keefe in his Huggy Bear outfit? THAT'S IT???

It's not my deflection, that's what Giles said. They showed clips of O'Keefe dressed like a pimp to give that impression but that wasn't how he looked in the offices. The shots of him as a pimp are edited, as is apparently the audio. Again why people want to see the unedited versions.

" The videographers initially spoke with a part-time ACORN employee. This employee
had been a member of Baltimore ACORN for 10 years and, at the time, worked in the Baltimore office as a receptionist and greeter. The videographers represented that they needed help and had been turned down elsewhere, and that Ms. Giles was a dancer and Mr. O’Keefe was a college student trying to help her. Although Mr. O’Keefe appeared in all videos dressed as a pimp, in fact, when he appeared at each and every office, he was dressed like a college student – in slacks and a button down shirt. Ms. Giles, however, was dressed as she appears in the videos. "

Let me get this straight. You work for ACORN, don't you?

:awe:

No, I'm in the CIA.

 

[Craig234]

LOL at the constant criticism that O'Keefe edits the raw video.

You do know that EVERYTHING you see on TV is edited, don't you?

You're dishonest.

It's been shown many times that the tapes were edited *to lie and mislead* - putting in footage to makke it look like he was wearing a ridiculous outfit at the incidents, leaving out the employees who threw him out or refused to cooperate with him - and that's just the parts shown while the rest of his tapes are hidden from release.

But you change the lying and misleading in his editing into the innocent meaning of edit.

 

[PJABBER]

You're dishonest.

It's been shown many times that the tapes were edited *to lie and mislead* - putting in footage to makke it look like he was wearing a ridiculous outfit at the incidents, leaving out the employees who threw him out or refused to cooperate with him - and that's just the parts shown while the rest of his tapes are hidden from release.

But you change the lying and misleading in his editing into the innocent meaning of edit.

You are hyperventilating again, Craig.

It is so tiresome when you just repeat "progressive" talking points. Like the vain hope that there are hundreds of tapes where saintly ACORN staffers refused to counsel child prostitution.

If you would stop for a moment and clear your mind and look at the reality of life, you might feel, well, refreshed.

Nobody has shown that there was any trickery in the videos, though progressive conjecture is that there must have been. All progressives know that ACORN would never counsel child prostitution, tax evasion and financial fraud. Not to mention voter registration fraud, another topic entirely.

You really need to watch the videos yourself. Why have you not? Afraid that you might change your mind?

Clue: only the opening and closing credits show O'Keefe in that hilarious Huggy Bear outfit. And Giles is sashaying along right next to him. Lookin' better than anyone ever did in Starsky and Hutch, if I may say so.

:awe:

 

[Tristicus]

If they're so heavily edited, I'd love a link of a debunking site. I Google'd and couldn't find it.

 

[Sclamoz]

You are hyperventilating again, Craig.

It is so tiresome when you just repeat "progressive" talking points. Like the vain hope that there are hundreds of tapes where saintly ACORN staffers refused to counsel child prostitution.

If you would stop for a moment and clear your mind and look at the reality of life, you might feel, well, refreshed.

Nobody has shown that there was any trickery in the videos, though progressive conjecture is that there must have been. All progressives know that ACORN would never counsel child prostitution, tax evasion and financial fraud. Not to mention voter registration fraud, another topic entirely.

You really need to watch the videos yourself. Why have you not? Afraid that you might change your mind?

Clue: only the opening and closing credits show O'Keefe in that hilarious Huggy Bear outfit. And Giles is sashaying along right next to him. Lookin' better than anyone ever did in Starsky and Hutch, if I may say so.

:awe:

Clue: That's the point. The videos are misleading and have been misrepresented.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vL68WFEw2Gk

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/19/us/19sting.html?_r=1

"But never has his work had anything like the impact of the Acorn exposé, conducted by Mr. O’Keefe and a friend he met through Facebook, 20-year-old Hannah Giles. Their travels in the gaudy guise of pimp and prostitute through various offices of Acorn, the national community organizing group, caught its low-level employees in five cities sounding eager to assist with tax evasion, human smuggling and child prostitution."


http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/sep/21/breitbart-the-politicized-art-behind-the-acorn-pla/

(this is from Brietbart)
When filmmaker and provocateur James O'Keefe came to my office to show me the video of him and his friend, Hannah Giles, going to the Baltimore offices of ACORN - the nation's foremost "community organizers" - dressed as a pimp and a prostitute and asking for - and getting - help for various illegal activities, he sought my advice. In the past, Mr. O'Keefe created brilliant social satire that rocked his college campus and even made its way on to the talk-radio and cable-news shows, but the magnitude of his latest adventure had the potential to rock the political establishment.

Oh and about the child prostitution thing they seemed to have cut this part out for some reason?

Hannah (Eden): But they should throw Sonny in jail, not me, he's the one who got me started
Milagros (counselor): yea but its
[garbled]
Hannah (Eden): I mean he got a whole slew of which is why I also want a house
Volda (loan counselor): yes because he prey on little girls yea
Hannah (Eden): He’s got all these 13, 14,15 year old girls from El Salvador and that’s what—I
need to protect them like I know what its like and I have to protect them and like give them
somewhere to live.

 

[werepossum]

Whut???? ACORN has no control over ACORN Housing employees?

An ACORN is an ACORN is an ACORN. Despite setting up over 300 shell companies, like any good organized crime operation trying to hide ties between ACORN divisions, SEIU and WFP, the employees and managers jump from one entity affiliation to another at will. Easy enough to track - they all use the same address!

SNIP

That's why ACORN has so many different shell organizations, to limit damage when one is caught doing illegal activity.

And O'Keefe can safely take on HUD because he knows he'll be safe in federal prison! 😀

 

[marincounty]

I'm glad some of you are so concerned about HUD corruption. Where were you in the '80's?
The first revelations of abuse came as early as 1981 when former budget director David Stockman warned that the "hogs were really feeding" throughout the Reagan administration. By the mid 1980s HUD's own general counsel began to indicate that something was amiss, yet he was ignored. It was not until late 1987 that the press began to close in on the story, which consisted at first of fairly commonplace allegations of kickbacks in HUD, but before long an avalanche of charges came forth from every corner of the nation, indicating a clear pattern suggestive of conspiracy. By 1989 more than 630 separate criminal investigations would be opened against HUD. In an agency ostensibly founded to assist the poorest Americans, government lawyers uncovered numerous instances where tax monies benefited the wealthiest. While the Federal Housing Administration and its mortgage-guarantee agents suffered more than $90 million in defaulted loans on projects intended to house the poor, it was found to be subsidizing luxury condominiums and golf courses. All across the country, Republican insiders were provided with loans and rent subsidies for projects not needed, and when those projects failed, the American taxpayers were stuck with the default bill. HUD spent more than $3 billion to build eighty thousand houses that ultimately had to be fore-closed upon and sold by agents who were supposed to deduct their fees and submit the remainder to HUD. Most fees were shown to be hyper inflated, and in some cases agents pocketed the principal as well. One notorious agent dubbed "Robin HUD" by the press walked off with $5.5 million. With a budget of $20 billion designed to be awarded in contracts, HUD had always been open to corruption, but the scandals unearthed in the late 1980s were so extensive that the press spoke of a "feeding frenzy" on the part of connected Republicans to cash in at the trough. James Watt, the disgraced former secretary of the interior, collected $400,000 in one fee simply for picking up the telephone and making a connection for a friend. By last accounting the total damage to taxpayers was estimated at $8 billion, rivaling the losses in the savings-and-loan scandals.

 

[DealMonkey]

Who cares? I notice ACORN hasn't exactly been brought to their knees by O'Keefe. Quite the contrary. So yeah, *yawn*