Well done, Brad, and remember the words of Edmund Burke:

"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for a few good men to do nothing."

Hi - It's been along time that I am looking for the post the same as what you have right now. I want this because it gives all the information that I need to know and it is complete. Can you recommend any source of it?

Thanks Brad, I know it stupid to even have to go into the details on such a discredited story...but I think its a great thing to do this. These rats devised their strategy to trick these ACORN employees based their assumption the employees would care about them and try to help them...so these rats told them a sympathetic story. So no good deed goes unpunished.

Again and again I see these emotional stories floated that are made to seem credible by MSM and then too slowly over time the "official" story is debunked as actual details emerge.

Since 60 minutes not likely to do it, a 10 to 15 min video showing what really happened at these ACORN offices and compare it to the unquestioning media coverage of this.

Even the Daily Show fell for this OKeefe crap, the should do one of the funny media critics/lampoons on this...I'm waiting.

Thanks Brad, this is really very very important work you are doing...hard being heard shouting into a storm but when you are trying to help, its worth doing.

Brad sez:

since three investigations (one from the Congressional Research Service, one from MA's former Attorney General, and the latest, just this week from the Brooklyn, NY District Attorney) have all found no criminal wrongdoing by the low-level ACORN employees caught on secret video, and;

Can you help me out, Brad, and point me to the language in the CRS report that finds no criminal wrongdoing by ACORN? Just a quote and/or citation to a particular page number, if you please.

It's just sinking in, after reading this, how horribly racist these sickos are. I know...I had just focused on the ridiculousness of it all, the mendacity, and the failing of the mainstream media once again.

But my God, this is just fucking hateful shit. This is targeted...premeditated...assassination. If there is a hell, these subhumans should burn for a good long while. Nice and toasty on their balls.

You link my lengthy post of liberal myths I debunk but do not address a single point that I made in that post.

Not one.

Instead you talk about the tin, which I do not talk about in that post.

I'm not following how the video is supposedly deceptive --- at least in light of the presence of the unedited audio. Are you saying that O'Keefe should have included this passage (which you quote in the post) in the video?

when you buy, let me tell you something when you buy the house with a back yard. You get a tin if Tom Jones is going to come beat you and want money you get a tin and bury it down in there and you put the money right in and you put grass over it and you don't tell a single soul but yourself where it is

Is that your point? That he should have included that passage in the video, and not just in the unedited audio?

You do acknowledge that this passage is in the unedited audio, correct? And the transcript? Provided by O'Keefe?

That's where you found it. Right?

Do you find it ironic that every piece of evidence you claim undercuts the videos' honesty was PROVIDED BY O'KEEFE? (Footage of him walking into ACORN in slacks. Audio of women talking about Tom Jomes, etc.)

P.S. I'm not talking about people's DESCRIPTIONS of the video. (For example, you have badly misrepresented what is on the videos, repeatedly saying O'Keefe did not pose as a pimp when he repeatedly said he wanted to set up a house and have Giles and underage girls turn tricks, turning the money over to O'Keefe for his Congressional campaign.) I'm talking about the VIDEO ITSELF and trying to understand your beef.

Are you saying O'Keefe had some kind of responsibility to include the above passage in the video as opposed to just the unedited audio and the transcript? Where you found the above passage?

@soul rebel, - yes when I think about, they went in with a plan: that they would act, for the media, like they presented themselves as outlandish, obvious degenerates and criminal types, but that in reality they would go into these offices looking reasonable (clean cut college law student trying to help abused woman leave behind street life) and they planned to LIE to the ACORN employees purposely trying to trap them in something that will be made to look much worse than it is. And they planned to LIE to media when they filmed Okeefe as a pimp, knowing they would lie and say he told ACRON folks he was a pimp.

Think about having that as your plan...that is straight up cold-blooded. And their plan in fact acknowledges that they will have to trick media into thinking one thing happened when in fact they will beahve in a wholly different manner to ACORN...that was plan all along.

And with that trick, I bet they thought they'd get at least one bad apple, what org doesn't have one corrupt one, or a stupid one, that would say or do something illegal for this fake, hard-luck couple.....but they get basically squat, so they had to do another further immoral step to smear the very ACORN staff, who in good faith tried to help them (as the people they were acting to be), by editing their video underhandedly.

So time and time again, ACORN employees treat these people (appearing to be legit, but in a tough spot) with respect and helpfulness and these rats turn on them with a national smear campaign.

And they, these white people take their racist stereotypes and try to fake like this is what ACORN/black people are about as a whole group, corrupt help for immoral, criminal people (read:black people in white peoples eyes)..

When in fact the ACORN staff behaved professionally and humanely ... while these spoiled white jerks "journalists" were the liars, corrupt, immoral ones, and were the criminals, illegally recording people, libeling a national do-good organization with false editing and lying about the interviews.

These jerks had to know people would lose jobs because of their lies and that the organization would lose funding/support because their baseless smears, they had to have made personal connections with many people working at these offices, no doubt they were genearlly treated kindly and with respect as I, a white person at such black community orgs, have always been treated. No doubt in Okeefes extended travels and visist, he saw ACORN offices doing good things for people. Despite watching ACORN employees try over and over again to help his fake persona, Okeefe, still forges ahead with his smear campaign...his selfish, biased, and racist agenda trumped all. I'm sure he wanted to be famous rich, conservative darling, and trashing a whole do-good community and a bunch of black people along the way...hey who cares, we it will make us rich and famous...

And the racism in the mainstream media is awful...while OKeefe seemed like obvious amateur hour, the media implicitly trusted this BOY with no credentials and no raw tape and sources confirming their telling of events, and yet they took his word over ACORN's staff.

Did MSM interview the guy at ACORN office - was it in SanDiego?- (who was suspicious of OKeefe enough to call the cops) for his side of the story? Or did they interview any ACORN staff at all to hear how these kids presented themselves?..NO,

From MSM perspective, there is apparently only one side of the story, the WHITE side, which is apparently instantly credible regardless lack of credibility of source, if FOX says one thing, then it must be so...and the black people are assumed to be criminal, suspect, unworthy of even being heard or asked to tell their side, let along getting credible reporting.

arrrrgggg the MSM should really pay for this, they must be held accountable for not spending a few hours talking to ACORN staff, who I'm sure had many office admin, staff people, client/passersby who could have quickly and consistently made two things we now know as facts clear:...1)Okeefe appeared different in offices that purported on tapes and 2)told a different (and reasonable story) to ACORn offices compared to the lies they told to MSM media about what they said at offices. I bet there were at least 50 witnesses at these various offices of ACORN who could have been easily found within a day or two of these tapes being released, who would have consistently contradicted the fabricated story of these immoral, selfish liars. That MSM did not even bother, let alone do a good fact checking and follow up stories tells all about the state of MSM. If white folks said it on FOx news and what they said is: black people and their organizations are corrupt, criminal and immoral... then it REALLY must be true, why would we even think for a second to ask any questions...FOX and OKeefe appear so credible, and our horrible biases about black people have been totally confirmed, so it must be so.

Okay, I've gone through the San Diego transcript which is pretty fun cuz there's so little of anything you could even try to manipulate.

This did not stop our intrepid journalists from doing their gosh darn best to bring down those evil Acorns, however. They made a video.

Unfortunately they somehow left out of the video the Acorn interviewer(Juan Carlos)taking pictures of them with his cell phone.

And somehow, maybe cuz they were in such a hurry to get the truth out, they subsequently neglected to include in their stories the fact that after they left the Acorn office, Juan Carlos contacted "his cousin, a National City Police Detective, to ask him general advice regarding information he had received about possible human trafficking."(from police report quoted in Harshbarger report).

It was unclear, from either the video or transcript, which part of the "pimp"/prostitute ruse Juan Carlos wasn't buying.

What does Brad Friedman say of the fact that the Brooklyn DA said O'Keefe and Giles posed as a pimp and prostitute?

The three had been secretly videotaped by two people posing as a pimp and prostitute, who came to ACORN’S Brooklyn office, seeking advice about how to purchase a house with money generated by their ‘business.’

Brad? Will you ever publish this comment? What say you?

sorry, should've clarified. You know Juan Carlos was taking pictures of them cuz it's in the transcript. And the way I read the transcript, O'Keefe is alarmed at all the pictures being taken.

Patterico said @ 6:

You link my lengthy post of liberal myths I debunk but do not address a single point that I made in that post.

It's cuz I'm stilling trying to figure out what a "liberal myth" is. Is it one that is even more mythier than a regular myth?

As I've noted previously, Patty, you are not a serious person. You offer disingenuous arguments that you know to be disingenuous, but you offer them anyway. You are proven wrong on point after point and don't have the intellectual honesty to post a transparent apology/correction, but instead hide your failures on a post you never publish to your front page.

You even know how disingenuous you are/were in your arguments that, as noted in the article above, aren't serious enough to waste time in responding to, particularly as you have not once bothered to offer the courtesy of an answer to the question I have asked you over and over again. I'll do so again now:

How have you, as a Deputy District Attorney, authenticated the "unedited audio" that you say "proves" this, that or the other thing? You know what the standards of evidence are as a Deputy D.A. in Los Angeles. At least I'd presume you do. But you haven't bothered to share with us the answer to that question. Please do. Thank you.

(Still trying to figure out that whole "liberal myth" thing myself...a myth that is an unorthodox myth? A non-traditional myth? ... I'll keep working on it, you keep making stuff up and defending fraudsters in the meantime.)

Fuck, I hate making mistakes like that.

re: my comment #

I said--It was unclear, from either the video or transcript, which part of the "pimp"/prostitute ruse Juan Carlos wasn't buying.

This makes no sense. It makes no sense and I was trying to be humorous which hurts even more.

I'm gonna use the it's really fucking late in the East excuse.

Dear Patterico--re: San Diego Acorn

1. From what I can make out in San Diego, the only action that was taken by anyone from Acorn was Juan Carlos calling the cops cuz he thought O'Keefe and Giles were involved in human trafficking. What is Acorn supposed to be guilty of here?

2. What's the justification for going into an Acorn office in San Diego and lying your heads off in an attempt to discredit community organizers who's job is trying to help the disenfranchised?

3. Do you really condone wholesale lying to people who have done you no harm?

Meanwhile, at the global banking conspiracy...From Black Swan on Mish's blog:

If you look at the TARP payouts from AIG, they match up almost perfectly with those big banks that donated $300 million each to keep LTCM afloat in 1998. In fact, right before the actual bailout, AIG, Goldman Sachs and Buffet offered to buy out the LTCM fund's partners for $250 million, and offered to dump in an additional whopping $3.75 billion so that Goldman's traders could operate the LTCM hedge fund. Who would have guessed at the time, that AIG would some day be on the other end of the bailouts? Ultimately, Bankers Trust, Barclays, Chase, Credit Suisse First Boston, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, J.P.Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Salomon Smith Barney and UBS kicked in $300 million each, and Société Générale kicked in an additional $1.25 million.

To figure out why some banks recieved more than others from AIG, it helps to look at the consolidations. Bankers Trust (talk about an oxymoron) was swallowed up by Deutsche Bank. Chase was engulfed by JP Morgan which had already been sucked up by Chemical Bank (which took the JP Morgan name), Merrill Lynch was "purchased" by Bank of America and Salomon Smith Barney became the step child of Citigroup. Barkley's, of course, dined on what was left of Lehman Brothers, which had donated $100 million to the LTCM bailout cause in 1998. This AIG reward money theory is my own. I've never read it anywhere, but I have read that Bear Stearns was allowed to fail because the IB refused to kick in a dime to save LTCM. I believe that if anybody really researched it, my AIG reward theory would hold up. It got me believing in the international banking conspiracy. If you don't believe in the international banking conspiracy, it's hard to explain why all those European banks were gifted with billions of US taxpayers dollars through the AIG bailout scam.

http://globaleconomicana...al-money-laundering.html

Brad,

I'm on your side but why are you demanding "retractions" or "corrections". The NY Times didn't make up the stuff. They were duped. But they should do follow-up stories on the outcome of the trial and the shameful actions of the perpetrators that have come to ligt.

Just as in the Duke Lacrosse "rape" case, media didn't do "retractions" in the classic sense; they just printed the story as it developed and ended up making the guys the victims and the lady a villain!

If I were the Times I wouldn't necessary apologize for printing what we believed to be true, but I would defnitely do an in depth follow-ups, particularly due ot the importance and impact of the sotry. I'm not being facetious, the Acorn Pimp story was one the the biggest and most influential stories of the year. The fact that it was a hoax has to be big news. Then fact that the Times and others are ignoring the continuing story is a disgrace.

Patrick did you take Dan Rather at his word like you seem to with Okeefe?

David Lasagna,

I will be happy to address San Diego. But first, there is a question I have been asking you for days, and I haven't seen a clear answer?

Do you believe that O'Keefe told any ACORN employees that he wanted to set up a house where Giles and underage girls would turn tricks and give the money to him for his Congressional campaign?

I really want to know that my oft-repeated question will be answered so I would like to hold up discussing San Diego until you answer that. I'm not interested in whether some strained reading using some bizarre conservative mindset could result in that reading. I want to know whether you believe O'Keefe communicated that to any ACORN worker.

Brad sez:

since three investigations (one from the Congressional Research Service, one from MA's former Attorney General, and the latest, just this week from the Brooklyn, NY District Attorney) have all found no criminal wrongdoing by the low-level ACORN employees caught on secret video, and;

Can you help me out, Brad, and point me to the language in the CRS report that finds no criminal wrongdoing by ACORN? Just a quote and/or citation to a particular page number, if you please.

You wouldn't be fibbing about this, would you?

Brad,

Your fundmental claim in this post is that the video was edited deceptively in one way.

I'm not talking about people's DESCRIPTIONS of the video. (For example, you have badly misrepresented what is on the videos, repeatedly saying O'Keefe did not pose as a pimp when he repeatedly said he wanted to set up a house and have Giles and underage girls turn tricks, turning the money over to O'Keefe for his Congressional campaign.) I'm talking about the VIDEO ITSELF and trying to understand your beef.

You refer to a passage about Tom Jones. You do acknowledge that this passage is in the unedited audio, correct? And the transcript? Provided by O'Keefe?

That's where you found it. Right?

Do you find it ironic that every piece of evidence you claim undercuts the videos' honesty was PROVIDED BY O'KEEFE? (Footage of him walking into ACORN in slacks. Audio of women talking about Tom Jomes, etc.)

Are you saying that O'Keefe should have included this passage (which you quote in the post) in the video?

when you buy, let me tell you something when you buy the house with a back yard. You get a tin if Tom Jones is going to come beat you and want money you get a tin and bury it down in there and you put the money right in and you put grass over it and you don't tell a single soul but yourself where it is

Is that your point? That he should have included that passage in the video, and not just in the unedited audio? Where you found it, because it had been provided by O'Keefe?

It's cuz I'm stilling trying to figure out what a "liberal myth" is. Is it one that is even more mythier than a regular myth?

As I've noted previously, Patty, you are not a serious person. You offer disingenuous arguments that you know to be disingenuous, but you offer them anyway. You are proven wrong on point after point and don't have the intellectual honesty to post a transparent apology/correction, but instead hide your failures on a post you never publish to your front page.

If my post is full of disingenuous points, prove it. If it's too much in the weeds, take it off the front page. That's why I take things off the front page and link them, or hide them behind extended entries: because I don't want to bore readers who aren't interested. I linked it on the front page and you lied about that, claiming it could be found only in recent comments.

You, my fine feathered friend, told Clark Hoyt that O'Keefe refused to release unedited AUDIO, which is not true. You have failed to correct this, have you not?

A lame joke about "what are liberal myths" is not a response but an admission that you can't provide one.

You won't even defend the premise of your post. The comment above this one asks a question that you have avoided answering. Because you can't.

Clarification re commenting rules, Braddy you sociopathic liar:

I have been called a sociopath and a liar here with no warnings to those commenters. Evidently those terms are OK with you and your policy?

If so then I will abide by your rules and restrict myself to those terms. So you can take me out of moderation.

Or, if you reprimand those people and show you are being evenhanded I will even eschew those terms.

Except for you.

My guess is you will keep me in moderation to delay my posting of evidence.

[Ed Note: Feel free to give me the link to the comments you are concerned about, and I'll be happy to review them. No, I am unable to read all comments posted here, so your help is appreciated. Also, not behaving like a Kindergartner is equally appreciated, as is not posting knowing disinformation and entire posts, etc. Those are the other rules you also violated and why u are in the penalty box. - BF]

I have to wonder why a Deputy DA would fight to side with, and defend con artists that are intent on harming innocent people.

I would hope that DAs that choose to side with suspected criminals that are obviously evil and malicious, are very rare.

Soul / Karen ~ great posts. Me too. I THOUGHT I knew it, because at the time I openly wept for the how transparent their mean-spirited motives ... how easily discerned. But Brad's expose (and the cretins it has unearthed) has once again spiked my freak-o-meter.

And almost on cue, or if you two were whispering to Bob Cesca (who has not yet connected the dots and related this dramatic piece on implied racism to the O'Keefe ACORN hoax, but maybe we should drop him a line):

"The Tea Party is all about Race"...
http://www.huffingtonpos...s-all-abou_b_484229.html

Patterico said @ 17:

If my post is full of disingenuous points, prove it.

I already did, but you continue to lie about it nonetheless, both here and at your site.

If it's too much in the weeds, take it off the front page.

I don't hide things from readers. You'll be surprised to learn that none of this is about you. You are the rightwing propagandists that I'm hoping to warn the mainstream media about. You are dishonorable and dishonest. That doesn't need proving. What needs to happen is that folks like the NYT need to do their jobs again, as journalists, and stop buying the garbage from partisan disinfo agents who put party before country and rule of law and democracy.

A reply to your nonsense would not be "too much in the weeds" for my readers. It would be "too much in the weeds" for me to waste my time on. As I've said over and again, you are not a serious person with legitmate points to make. You are a partisan operative willing to lie, defame and do anything you need to push your agenda, no matter how dishonest it is. I see no reason to waste hours of my life on such a knowingly deceptive person.

That's why I take things off the front page and link them, or hide them behind extended entries: because I don't want to bore readers who aren't interested.

No, you "take things off the front page" when they include admissions that you made an asshole of yourself, and were wrong in what you told your readers. The lies stay on the front page, the sorta, kinda, had-no-choice-but-to make corrections stay off the front page. You are a demonstrably dishonest person.

I linked it on the front page and you lied about that, claiming it could be found only in recent comments.

It wasn't a lie, and that claim, as you know, actually is a lie, as you demonstrate yet again how dishonorable and dishonest and unserious you are as nothing more than a partisan, agenda-driven Breitbart poodle.

You, my fine feathered friend, told Clark Hoyt that O'Keefe refused to release unedited AUDIO, which is not true. You have failed to correct this, have you not?

Nope. Have already corrected you, but you keep lying about it. Now why would that be, Patty?

A lame joke about "what are liberal myths" is not a response but an admission that you can't provide one.

Yes, that's what it is! Good work, Deputy D.A.!

So what is a "liberal myth" anyway?

While we're at it, I've likely asked nearly have a dozen times, if not more, what did you, as a Los Angeles Deputy D.A. do to authenticate the "unedited audio" tapes which you say proves this or that? Why have you failed to respond to the question asked time and again? You know what constitutes evidence and prove and authentication as Patrick Frey, Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney, but you keep embarrassing your office and your profession by refusing to answer the simple question.

I posted this image here last September:

http://gerardoparedes.fi...9/09/acorn-prostzone.jpg

I saw it on my way to work on the campus of UCLA just days after the ACORN Hoax broke and couldn't believe my eyes. That's not random street graffiti, friends - someone had a stencil ready. Within days.

And at UCLA?!? IN WESTWOOD?!?
Someone drove. Or flew. Or found a college racist for hire.

I sobbed all the way to work from the realization of the implications. Still not over it.

Why are you not posting all my comments?

You claim "knowing disinformation"?

Well. I am not doing that, but if I were and you could prove it, it seems you would.

This way it just looks like you're scared to have certain of my comments see the light of day.

Oh, here we go with braindead Patterico again! FACTS don't matter, dismissal of charges against ACORN don't matter. Arrest of O'Keefe doesn't matter. Patterico is a waste of time. He's the guy who would have the sign: "GOVERNMENT: KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF MY MEDICARE".

Patty @ 26:

Because you didn't have the decency to respect our rules, I now have to approve each and every one of your comments, to make sure they don't do so again.

You should consider yourself lucky that I allow you to post here at all, since you continue to post knowing disinformation, and --- hypocritically and cowardly --- have banned at least one BRAD BLOG commenter from posting AT ALL on your own site.

You refuse to answer the questions posed to you time and again (like how you, as a Deputy D.A. authenticated the "unedited audio" you keep quoting from to "prove" one thing or another), and instead, choose to pollute these comment threads with all forms of knowing bullshit. Yet I let you post here. You're welcome.

You are welcome to go delude your own readers all you like with all forms of dishonest garbage. Unfortunately, I've got to babysit you like a fucking child now because you continue to behave like one here on my site. So your posts will be delayed and where they blatantly violate the rules, they will not be posted at all.

Don't like it? Couldn't care less. You're a dishonest person, and should be grateful I allow you to post here at all (which is more than the respect you've shown to my readers at your site.)

@Brad: 'preciate trying to keep it open comments but in my mind Patterico is a troll...just meant to side-track discussion...there are persistent conservatives and then there are deliberate liars, most conservatives I know are honest and will not lie about things....but the people that feed them information, that's another matter

@Jeannie - thanks for the picks...you know to do nice stencils like that you have to have a crew to watch for cops or you'll called in or caught by a cruiser in so cal in no time..I do think someone could produce that quick in these techie days if they wanted to, but it just appears professional, level, clean paint, tight...so while the graphic could be done quick, the whole thing connotes professional organization to me...is this Michael Steeles idea of getting hip..stencils..

It bothers me that he is a deputy district attorney. Maybe he is left over from the spiking of the doj? A sort of local left-over? He certainly doesn't come across as professional. Massengil comes to mind for some reason. Patterico, dude, your pants are totally on fire...

I think that guy deals in "perception management," rather than reality. If he can convince enough people of something, it magically becomes true, all the facts be damned. He seems much more concerned with everyones' perceptions of what is true, rather than what is actually true. How cynical. How republican.

Patterico why do you hide your "retractions" off the main page? It's obvious your level of dishonesty just from reading your Terri Schiavo section. Do you honestly believe Terri Schiavo wasn't in a Persistent Vegetative State after 15 years of being in one? Her own family agreed with that diagnosis until there was money involved

Chris Hooten @31

"perception management"

Love it....great description of our troll friend...

Brad sez:

since three investigations (one from the Congressional Research Service, one from MA's former Attorney General, and the latest, just this week from the Brooklyn, NY District Attorney) have all found no criminal wrongdoing by the low-level ACORN employees caught on secret video, and;

Can you help me out, Brad, and point me to the language in the CRS report that finds no criminal wrongdoing by ACORN? Just a quote and/or citation to a particular page number, if you please.

By tomorrow morning I will either have an answer to that question or I will submit a post about it to Big Journalism.

I'll remind them of your uncorrected error in your letter to Hoyt as well. Kinda takes the wind out of a crusade for a correction when the crusader won't correct his own errors.

Ammo for Hoyt. I'll write him too.

"Her own family agreed with that diagnosis until there was money involved"

cite?

Patterico @ 34:

Oh, noes! Pretty please don't tell on me, Mr. Big Bad Deputy D.A.!

(P.S. May want to read and investigate things more carefully this time before writing, so you don't make an asshole out of yourself again. But who am I to save you from yourself?)

Patterico @ 34 asked:

Nope. Honest folks get answers. Dishonest and dishonerable Deputy District Attorneys have to do the legal research on their own.

Be sure to lie about all of this later! (But, as suggested in previous, may want to be more careful this time before embarrassing yourself again, though it's up to you.)

BTW, when are you going to un-ban the BRAD BLOG commenters that you don't allow to post at Patterico.com? Worried that your bullshit doesn't stand up to actual scrutiny from non-Pattybots? Yeah, I would be too.

Also, when are you going to let us all know how you authenticated that "unedited audio" you've been relying on? Or is it not necessary to authenticate stuff before you use it as evidence where you work at the L.A. Deputy District Attorney's office? (Does Steve Cooley know you're defending accused federal felons in your free time??)

Nope. Honest folks get answers. Dishonest and dishonerable Deputy District Attorneys have to do the legal research on their own.

Will read the report and report the findings as widely as I can. It appears to be more dishonesty on your part. Who woulda think it?

BTW, when are you going to un-ban the BRAD BLOG commenters that you don't allow to post at Patterico.com? Worried that your bullshit doesn't stand up to actual scrutiny from non-Pattybots? Yeah, I would be too.

Ernie knows that I have published every comment of his that doesn't violate my rule against attacking my competence or ethics at my job.

Also, when are you going to let us all know how you authenticated that "unedited audio" you've been relying on? Or is it not necessary to authenticate stuff before you use it as evidence where you work at the L.A. Deputy District Attorney's office? (Does Steve Cooley know you're defending accused federal felons in your free time??)

The stuff I say here and on my blog is said in my private capacity commenting on matters of public interest. I do not speak on behalf of my office. We have free speech rights just like everyone else.

Karen @ 7,

What an outstanding post.

Brad,

I don't think this is a waste of time. I think delving into the transcripts and tapes show more and more clearly what Breitbart, O'Keefe and Giles were up to. It allows us to say "hit job" instead of "sting operation" and allows us to confirm that O'Keefe not only didn't dress like a pimp, he didn't present himself as one, except possibly in a few phrases deviously slipped in to the conversation once it was well under way. Even then I would hold judgment until the full unedited videos are released.

Also I think it has been very illuminating to allow Patterico to post here. Great front-seat view for the right-wing propaganda tactics in use.

'Rico,

Why does it take you a day to answer Brad's question? Who do you have to get your story from?

Acorn is nuts!

Well maybe there should be some complaints filed with the California Bar- and let them determine the appropriateness of Mr. Ryan's personal jihad ,considering he is paid with public tax money.

@#30

Massengil-wasn't that a douche product?

Weaseldog #22 wrote:

I have to wonder why a Deputy DA would fight to side with, and defend con artists that are intent on harming innocent people.

I would hope that DAs that choose to side with suspected criminals that are obviously evil and malicious, are very rare.
____________________________

Both I and others have repeatedly asked Patterico aka Deputy DA Patrick Frey two simple questions:

1. Why hasn't his office initiated an investigation into whether O'Keefe and Giles violated CA Penal Code 632, which bars secret recordings of confidential communications? (Note: One of their sting operations took place in the City of Los Angeles which is within his jurisdiction).

2. Does he, Mr. Frey, feel that his defense of individuals who should be the subject of a criminal investigation by his office creates an ethical dilemma for him?

To date, Mr. Frey has refused to answer those straightforward questions.

As I noted elsewhere, if Mr. Frey does not believe that his defense of O'Keefe and Giles creates an ethical dilemma, he should simply say so, explaining why.

Yet he remains silent, and that silence speaks volumes.

Finally, to add to your observations Weaseldog, one of the two "con-artists" Mr. Frey is defending is facing charges for an alleged federal felony. Mr. Frey has chosen to rely on the content of what are probably illegally recorded audiotapes, not to initiate prosecutions against those who obtained them, but to score political points in his desire to smear the reputation of a benevolent community organization.

My parents used to tell me, "You're known by the company you keep."

While I did not choose criminal law as a field I ever wanted to practice in, I've always had the utmost respect for those who devote their lives to insuring that our society is both safe and lawful. I admire and respect those who choose to work as criminal prosecutors.

I express no opinion on whether Mr. Frey has actually violated any ethical standard. However, I must acknowledge that, personally, I find it just a wee bit disconcerting to see a Deputy DA stepping forward to defend the deceitful and probably unlawful behavior of an accused federal felon like James O'Keefe.

Poor Patterico aka LA County Deputy DA Patrick Frey plays the why me? card of a wounded child because Brad Friedman placed his posts in "moderation" because, despite repeated warnings, he continued to level personal attacks on others with whom he disagrees.

He gave no warning to me before blocking my IP. If he's modified it since, I don't really know, though I really don't care as I have no desire to waste further time commenting at such an uninformed site.

What I did find interesting is a certain level of vindictiveness on Pat's part. He has no problem posting anonymously as Patterico, but when L.A. Times Columnist Michael Hiltzak posted anonymously, Pat reported that to Hiltzak's employer because anonymous postings are contrary to the paper's rules.

As the article reveals, our Patrick Frey was displeased with Hiltzek's liberal views.

For Patrick Frey, free speech is a one-way street.

I believed Mrs. Dixon, the former secretary to Lt. Col. Killian, and what she told Dan Rather about what she remembered happening years earlier when George W. Bush skipped out on fulfilling his Texas Air National Guard commitment.

She was credible. She was an eyewitness. Thus, Dan Rather, being an excellent journalist, found an eyewitness who corroborated what was contained on those typewritten pages, making the "authenticity" of those pages secondary to her eyewitness account, in my view.

George W. Bush went AWOL and his daddy covered it all up through his connections. Either George W. Bush got cold feet and couldn't function as a fighter pilot any longer or he began drinking so much his performance deteriorated to the point he ended up in a two-seater training jet...so he threw a tantrum and skipped out.

Patterico wrote:

The stuff I say here and on my blog is said in my private capacity commenting on matters of public interest. I do not speak on behalf of my office. We have free speech rights just like everyone else.

______________________

So, if one of the other deputy DA's in your office were to be formally assigned the task of investigating whether O'Keefe violated CA PC 632, are you telling us that you have the "free speech" right to interfere with that investigation by publicly stating on your blog or in comments, in your private capacity of course, that you do not feel an investigation is warranted?

Hmmm. I don't know, Pat, but it seems your "free speech" argument might be a bit tenuous.

Also, Pat, since the alleged PC 632 violation took place in your jurisdiction, doesn't your ongoing defense of O'Keefe, in your private capacity of course, mean that if your employer should assign the task of investigating the PC 632 violation to you, that your "private capacity" statements would force you to recuse yourself --- thereby interfering with the efficient operation of your office?

Deputy D.A.W(ingnut)G(ooper)

This whole ACORN thing reeks of racism.
Even if they claim it's not, it's about suppressing black voter registration. I'll bet Pat knows Mark Anthony Jacoby personally.

Brad:
Incredibly effective clip on Colbert report last night 3/5/10 where he did a cut and paste interview between himself and Bill O'Reilly that made a complex issue very clear.

Well Karen, Colbert did a segment about this whole hoax last night, which is how i found out about how fake it all was and what lead me here in the first place. Considering the closeness of the programs, i doubt well have to wait long.

Dear Patterico--

I have been falling behind in the conversation because I needed to get away from the computer. Here's my answer to your question which I finally saw this morning that you'd asked a couple of posts earlier. I answered there this morning and repeat it here now as this post is more recent. Maybe you'll catch it somewhere.

COMMENT #159 [Permalink]
... David Lasagna said on 3/5/2010 @ 10:43 am PT...

Dear Patterico and Bluehawk--

Sorry, just seeing your most recent remarks now. Been off this comment section for a few days. Thought maybe all the action had moved on. Still a novice at exactly how all this works in cyberland.

Patterico re: your questions at #145, #150

Yes, when I try to look at it from what I make up is your way of looking at it, I see where I think you are seeing that he is establishing his pimphood and the rest. I see it. I read it and I say, oh here's where that interpretation is coming from.

The reason that doesn't make me jump over to agree with your overall interpretation, however, is that I see a lot of other things in there as well.

Where you seem to see a complete damning of the Acorn worker, I see other possibilities of interpretation.

And in trying to be fair, like I'm trying to be with you, I have to take into account that I'm only reading a transcript. I was not in that room. If I could see/hear the unedited videos I would have more of an idea of the multiple clues often given in human interaction through tone, eyes, inflection, cadence, etc. There are a lot of heavy accusations being made back and forth all based on the interpretations of realities represented by these videos. I want to be very careful to not leap to unwarranted conclusions.

1. First of all I have to back the whole interpretation process up to a point I have not seen you acknowledge exists.

Acorn is an organization that as far as I know was just minding its own business. However, efficient or inefficient, one might think they are, they were just doing what they do, which is trying to help poor people.

There were no child prostitution rings with 13 year olds from El Salvador or Guatemala. There was no prostitution anything.

Giles and O'Keefe come in and start lying. A young, attractive couple comes into Acorn and starts lying their heads off. I was taught not to lie. So my first question for you is--are you in favor of wholesale lying to complete strangers who have done you no harm?

2. When I read the transcript, I tried to look at it not only from what I was imagining was your point of view, but what I imagined was the Acorn person's point of view. Is there any reason in the world your view is the only possible one here? I've seen you make no claims to being infallible so I'm hoping you'll agree there are other possibly viable viewpoints besides your own.

Reading it from what I imagine might be the Acorn person's point of view, it's not hard to see a person who is trying to do their job in a very weird circumstance. This is a strange tale, full of lies, she is being told. She's being told this sweet young girl is in trouble. That Hannah is in danger. The Acorn worker is trying, at least some of the time to get them to pay taxes. She's trying to get the fictitious children, arriving soon, into school. Is she doing that because she's an evil child prostitution advocate or is she doing her best, while being constantly lied to, to come up with whatever she can to maybe help the little girls and this young couple? I don't have an absolutely definitive answer to that. But I see nothing to swing me to your interpretation over a more generous one towards her.

This is long enough for now. But I have my second question for you.

re: San Diego--

Juan Carlos said yeah, yeah, yeah many times to Giles and O'Keefe. He said other things as well. But when they left, after having taking multiple pictures of Hannah and freaking O'Keefe out in the process, he called his cousin, a policeman, because(again being lied to)he thought there was human trafficking going on. What is Acorn supposed to be guilty of here?

Lasagna,

I appreciate the answer, and I have said more than once that the behavior of the workers springs from a benevolent principle of non-discrimination against criminals, which principle got carried too far.

But we can't have a conversation unless we answer each others' questions. And the question I have posed many times is still unanswered. I would like to continue the dialogue but if you will not answer this question, I don't think it's going anywhere.

I would like to address your question too but feel it fair to request that you first answer the question I have asked so many times.

That question is:

In YOUR opinion, not applying my point of view or an ACORN worker's point of view or anyone else's --- and with the caveat that you're missing some visual nuances from passages where there is audio and transcript but no video --- is O'Keefe telling ACORN workers that he wants to set up a house where Giles and underage girls can turn tricks and give him the proceeds for his Congressional campaign?

And if so, does that constitute posing as a pimp (albeit perhaps a less evil pimp than the other pimp in the scenario)?

With all respect towards your productive approach, if your next comment doesn't address this question I will have to abandon the conversation as a non-dialogue.

L.A. Dep. District Attorney Patrick "Patterico" Frey said pseudonymously @ 53

we can't have a conversation unless we answer each others' questions. And the question I have posed many times is still unanswered. I would like to continue the dialogue but if you will not answer this question, I don't think it's going anywhere.

Funny you should mention that Patrick. I've asked you now, more than half a dozen times, I believe, how it is that you, as a Deputy D.A. have authenticated the "unedited audio" from O'Keefe and Breitbart which you say proves this or that.

Of course, as an L.A. County Deputy D.A. surely you understand what constitutes "evidence" and the procedures necessary for authenticating such evidence.

So, again, I ask you, what are the steps you've taken to authenticate the audio which you claim is "proof" and/or "evidence" of this claim or that claim that you continue to make both here in comments and over at your own blog?

As you obviously know, "we can't have a conversation unless we answer each others' questions. And the question I have posed many times is still unanswered. I would like to continue the dialogue but if you will not answer this question, I don't think it's going anywhere."

So thanks in advance, yet again, for answering the simple question.

Patterico @53 wrote:

Is O'Keefe telling ACORN workers that he wants to set up a house where Giles and underage girls can turn tricks and give him the proceeds for his Congressional campaign?

_____________________

Objection: Argumentative.

Without waiver of the objection,

Answer: When the Baltimore transcript is considered in its entirety, especially when augmented by the conversation with the third ACORN employee, a receptionist, whom O'Keefe did not record, the answer is a resounding "No!"

If you wish to ignore context, which includes, per Harshbarger, the initial representation to the receptionist that Giles was a "dancer" and O'Keefe a college student just trying to help her, if your purpose is to extract disjointed sentences from a 46 page transcript that belies beyond a reasonable doubt that O'Keefe "posed as a pimp;" and if you then reassemble those words in order to erect the sentence you wrote, Patrick, then "yes" I would concede that it is possible to reconstruct the entire event in a thoroughly deceptive manner to write out the sentence you have provided.

But doing so would not to justice to the full text of the still unauthenticated transcript.

"Justice," I deeply regret having to say, appears to be shockingly absent inside the minds of right-wing ideologues like Alberto Gonzales, Jay S. Bybee, John Yoo and Patrick Frey.

Brad, if I may venture beyond law to provide a little word of medical advice. Don't hold your breath waiting for a straight answer from Patrick Frey to your very straight forward question.

Here's a list of questions I posed to him that he has not answered:

1. Does he believe that James O'Keefe and Hanna Giles should be under investigation by his office for a possible PC 632 violation?

2. Has he spoken directly with Mr. O'Keefe about this matter?

(Note: Harshbarger interviewed numerous ACORN employees who were not recorded in addition to reviewing the edited videos and considering the unauthenticated transcripts.

Unless Pat Frey questioned O'Keefe about his methodology, then tested that against the actual audio tapes, he would be in no position to vouch for the authenticity of the tapes, though Frey appears to have repeatedly called you a "liar" whenever you questioned whether these audio tapes and transcripts are complete and unedited).

3) Frey, who begged off the PC 632 question, suggesting that he was not responsible for enforcing that statute at his office, failed to answer my question --- how does he get from the minutia of the details of what was or was not said inside three (3) ACORN offices to disparaging the reputation of a nation-wide community organization consisting of 400,000 member families in 75 cities?

And this guy has the nerve to suggest that you have not answered his argumentative questions --- questions that are of the variety of "when did you last stop beating your wife."

As I commented before, and with all due respect, I am not very impressed with this man's lawyering skills.

Sorry, Pat, I don't say that as a means to disparage you. It's just the way I see it.

Patterico @ 53

Just seeing your response here because I've taken a leave of absence from this discussion cuz I can't take it anymore. I'm too alone here and it takes too much energy trying to fight off everyone on every side of the fucking argument. No one was getting what I was saying. It seemed like an endlessly futile gesture is ever there was one. If I want to talk to myself it's more fun to do it not a computer.

You may not like my answers but I thought I was asnwering your question. Try once more.

The way I read the transcript sometimes O'Keefe is telling one story--he's her law student friend trying to help her--then he's saying things or almost saying things that sound to me like he's trying to suggest he's somehow involved in her business without ever really saying anything definitively. He sounds purposely vague to me. He sounds like he's trying to say suggestive things while simultaneously trying to be concerned, courteous, and solicitous. Creepy, weird lying.

If he wanted me to unequivocally agree with you that he was portraying himself as a pimp, he could have saved us all a whole lot of trouble and bother by just being a man and coming out and saying he was her pimp. But nooooooooo......

And speaking of not answering questions, I've been trying to answer yours for a while now but I'm not seeing a lot of good faith effort by you to answer mine.

1. Do you approve of wholesale lying to complete strangers who have done you no harm?

2. In San Diego the Acorn worker documented the visit of the supposed human traffickers with photos and then called his cousin the cop. What's he supposed to be guilty of?

3. Why isn't this just a clumsy attempt at entrapment? The only hint of prostitution were the lies that O'Keefe and Giles brought in with them.

Patterico--

Just went back and checked because it's been a while since I read the transcript and the way you worded your question filled me with doubt that maybe I wasn't remembering correctly or fairly.

When you ask-- is O'Keefe telling ACORN workers that he wants to set up a house where Giles and underage girls can turn tricks and give him the proceeds for his Congressional campaign?

And if so, does that constitute posing as a pimp (albeit perhaps a less evil pimp than the other pimp in the scenario)?--

I'd say that question frames the rather long, rambling, disjointed conversation that took place with significant distortion. I see one place where O'Keefe says,"..we want to use a lot of cash for my campaign."

I see another place where he says,"I am not going to be involved with the house that is why I am trying to get her independent."

Those are the two most definitive statements I can find concerning any relationship/non-relationship O'Keefe might be thinking of having with Giles' house and they seem more mutually exclusive than anything.

So no, in the absence of other comments one way or the other and in the presence of all the other misdirecting comments, I don't think anyone could say for sure he was posing as a pimp. It's unclear what the hell he's doing or talking about.

Oh, one more question Mr. Frey needs to answer.

Why did he fail to admonish the wing-nut at his site who leveled a thinly veiled terrorist threat against me?

Hey Ernie,

Between you and me, when you say to Pat--If you wish to ignore context, which includes, per Harshbarger, the initial representation to the receptionist that Giles was a "dancer" and O'Keefe a college student just trying to help her, if your purpose is to extract disjointed sentences from a 46 page transcript that belies beyond a reasonable doubt that O'Keefe "posed as a pimp;" and if you then reassemble those words in order to erect the sentence you wrote, Patrick, then "yes" I would concede that it is possible to reconstruct the entire event in a thoroughly deceptive manner to write out the sentence you have provided.--

that's a version of seeing it through Patterico's eyes that I've been trying to get people to hear that I thought I was able to do, to little avail here.

If you allow for a person's bias and need to interpret things with a particular agenda, yeah, it's not hard to interpret anything in just about any way they want/need.

My mission impossible/ridiculous was trying to give Patterico the benefit of the doubt that he might have his own reasons, that I was taking to be human ones, for engaging in what was looking to me to be quite likely just this sort of self-deceptive practice.

And my insane thought was that by not making war with him maybe a tiny bit of progress could be made in the deconstruction of such a process, done in good faith and without the goal of vilification or submission. Maybe we all could learn a little bit about how the "enemy" thinks. I thought if that were possible, it could only be good. For all concerned.

It is my sense that the strange behavior we all see manifested all around us in so many ways is the product of fear and pain. Just trying to address it all in a different way.

I particularly love your tone in your latest comment here because to me anyway it was without attitude and gave me, finally, a feeling of company in my vain pursuits.

Of course maybe I'm fooling myself again. But just in case I'm not--thank you thank you thank you.

love,

Dave

Dave, I think the problem lies with your effort to "give Patterico the benefit of the doubt."

Pat Frey is a well-educated propagandist. He knows full well that he has deceptively distorted what occurred. He intentionally pulled these isolated words out of context and reassembled them not because he believes what he says to be true but because he has an agenda, as did O'Keefe when O'Keefe slyly elicited responses to innocuous questions, knowing he would later use voice-overs to twist what was said to meet his, O'Keefe's, political agenda.

Frey knows full well that he is way over the top in trying to condemn a benevolent community organization of some 400,000 families in 75 cities on the basis of a few isolated words taken out of context in an interaction with a low level ACORN part time employee who violated ACORN protocols.

Of course, I favor decorum over the abrasive character assaults, but if you think for a minute that Pat Frey is sincerely believes the crap he has unloaded, you are indeed "fooling" yourself.

As I wrote, previously, David, I have a piece in the can which will explain fully where the ACORN smear campaigns are coming from.

I ask, my friend, for your patience, for all will be revealed when it is posted.

Ernie,
You are right about him being a propagandist. I read some of the Terri Schiavo articles and felt like I needed a shower after. The man tried to rewrite reality. Okeefe came off in the transcripts as wishy washy. If Okeefe was truly posing as a pimp as Frey says Okeefe wouldn't have beaten around the bush as much as he did. Unless Frey is calling Okeefe a pussy who doesn't say what he means.