"We have asked the Times and numerous outlets to correct their misstatements and implored numerous journalists to report on the discrepancies between the impression left by the edited tapes and the transcripts posted by the filmmakers themselves. And yes, we will ask again," wrote ACORN's Communication Director Kevin Whelan in response to my query seeking comment on our late Monday exclusive detailing the bizarre emailed comments from the New York Times Senior Editor for Standards, Greg Brock.

In those emails, which we published in full, Brock explained why his paper is standing by what appear to be multiple incidents of inexcusably erroneous reporting concerning the oft-repeated apparent-fiction that rightwing activist James O'Keefe posed, or dressed, as a pimp in his now-infamous, highly-edited, secretly-taped ACORN hit videos.

"The email chain you posted with Mr. Brock was troubling and disturbing," Whelan wrote. "We will be asking to meet with the Times Public Editor about the whole matter."...

Some folks have been ringing in on my exclusive yesterday on the embarrassing emails from Greg Brock, the NYTimes' Senior Editor of Standards, explaining why the once-great "paper of record" stands behind its gross misreporting on rightwing operative and accused federal felon, James O'Keefe as having "posed" as a pimp inside ACORN offices when he secretly made his highly-edited and apparently illegally-recorded hit videos --- since all public evidence shows that he was never dressed as a pimp in those offices!

I expect to have an official statement from ACORN soon on the Times' disastrous reporting of this key and oft-repeated element of O'Keefe's scam, as well as on Brock's extraordinary excuses for it (quickly summarized below).

[Update: ACORN's statement is now covered here...]

Until then, please see Marcy Wheeler of Emptywheel's quick take on the story: "NYT Thinks TeaBugger James O'Keefe Entitled to Own Set of Facts," as well as Eric Boehlert's over at Media Matters: "I'm not sure 'standards' means what the NYT thinks it does"

Also, I appeared on the Randi Rhodes Show yesterday (Randi was snowed in, so Nicole Sandler of Radio or Not was guest-hosting) to discuss this mind-blowing matter. You can download the interview here [MP3], or listen online (appx 15 mins) here:

For those who didn't get the time to read yesterday's lengthy, detailed story, which includes the amazing, complete email thread with the Times' veteran Senior Editor of Standards(!) who, in 2007, after working for the paper since 1995, identified himself as the "senior editor who oversees corrections," here's my best attempt at the very quickest of summaries of those remarkable emails...

While working on some followup to my exclusive on the lies of James O'Keefe, Andrew Breitbart and, in particular, the failures (and lies?) of the New York Times, this toon seems particularly appropriate...

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IN TODAY'S AUDIO REPORT: 'Snowpocalypse' in Washington, D.C., but snow-less in Vancouver for the Winter Olympics; Toyota recalls some Priuses (Prius's? Priusi?); The Green Police hit the SuperBowl! ... PLUS: Sarah Palin speaks Nookyular Tea Party-eese ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA': Obama Admin. drops 'animal tracking' for food safety; Welcome to the new Climate.gov; Australia's drought worst in 750 years; California sued over fuel standards; Halting California's global warming law; Chicago pollution mostly from traffic; Ford introduces Electric Taxi; Bark beetle song may save trees ... PLUS: NO, really?!?: Think-Tanks Take Oil Money and Use It To Fund Climate Deniers...

Info/links on those stories and all the ones we talked about on today's episode follow below...

"There is nothing for us to correct ... We stand by our reporting." That was the innocuous enough position from Greg Brock, New York Times "Senior Editor/Standards," in reply to a Letter to the Editor sent to the Times by a reader of The BRAD BLOG requesting a correction to recent reportage from the "paper of record" concerning rightwing activist James O'Keefe, on the heels of his federal felony arrest late last month. O'Keefe was arrested in New Orleans as an alleged ringleader in a conspiracy with three others, attempting to gain access, for reasons still unknown, to the phone system of Louisiana's Democratic U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu.

Incredibly, Brock originally cited claims by Fox News and O'Keefe himself as sources for why the New York Times stood by their apparently unverified and apparently incorrect report. "We believe him," Brock wrote, because he said as much on Fox News, apparently.

But the matter went from the absurd to the ridiculous in fairly short order, as Brock then seemed to contradict himself by claiming their source wasn't actually Fox or O'Keefe, but that the Times stood by their reporting because of a mysterious, unpublished video said to back up the claim, along with testimony from ACORN employees.

Though both the video and statements from ACORN employees were cited as evidence their story was right, Brock would refuse to share evidence for either of the claims. That, even after an independent report from the former Attorney General of Massachusetts --- released in early December, but never mentioned in the Times' recent report (or any report at the paper to my knowledge) --- directly contradicts their reportage....

From John Byrne at RAW STORY...

Gosh, and sure is unfair to paint any of these Tea Baggers as racist, isn't it?

Among the questions on one of those old Alabama literacy tests [PDF], as highlighted in Byrne coverage, are these questions which we wonder if Tancredo himself would be able to answer (not that it would matter, because he's white):

After it was revealed that the sponsor of the "National Tea Party Convention" in Nashville, TN, was a for-profit corporation charging some $500 for admission, previously confirmed Tea Bag speakers Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) dropped out.

None of that was a problem for Tancredo, apparently. Nor for Sarah Palin (R-FOX), who is still scheduled to be the weekend's keynoter for a reported speaking fee of $100,000. Perhaps she'll up Tancredo's racist ante and call for a repeal of that pesky 13th Amendment.

And speaking of literacy, below the fold is a photo of TeaParty.org founder Dale Robertson, taken at a Tea Bagger event in February of 2009. Plenty of literacy, no racism there...

If you watched the two separate nights over which Bill O'Reilly cut up his O'Reilly Factor interview with Jon Stewart on Fox "News" this week, as we did, you probably found that both nights fell surprisingly flat, given that Stewart, at least, usually offers a reason to make these things "must watch" moments.

Well, there's a reason it fell flat, as noted by Gawker today, O'Reilly cut out most of the best stuff...

Gawker's selection of some of the best video that never made air --- along with descriptions of how some of them were cleverly gutted before making it onto air --- is posted right here.

Now they've got the "must watch" stuff. Really. And all of it, far more entertaining and interesting and challenging than what actually made it onto O'Reilly's air. Go figure.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), in the video at right, describes on the floor of the U.S. House this week what anyone paying attention already knows: how the "Rightwing Echo Chamber" works. He describes a completely false charge by Wall Street Journal's professional liar and GOP operative, John Fund, last November alleging --- with no basis whatsoever --- that Rep. Barney Frank (D-VT) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) would soon be introducing legislation for "universal voter registration."

Frank says, "It's a lie, it's a myth." But, he says, the "totally fictional allegation by John Fund with no basis whatsoever" was then picked up and reported as fact by the Washington Times, and naturally then repeated over the public's airwaves by Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and on and on throughout the wingnut echosphere, as hoped. When Frank called Fund on it, he says, in a letter [PDF] and then by phone, Fund admitted he was in error, said he "told a few people" that he was wrong, but hadn't published any actual retraction.

"He's not only a liar, he's a coward," Frank accurately noted in his comments this week on the House floor. And here we had recently thought Fund was out of fresh lies.

But what Frank doesn't note in his comments above, is that the tactic described, as oft used by Fund and so many others on the Right, actually works very, very well...

[See bottom of article for explanation of asterisk in headline]

If you're not on Twitter (you can follow The BRAD BLOG antics here), you probably didn't get to enjoy last night's extraordinary Twitter Tantrum by wingnut propagandist Andrew Breitbart (follow him here) in the wake of terrific coverage by Max Blumenthal yesterday at Salon pulling together the indisputable dots of Breitbart employee/accused felon/fellow wingnut operative James O'Keefe's years-long racist obsessions.

O'Keefe, of course, is the guy who was recently arrested with three other GOP operatives (one, the son of the acting U.S. Attorney) in Louisiana for attempting to commit felonies in Democratic U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu's office, and who did not dress up as a pimp in his secretly taped, heavily-edited and over-dubbed ACORN hit videos, despite continuing false claims to the contrary by Breitbart (and the mainstream media that felt for it --- but more on that part soon.)

A few lowlights from Breitbart's hilarious rant last night were reposted at Sadly No under "Breitbart Twitter Meltdown Enters Fifth Frantic Hour." Yes, Andy actually went on that long, longer in fact, desperate sad tweet after desperate sad tweet, essentially shouting out any racist-like comment he could find by any Democrat as a way to say, I guess, that some Democrats have made racist comments, so he's happy to employ someone whose a real racist. Or something. Who knows?

The entire meltdown was colorfully characterized by @KevinKross: "lonely man, hotel room, curtains drawn, on floor, stained underwear, empty bottles, frantically twittering away on his phone."

But it's Andy's employment and support of O'Keefe which he needs to answer for at this point, as today Blumenthal followed up his article from yesterday with more on O'Keefe's disturbing pattern of racism and race-baiting. At the end he asks Breitbart directly: "Why are you paying and defending a racist?"

Good question. I'm sure he'll answer that one, right after he answers these. Which is to say, um, never. While he has time to attack me incoherently on Twitter, he apparently doesn't have time to answer to those questions which I emailed him directly many days ago...

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA': Pentagon says climate change a national security issue; Studies find faster tree growth as climate changes; Bangladesh risks becoming failed state; Hawaii may impose oil tax; Packaged salads may contain E. coli bacteria; Oil, trucking industries sue CA over fuel rule; Rep. Joe Barton's (R-TX) gets $100K from gas well stake; Utah gov gets $10K from coal co. seeking permit ... PLUS: A must-Listen NPR Report: Mining Giant Must Clean Up Mess....

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Wow. These guys ain't fooling around.

If the Republican Gubernatorial primary candidate Carly Fiorina is willing to put out a web ad like this, against her Republican opponent Tom Campell in the race for the GOP nomination to run against Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer this year, do the Democrats have any idea of the crazy train they're about to be barreling into?...

[Hat-tip TPM who tweets it as "Possibly the best web ad ever". We might have to agree.]

Guest editorial by Ernest A. Canning

While I've always had the utmost respect for Australian journalist and documentary filmmaker John Pilger, I must admit that the first time I watched his video, "Obama is a corporate marketing creation," I thought that, in implying that the President was some type of CIA-connected Manchurian Candidate, Pilger was a bit over the top.

In 1983 Obama went to work for "Business International Corporation," which, according to Pilger, had "a long history of providing cover for the CIA and infiltrating unions on the left." Though Pilger conceded that there "might be nothing sinister" in that, he cited Obama's failure to identify Business International by name or what he did there in Dreams of My Father. The President simply said he worked at “a consulting house to multinational corporations.” Coupling this with a litany of examples which place Obama on the wrong side of Empire and the corporate divide, Pilger implied the connection was not coincidental, then concluded his remarks by quoting Chris Hedges:

Perhaps it's an accumulation of all that has transpired this past year; perhaps it's the striking revelations that emerged during an extraordinary Feb. 2, 2010, broadcast of Democracy Now, especially as it pertains to torture (video below), but I now can't help feeling like Claire Kubik, the sharp attorney played by Ashley Judd in High Crimes who starts out vigorously defending her husband Tom (Jim Cazviel) against charges he murdered innocent civilians in a covert military operation. She's convinced the man she married has been wrongfully accused; convinced of his innocence until, almost when it's too late, she learns the man she thought she knew so well was a murderous sociopath.

Who is this guy whose election so many so happily celebrated on a brisk November evening that now seems so long ago?...

Seriously, the Republican Party wasn't always this whacked out, crazy and utterly misinformed, were they? Were they?!

The Daily Kos has enlisted the "non-partisan independent pollster Research 2000" to survey "over 2,000 self-identified Republicans." The results of which, I'll have to agree with Kos here, are "nothing short of startling."

Writes Kos: "Ultimately, these results explain why it is impossible for elected Republicans to work with Democrats to improve our country. Their base are conspiracy mongers who don't believe Obama was born in the United States, that he is the second coming of Lenin, and that he is racist against white people."

Just one case in point likely to be of interest to readers of The BRAD BLOG (and there are many others, far more extreme), one in five (21%) of self-identified Republicans believe ACORN stole the 2008 election. Another 55% are "not sure" if they did or not. Still waiting for any one of them to present even a shred of evidence to suggest that even a single vote was cast fraudulently via ACORN in some way, of course. For the record, Obama reportedly won by about 10 million of them nationally. You think we'd have some kind of evidence by now from the "Fox 'News' Voter Fraud Unit."

Also, according to the poll, a majority of Republicans, 53%, believe "Sarah Palin is more qualified to be President than Barack Obama." Sigh...

How many elected Democrats will have to lose their jobs in 2010 and 2012 before they figure out who/what they're dealing with in this once-Grand, now just utterly insane (actually, just successfully and expensively disinformed) Old Party?

Poll "high"lights are here...

It's up to the wingnuts. If they want to keep lying about Obama, then we'll do our best to set the record straight. If they want to bring up legitimate criticism, and there's plenty of it, then we'd likely join them, and we could all have an Obama bashing party together. But they're not that smart.

So as long as the wingnut media --- and thus, virtually the entire corporate media --- insist on using the people's airwaves to lie to the people (eg., Rush Limbaugh continues to repeat every day what a "complete failure" the economic stimulus package has been), I guess we'll just have to keep countering that phony message by posting the truth in order to try to offer some balance to the unending stream of lies from the GOP and their extremely effective mouthpieces across the near-entirety of the corporate media.

Rachel Maddow did the same last week in her lead-up piece to Obama's first State of the Union address, in which she brutally attacked the Administration's call for a partial spending freeze, even as the economy, thanks in no small part to Government investment, struggles to come out of its tailspin.

Before her critique however (which I hope you'll watch in full --- it's embedded below), she also pointed out the salient, indisputable facts of how responsible actions taken by the Obama Administration, whether you liked them or not --- and as opposed by virtually every single Republican in Congress --- have, in fact, with all of their many failings, helped shore up, and even reverse for now, what had been a near-death spiral by the time Obama finally took office.

Here are two charts from her report which highlight that point quite simply, and help to counter the loud, GOP-spun political/partisan nonsense echoed, naturally, by the gullible tea baggers...

[NOTE: Since Maddow's report last week, the GDP figures for the 4th quarter of last year have now been announced and the up trend continues. As her original chart included data only through the 3rd quarter of last year, we've augmented that original chart below to reflect the recently announced 5.7% growth in GDP for the 4th quarter of '09]:

Love him or hate him, or anything in between, recognition of the overall effect of the broad points of Obama's emergency economic policies --- quickly passed at an historic moment of looming disaster --- is due. At least along with any honest appraisal of those policies.

Maddow's entire report, both praising and critiquing Obama and those policies --- something known as "fairness and balance" --- can be watched below...

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IN TODAY'S AUDIO REPORT: China takes the lead on clean energy, while the U.S. dithers; Obama gives out goodies for nuclear power ... PLUS: Coal protests in West Virginia ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA': Solar energy’s dirty little secret; Obama orders government to cut greenhouse emissions by 28%; Pentagon to rank global warming as destabilizing force; Americans cool on global warming; Smart meters save money, energy and dollars ... PLUS: With help from Sweden, four Northern Virginia families are 'climate pilots' ....

Info/links on those stories and all the ones we talked about on today's episode follow below...