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Wednesday, January 27, 2010

ACORN in court, while BradBlog calls Andrew Breitbart the instigator and newly arrested James O'Keefe the ACORN filming front-man.

If you are weak on Constitutional law and don't know what a Bill of Attainder is, (do you think Michele Bachmann has the slightest idea), then you can learn something from BradBlog, here. Headlined, "ACORN Awaits Expansion of Injunction on 'Probably Unconstitutional' Defunding Measure, As Phony Pimp Who Set Them Up is Arrested for Federal Felony."

Earnest Canning writing that post reports that ACORN on Dec. 11, 2009, was granted a preliminary injuction on the basis that the House and Senate Appropriations Resolutions against ACORN were unconstitutional Bills of Attainder. Check Wikipedia, here, if you want more general info on the history of the attainder - tainted concept as it grew out of English practice well before the colonies revolted and the Constitution was approved with a clause of the Bill of Rights on topic.

See, Brad Friedman writing on BradBlog, here, on the report of the famous phony pimp being arrested, and alleging the "real" right-wing pimp is busy taking the GOP favored tactic, the Sgt. Schultz defense.

See Friedman's follow-up post, here, which focuses even more on Andrew Breitbart, the man Friedman calls the "real pimp."

First whiff I had of the story, Residual Forces, here, posting mainly a link but short on detail.

Andy linked to FOX, a source short on credibility.

There is detail, a downloadable FBI affidavit, this link.

There is the TPM story (BradBlog links to it), here, stating:

The news of the arrests was first reported by the Times-Picayune.

O'Keefe was apparently in town as early as last Thursday to give a speech at the Pelican Institute, a libertarian think tank in New Orleans.

The AP is reporting that [codefendant] Flanagan is the son of acting U.S. Attorney Bill Flanagan in Shreveport. Reached by TPM today, Flanagan's office said he is not talking to the press.

The ACORN stings that made O'Keefe's name were posted on Andrew Breitbart's Big Government Web site. Reached by TPM this afternoon, Breitbart said: "I need to find information on this. I'm out of the loop on this. I will make my determination then on when to comment."

Breitbart later told Politico: "We have no knowledge about or connection to any alleged acts and events involving James O'Keefe at Senator Mary Landrieu's office. We only just learned about the alleged incident this afternoon."


Moreover, TPM in a parallel link, here, mentions a "Pelican Institute," as connected or possibly so.

What do I know about that operation? I know what's online, here, and that I judge them by the "birds of a feather" company they keep; this link yielding this screenshot photo sequence:



Remember all the righteous indignation Michele Bachmann fulminated over registered lobbyist Jon Bohn and his ham-headed, ham-fisted attempted infiltration of the Bachmann campaign, with Bachmann blaming it on Patti Wetterling personally, and all, back on the eve of the election in 2006 at the time when Bachmann was doing her circus act at Pastor Mac Hammond's theater-prosperity church? (That was when Hammond discredited himself by saying he surely was voting for Bachmann while knowing he resided in the Third District, not the Sixth).

I bet there will not even be a single further peep out of Minnesota's and DC's greatest ACORN hater, Rep. Bachmann, about this young fellow, who calls himself a "videographer" when not calling himself a pimp at any ACORN office he could find (that did not immediately throw him and his floozy out the door). Michele Bachmann is the kind of career politician who will yell easily, but then go stealth entirely, now that her ACORN accuser is getting himself caught by the acorns by the grasp of the long arm of the law; the cause for arrest being his being into a bit of phone tampering mischief in, of all places, Sen. Mary Landrieu's offices, while apparently working in concert with a pair of conspiratorial confederates (which is the correct term for accomplices, in Louisiana).

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The Breitbart character has a "Big Hollywood" blog to go with his "Big Government" effort, this link. It also leads into the O'Keefe arrest story with Sgt. Schultz's tutoring on the "I know nothing, nothing," mode of expression (per this screenshot excerpt - click the above link for the entire page):



The story was first reported by Times Picayune, here, and was reported by Atalantic online, here, and the Swamp, here [source, ending photo].

Friedman's eariler linked work itself links here, where an employer-employee relationship between Breitbart and O'Keefe is reported, likely running from about the time O'Keefe did his "videography" in ACORN offices, onward, but the timeframe and detail of scope of employment are somewhat unclear in the reporting. The term Breitbart uses in the transcript blurb with Hewitt, "life rights," is a new one on me. Does Breitbart have exclusive rights to O'Keefe's version of what he was doing and why, in Landrieu's offices? If he's divulged any such info, discussions with third persons can lead to waiver of rights against self-incrimination, by gaining discovery of admissions made to third persons, such as an employer not part of the conspiracy.

Finally, you tell me, does this guy look like a pimp to you, even possibly one from Borat's neighborhood, or is he just more like a GOP dork? It amazes me that not every ACORN office worker he approached had the sense to see that phony of an impersonation.



_________UPDATE__________
Okay, Michele Bachmann's a busy woman and cannot read all the web reporting, but the one item online about Breitbart and O'Keefe I would love to have her analyze, here by Brad Friedman as already noted, is where Breitbart disclaims respondeat superior vicarious fault for things O'Keefe did on his own outside of the scope of his employment - a position which is the exact opposite of what he and Bachmann would want to impose on ACORN, vicarious liability for misconduct of an employee outside of the scope of employment.

Hypocrites probably would not see the sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander nuances. Bachmann might not either.