Report: New O’Keefe Tapes May Show Government Corruption
Noah Shachtman at Wired reports that he has seen portions of James O’Keefe’s newest set of videos:
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.”
Leftists are doubtless already furiously researching HUD’s defense. Did O’Keefe violate any laws in these tapes? Because we all know that’s what sounds like the real story here.
Don’t worry. Even if O’Keefe didn’t break any laws, the leftists will make something up. You read it here first.
They always do.
SPEAKING OF LEFTISTS MAKING THINGS UP: My next installment of How the Left Lies to You About ACORN shows how Brad Friedman’s blogger Ernie Canning completely rewrote history regarding Giles and O’Keefe visit to ACORN Baltimore. I’m still working on it, but the wait will be worth it. Trust me. The level of shameless dishonesty displayed by Canning is nothing short of jaw-dropping. It just takes time to explain.
Stay tuned.
Is Ernie Canning = imdw?
O’Keefe has found a life’s work in exposing corruption of institutional Democrats. He could go to a school and rig a kickback scheme involving government paid for school lunches for his under age South American Illegal Alien sex slaves who don’t attend school because they are turning tricks, and you’d have school bureaucrats going along with the scheme for a cut of the action.
Comment by PCD — 3/11/2010 @ 7:08 am
Why can’t those law-breaking Republican Activists just leave those poor government employees alone in their quest to redistribute the wealth? Leave Robin Hood alone! (smile)
Comment by dfbaskwill — 3/11/2010 @ 7:18 am
Ernie Canning = ruleoflaw. Like Friedman, he habitually disparages my professional abilities in this discussion. Accordingly, both are now in moderation.
At Friedman’s place, he has them whipped into a frenzy. They are demanding my resignation and such.
Whatever.
It’s been since December since a site targeted me this way. Then it was people on the right; now it’s people on the left.
This kind of thing doesn’t work with me. Friedman & Co. will figure that out, eventually. They won’t be the last to try, though. Of that I can be certain.
Comment by Patterico — 3/11/2010 @ 7:20 am
Isn’t the tax credit managed by the IRS, not HUD?
Comment by imdw — 3/11/2010 @ 7:21 am
Presumably the Left will disregard this because he wasn’t wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, and thus didn’t really represent himself as a criminal.
Comment by roy — 3/11/2010 @ 7:21 am
It’s interesting how similar this episode is to December on several levels.
Comment by Patterico — 3/11/2010 @ 7:24 am
They really are nothing but vile, Marxist insects, these true believers.
Comment by GeneralMalaise — 3/11/2010 @ 7:40 am
There’s a lot of “Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Patrick Frey” going on. With the resultant calls for resignation etc. that such language fosters in commenters.
Next step: Friedman calls me anti-Semitic!
Comment by Patterico — 3/11/2010 @ 7:41 am
Jeez, Patterico! Why go after you, when the government cronies are the ones breaking the law? The one thing that they don’t get—probably because they don’t read your work, and are instead relying on the “talking points” of alphabetists—is that you would be just as hard on folks on the Right being corrupt. In fact, I have seen you do so.
To quote some of the characters in “Harry Potter”: these people are mental.
They are so invested in “D versus R” that they have lost all common sense, and create their own good/evil dichotomy. What is doubly ironic is how “good/evil” they are on many subjects, yet …nuanced…on others. Without feeling a shred of the hypocrisy that is one of their defining characteristics.
Personally, I am glad you sally into battle with this nimrods. But it cannot be fun, particularly when they openly are trying to damage your job security.
Comment by Eric Blair — 3/11/2010 @ 7:50 am
This post is going to send them into apoplexy, Patterico. They think they’ve made O’Keefe go away.
Comment by SPQR — 3/11/2010 @ 7:50 am
Remember when 60 minutes was the go-to show for under-cover, investigation reporting? Maybe I was too young when it got started and perhaps, even then, the reporters got hassled by ‘the other side’ for what they were doing.
I see O’Keefe as a modern-day version. A bit more coarse in his approach, but still exposing the underbelly of the beast.
HUD scam, who woulda thunk it?
Comment by Corwin — 3/11/2010 @ 8:01 am
“Personally, I am glad you sally into battle with this nimrods. But it cannot be fun, particularly when they openly are trying to damage your job security.”
It’s fun. They pose no threat and I enjoy exposing their lies.
Comment by Patterico — 3/11/2010 @ 8:22 am
I don’t watch network news, so I have no idea how many broadcast minutes showed O’K and Giles doing their thing.
If public employees don’t know what O’K looks like by now, there must not have been many pix of him on the alphabets.
This kid shows up, so white he glows in the dark, and NO BELL RINGS????
Huh. Looks as if the journos let their prime demo down. No warning.
Maybe if he’d had Giles with him somebody would have twigged.
Comment by Richard Aubrey — 3/11/2010 @ 8:50 am
Comment by Eric Blair — 3/11/2010 @ 7:50 am
To the Left, the only response is to kill, either figuratively or literally, the messenger to shut him up.
Comment by AD - RtR/OS! — 3/11/2010 @ 9:22 am
I think it all comes down to the equivalent of this:
Purity of Essence.
Rousseau has caused a LOT of damage.
Comment by Eric Blair — 3/11/2010 @ 9:42 am
http://www.judicialwatch.org/news/2010/mar/obama-justice-department-shut-down-federal-acorn-investigation-according-documents-obt
Feds are not investigating corrupt ACORN. Who says Obama is not beholden to ACORN???
Comment by PCD — 3/11/2010 @ 10:28 am
“It just takes time to explain.”
(Insert Popcorn munching smiley here)
Comment by SteveCan — 3/11/2010 @ 10:39 am
You mean Charles Johnson? Isn’t he an Obama supporter now?
Comment by icr — 3/11/2010 @ 11:06 am
I wonder if O’Keefe has considered taking his CorruptionCam® into a few Union headquarters.
I mean, now that BHO has rolled back Union transparency rules and all.
Comment by goy — 3/11/2010 @ 11:08 am
Purity of Essence
Comment by Eric Blair — 3/11/2010 @ 9:42 am
Look what it did to Gen Jack Ripper….
Comment by AD - RtR/OS! — 3/11/2010 @ 11:09 am
I wonder if O’Keefe has considered taking his CorruptionCam® into a few Union headquarters.
Wouldn’t it, on the scale of things, be safer to try this in a Mosque, than a Hiring-hall?
Comment by AD - RtR/OS! — 3/11/2010 @ 11:11 am
icr, no, he doesn’t mean LGF, but I don’t think anyone really wants to re-discuss something that went on and on. Just go back to around Christmas (the column on the right has a monthly archive).
Comment by Dustin — 3/11/2010 @ 11:13 am
“At Friedman’s place, he has them whipped into a frenzy.”
One thing I don’t need to see is a frenzy in a cesspool.
Comment by Dave Surls — 3/11/2010 @ 11:25 am
Once O’Keefe becomes too well known to pass himself off as a potential client of corrupt organizations any longer, he’ll have to train a cadre of suitable surrogates to take his place. Likely too, imitators will also see opportunity and volunteer to take up the cause.
Audio and video technology will of course continue to evolve into smaller and more refined devices which will be easier to conceal and which will result in more revealing recordings.
We’re looking at the birth of a growth industry. It won’t be long before some enterprising tech school starts offering an instructional program. Ordinary citizens doing a job professional journalists won’t do for themselves.
Comment by ropelight — 3/11/2010 @ 11:33 am
We’re looking at the birth of a growth industry. It won’t be long before some enterprising tech school starts offering an instructional program. Ordinary citizens doing a job professional journalists won’t do for themselves.
Dems in Congress better get cracking to get any sort of amateur undercover journalism criminalized, then. It’s the only way they’ll be able to put a stop to this.
Comment by Pious Agnostic — 3/11/2010 @ 11:37 am
They – ACORN and such – could simply protect themselves by requiring screening for electronic devices for all non-staff personnel.
Don’t know how that would go down with the general public – a lot of people might want to ask the question: What are they hiding?
It’s not like you’re trying to get onto an airliner.
Comment by AD - RtR/OS! — 3/11/2010 @ 11:56 am
- We’re looking at the birth of a growth industry.
When you think about it, it’s possible that this was always the most obvious response to the relentless encroachment by government into our private lives. Turnabout, as they say…
Comment by goy — 3/11/2010 @ 12:06 pm
Pat, you should’ve just stopped at:
“How the Left Lies to You”
A series on that will keep you (and us) busy for a while.
Comment by jakee308 — 3/11/2010 @ 1:21 pm
Just tell them that O’Keefe’s a “good man.” That’ll really send them over the cliff.
Comment by Dmac — 3/11/2010 @ 2:21 pm
[...] less worry for our intrepid duo… and now, HUD may have plenty to worry about from another O’Keefe [...]
Pingback by No Worries Now in Maryland for James O’Keefe, Hannah Giles: ACORN’s Lawsuit Dismissed by Baltimore Court, Plus ACORN Kicked Out of Ohio for Voter Registration Fraud « Frugal Café Blog Zone — 3/11/2010 @ 3:56 pm
In Illinois, I’m almost certain they did. State law says that recording someone’s voice requires they permission of both parties, if I’m not mistaken.
NK can correct me if I’m wrong.
Comment by Scott Jacobs — 3/11/2010 @ 5:45 pm
I wonder if they’re waiting to get closer to the midterm elections to release the tapes.
Comment by Metallica — 3/11/2010 @ 5:58 pm
Not to mention the awaited outcome of the goings-on with Landrieux.
In a world where the government really wanted to be effective and just, they would give rewards when this kind of stuff was exposed.
Comment by MD in Philly — 3/11/2010 @ 9:05 pm