The video above is being touted by right-wing bloggers as "proof" that ACORN, SEIU and other groups are a shadowy socialist conspiracy behind the Occupy Wall Street movement. They do this by putting unsourced statements in between clips of Laura Flanders talking to a Occupy organizer and by making conclusions that would get you a failing grade in even a basic class on logic.

The same right-wing bloggers behind the video are also spreading the nonsensical idea that ACORN is running Occupy Orlando. Forget for the moment that ACORN no longer exists and take a look at the horrible, horrible logic used by these conspiracy theorists:

Questions continue to arise regarding who, exactly, is behind the Occupy Wall Street movement (as you know, the Blaze has explored this subject a number of times already).

Considering the framework behind the mass protests, it’s virtually impossible to ignore that progressive groups are likely heavily involved in the movement. This is especially true as the days go on and unions and other special-interest groups dig their nails into a movement that holds a great deal of potential political power.

This is a clear example of projection. Conservatives know that their "movements" aren't really movements and are paid-for enterprises created by their financiers in order to make it look like their extreme ideas are supported by the masses. So they assume that the left does the same thing. As someone who has been working on the left for more than a decade in volunteer and professional capacities, nothing could be further from the truth. One of the most talked-about concerns among left-wing activists is the fact that the people with money on our side rarely fund our movements the way the other side does. Left-wing activists rarely have the opportunity to make fighting for what is right a career, because the money just isn't there.

ACORN, one of many groups that have created angst among conservatives, seems to be finding its way back into the headlines once more. While the organization’s leaders claim that it has been disbanded, evidence seems to suggest the contrary. In fact, ACORN may be re-branding and some charge that its new chapters are heavily involved in helping to organize the protests.

Last week, a reader sent the Blaze some intriguing e-mails he’s been receiving from an Orlando, Florida-based group called “Organize Now.” He explained that he originally signed up to receive updates from ACORN back in 2009 (before the group shuttered).

While e-mails from ACORN have stopped, this new group — Organize Now — has begun e-mailing him, touting Occupy Wall Street and asking recipients to support the movement. Here’s a portion of the text from a recent message he claims to have received

This is all pretty straightforward stuff in the reality-based world. Conservatives killed ACORN by lying about it, which meant that the people who worked for the organization had to find new jobs. So they found jobs that matched with their existing skillsets and that meant that often people who worked together in one organization in a particular area found themselves working with some of the same people in these new jobs.

Many groups, including Organize Now, agree with the things that Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Orlando have been saying and, as happens across the political activist spectrum, these groups helped out by sending e-mails letting people know about what was happening. Every progressive group sends these kinds of e-mails. So does every conservative group. To suggest that such an e-mail means that Organize Now, which has a few former members of ACORN on staff, is actually ACORN and is behind Occupy Orlando, is laughable at best, and tin foil hat-type stuff at worst. I'm leaning a bit more towards the tin foil hat explanation.

Groups like JudicialWatch have been tracking what they see as a re-branding of ACORN for months. After all, discovering these connections and understanding what’s going on beneath the surface is paramount. While ACORN claimed that it was shutting down back in 2010, JudicialWatch wrote the following in a report entitled, “The Rebranding of ACORN,” this past August:

…evidence clearly suggests the following:

New and existing ACORN “spin-offs” are alive and well and will surely continue to flaunt state and federal laws in a blatantly partisan effort to register people — eligible or otherwise — who will vote for the reelection of Barack Obama and other liberal candidates across the country in 2012.

Let's remember, of course, that there was no evidence that ACORN ever did anything wrong as an organization and was, in fact, extremely responsible in attacking fraud. There is, of course, no evidence that these new groups have any connection to ACORN beyond having some of the same employees. And, let's realize that every conservative organization registers people in blatantly partisan ways, too.

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In an interview with the Orlando Sentinel Republican Daniel Webster admitted to sending out the "watch list" flier that was recently handed out at a town hall held by Tim Griffin (R-AR).

Webster claimed he just wanted to "share some friendly advice" with other Republicans, notably Phil Gingrey of Georgia and Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, two fellow representatives he sent the document to. Webster's nonsensical explanation was that he wanted to help other members "manage" town hall meetings and protesters that attend them. What got sent out, though, had no information about how to manage anything, and instead targeted six central Florida activists with inaccurate and irrelevant information.

The Orlando Sentinel, notable for it's right wing leanings, uncritically accepted Webster's take on the protesters, saying that they "disrupted" town hall meetings, ignoring the fact that all of the protesters were Webster's constituents who had legitimate questions the member of Congress refused to address.

Webster did not create the documents himself and claims they came from a constituent who he refuses to name, hypocritical in light of the tone of the flier, which tells journalists to ask who is providing information because they might be associated with groups that have an agenda that drives their actions. One of the targeted activists echoed this sentiment:

"I think it's pretty weird. Someone asks a legitimate question, and all of the sudden somebody's got a dossier on you," said Orlando resident Ron Parsell. "It's the type of thing they'd do in old Russia."

Webster was unapologetic about sending out the flier, offering the weak response that blamed the activists for taking offense.

"If they [the six on the watch list] in any way feel injured in it, I would [apologize] for sure," said Webster, adding that he didn't see it as a big issue.

"Me — I would not need an apology," he said.

In an interview with the Orlando Sentinel (see video above), Webster echoed the handout by suggesting that his protesters are former members of ACORN and MoveOn. Webster implied that the protesters might be violent, saying that he got a letter from a constituent who left a town hall meeting because she was afraid.

Tamecka Pierce, another one of those targeted, rejects Webster's downplaying of the handout.

"It's scary to be put on a watch list. I think it will discourage people from speaking out. I don't know what repercussions this will have in my personal life...They're trying to demonize us because we're pushing back on cuts that affect me and others."

Tim Griffin's explanation was even stranger than Webster's. He explicitly said the point of distrubting the watch lists was to "chill" what he called "political theater." He also inexplicably said: "I didn't know they were real people."

The Rachel Maddow Show, from September 2009

The GAO just released their finding that there was no reason for the congressional abolition of ACORN.

Better late than never, I suppose. Thanks to the Democratic leadership for sticking it to an ally because they were so afraid of the manufactured controversy:

A report issued today by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) finds little to support the charges that led to the demise of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), a grassroots consumer advocacy organization driven out of existence by Congressional critics.

The GAO found that monitoring of awards to ACORN by government agencies generally consisted of reviewing progress reports and making site visits. Of 22 investigations of alleged election and voter registration fraud, most were closed without prosecution, the report found.

One of eight investigations of alleged voter registration fraud resulted in guilty pleas and seven were closed without action due to lack of evidence.

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) reported five closed matters – one resolved, one dismissed and the others dropped after FEC "found no reason to believe the violations occurred."

[...] In 2009, conservative activists released selectively edited videos claiming to show ACORN employees giving advice on hiding prostitution activities and avoiding taxes.

The videos created a nationwide controversy that resulting in Congress passing laws that prohibited federal funds from being awarded to ACORN. The group disbanded in March 2010 In December 2009, New York U.S. District Court Judge Nina Gershon ruled that Congress had violated the Constitution by singling out ACORN and banning it from receiving federal funds but the ruling was overturned by a federal appeals court, which found that federal funds amounted to only 10 percent of ACORN's funding and therefore Congress' action did not amount to punishment, even though it may have been unjustified.

The GAO report identified about $48 million in federal grants and contracts that had been awarded to ACORN and its affiliates from 2005 to 2009.

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Credit: Bradblog

James O'Keefe has had a mixed blessings week. The IRS has granted his ridiculously hacky "investigative" group C3 (non-profit) status.

In its application, Project Veritas said it planned to pursue as many as a half-dozen journalism projects and conduct five two- to three-day training sessions for people interested in learning how to do such projects on their own. “I can’t tell you the secret sauce of it, but we do have a training method,” Mr. O’Keefe said. “There are many people learning this method and learning how to expose abusive power in creative ways.”

He said he would work as the organization’s “muckraker in chief,” for which he will be paid about $120,000 a year, according to the group’s application.

It raised $2,367 last year, according to the filing, and expects that figure to grow to $1.65 million over the next three years, though Mr. O’Keefe described that as “a sort of dream.” The group has hired a firm led by Richard Viguerie, a conservative strategist, to help it raise money.

Charities are constrained by law from participating in lobbying and political campaigns, and in response to a question posed by the I.R.S., Project Veritas specifically said it had no plans to lobby on behalf of specific legislation.“We’re designed to expose malfeasance, waste, fraud and corruption, to expose things for what they are,” Mr. O’Keefe said. “That’s not policy work, that’s educational work.”

Jeffrey S. Tenenbaum, a lawyer specializing in nonprofit matters, looked at the Project Veritas Web site and said he could see nothing that would cause the group to run afoul of the rules on politicking.

I don't know, seems to me that illegal acts like attempting to break and enter into Sen. Mary Landrieu's office for the purpose of illegally wiretapping her and whatever creepy plans he had with CNN journalist Abbie Boudreau on the boat might have tipped off the IRS that O'Keefe deserves no such classification. It's not his partisanship; Heritage Foundation is a C3 organization too. It's his fast and loose playing with ethics and rules that should work against him.

But luckily for all of us, a federal judge is not so easily persuaded by O'Keefe's machinations. O'Keefe and his partner Hannah Giles are being sued in San Diego by ACORN employee Juan Carlos Vera. Giles previously tried to get out of the suit by claiming that all the recording was done by O'Keefe and she was there merely as a prop. O'Keefe, for his part, claimed that his First Amendment right as a "citizen journalist" absolved him of liability. The judge didn't buy either argument. Bradblog:

According to Maria Dinzeo of Courthouse News Service: Juan Carlos Vera claimed James O'Keefe III and Hannah Giles visited his office in August 2009, and conspired to create video and audio tapes of him, even after asking him if their conversation would be confidential.
...
[Lorenz ruled] that the law "is directed to the surreptitious recording of confidential communications and not the manner or method of recording the conversation." Given the meaning of the word "record," Lorenz found Giles equally responsible.

Lorenz also rejected O'Keefe's motion for judgment on the pleadings, in which he argued that First Amendment protections for journalists supersede the California Privacy Act. Since there was a mutual understanding that the conversation was confidential, Lorenz found that the privacy law "is not an overbroad intrusion on exposé newsgathering in which O'Keefe participates."

"Exposé newsgathering" is not what O'Keefe traffics in, as demonstrated again most recently by, ironically enough, the "news" website of Fox "News" host Glenn Beck after a similarly deceptive and secretly video taped smear of an NPR employee by O'Keefe last March.

But O'Keefe's long track record of deceptive video hit-jobs was not at issue in this particular legal argument.

In his ruling [PDF], Judge Lorenz highlighted specific portions of the CA law which is violated by "Every person who, intentionally and without the consent of all parties to a confidential communication, by means of any electronic amplifying or recording device, eavesdrops upon or records the confidential communication."

The ruling goes on to further cite the statute which reads "The term 'confidential communication' includes any communication carried on in circumstances as may reasonably indicate that any party to the communication desires it to be confined to the parties thereto."

"California's law is quite clear," Lorenz wrote in response to the First Amendment arguments by O'Keefe and Giles, "that persons who engage in news gathering are not permitted to violate criminal laws in the process."

Now the question remains if the IRS will continue to allow Project Veritas (a misnomer if ever there was one) its C3 status with a convicted criminal at its helm.

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So James O'Keefe, the lying criminal scam artist whose deceptively edited videos -- along with a complicit media who swallowed them whole -- brought down ACORN has scored another scalp with his latest hit job targeting NPR: Not only has Ron Schiller, the fool caught on video being way too frank with strangers, stepped down in advance of his planned departure, but NPR CEO Vivian Schiller (no relation) is out, too.

Not a bad day's work for a lying criminal scam artist.

Naturally, Fox News was all over the story, with every one of its evening-show hosts -- O'Reilly, Hannity, and Van Susteren -- featuring segments on the video. Of course, there was only scant mention of the fact that O'Keefe was a lying criminal scam artist whose track record of deceptive editing was well-established. As Ellen at Newshounds puts it: "Who Cares If James O'Keefe Is A Lying Creep With A Criminal History? He Hates ACORN And NPR, So What's Not To Like If You're Fox News?"

But really, what can you expect from a news organization with such a sterling record of running like scared sheep whenever conservatives get out their Full Umbrage schtick and run at them and their federal funding with it? Sure enough, the first people to toss Schiller under the bus were his colleagues at NPR.

No doubt at Fox this will be spun as a defeat of a "liberal" media organ, except that NPR is anything but a liberal entity. They specialize in classic spineless-Beltway-liberal behavior -- hippie-bashing, conventional-wisdom genuflection, he-said-she-said 'balance' in its reporting and the-left-does-it-too false equivocation. It's why Juan Williams managed to hang on as long as he did, and why Mara Liasson is still there.

And in this case, it's pretty funny. As the WaPo's Stephen Stromberg noted, it's hard to see exactly what it is we're supposed to be outraged about.

After all, what has the Fox folks outraged were his comments about the Tea Party -- which actually were perfectly defensible renditions of cold fact. Are Greta and Byron really trying to pretend that there weren't Tea Partiers bringing loaded weapons out to public rallies? Really?

All in all, it's a classic one-day non-story. Hope the Fox reporters enjoy their bit of breathlessness. Who knows what piece of recycled propaganda from lying criminal artists they'll treat as legitimate news next.

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It was bad enough that most of the media -- outside of the liberal anchors at MSNBC -- refused to recognize the import of the content of that prank phone call to Scott Walker. Even more appalling was watching this weekend as the Beltway Villagers bent over backwards to thoroughly dismiss the story -- led by Howard Kurtz and the execrable Amy Holmes at CNN's Reliable Sources on Sunday.

Their chief means of dismissing the story was to compare the Buffalo Beast's revealing hoax call as "not journalistic" while comparing it to the treatment given the hoax ACORN videos of 2009:

HOLMES: Right. Well, I think because it fits their ideological framework. And I looked at this, and he was hailed as "Most Intriguing Person of the Day" by CNN. And you didn't see the hand-wringing over journalistic ethics like you did, say, in the ACORN case, when those two young people used the same sorts of tactics of being an impostor and sort of -- some people would say tricking people into participating in this. And there, there was a huge discussion about journalism and is this fair, is this right?

In this, it was, like, he's a hero. He accomplished a feat, as you just heard.

...

KURTZ: And as Amy points out though, when the ACORN sting happened -- you remember James O'Keefe and the pimp and the prostitute -- liberal commentators all attacked them, but Fox News played them up and that story up in a way that was much more favorable.

So how much of this is ideological.

HOLMES: Right. And the ACORN folks, they said that they were activists. They were very explicit about their point of view, where, in this case, oh, well, maybe he's a blogger, maybe he's a journalist. It doesn't really matter and he doesn't get any kind of criticism for his methods.

But how did Kurtz and Co. -- including Holmes -- treat the ACORN videos back in 2009? Well, as it happens, they attacked other media outlets for their reluctance to treat the videos as legitimate!

KURTZ: But much of the mainstream media was well behind on this story. CNN also jumped on the budding scandal 10 days ago, though not with anything approaching Fox's intensity.

But it took five days to hit the CBS "Evening News" and six days to be reported by ABC's "World News," NBC "Nightly News" and MSNBC.

Chris, there was two conservative activists, James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, posing as a pimp and a ho, get this footage with a hidden camera. Is that journalism?

CILLIZZA: I think there is a blurry line of what journalism is now, Howie, with video on demand, with blogs. I will go back to a somewhat less controversial example. Mayhill Fowler, a Democratic donor, wound up in a San Francisco fund-raiser for Barack Obama in which he said some voters in Pennsylvania are "embittered and cling to their guns."

...

HOLMES: If -- if liberal activist had walked into the Heritage Foundation, for example, and conducted the same sort of sting operation, it would have been on the front page of The Washington Post in a day. I think that what we're seeing here was -- is this just a right- wing, sort of, fringe story that the mainstream media didn't want to touch with a 10-foot pole, or this a real story about corruption at this organization?

And I think the mainstream media, because it was conservative activists going into a liberal organization, were a little bit wary, I would say, of the story.

Indeed, Kurtz even penned the following line in the Washington Post, defending the content of the videos:

Nearly everyone dismissed Beck's charge that the president is a racist, but the ACORN videos he and Hannity trumpeted on Fox proved to be a legitimate story.

But as the folks at FAIR detailed at the time, not only did the mainstream media lap it all up avidly, there was almost nothing legitimate at all in the ACORN videos -- beginning with the methods used to obtain the videos, but even more significantly, in the faked conclusions they were intended to lead observers to reach. The hoax in those videos was not only perpetrated on the videos' subject, but on their intended audience as well. (Media Matters has the definitive details of the scope of the hoax.)

It's standard modus operandi Andrew Breitbart and Co. Of course, Kurtz defended Breitbart even through the Shirley Sherrod fiasco, too. He only seemed to wake up when O'Keefe tried to scam a CNN reporter -- at which point he began dismissing him as a "fake pimp".

So it was the theme of Sunday's show that there was nothing, NOTHING worth legitimately reporting on in the case of the Walker hoax, too -- as Jim Warren tried to emphasize:

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UPDATE: Via Miss Kitty, it looks like Darrell's minions have been busily scrubbing Wikipedia! Nice to know they read us, huh?

Dear, dear Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the incoming subpoena-wielding chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, was on Faux News this weekend, attacking ACORN and Attorney General Eric Holder, talking about how "corrupt" the Obama administration is. I thought I'd take the opportunity to remind people just who's lecturing us on morality. Via Wikipeda:

A retired Army sergeant claimed that Issa stole a Dodge sedan from an Army post near Pittsburgh in 1971. The sergeant said he recovered the car after confronting and threatening him.

Issa denied the allegation and no charges were filed.

In 1972, Issa and his brother allegedly stole a red Maserati sports car from a car dealership in Cleveland.

He and his brother were indicted for car theft, but the case was dropped.

That same year, Issa was convicted in Michigan for possession of an unregistered gun. He received three months probation and paid a $204 fine.

[...] On December 28, 1979, Issa and his brother allegedly faked the theft of Issa's Mercedes Benz sedan.

Issa and his brother were charged for grand theft auto, but the case was dropped by prosecutors for lack of evidence.

Later, Issa and his brother were charged for misdemeanors, but that case was not pursued by prosecutors.

Issa accused his brother of stealing the car, and said that the experience with his brother was the reason he went into the car alarm business.

A day after a court order was issued, giving Issa control of automotive alarm company A.C. Custom over an unpaid $60,000 debt, Issa allegedly carried a cardboard box containing a handgun into the office of A.C. Custom executive, Jack Frantz, and told Frantz he was fired.

In a 1998 newspaper article, Frantz said Issa had invited him to hold the gun and claimed extensive knowledge of guns and explosives from his Army service.

In response, Issa said, "Shots were never fired. ... I don't recall having a gun. I really don't. I don't think I ever pulled a gun on anyone in my life."

Of course not. Bill Maher will continue to invite him onto his show, and the ladies and gentlemen of our corporate media will assume that none of this even happened. It's so much easier that way!

It was disappointing to hear Bill Maher refer to Andrew Breitbart as a "journalist" last night. He isn't one, and calling him that is an insult to every journalist everywhere. Journalism requires the kind of integrity Breitbart utterly lacks:

Andrew Breitbart is a known news fabricator. Any material originating through his websites should be considered suspect at best, and subjected to thorough fact-checking before it can be reported on by anyone in any case.

Legitimate bloggers should avoid linking to his websites. Bloggers and other new media content creators who work for Breitbart, or who post to his sites, should be considered fruit of a poisonous tree.

Breitbart himself should be considered unfit for news. If it is absolutely necessary to report on him, Breitbart should be identified primarily as “known fabricator” — not a ‘journalist,’ ‘entertainer,’ ‘website mogul,’ or any other such title.

What Breitbart and his cohort of right-wing "new media" voices do is propaganda. They make nontroversy into outrage, or make crap up when they lack nontroversy. It is media pollution. It is poisonous to democracy.

Maher has diminished himself in elevating Breitbart, who returned the favor by telling his host "you're not libertarian, you're socialist." The fabricator's entire web empire is characterized by this sort of Overton Window-yanking insanity. You cannot find a single mention of Iraq or Afghanistan contracting scandals on his sites, for example, but you can find the latest ginned-up outrage over White House Christmas ornaments or an NEA conference call in between the Victoria Jackson posts.

If Breitbart published such ravings behind a tabloid cover of Batboy or Elvis sightings or world's fattest couple to wed, we would be able to laugh. Instead, Breitbart presents fiction as truth, which isn't funny or thrilling. There is no laughing at how Breitbart, Hannah Giles, and James O'Keefe III smeared ACORN, taking down the largest and most-successful anti-poverty organization in America at the height of a recession even though no one at any ACORN office did anything illegal. Major media swallowed the hoaxers' narrative whole although the hoax videos themselves disprove it.

Those ACORN workers might have been anyone; when Breitbart escaped serious repercussions from the media, he went on to slime Shirley Sherrod. Maher's friendly treatment only encourages him to commit further acts of character assassination from which no one is safe.

The shameless Judge Napolitano actually calls Michele Bachmann a constitutional expert? If she's a constitutional expert, I'm the queen of the world.

An example of her deep constitutional knowledge, right here:

"I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back. Thomas Jefferson told us 'having a revolution every now and then is a good thing,' and the people -- we the people -- are going to have to fight back hard if we're not going to lose our country." -Rep. Rep. Michele Bachmann, March 2009

(h/t PoliticsUSA)

Fortunately, Tarryl Clark is challenging Bachmann hard. If that loony-tunes is sent home in November I could almost live with whatever else happens.

John Atlas, author of "The True Inside Story of ACORN," dissects Friday's court ruling that has Rep. Darrell Issa in such a happy, giddy whirl:

Despite a slew of independent investigations exonerating ACORN of misdeeds, on Friday, the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals overturned federal court Judge Nina Gershon's decision that cutting off ACORN's funding punished ACORN without a trial. Gershon had ordered the United States government to restore ACORN's funds.

Congress canceled funding for the controversial group last year in the wake of highly edited, secret-video tapes, appearing to implicate the group in promoting prostitution.

[...] ACORN had sued the federal government in November 2009 arguing that the U.S. Congress violated the Constitution by illegally targeting the group. Gershon determined that Congress singled ACORN out for punishment in the absence of any judicial or administrative process adjudicating guilt.

In her opinion, District Court Judge Gershon wrote that Congress relied on unsubstantiated accusations to cut off ACORN's funds. Republican conservatives claimed Congress had to act to protect the taxpayer's money. Gershon countered saying, Congress can't "rely on the negative results of a congressional or executive report as a rationale to impose a broad, punitive funding ban on a specific, named organization."

Last Friday, the appeals court, made up of two Republicans and a conservative Democrat, reversed a key part of the lower court ruling.

George Bush Sr. considered appointing the lone Democrat, Jose Cabranes, to the Supreme Court. The court determined that Congress can punish a specific group, overruling what the district court judge had identified as an unconstitutional Bill of Attainder.

"Despite that evidence of punitive intent on the part of some members of Congress . . . there is no congressional finding of guilt in this case," the three-judge panel ruled. The appeals court also sent the case back to Brooklyn federal Judge Gershon to consider ACORN's claims that its free-speech and due-process rights were violated.

As Atlas points out, Congress frequently ignores significant transgressions by military contractors.