Full Quote from Brett, Courtesy of Jes' TiVo:

"The census director has now sent a letter to the national headquarters of ACORN notifying them that the Census Bureau is severing all ties with ACORN for all the work having to do with the 2010 Census, either in preparation for or the execution of the 2010 Census. ... A copy of this letter has been sent to Congress and relevant committees. ... Major Garrett is working this story."

This will be yet another story where those reading the MSM only find out about the escalating controversy after a big action has been taken.

The Past-Tense Media.

Thanks to this guy right here for the original tip.

All-ACORN at Big Government: Why fix what's not broken?

At top, ACORN's poor-us letter:

TATEMENT FROM ALTON BENNETT,
PRESIDENT OF ACORN HOUSING, AND MIKE SHEA,
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, REGARDING
RECENT NEWS REPORTS
Washington, D.C. –”As President and Executive Director of ACORN Housing we were appalled and angry to see the video of two Washington, D.C. employees offering advice on how to operate an illegal enterprise to keep it hidden from the government. While no transaction took place – no loan documents were signed or submitted, no bank loans were arranged, no new business was established – this is not how we behave. All ACORN Housing staff members undergo rigorous training and are expected to comply with high standards for ethical behavior and compliance with the law.

“This video tape is slanted to misinform the public about ACORN Housing. The people who made this tape went to at least five other ACORN Housing offices where they were turned away or where ACORN Housing employees responded by calling the police. That is not mentioned on the tape – it is part of a long-term plan to smear ACORN Housing for political reasons and provide entertainment in the process. But that does not excuse the behavior of the employees. We have fired them and are initiating an internal review of practices and reminding all staff of their obligation to uphold the highest legal and ethical standards.

Ahem. We have only their word for it that five offices turned them away.

Futhermore, who cares? At least two offices (and probably more to come) helped child sex slavers get right with the IRS.

This is not "one bad apple." This is four bad apples-- and counting.

In related news, Charles Manson wants credit for the numerous people he didn't ordered slaughtered. Hey, he killed only, what, 13 people? (No idea, really.) What about the literally thousands of people he met and didn't have killed?

Oh and there's this of course: Raaaacist Fox News the real malefactor here.

Fox's attempt to smear ACORN Thursday September 10, 2009 is despicable, part of a coordinated, long-term campaign by Fox to damage ACORN, the premiere community organization of low- and moderate-income people in the United States. Every day ACORN members are working for health care reform, living wage jobs, to end the foreclosure crisis, and to strengthen our public schools. For its part, Fox is running a campaign to demonize ACORN. They will get attention, but they will not succeed.

In July 2009, Fox agents attempted to enter ACORN offices in New York, in Philadelphia, in San Diego, in Los Angeles, and possibly other locales. In each case they were turned away, and in Philadelphia ACORN staff were concerned enough that a police report was filed. In Baltimore, the Fox squad deceived ACORN staff by consistently misrepresenting their intentions. No tax returns were filed and no assistance was provided. But the ACORN personnel in question have been terminated because their handling of the Fox agents provocateurs did not meet ACORN's standards of professionalism.

The larger pattern of Fox's irresponsible actions here is the real news. From Glenn Beck calling President Obama a racist, to Fox inciting racism and threats of violence with the Teaparties, to Fox unleashing a hit job on ACORN the day after an inspiring Presidential healthcare speech before Congress, Fox has long since abandoned any journalistic pretense. It is clear and not coincidence that FOX continues to attack and divide our nation along racial lines. We believe our country is beyond this type of attack and call on all Americans to demand that FOX stop its racist coverage.

It is clear and not coincidence that every single time a minority or minority organization gets caught dirty they scream it's just "raaaaaacism" to blame.

Keep riding that horse, guys. Keep riding it. Yeah, the charge just gets more and more potent every time you use it to excuse inexcusable behavior.

Remember how Obama was going to heal racial divisions -- particularly, it was implied, as regards the culture of unending excuse-making and blame-shifting among the bad apples in the black community?

Yeah. How's that working out? Any statements from Captain Wonderful instructing blacks they can't just whine about racism when caught doing criminal and/or irresponsible things? Like, maybe that actually contributes to racial strife -- blaming whitey when obviously the blame falls on specific black actors -- and furthermore makes "racism," which ought to be serious charge commanding attention, increasingly ignored?

If everything's racism then nothing's racism. We have a black President now, but he can't be bothered to say something simple and obvious like "Let's save charges of racism for... I don't know, actual cases of racism maybe? And let us have a new cohort of responsible black leadership telling those who cry racist wolf that they're hurting the country, damaging race relations, and hurting their own race by cynically using the charge of 'racism' to excuse their own personal criminality and awful behavior. Stop hijacking our agenda as a personal get out of jail free card."

But no. Full speed ahead with the nonsense.

A largely-minority organization staffs its offices with troglodytes willing to do a solid for child sex slavers and it's my fault.

Oh yeah, I'm buying that. I'm so obviously to blame.

Posted by: Ace at 02:19 PM | Comments (25)
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Caught by Andy Levy, thanks to TopSecretK9.

It's true. MSNBC has always been scrupulously fair about assigning motivations to people.

No 3pm Update on Twitter, As He Promised: Not on Twitter, at least. Who knows, maybe he said something elsewhere.

Too early, still, David?

As to the reason for the killing of pro-life activist Jim Pouillon, Harlan Drake has told police that he was “offended” by Pouillon’s anti-abortion messages. Neighbors of Jim Pouillon say that he was a quiet man in recent years but his checkered past was a result of his boisterous protests. They have commented that some might not have agreed with his message or his graphic displays of aborted fetus’ on his protest signs but he was quiet man in his older age.

And check it out -- he really is one of those dumb, ugly, uneducated white hicks with guns we hear so very much about of late:

Wrong partisan leaning, though. We need to understand the "context" for this man's justifiable political homicide.

Posted by: Ace at 01:59 PM | Comments (1)
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Before getting to that, Rep. Charles Boustany is calling for an investigation into ACORN.

Now, as to James O'Keefe's interesting response to the MSM.

Get this: Rather than begging to be on their air as they spin the scandal away, he's telling them to stick it up their asses. (Or, in my favorite snatch of Sicilian, I'ett u sangua, "let your blood," literally, but really meaning "go slit your own throat.")

Either cover the story properly, or he'll only appear on a "competitor with curiously-higher ratings." (Link Fixed.)

I hope he won't mind if I quote him... um... extensively:

So far CNN has only reported on the breaking story on blatant ACORN CORRUPTION from angles that attempt to extricate the government funded “community organizing” enterprise from the extreme crime we caught on videotape.

First CNN pushed the false ACORN line that “[t]his film crew tried to pull this sham at other offices and failed.”

To set that record straight please check the Washington D.C. tape we dropped today at BigGovernment.com, which is also being aired on your cable news competitor with curiously higher ratings.

Now that ACORN lied to you, Jonathan Klein, what are you going to do?
HereÂ’s what I have noticed from your coverage: You brought in the damage control crowd to FRAME the story. Before even airing our damning Baltimore video. You know your audience would turn on ACORN if you showed them the evidence. So instead you put your competitors in journalism in the crosshairs instead of airing a blockbuster report making massive waves elsewhere.

You even trotted out shameless Clinton era apologist Joe Conason to challenge the ETHICS of our expose. Unreal.

What about the ethics of those at ACORN caught on tape trying to help create a brothel featuring illegal immigrant age range 13-15 from El Salvador?

What about the countless laws broken on tape from a group that stands to get billions from President Obama’s “stimulus” package?

Why don’t we wait to have the Columbia Journalism School debate on “journalistic ethics” after you do actual journalism.

When you air the raw ACORN footage that is now viral on the Internet, and being played on FOX NEWS and countless talk radio shows, then and only then — when America can see, hear and smell the stench we have exposed — will I subject myself to a CNN hit job.

I admit this tactic never occurred to me. Reverse the process. Instead of groveling to these lint pickers, set the terms yourself.

I like it. We'll see if CNN actually caves, though, or if they just take this as an excuse (as if they need one) to continue burying the story.

I just don't think these guys have the "Gatekeeper/Decider" power anymore to strangle stories they don't like in the crib.

Every time this happens -- and it happens now pretty much every day -- they're sending out a press release to the public saying Don't watch us; we deliberately embargo the most interesting and important news in order to act as the DNC's de facto press office.

And the public is reading that PR release, and taking the advice.

BTW: I'm not really endorsing this tactic -- because I doubt it will accomplish much except catharsis.

I surely am interested in the experiment, of course.

And O'Keefe is an a particularly good position to deign to dictate terms. Most commentators/reporters/politicians don't have the whip-hand he does at the moment.

Basically I think CNN is kinda obligated to pretend they were covering this properly the whole way through -- cover their ass for covering their ass -- and will haughtily say that they will not let the likes of O'Keefe dictate to them what sound journalistic practice is.

So I don't think it will work. At all.

But: I don't think punching a big fat bully in the nose is likely to "work," either. You'll still probably get your ass kicked. But damn, it's still nice to see the obese bully take one in the snout.

Posted by: Ace at 01:27 PM | Comments (2)
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Here's an amusing story this afternoon—yes, I'm looking for distractions—about the Chief Justice visiting the UMich Law School. It actually makes me wonder what my law school offered him (and Alito, Scalia, O'Connor, and Thomas) when they visited, judged moots, or taught seminars and how far in advance they had to be asked.

The letter, dated October 27, 2007, extends Roberts a formal invitation to the law schoolÂ’s 150th anniversary weekend, to be held this upcoming weekend. The letter involves host of techniques: a little chestbeating, a whole lot of deference, an offer of a $15,000 honorarium and, yes, good tickets to the Michigan/Notre Dame football game this weekend.

Apparently, he did not take the honorarium, but he will be going to the football game. Good man.

(And go Irish!)

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 01:03 PM | Comments (1)
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This raised blood pressure this morning, so here's a bit of follow-up:

He said that unspecified "members of the public" had "intercepted" clear-channel, unencrypted Coast Guard radio transmissions regarding the exercise and apparently concluded erroneously that a real interdiction of a suspect vessel was taking place on the Potomac, near Memorial Bridge. Not far from the river, President Obama attended a ceremony Friday morning at the Pentagon to mark the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Currier said that although no shots were fired during the exercise, there was "verbalization of gunfire" in the radio transmissions.

"Somebody said, 'Bang! Bang!' on the radio at an appropriate time in the training exercise when the actual interdiction of the boat would have taken place," he said.

CNN, Fox and other media outlets cited police radio transmissions in which officers allegedly ordered shots fired. Television anchors and analysts speculated on-air as to whether the allegedly "suspicious vessel" confronted by the Coast Guard could be linked to the 9/11 anniversary.

It's actually fairly common for people to call 911 when they see police and firefighter training exercises, so I'm not surprised this happened with the Coast Guard. It's just that dispatchers are often warned in advance when the police and firefighters are up to something. That wasn't the case this morning—for the Coast Guard this was just a "routine exercise"—so early reports of something going on in the river sent D.C. police cars racing to the Potomac.

Robert Gibbs said that he wouldn't second-guess the Coast Guard's decision to conduct the training exercise on September 11th and it appears that it was just bad timing that President Obama's motorcade was passing nearby.

Still, if it was just "routine" then there doesn't seem—to me, anyway—to be any reason why the exercise couldn't wait until next week. I'm not saying that everyone should lie low on September 11th. I just think that people are still a bit wound-up about it and seeing first-responders and other security agencies behaving unusually on this anniversary is bound to get people excited.

Just as with the Scare Force One fly-over, the government didn't think informing local authorities was necessary. In fact, they didn't need to announce it to everyone; they just needed a bit of communication to avoid frightening people.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 12:44 PM | Comments (3)
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Over the past few months, the President repeatedly stated that illegal aliens wouldn't be covered by Obamacare. The problem is that no one believed him. Repeating the same old lie didn't float because a spontaneous grassroots movement had combed through the various bills and noticed that every one contained a provision which prevented anyone from verifying the citizenship of participants.

If the President had really wanted to exclude illegal aliens from Obamacare, it would have been no problem to include a provision providing for citizenship verification. Because of Joe Wilson's startling lack of decorum, the Senate Finance Committee is now considering one:

Members of the group said they thought they'd settled the question of illegal immigration, but it came to the fore this week when Republican Rep. Joe Wilson shouted "You lie" at Obama during his speech Wednesday. Obama had said illegal immigrants wouldn't be covered under his health plan.

Senators said that's forced the committee to work on provisions verifying legal status before an individual can get coverage.

"We've always been there, but we have to make sure to get the right process and language," said Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, one member of the so-called Gang of Six of three Republicans and three Democrats whom Baucus is leading.

Such verification can be tricky. Many Democrats fear that verification procedures keep legal residents from getting insurance, and in the House, they rejected Republican attempts to add verification requirements to the House health care bill.

I'm not holding my breath. The real reason "many Democrats" oppose a verification requirement is that it might keep illegal residents from getting insurance. Their excuse is a variation on the idea that we shouldn't ask for voter identification because it discourages voters.

That claim, however, is premised on the idea that voting is so fundamental, so precious, and so constitutionally guaranteed, that we cannot do anything that makes it even the slightest bit harder to do. That excuse does not fly with healthcare. Health insurance is not a right. And no one is entitled to government-subsidized health insurance.

The real reason Democrats are aflutter about this is that it would treat illegal aliens as if they were unlawfully present in the United States...like, um, they are. Just check out the headline to the linked Huffpo piece: "Baucus, Conrad Cave to Joe Wilson on Health Care Bill." If it weren't a problem for Democrats, it would have been done by now.

And that is the takeaway. Remember, Democrats could have passed these bills at any time...if they actually had the Democratic votes. They didn't then and they're probably in even worse shape now. Pundits are treating this as a done deal. It's not. There's plenty of time for people willing to speak up—like Joe Wilson—to change the outcome.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 11:13 AM | Comments (1)
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This isn't directly on his handling of health care, but if he got that boost that the CBS poll claims he did, wouldn't we expect to see a bit of that reflected in his approval rate?

No cowbell today, for obvious reasons.

Thanks to AHFF Geoff.

Posted by: Ace at 09:57 AM | Comments (3)
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For 9/11-related remembrances and observations. May be political, but try not to get too far afield. It's not really an open thread.

9/11 Screengrabs: Most of us, thankfully, witnessed 9/11 only through the TV and through the internet. I witnessed it slightly more -- I saw the ugly columns of smoke down-island and the acrid smell of burning paper, plastic, insulation, steel, and (I imagine) skin.

But mostly it was on the internet. At Mediaite, a guy screengrabbed and saved the sites he visited that deadly day.

Or, as we now know it, Obama's Day of National Service and Taxpayer Funding of ACORN.

Blood of Heroes: A gripping vid recommended by Cyn.

Regurgitating the Apple: Recommended by a commenter, Evan Sayet on how lefties think and how they process 9/11 into something more palatable.

Lileks: Another recommendation.

Kensington on 9/11: A remembrance.

Google Doesn't Remember: It's important to note that Google does a gay-ass seasonal logo for every dumb holiday (especially multi-culti ones) that come along.

9/11? Pass.

Posted by: Ace at 09:34 AM | Comments (1)
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By the Way: Do not give Andrew Sullivan traffic, clicking to his site to see if he's offered a response.

He hasn't.

When he offers a response, I'll post it here.

In the meantime, let's not let him profit from corruption.

...

"Special treatment," reads the headline at Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly. (Now remembering the Glenn Beck smear, I checked the site to see if it appears to be legit and long-standing; it does. But I confess I've never heard of this particular outlet before.)

Oolitical commentator, author and writer for The Atlantic magazine Andrew M. Sullivan won’t have to face charges stemming from a recent pot bust at the Cape Cod National Seashore — but a federal judge isn’t happy about it.

U. S. Magistrate Judge Robert B. Collings says in his decision that the case is an example of how sometimes “small cases raise issues of fundamental importance in our system of justice.”

He was given a tiny citation for $125. No jail or anything.

But... even that was dismissed.

Because the extremely liberal Sullivan wasn't too proud to call upon his extremely liberal buddies in government.

But the U.S. Attorney’s Office sought to dismiss the case. Both the federal prosecutor and Sullivan’s attorney said it would have resulted in an “adverse effect” on an unspecified “immigration status” that Sullivan, a British citizen, is applying for.

At the hearing, Collings observed that Sullivan would still have to state on his application that he had been charged with a crime, and Kb>he asked both the prosecutor and Sullivan’s attorney, Robert Delahunt Jr. (cousin of U. S. Rep. William D. Delahunt), for more information about why paying the $125 would have “any additional adverse effect.”

When no attorney could fully answer the question beyond citing advice from immigration lawyers, Collings requested that Delahunt submit a brief on the issue. But before Delahunt could reply, Assistant U. S. Attorney James F. Lang jumped in and said that Collings had no power to inquire why the U.S. Attorney had decided to have the charge dismissed.

Collings says he expressed his concern that “a dismissal would result in persons in similar situations being treated unequally before the law. … persons charged with the same offense on the Cape Cod National Seashore were routinely given violation notices, and if they did not agree to [pay the fine] were prosecuted by the United States Attorney … there was no apparent reason for treating Mr. Sullivan differently from other persons charged with the same offense.”

In fact, noted Collings, there were several other defendants appearing in court the same day who were charged with the same offense.

In his opinion, Collings wrote that the U.S. Attorney is “is not being faithful to a cardinal principle of our legal system, i.e., that all persons stand equal before the law and are to be treated equally in a court of justice once judicial processes are invoked. It is quite apparent that Mr. Sullivan is being treated differently from others who have been charged with the same crime in similar circumstances.”

Full opinion is linked at the article linked.

Rotten stinking bastards. Sullivan, his corrupt connected lawyer, that miserable corrupt bastard Delahunt, that miserable corrupt Obama attorney.

All lookin' out for each other.

To Be Fair... Gabe points out it was an Associate US Attorney who stepped in here, who would be a careerist, and hence he's not sure if it's fair to call him "Obama's attorney."

Well... look. I don't think this attorney got the idea to quash a run-of-the-mill noncriminal pot speeding ticket on his own.

And he also responded "FYNQ" here, stating the US Attorney did not have to explain why he was making this decision.

The way that is phrased, by the way, suggests (without quite proving) it was the political-appointee US Attorney making the call, rather than the careerist AUSA.

Thanks: to "B. Obama" for the Wee Weed Up headline joke.

Oh, and by the way: Andrew Sullivan had a personal meeting with Obama, with other leftist bloggers.

I'm sure that played no role whatsoever here.

The Chicago Way.

Posted by: Ace at 08:22 AM | Comments (5)
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Chilling.

The victim's identity has not yet been released but the shooting occurred around 7:30 a.m., after most students were off the buses and safely inside the building, said Owosso schools transportation supervisor Jayne Campbell.

[...]

A black car can be seen parked at the corner of North and Whitehaven streets, where a portable oxygen tank is lying in a front yard next to a large sign bearing the image of a baby and the word "Life."

Apparently, the victim was well-known as the "sign man", for his signs opposing abortion. There was a second shooting in Owosso this morning. It may have been related. The police have a suspect in custody.

I shouldn't have to, but I can't help but wonder if this will get as much national attention as the shooting death of abortion doctor George Tiller. You will recall that the President issued a statement about Tiller's death saying that he was "shocked and outraged" mere hours after it occurred.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 08:03 AM | Comments (3)
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