A Second Look | Acorn Employee Goes Nuts (Updated – ACORN Fights Back)

via  Employee boasts of setting stage for self-defense killing

An ACORN worker in San Bernardino, Calif., says she built the groundwork for a case of self-defense, then picked up a gun and shot her former husband.

The statements by a woman identified as Tresa Kaelke at an ACORN office in California come in a new video released on Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com website.

 

The video is the latest in a series of revealing reports by filmmaker James O’Keefe and associate Hannah Giles, who previously reported on visits to ACORN offices in several cities, including Baltimore, Brooklyn and Washington.

“I shot him. I shot him,” she states. “I just picked up the gun and said f— you and I shot him and he died right there.” She confirms it was in self-defense.

Except that she didn’t – shoot him, that is. Her ex-husband is alive and well and living near Barstow, CA. It turns out the she had recognized these two “clients” as actors, bad actors, and played them like she was being played. She told them a huge lie in order to shock them. Her mistake was thinking all that would never leave the room.

The storyof how the videographer “James O’Keefe’s hidden camera ‘interview’ with San Bernardino ACORN organizer Tresa Kaelke, airing repeatedly on Fox “News”, including the Glenn Beck show, and on BigGovernment.com, has been caught out in an obvious set of lies and manipulations” is posted today on ACORN’s news page.

It’s smears like this, and the perpetuation of them by FOX Noise, that calls more attention to the phoniness of FOX’s character than the shocking “truth” of the smear. Doing this lessons the credibility of FOX, and those who agree to their methods, in the eyes of any thinking citizen.

What is truly sad is when these same smears reach the halls of Congress and they begin to act on them as if they were conventional wisdom, true or not. Monday evening, the Senate voted on an amendment to block federal funding going to ACORN in light of yet another video showing two ACORN staff discussing tax issues with two right-wing activists posing as a pimp and a prostitute in Baltimore. The two activists, acting as a pimp and prostitute in order to secretly videotape and smear ACORN, reportedly requested information on how to get a loan to start a brothel. The ACORN employees (dismissed) involved are claiming their privacy rights were violated and are considering suing the right-wing activists.

The effort in the Senate was lead by Senator Mike Johanns, R-NE. The amendment passed 83-7, with many Democrats swallowing the story that ACORN is a crooked organization.

The only problem with this is (and it is astounding that Congress took this action without an investigation) that ACORN does not apply for or receive any federal grant money.

 UPDATE, 09/17/09 – ACORN Fights Back

ACORN CEO, Bertha Lewis, has issued a statement today explaining the actions taken by ACORN in light of the new videos played repeatedly on FOX News. Here’s what she had to say about the two employees in the video:

We were appalled when we viewed these tapes: these ACORN and ACORN Housing employees clearly violated the standards and values which we insist that our employees follow, and they were immediately fired.

Lewis then points out that this was a deliberate and conspiratorial attack on ACORN.

… we should be clear that this attack on ACORN is part of an aggressive and sustained right-wing campaign, spearheaded by Fox and their ideological compatriots on talk radio, on blogs, and within the Republican Party, which has as its goal the destruction of the nation’s largest and most effective organization of low- and moderate- income families. But these attacks are about more than ACORN: they represent an attack on the poor and communities of color; on the broad progressive agenda that we are fighting for; and on President Obama himself and the movement for change that his administration symbolizes. And because the stakes are so high, we are asking you to stand with us as we fight back.

… As far as we have been able to determine, O’Keefe’s team tried the same stunt in at least seven other ACORN and ACORN Housing offices, and in all except the episodes captured on film they were sent packing. In Philadelphia, our staff were sufficiently suspicious of the intrusion to file a police report.

This is so obviously a “gothcha” attack on ACORN, and subsequently, another attack on the poor by right-wing idealogues. The Senate jumped the gun on this one, folks. ACORN was set-up. They were not given a chance to correct the problem before another right-wing zealot, Johanns, starts screaming for congressional action against ACORN. Any other organization would be given the opportunity to apologize, then make corrections, but not ACORN due to all the help they give to the poor and underprivileged.

Senator Johanns should be called out on this, and reprimanded.

 UPDATE, 09/18/09 – Media Matters exposes bias of Washington Post

This is a must-read! Media Matters expsoses the Washington Post’s biased reporting. WaPo slants article to support right-wing attack on ACORN.

Post ignored facts that undermine the filmmakers’ credibility:

Some of the videotapes may have been taken illegally. The Post did not report that in secretly videotaping their conversations with ACORN employees, O’Keefe and Giles may have violated state criminal statutes in Maryland and California.