The Sting Moves to the West Coast

The two enterprising reporters, James O'Keefe and Hannah Gilles, have moved their sting to the West Coast. Well, of course, they're done with the sting. They've simply decided to now release some tapes they made on the West Coast.

This one is the most stunning of the four released so far. In this one, O'Keefe plays a pimp/budding politician. He's not merely looking to make money but to use that money to fund his campaigns in politics.


The ACORN worker, Tresa Kaelke, was not only receptive but she went so far as to tell them that she once worked as a madame herself. She even volunteered that she once shot her husband. Kaelke said that it was self defense but then she seems to indicate it was in cold blood. Kaelke was receptive to everything. The most shocking part of the video is when she assures the two that she will threaten other ACORN folks with their lives if they try and speak about what they just heard. Furthermore, Kaelke name dropped a series of politicians that she communicates with on a "regular basis". The most significant is Senator Barbara Boxer.

One of the things that most people can't appreciate is the reach of ACORN. I got a good taste of it when on the same day, there was politico article about Health Care for America Now, a health care activist group started by a consortium of liberal groups that included ACORN, and I was on a call with the conference of mayors and ACORN about home foreclosures. You never know when someone is name dropping the way that Kaelke is here if they're telling the truth or simply trying to impress you. That said, there's no doubt that ACORN has their hooks into a lot of politicians. How else do you explain Jon Conyers saying "the powers that be stopped the (ACORN) investigation" Only a group with their hooks in a lot of powerful people can get "the powers that be " to stop an investigation.

I am now predicting that these tapes will eventually bring down ACORN and force the full investigation and forensic audit that everyone has been calling for. First, we have no idea how many tapes there are. The keep coming out little by little day after day. With each tape, there's new pressure. Already, the Senate has voted to cut off all federal funds to ACORN. The House GOP wants a full investigation. The Republican Lawyers Association wants a full investigation. None of this is new. All of these folks have called on this for years. All of this is news because it comes in the aftermath of the tapes.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth ten thousand. Everything in these tapes is indicative of crimes I and many others have spoken about for a long time. In fact, the embezzlement of Dale Rathke is even worse. There he embezzled a million dollars from the group. Then, his brother and several top lieutenants covered it up. Yet, that lead to very little action. Of course, that was reported in print. There was no video of anyone covering things up, embezzling, or telling others o cover up the embezzlement. Had their been a video, that story would have blown up. There wasn't and so this embezzlement and cover up received far less media scrutiny than it should have.

Now, we have video of despicable crimes. People are moved in a much more visceral way from video than from written word. We have video and this video isn't going away. That will drive the story in a way that simply reporting a story could never do. As such, all the dynamics are there to have these videos bring this group down.