4 charged in phone scheme at La. senator's office

[Nordic]

Cool picture: statue of liberty/Abu Ghraib. Just made it my new avatar pic.

[seemslikeadream]

Federal prosecutor taken off Landrieu phone caper

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN
The Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS — The top federal prosecutor for New Orleans has asked to be taken off the case of four conservative activists arrested while trying to capture hidden camera footage in a senator's office.

The Department of Justice said in a news release Monday that Jim Letten, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana, has recused himself from the case involving the men arrested in Democrat Sen. Mary Landrieu's New Orleans office.

Assistant U.S. attorney Jan Mann is taking over the case.

The news release didn't say why Letten asked to be taken off, and a spokeswoman for Letten said she couldn't comment.

One of the men arrested, James O'Keefe, has said the group wanted to investigate complaints that constituents calling Landrieu's office couldn't get through.

U.S. Attorney Jim Letten recuses himself from Landrieu phone tampering case
By Laura Maggi, The Times-Picayune
February 01, 2010, 6:16PM
U.S. Attorney Jim Letten last week decided to remove himself from the prosecution of four young men arrested for trying to tamper with the phones in U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu's New Orleans office.
Chris Granger/The Times-Picayune archive
Assistant U.S. attorney Jan Mann will prosecute the case.
According to a brief news release sent to reporters on Monday evening, Letten decided to recuse himself from the investigation and "potential prosecution" of the men because of "various relevant factors." These factors, which the release stated were discussed with officials at the U.S. Department of Justice, are not named.
The recusal decision came the day after the men were arrested last week and the same day they were released from custody, according to the news release.
One of the arrested men, Robert Flanagan, 24, is the son of William Flanagan, who is the acting U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana. The other three men include James O'Keefe, 25, a conservative filmaker who made hidden-camera videos at ACORN field offices, and two out-of-state conservative activists: Joseph Basel, 24, and Stan Dai, 24.
Despite Letten's recusal, the case will not be removed to another jurisdiction, according to the statement. Instead, Letten's first assistant U.S. attorney, veteran federal prosecutor Jan Mann, will act as the "Attorney for the United States in this matter," according to the release.

"Mentor" to alleged phone tamperers blogged about dirty tricks with phones

Justin Elliott of TPM Muckraker points to a new story in the New York Times about Ben Wetmore, a 28-year-old conservative activist who let anti-ACORN provocateur James O'Keefe and his merry band crash at his New Orleans home prior to their arrest for allegedly attempting to tamper with Sen. Mary Landrieu's phones.

According to the New York Times, Wetmore was a mentor to a network of right wing provocateurs who embraced various forms of political theater to dramatize their issues on college campuses. Marcy Wheeler's commenter cinnamonape connected the dots between Ben Wetmore and James O'Keefe last Friday.

The page BenWetmore.com now redirects automatically to Newsbusters. A WHOIS search for that domain delivers no information. However, the cached version looks like the personal blog of the now infamous Ben Wetmore, campus provocateur.

The cached site is Countermedia. The author, who replies to blog commenters under the name "Ben" writes bitterly about his tenure the Leadership Institute, the conservative group where he and O'Keefe used to work. Amongst other things, Ben assails the Leadership Institute for trying to take undeserved credit for O'Keefe's early video successes. "All the good things at the Institute while I was there happened despite the management, or by going around them. I was nearly fired, as was my boss [former] Cong. Steve Stockman, for buying the initial video equipment that James [O'Keefe] used," Ben wrote last September. He seemed especially bitter that the LI hired and fired idealistic young conservatives capriciously. Where's a union when you need one, eh?

This post, dated Oct 21, 2009, survives in the Google cache:

Disrupting speeches on the cheap

Leftists disrupt speeches by throwing pies, calling names, and chanting stupid stuff.

So uncreative.

Personally I've given advice to disrupt malcontents like Michael Moore using track phones going off with obscenely loud ringers in various locations, as well as a variety of other crazy schemes that I'd rather not go into.


A cached post dated Sept. 18, 2009 on BenWetmore.com floats the idea of impersonating Barack Obama in a robocall:

[Original reporting, please credit Lindsay Beyerstein.]

The post about disrupting speeches is at least partly a joke. How seriously can you take a post where the punchline involves disrupting lefty campus speakers with fake orgasms? Though Ben's claim to have encouraged phone pranks to disrupt lefty speakers should raise red flags. He was a campus activist who traveled around advising college conservatives on disruptive tactics. The comments section of that particular post is

But in another cached post, Ben seems to be seriously advocating a dirty tricks robocall to sway elderly voters by impersonating Barack Obama:
Healthcare Independent Expenditure idea

(I wrote this up and sent it to a few friends who I thought could tell me if it was a decent idea or not. Only one responded, and even then without saying whether it was a good idea or not. I'm getting the feeling that I'm either past my prime or unable to get any political scheme funded or people interested anymore. So, I'm posting it here in the resigned defeat of watching another political idea die on the vine.)

Healthcare Independent Expenditure idea

1. Get a voice artist who sounds similar to President Obama

2. Identify and rent lists of elderly likely voters in key areas

a. Senate

Colorado – Bennett
Arkansas – Lincoln
North Dakota – Dorgan

b. House

South Dakota – Herseth
(other potentials)

c. Legal limitations
Check for states where the most favorable regulatory regime exists:
http://winningcalls.com/statelaws.html

3. Record a short spot using the voice artist:

Sterile female voice:
Please hold for a fake message from the President Barack Obama

Obama voice artist:
Good afternoon seniors,
I want to talk to you for a moment about healthcare reform. I know many of you are concerned about losing Medicare and Medicaid benefits and likely cuts to Social Security that will be necessary to pay for my healthcare reforms. However, I want to ask you to end the divisiveness on this issue and support me. I know what’s best for you and even if we do take your benefits, tax your healthcare plan or increase taxes, it will be worth it to provide healthcare to those who can’t afford it. So, please stop opposing me and trust me.
Thank you.

4. Robocall lists with this message. Distribute .mp3 file to other organizations with robodialers.
Labels: activism, election, healthcare, obama, politics

The blog is a fascinating compendium of organizing tactics, movie reviews, and more, um, personal entries. Ben confesses to being a girl drink drunk; he rails against the "lazy bureaucrats" who put up signs telling him he couldn't wander around an abandoned public sanitarium; and asserts that ACLU head Nadine Strossen has no pupils (and therefore reminds him of a demon). Perhaps the weirdest post is the one from last June featuring an animated .gif of Ben's own design framing the slogan "Obama says girls don't poop."

Wetmore made his mark in 2002 by insisting on his First Amendment right to videotape a campus appearance by Tipper Gore at American University without her permission. Just goes to show nobody's all bad.

[seemslikeadream]

well now isn't this a bit interesting, just a short time after Letten recuses himself, Vitter shows up

Vitter To Drop Hold On Louisiana U.S. Attorney Nominee
By Andrew Ramonas | February 1, 2010

Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) will no longer hold up federal nominations in his state after receiving assurance that the job of the George W. Bush-holdover U.S. Attorney in New Orleans is safe, The Times-Picayune reported today.


David Vitter (Gov)
The Republican senator now will return his “blue slip” on Western District of Louisiana U.S. Attorney nominee Stephanie Finley and other federal nominees, which he had been withholding until he received official word on the status of U.S. Attorney Jim Letten.

The Senate Judiciary Committee traditionally does not consider a nomination until it receives a “blue slip” from the nominee’s home state senator.

Vitter had asked the administration to keep Letten, who has led the Eastern District of Louisiana U.S. Attorney’s Office since 2001. Today, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that Letten would serve on the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee, which serves as the voice of U.S. Attorneys throughout the nation, sending a strong signal that his job was safe.

“This prestigious appointment makes it crystal clear that Jim isn’t going anywhere except on regular trips to Washington to personally advise the attorney general,” Vitter told the newspaper. “The attorney general and I superficially discussed this in our meeting last Thursday and I’m really excited to get it done.”

Letten’s office is handling the case against four men who allegedly tried to interfere with phones at Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu’s New Orleans office. One of the men, Robert Flanagan, is the son of Western District of Louisiana acting U.S. Attorney William Flanagan. James O’Keefe, who gained notoriety for secret videos of the community organizing group ACORN, was one of Flanagan’s accomplices.

Andrew Breitbart, the founder of BigGovernment.com, which employs O’Keefe, said today on Fox News that Letten leaked information on the incident in a “concerted effort” to put O’Keefe in a bad light. Letten’s office denied the allegation.

[Nordic]

Why do I feel a sudden need to take a shower?

[JackRiddler]

Well, Letten recusing is good, presumably on a quid pro quo with Vitter.

The question is what this Jan Mann is all about. No clue. And whether the press is going to surrender on a story that may still just be within their very limited range for acceptability. And just how supine the Democrats want to be in an election year in the face of dirty tricks and corporate money for Republicans on scales likely never before seen for a midterm.

[dbcooper41]

Andrew Breitbart, the founder of BigGovernment.com, which employs O’Keefe, said today on Fox News that Letten leaked information on the incident in a “concerted effort” to put O’Keefe in a bad light. Letten’s office denied the allegation.

FYI
andrew breitbart is scheduled to be on NPR's All Things Considered this afternoon.

[dbcooper41]

Original reports on the “break-in” were also wrong. One of those arrested was found blocks away with a covert receiver, managing the office bugs. The man in the car is identified as Stan Dai, Operations Officer for the Department of Defense Irregular Warfare Program:

“one of the four was arrested with a listening device in a car blocks from the senator’s offices.” The FBI’s affidavit noted that Flanagan and Basel were in the building with O’Keefe, and a federal law enforcement official confirmed to AP that Dai was the one in the car.”

one thing is bothering me:

if stan dai was in a car "blocks away" with a covert receiver, how was he caught? did his fellow "perps" roll over that quickly? did he hear what was going on and rush in to save the day? remember, he was the supposed lead spook.
it doesn't make sense that he was caught at the same time as the other 3.

[elfismiles]

Watergate Style Break-In At Sen. Landrieu's Office - CBSNewsOnline

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4v-cSH6Q7Y8

[American Dream]

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2010/ ... print.html

James O'Keefe's race problem


A photo of the righty stuntman at a white-nationalist confab
illustrates a career marked by racial resentment

By Max Blumenthal

Feb. 03, 2010 |


Many of the conservatives who gleefully promoted James O’Keefe’s past political stunts are feigning shock at his arrest on charges that he and three associates planned to tamper with Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu's phone lines. Once upon a time, right-wing pundits hailed the 25-year-old O’Keefe as a creative genius and model of journalistic ethics. Andrew Breitbart, who has paid O’Keefe, called him one of the all-time “great journalists” and said he deserved a Pulitzer for his undercover ACORN video. Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly declared he should have earned a “congressional medal.”

His right-wing admirers don't seem to mind that O’Keefe's short but storied career has been defined by a series of political stunts shot through with racial resentment. Now an activist organization that monitors hate groups has produced a photo of O'Keefe at a 2006 conference on "Race and Conservatism" that featured leading white nationalists. The photo, first published Jan. 30 on the Web site of the anti-racism group One People's Project, shows O’Keefe at the gathering, which was so controversial even the ultra-right Leadership Institute, which employed O'Keefe at the time, withdrew its backing. But O'Keefe and fellow young conservative provocateur Marcus Epstein soldiered on to give anti-Semites, professional racists and proponents of Aryanism an opportunity to share their grievances and plans to make inroads in the GOP.

According to One People's Project founder Daryle Jenkins, O'Keefe was manning the literature table at the gathering that brought together anti-Semites, professional racists and proponents of Aryanism. OPP covered the event at the time, sending a freelance photographer to document the gathering. Jenkins told me the table was filled with tracts from the white supremacist right, including two pseudo-academic publications that have called blacks and Latinos genetically inferior to whites: American Renaissance and the Occidental Quarterly. The leading speaker was Jared Taylor, founder of the white nationalist group American Renaissance. "We can say for certain that James O'Keefe was at the 2006 meeting with Jared Taylor. He has absolutely no way of denying that," Jenkins said. O'Keefe's attorney did not respond to a request for comment on his client's role in the conference.

O'Keefe's racial issues can be seen in many of his prior stunts, of course. The notorious ACORN videos highlighted images of himself dressed as a pimp, deceptively edited through hidden camera footage as he baited African-American office workers into making statements that could be perceived as incriminating. There were also lesser-known but equally inflammatory spectacles like the “affirmative action bake sale” O’Keefe and his conservative comrades held when they were students at Rutgers University. During the event, O’Keefe stood at a table in the center of campus offering baked goods at reduced prices to Latinos and African-Americans while whites were forced to pay exorbitant amounts. (Native Americans, he announced, would eat free.)

By O’Keefe’s own account, his racial troubles became acute when he entered the multicultural atmosphere of Rutgers University’s dormitory system. In an online diary that has since been scrubbed from the Web (but not before being captured on Daily Kos), he wrote that he was forced to live on an all-black dormitory floor after refusing to live with the gay roommate he was initially assigned. O’Keefe claimed his next roommate was “an Indian midget ... who smelled like shit.” The roommate left, however, and was replaced by “a greek kid.” The new roommate complained to a residential administrator that O’Keefe had called his neighbors “niggers,” prompting the school to expel him from the dorm. He rejected the accusation as a “complete lie,” writing, “I was lead out of the room crying and screaming at him and my situation, no friends, no one one [sic] to talk to, forced to go in front of a black man, Dean Tolbert, to defend myself and help explain that I did not call anyone any names.”

The following year, despite this record, O’Keefe secured a dream job in the conservative movement, employed by the Leadership Institute, a Northern Virginia-based outfit that serves as the movement’s most prolific youth training operation. There, O’Keefe met Marcus Epstein, a fellow ideologue who as editor of a conservative publication at the College of William and Mary assailed Martin Luther King Jr. for “philandering and plagiarism” and challenged his patriotism and Christianity.

Together, O’Keefe and Epstein planned an event in August 2006 that would wed their extreme views on race with their ambitions. Epstein invited white nationalist Jared Taylor and homophobic white-grievance peddler John Derbyshire of the National Review to speak at the Leadership Institute’s Northern Virginia headquarters, at a mock symposium called “Race and Conservatism.”

According to a post on the white supremacist Web site Stormfront, Taylor and Derbyshire debate "the role of race in policy decisions and the racial future of the Republican party."

When the Southern Poverty Law Center denounced Taylor’s participation in the event, sparking damaging publicity for the Institute, Epstein shifted it across the street, where he played host under the auspices of a “traditionalist” group he founded called the Robert A. Taft Club. O’Keefe joined him after the last-minute move. A speaker from the right-wing black front group Project 21, founded by white conservative David Almasi to shill for corporate clients and provide cover for conservative politicians, was added at the last minute.

According to One People's Project, which dispatched an undercover reporter to the event, about 40 people attended the event, including several white supremacists. They included Michael Hart, a Jewish astrophysicist and advocate of racially partitioning the U.S., who once clashed with David Duke at a conference over the Ku Klux Klan leader's anti-Semitism.

The event’s headline speaker, Jared Taylor, is the publisher of one of the white supremacist movement’s foremost journals, American Renaissance, which seeks to apply an academic gloss to the racialist screeds contained on its pages. According to a report on the conference published in Taylor's magazine, Taylor argued that a taboo against discussing the alleged criminal behavior and lower intelligence of blacks and Latinos twisted political discourse, and he advocated a strong white nationalism to counter it. Derbyshire denounced “this whole rickety apparatus of affirmative action, discrimination lawsuits, corporate shakedowns, profiling protests and 'speech codes.'” But the National Review editor expressed doubt that a sufficiently large white nationalist movement could be mustered to do much about it.

Epstein and O'Keefe moved on from the "Race and Conservatism" conference to better things. After graduating from the Leadership Institute, Epstein held jobs as executive director of both former Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo’s Team America PAC and Pat Buchanan’s American Cause. He also started a group called Youth for Western Civilization that dedicated itself to “defending the West on campus.” An essay featured on the group’s Web site complaining that “largely Jewish intellectual elites have utterly transformed American social and political discourse” suggested that Epstein’s outfit was only his latest attempt to push white nationalism and anti-Semitism into the conservative mainstream.

Epstein’s career unraveled in June 2009, when a violent racial assault he committed two years earlier was disclosed. According to a court affidavit, Epstein had karate-chopped a random African-American woman in the face and called her a “nigger” during a drunken late-night romp bar-hopping on Washington’s M Street in 2007, leading to his arrest by an off-duty Secret Service agent. He signed a plea bargain requiring him to attend alcohol rehabilitation courses and donate $1,000 to the United Negro College Fund as a token of his contrition.

Meanwhile, O’Keefe lost his job at the Leadership Institute in 2008 for a prank call he made to an Ohio-based Planned Parenthood clinic. During the call, O’Keefe offered a donation to the clinic on the condition that it would be earmarked to pay for aborting African-American fetuses. “Because there's definitely way too many black people in Ohio,” O’Keefe remarked to the receptionist. “So, I'm just trying to do my part.”

O’Keefe’s termination by the Leadership Institute hardly ended his career as a conservative activist. Right-wing online publicist Andrew Breitbart, hearing of the merry prankster’s exploits, hired him to carry out the ACORN operation that would make him famous. Since his arrest, however, some of O’Keefe’s former associates are scrambling to save face. "I am shocked by the reports of this behavior,” declared O’Keefe’s collaborator on the ACORN operation, Hannah Giles. (Giles had tarted up as a prostitute for the stunt.)

O’Keefe has now hired a defense attorney and is waging a high publicity battle against charges that could land him in prison for nearly a year. Some of his old allies, like Breitbart, remain in his corner. Fox News' Sean Hannity hosted O'Keefe for a sympathetic sitdown Feb. 1, where the young right-winger played victim, claiming he was being persecuted by "flat-out slandering" and "journalistic malpractice."

-- By Max Blumenthal

[seemslikeadream]

So Why Is Joseph Basel at the Tea Party Convention?
By DAVID WEIGEL 2/5/10 6:58 PM
NASHVILLE — Justin Elliot picked up on my observation that Joseph Basel was here at the National Tea Party Convention and wondered how Basel was allowed to leave his home state of Minnesota before the Landrieu phone tampering case came to trial. I asked him.

“I’m on bond,” said Basel. “I just signed a piece of paper and I could go. I get pre-approval for travel outside of Minnesota, run by a supervision officer — I just gave him a call and said ‘I’m going to go to Nashville.’”

Basel pointed out that James O’Keefe had left his New Jersey home for New York to tape an interview with Sean Hannity. “We’re all fine,” he said. “It’ll all work out.

O’Keefegate Photographer Speaks
The Andrew Breitbart-Max Blumenthal slugfest continues, as Blumenthal posts a short interview with “Isis,” the woman who took the photograph of Breitbart employee James O’Keefe at the “Race and Conservatism” event in 2006: Isis: O’Keefe “Was There,” Involved In “Execution”.

I followed up with Isis. She told me in no uncertain terms that she had witnessed O’Keefe engaged in the “execution” of the white nationalist event of the Robert Taft Club.

“What I told Weigel and what I told him to quote me as saying, is that O’Keefe was involved the same way you would be involved if you went to a party and you put out the cups and stocked the cooler,” Isis told me. “He was helping Marcus Epstein in the execution of the event so I don’t see what the issue is. It was obvious that he was there supporting the event and was involved in its execution.”

Isis added more about her discussion with Weigel. “I told him the same thing I told you,” she remarked to me. “O’Keefe and Luke Pelican and the Leadership guys helped Epstein because they were friends with Marcus [Epstein], and they are friends with him because they agree with his views on the race stuff. And I told him when O’Keefe got there he was helping Marcus set the event up. Nitpicking over where he sat is bullshit. I mean, enough is enough. They were there; they were helping out with the event and they can’t deny that.”

Isis also told me that Weigel told her that Andrew Breitbart, the right-wing blogger who has had O’Keefe on his payroll, “was acting like a f*cking nutcase.”

UPDATE at 2/5/10 2:49:22 pm:

Here’s an account of the “Race and Conservatism” conference at the hate site American Renaissance (Google cache link): American Renaissance News: Race And Conservatism Debated At The Robert A. Taft Club (No Thanks To The Leadership Institute).

This was not some kind of harmless debate like you might see on Phil Donahue. The event was highly controversial and was nearly canceled, until black conservative Kevin Martin was invited as cover. Other “establishment conservatives” had agreed to attend but backed out when they discovered Jared Taylor was the featured speaker. Quote from the AmRen post:

It’s interesting to note, however, that Taft Club organizer Marcus Epstein said he’d invited several other Establishment conservatives to speak, most of whom initially agreed to come but then backed out when they discovered Jared Taylor would be on the platform.

And there’s a very good reason for that controversy, because Taylor’s views are repugnant.

All of this is straight from the horse’s mouth at American Renaissance, Taylor’s site. So the argument that this was just some innocuous “debate” doesn’t hold water.

(Hat tip: wrenchwench.)

UPDATE at 2/5/10 3:22:47 pm:

A couple more points about the American Renaissance article…

First, it’s clear that they were involved in the organization of this event, along with the far right Robert A. Taft Club. If groups like these are the organizers, why would it be incorrect to refer to this as a “white nationalist conference?”

Second, notice that American Renaissance’s Kevin Carter can barely hide his contempt for black conservative speaker Kevin Martin:

Kevin Martin was the next to speak. He opened by lamenting how difficult it is to be a Republican in the black community. He blamed most of the problems that blacks face on the fact that “self-appointed leaders” like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson have conditioned blacks to believe in a culture of victimization that prevents them from ever taking responsibility for their own problems.

Nevertheless, Martin seemed to blame the media for most of the negative stereotypes about blacks. His speech was also full of the usual banalities, such as “we’re all members of one race: the human race,” etc. Nevertheless, Martin should be praised for rejecting the culture of victimhood that he described.

Their differences with Martin stem from the fact that they consider him to be genetically inferior to a white man. That’s why they sneer at his comment that the media are to blame for negative stereotypes — to them, the stereotypes are true and it’s Martin himself who is to blame, because that’s how black people are.

It’s a profoundly sick world view. This is why decent people shun the Jared Taylor crowd.

Dai traveled to Israel for two weeks in 2004 on an FDD

SENATE BURGLARY: CIA DOMESTIC BLACK-OP TEAM ARRESTED

January 30, 2010 by Gordon Duff · 64 Comments
ALL 4 INVOLVED IN SENATE HOMELAND SECURITY BREAKIN CIA “N-O-C” AGENTS
CIA PROGRAM MAY HAVE TRAINED DOMESTIC “DEATH SQUADS”
By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor
Last week’s breakin at Senator Mary Landrieu’s office in the New Orleans Federal Building was more than it seemed, much more. All of the 4 arrested had been trained by the CIA and, possibly, Israel. One arrested, Stan Dai, is listed as an Operations Officer of the Department of Defense Irregular Warfare Program and a known expert and lecturer on, not only surveillance but explosives training, assassinations and “false flag operations.” If you wanted a plane to crash, an enemy to get sick and die or a building to blow up, Dai would be the man to know how to make it happen. Problem is, his skills were being used as part of a criminal conspiracy inside the United States against members of our own government.
Original reports on the “break-in” were also wrong. One of those arrested was found blocks away with a covert receiver, managing the office bugs. The man in the car is identified as Stan Dai, Operations Officer for the Department of Defense Irregular Warfare Program:
“one of the four was arrested with a listening device in a car blocks from the senator’s offices.” The FBI’s affidavit noted that Flanagan and Basel were in the building with O’Keefe, and a federal law enforcement official confirmed to AP that Dai was the one in the car.”
What is not initially known is whether this was the first attempt or, as is much more likely, an additional incursion to plant new bugs as the ones in place were missing key conversations. Also, it is not known how many “black ops” crews are being run by the CIA inside the United States in violation of their charter or if their operations are being limited to spying on Democratic lawmakers or if operations of a more threatening nature have been performed but remain undiscovered.
Additionally, as this was a covert op against US government investigations of, not only terrorism and terrorism funding but major financial crimes against the United States, it is unclear who the recipient of the “product,” an intelligence industry term for “output” or information put up for “distribution” might be. Potential buyers could be the Republican Party, Israel, Turkey, India, Russia, China, Venezuela, North Korea or financial institutions involved in massive money laundering schemes being investigated by the Senate’s Committee on Homeland Security of which Senator Landireu is a member.
Learn how the Intelliegence Community Center for Academic Excellence (IC CAE) at Georgetown University and the CIA got involved in this seedy domestic “black ops” group. In a story broken this week:
Dai’s links to the intelligence community appear to be particularly strong. He was a speaker at Georgetown University’s Central Intelligence Agency summer school program in June 2009, and is also listed as an Assistant Director at the Intelligence Community Center of Academic Excellence at Trinity in D.C. (note the parallels between the Georgetown program tied to “conservative think tanks” and the GWU program with similar ties and the same characters where we trace Dr. Hasan, Ft Hood mass murderer to)
The university’s president Patricia McGuire told The Associated Press that it promoted careers in intelligence but denied that it trains students to be spies. (a seemingly meaningless statement considering what has happened)
The Trinity program received a “$250,000 renewable grant from the U.S. Intelligence Community” upon launching in 2004, according to its Web site. The program’s goals are stated:
The IC CAE in National Security Studies Program was established during 2005 in response to the nation’s increasing need for IC professionals who are educated and trained with the unique knowledge, skills and capabilities to carry out America’s national security objectives.
The CIA summer school packet also notes that Dai “served as the Operations Officer of a Department of Defense irregular warfare fellowship program.”
Dai has been an undergraduate fellow with the Washington-based national security think tank Foundation for the Defense of the Democracies (FDD), according to his College Leadership Program award biography at the Phillips Foundation — as Lindsay Beyerstein first reported.
FDD claims that it’s partly funded by the US State Department. Its Leadership Council and Board of Advisers comprise many high-profile conservative politicians and public figures — including former House speaker Newt Gingrich, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), former Bush official Richard Perle and columnist Charles Krauthammer.
Operatives recruited in universities and managed thru conservative think tanks receive paid “vacations” to Israel and elsewhere, places where they are trained in silent killing, use of poisons, explosives and other potentially useful skills whether their career is in intelligence or politics. As with other terrorist suspects such as those who travel to Afghanistan for their training, these domestic types are funded covertly through the US government but, as we see in New Orleans, rented out to either Israel, India or the Republican party.
This history of this program parallels one from the Nixon administration after the Vietnam War. CIA recruiters subsidized hundreds, perhaps several thousand veterans, Marines, Special Forces and Army Rangers who served in unofficial and semi-official capacities in and out of the US. Some serve to this day. Today’s, if current bio’s are any indication, depend more on ideology than physical bravery or intellectual qualifications. Perhaps the “purity” test left little room for battle hardened veterans who might choose country over party and loyalty over cash.
In a “clarification” of how Israel is involved and sees their cooperation in this domestic terror organization as part of their support of the United States as a trusted ally, we received the following story:
Dai traveled to Israel for two weeks in 2004 on an FDD (Foundation for the Defense of the Democracies, a conservative Washington based “think tank” with CIA ties) -sponsored trip, the Daily Herald reported. “All expenses (room, board and travel) will be assumed by FDD,” FDD’s Web site said of its Israel program.
A host of FDD testimonials from Academic Fellows reveal that many fellows have traveled to Israel for training and field trips. The Foundation says the course includes “lectures by academics, diplomats, military and intelligence officials, and politicians from Israel, Jordan, India, Turkey and the United States.”
FDD proclaims that “Like America, Israel is at the forefront in the war on terrorism.” Further explaining its interest in Israel, FDD declares:
“Both the United States and Israel are democracies, and both face the same enemy. It is this connection between Israel’s experience and the future of the United States that is the essence of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.”
One FDD testimonial, by 2004-2005 fellow Dr. Cathal J. Nolan, highlighted the group’s bond with high-level intelligence and government officials in Israel:
“The access which FDD provided to top government officials–and to academic, police, security service, and intelligence experts at the highest levels–was truly remarkable. I know of no other foundation or fellowship program which is able to provide so much top-level access and first-hand intelligence and security service information in so compact a form, or in such an intellectually stimulating environment.”
No explanation was offered as to how this “stimulating environment” managed to foster attacks on high security government offices, filled with vital intelligence. If Israel and the United States face the same enemy, why is Israel training Americans to attack America? One can’t help but see parallels between “junkets” to Israel for “intelligence training” and Islamic militants who go to Afghanistan for “terrorist” training.
How few Islamic terrorists would we catch if they were aided by Washington “think tanks,” guided by the Department of Defense or funded by the CIA?
Last week, Veterans Today outlined the many high security projects being monitored from Senator Landrieu’s office which included, not only terrorist money laundering and other security issues but investigations targeting tens of billions of dollars being hidden offshore illegally by Americans, many with ties to Israel. The projects subject to spying by this CIA/Israeli operation are, among others: (source: Department of Homeland Security and the United States Senate)
SENATE HOMELAND SECURITY COMMITTEE
Current hearings held by the Senate Homeland Security Committee chaired by Landireu, hearings subject to this espionage attack involve:
Intelligence reform in the aftermath of the Christmas terrorist attack
Overviews of contracting corruption in Afghanistan
Planning for securing America’s diplomats around the world
The Terrorist Reform and Terrorist Prevention Act (IRTPA)
Investigating the root causes of the Ft. Hood attack
Securing America from financial crimes
America’s Defense from Cyber Attack
Development plans for “post surge” Afghanistan
Current investigations by the Sub-Committee on Investigations are:
Speculation in trading and how it effects national security
How US banks help overseas corporation dodge US taxes
Report on Tax Havens hiding billions from the IRS
Massive abuses of government credit cards by employees
Ending “offshore secrecy” to allow the US to recover billions in tax shortfall
Shell Oil credit card interest abuses
Medicaid abuse and equipment overcharges
Billions in unpaid taxes on Medicaid income by American doctors
Speculation in the energy markets costing American consumers billions a year
Failures in United Nations reform, waste and corruption
Speculation and manipulation that controls and rigs crude oil and gasoline markets
and many many more
9/11
The Senate HSC is responsible for implementing all intelligence reforms resulting from the findings of the 9/11 commission especially in light of continued failures as demonstrated by the Ft. Hood tragedy and the Detroit terror attack.
Current contracting oversight responsibilities:
Overseeing all USAID reconstruction contracts in Afghanistan
Investigating massive corruption tied to the US Embassy in Kabul
Overseeing all US contractors used in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world in regard to corrupt practices and cost overruns
Detecting and Prosecuting Contractor Fraud
No information has been given as to how Federal authorities came to break up this terrorist operation but we are told that informants inside the CIA still loyal to the United States were involved. The arrest of Dai, a highly trained operative blocks away from the scene opens a number of scenarios.
With much of the CIA’s former leadership now employed by Blackwater/Xe, a company owned and controlled by Republican party leadership, the lines between domestic and foreign intelligence operations have become blurred. “CIA agents” killed in Afghanistan recently may all have been Blackwater/Xe employees, some or all former CIA operatives seeking the higher salaries of the private security industry. Has the CIA become “interchangable” with a mercenary group tied to a political party and available for hire by anyone with enough money? The deteriorating security sitiuation in Afghanistan and Pakistan gives creedence to this hypothesis.
The use of forces designated only to be used against American enemies outside the United States against elected officials of our own government, possibly on behalf of an unfriendly foreign government, is a total indictment of the usefulness of our entire intelligence community. Attempts to centralize intelligence resources only tied those resources to individuals whose political ideologies surpassed loyalty to the United States or were superceded by moral flexibility, so often the case with politicians, now popularly described under the term “situational narcissism.” (believing one’s position places one above any moral code or ethical standard)
Significant polarization within the political community during the Bush administration encouraged members of the intelligence community to look on members of the opposition political party as terrorist sympathizers. We are told that many members of the military and intelligence community may be actively involved in “extracurricular” activities, freelancing for individuals no longer in government. Those co-opted by extremist views are vulnerable to ploys from foreign intelligence agencies who represent themselves as part of “right thinking” or “conservative” patriotic groups.
This is a common ploy, developed long ago by the KGB in the Soviet Union and now SOP, (Standard Operating Proceedure) for agencies of friend and foe alike.
It is now a subject for a legitimate investigation as are such “accidents” as the Ohio plane crash that killed Mike Connell, GOP “vote rigging” guru who asked for police protection from Karl Rove tied to rigging the 2004 Presidential Election. Connell’s family believes his death was murder. US Senators, investigative reporters, whistleblowing scientists, “girlfriends” and so many other categories seem to die in numbers well beyond any actuarial table.
We are already spending billions of dollars a year hunting foreign terrorists that threaten the United States. Do we need to double this and go on a “witch hunt” within our own agencies, the ones we entrust with our own security? There is only one answer: Yes, of course we must. We may not have a few “bad apples,” we may have a diseased orchard

.

[freemason9]

You may be sideways with this one. The CIA may have actually set these idiots up. It's happened in the past; sometimes, they actually do cool things.

[seemslikeadream]

You may be sideways with this one. The CIA may have actually set these idiots up. It's happened in the past; sometimes, they actually do cool things.

I just realized that article had already been posted so I added some new stuff. Yea I have no idea what's going on

[JackRiddler]

You may be sideways with this one. The CIA may have actually set these idiots up. It's happened in the past; sometimes, they actually do cool things.

I just realized that article had already been posted so I added some new stuff. Yea I have no idea what's going on

If I may summarize how I've understood you guys:

dbcooper seems to be seeing some kind of psyop set-up of as-yet hidden intent, similar to the current ideas about Watergate as a CIA setup to topple Nixon.

freemason9 thinks or hopes it was agency white hats dispatching these distasteful scumfucks in a convenient and nonviolent fashion.

I wouldn't dare say I was *certain* about any of it, though I have an idea like anyone else.

Looks to me a lot of recruitment rat nests were set up around the country by CIA while the neocons were still ascendant. Predictably these covens attracted rabid right-wingers (who also had access to money from the necocon foundations) and fuck-the-world Bond Wannabes. Such campus hothouses might as needed also provide cover for agency operations, help with intel gathering on campus groups, and recruits for sheep-dipping. They also make for funny games with free money for everyone involved. Never underestimate the appeal of games.

Whether the true believers go too far, spin out of control and get caught (and that is exactly what it looks like here) doesn't matter. I doubt there was any need to set these guys up and I think they did it themselves. I say that because look at O'Keefe's prior "accomplishments," like the ACORN sting - the costumes and the script and were dumb as rocks, the manipulation in the editing and presentation utterly amateurish. This didn't matter because the Murdoch noise machine took it up. (Another example of how this works: right now the TV is on and I'm not watching, but I can see CNN's going into something like a second hour blabbing about the 600 teabag morons at their convention.) So then this O'Keefe moron actually believes it when the Breitbart moron and the 31 Republicans who sponsored the Congressional resolution call him the greatest journalist in history, etc. etc. So he thinks he's got superpowers when he puts on his costume, and promptly flies off a cliff.

I believe the point is for us not to know anything! "Let a thousand covens bloom." The more poison injected, chaos created, and layers of deception added, the richer the environment becomes for ever-bigger psyops, bustouts and gangster moves. Mistrust, confusion, hatred, stupidity, apathy and hopelessness - these are the soil in which parapolitics can thrive. Clarity is the enemy.

Either the prosecutor on this case and the targeted senator will force a semi-credible pursuit of the background and maybe bag a slightly bigger fish or two, or they won't. For us, finding a few of the connections that indicate milieu is about all we can do.

[JackRiddler]

Brad Blog reports on Hannah Giles admission of extreme manipulation in the ACORN sting videos.

I'll archive it here but PLEASE READ IT AT THE LINK to see the formatting (such as what's a block quote), graphics, and links to sources. And to support independent media.

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7708

Giles Admits O'Keefe, Breitbart ACORN 'Pimp' Story was a Lie: 'That Was B-Roll, Purely B-Roll'
Woman who posed as prostitute confirms repeated misreporting by NYTimes, many others
Why does 'paper of record' still refuse to retract, apologize?...

Speaking to Washington Independent reporter David Weigel today at CPAC, Hannah Giles, who posed as a prostitute in James O'Keefe and Andrew Breitbart's infamous, highly-doctored, heavily-overdubbed, secretly-taped ACORN hit videos, confirms what we've been reporting for several weeks here: O'Keefe never dressed as a pimp in the offices of ACORN.

Reports Weigel today [emphasis added]:
I asked Giles about a criticism that’s often been leveled against them — that they hyped up the video by wearing outrageous clothes in promotional materials and the videos’ introductions that they didn’t wear in the actual stings.


“We never claimed that he went in with a pimp costume,” said Giles. “That was b-roll. It was purely b-roll. He was a pimp, I was a prostitute, and we were walking in front of government buildings to show how the government was whoring out the American people.”

"B-roll" refers to footage shot separately and later inserted during editing, as frequently seen in movies and television. Eg. An overhead helicopter shot of Las Vegas, used to establish where the scene takes place, before cutting to the interior of a casino where the main character is seen playing cards at a table.

Giles admission is in stark contrast to:
O'Keefe's knowingly deceptive appearances on Fox "News" "dressed exactly in the same outfit that he wore in these ACORN offices up and down the Eastern Seaboard";
Breitbart's out-and-out lies in his own 9/21/09 column to help promote the videos by claiming they show O'Keefe and Giles "going to the Baltimore offices of ACORN ... dressed as a pimp and a prostitute and asking for - and getting - help for various illegal activities";
Breitbart's 2/15/10 tweet to The BRAD BLOG claiming that he's "told truth every step of way";
and the repeated misreports by the New York Times (which they still stand behind despite all lack of evidence) and the many other mainstream outlets who were similarly hoodwinked into reporting the same phony story.


Greg Brock, the New York Times Senior Editor for Standards, as we documented exclusively some weeks ago, is even on email record as citing that Fox "News" appearance by O'Keefe (embedded again at right) as his only evidence to "stand by our reporting" in which the "paper of record" has, time and again, misreprested O'Keefe as having "visited Acorn offices ... dressed so outlandishly that he might have been playing in a risque high school play."

Just two days after the Times described the "outlandish" dress of O'Keefe, the Congress of the United States passed legislation to remove federal funding for ACORN. (A federal judge later found the legislation to be "unconstitutional".)...


The Times has so far refused to retract, apologize and investigate how and why they got the story so incredibly wrong, time and again, even though many have written to their Public Editor, Clark Hoyt (Public@NYTimes.com) to request that he recommend exactly that. Hoyt had previously chided the paper in his column, for being "slow off the mark" in having waited "nearly a week after the first video was posted" before covering the videos. A special editor was then assigned to devote attention to "issues that are dominating Fox News and talk radio".

Yet more than six months after the Times first inaccurate reported and dozens which followed, and even Congressional action following their coverage, the "paper of record" still refuses to issue retractions or explanations.

We have now heard from Hoyt, concerning his remarkable justifications for not recommending such actions, and will report on those reasons in full in the coming days after he has had another chance to respond to the additional evidence we've supplied him showing, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the New York Times was flat out wrong.

Given that:

O'Keefe and Breitbart blatantly lied about their eye-popping, marquee promotional point for their story;
that, in truth, O'Keefe represented himself to low-level ACORN workers as the college law school boyfriend of Giles, desperately trying to save her from the house of an abusive pimp who she believed would kill her (a point only made clear when examining the posted text transcripts, as opposed to the misleadingly edited videos --- as O'Keefe and Breitbart still refuse to release the unedited videos);
that O'Keefe was recently arrested and charged with falsely identifying himself in order to commit a federal felony in the offices of a Democratic U.S. Senator;
that he's since offered a preposterous explanation for those alleged federal felonies;
that two separate independent reports (Congressional Research Service and former MA Attorney General [PDF]) have each found no criminal wrong-doing by ACORN workers (though it appears that O'Keefe and Giles actually broke the law in at least two states by secretly taping);
and that the Times noted only the CRS report in a small item buried on Page 15, and never told readers about the former AG's report which found, among other things, that "Although Mr. O'Keefe appeared in all videos dressed as a pimp, in fact, when he appeared at each and every office, he was dressed like a college student - in slacks and a button down shirt"

...it remains all the more remarkable that the Times is still standing by the entirely phony story.

And if Breitbart and O'Keefe were that willing to lie about last year's "successful" scam, and the media was so gullible as to report it without fact checking any of it, what will they be willing to say and do now that Breitbart's employee O'Keefe is facing the possibility of ten years in jail? Without examining how they screwed up in giving uncritical coverage to the "successful" scam, safe money is on the same media outlets screwing up yet again in reporting O'Keefe's latest legal troubles and the rightwing political agenda media scams he has set for the future.

As promised, more to come in the days ahead, including Hoyt's responses to date...

UPDATE: For the record, as detailed on Wednesday here, these are just some of the many other mainstream media outlets, in addition to the NYTimes (and Fox "News"), who are quoted on the record as similarly misreporting the fake O'Keefe/Breitbart ACORN 'pimp' story: Baltimore Sun, CNN, New York Post, Washington City Paper, Philadelphia Daily News, NPR, Dallas Morning News.

Like the Times, those outlets also still owe their readers retractions and apologies. Please feel free to let them know!




* * *

The BRAD BLOG covers your electoral system fiercely and independently, like no other media outlet in the nation. Please support our work with a donation to help us keep going (Snail mail, more options here). If you like, we'll send you some great, award-winning election integrity documentary films in return! Details right here...

[elfismiles]

Was this posted earlier in the thread?

Landrieu phone plot: Men arrested have links to intelligence community
By Sahil Kapur
Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 -- 10:54 am

WASHINGTON -- Two of the three men arrested on Monday along with "ACORN pimp" James O'Keefe for "maliciously tampering" with Sen. Mary Landrieu's (D-LA) phones in her New Orleans office have ties to the United States intelligence community.

The three accused by the FBI of "aiding and abetting" O'Keefe are Stan Dai, Robert Flanagan and Joseph Basel. O'Keefe is 25, and the other three are 24.

Dai's links to the intelligence community appear to be particularly strong. He was a speaker at Georgetown University's Central Intelligence Agency summer school program in June 2009, and is also listed as an Assistant Director at the Intelligence Community Center of Academic Excellence at Trinity in D.C.

The university's president Patricia McGuire told The Associated Press that it promoted careers in intelligence but denied that it trains students to be spies.

The Trinity program received a "$250,000 renewable grant from the U.S. Intelligence Community" upon launching in 2004, according to its Web site. The program's goals are stated:

The IC CAE in National Security Studies Program was established during 2005 in response to the nation's increasing need for IC professionals who are educated and trained with the unique knowledge, skills and capabilities to carry out America's national security objectives.

The CIA summer school packet also notes that Dai "served as the Operations Officer of a Department of Defense irregular warfare fellowship program."

Dai has been an undergraduate fellow with the Washington-based national security think tank Foundation for the Defense of the Democracies (FDD), according to his College Leadership Program award biography at the Phillips Foundation -- as Lindsay Beyerstein first reported.

FDD claims that it's partly funded by the US State Department. Its Leadership Council and Board of Advisers comprise many high-profile conservative politicians and public figures -- including former House speaker Newt Gingrich, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), former Bush official Richard Perle and columnist Charles Krauthammer.

Dai traveled to Israel for two weeks in 2004 on an FDD-sponsored trip, the Daily Herald reported. "All expenses (room, board and travel) will be assumed by FDD," FDD's Web site said of its Israel program.

A host of FDD testimonials from Academic Fellows reveal that many fellows have traveled to Israel for training and field trips. The Foundation says the course includes "lectures by academics, diplomats, military and intelligence officials, and politicians from Israel, Jordan, India, Turkey and the United States."

FDD proclaims that "Like America, Israel is at the forefront in the war on terrorism." Further explaining its interest in Israel, FDD declares:

Both the United States and Israel are democracies, and both face the same enemy. It is this connection between Israel's experience and the future of the United States that is the essence of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

One FDD testimonial, by 2004-2005 fellow Dr. Cathal J. Nolan, highlighted the group's bond with high-level intelligence and government officials in Israel:

The access which FDD provided to top government officials--and to academic, police, security service, and intelligence experts at the highest levels--was truly remarkable. I know of no other foundation or fellowship program which is able to provide so much top-level access and first-hand intelligence and security service information in so compact a form, or in such an intellectually stimulating environment.

The CIA and Office of Director of National Intelligence have both told Politico that despite Dai's evident connections to the intelligence community, he never officially worked for them.

Dai's co-conspirator Robert Flanagan is currently seeking a Master of Science degree from the Missouri State University's (Fairfax, Virginia) Defense and Strategic Studies program, according to his LinkedIn profile (which was captured by Beyerstein before it was taken down Tuesday.)

The DSS Web site description affirms its connections to "the intelligence community":

The program’s location also provides DSS with the opportunity to draw adjunct faculty members from the top ranks of government, the defense industry, and the intelligence community.

The program also appears to have a close relationship with the conservative establishment. Inside Higher Ed reported in 2007 that the program's "full-time faculty of three and its nine affiliated lecturers tend to come mainly from positions in Republican administrations and conservative-leaning institutions."

It appears to be an elite program and one Facebook group bills it as ardently conservative on national security and foreign policy issues. "We Do Defense (far) Right!" it proclaims:

Are you preparing for the inevitable U.S. v. ChiCom War? Are you praying every night for the employment of Ballistic Missile Defense? Do you think nuclear weapons are important for American security? Do you think MAD is a trashy liberal theory? Are you educated by great professors with real life experience?

Then this is the place for you.

Flanagan has also blogged for the conservative Pelican Institute until as recently as this month. In one post last month, he highlighted criticisms directed at Landrieu.

Flanagan's father, William Flanagan, is currently the acting US Attorney for Louisiana's western district. But because Flanagan was arrested in the state's eastern district, his father will not oversee his prosecution.

The New Orleans newspaper NOLA.com, which first broke the news, reported that "one of the four was arrested with a listening device in a car blocks from the senator's offices." The FBI's affidavit noted that Flanagan and Basel were in the building with O'Keefe, and a federal law enforcement official confirmed to AP that Dai was the one in the car.

The New York Times pointed out that "[t]he [FBI] affidavit did not accuse the men of trying to tap the phones, or describe in detail what they did to the equipment." But the optics of the situation have led to suspicions that bugging Landrieu's phones was their intention.

Although Robert Flanagan's Facebook page has been removed, the other three all list each other as "friends" on the social networking site.



All four of the men arrested in the plotMonday have well-documented conservative ties, The Associated Press revealed. Three of the suspects wrote for conservative publications while in college, and Flanagan has written for the national Pelican Institute.

Flanagan's blog, flanaganreport.com, has also been deleted, but some of its content can still be found in Google's archives. In one post, Flanagan criticized former vice president Dick Cheney.

Joseph Basel was listed by the University of Minnesota, Morris in 2005 as one of its fifteen "College Republicans."

The publications O'Keefe and Basel wrote for while in college allegedly received money from the nonprofit education foundation The Leadership Institute.

"Leadership Institute Vice President David Fenner said in a phone interview this morning that the group had 'informal, above-board relationships' with both James O'Keefe and Joseph Basel when they were college students," Talking Points Memo reported Wednesday.

Landrieu's office released the following statement on the incident, according to NPR:

Because the details of yesterday's incident are part of an ongoing investigation by federal authorities, our office cannot comment at this time.

The community activist group ACORN slammed O'Keefe, who angered them after unveiling their ostensibly dodgy practices. "Couldn't have happened to a more deserving soul," the group posted on its Twitter feed.

The incident "is further evidence of his disregard for the law in pursuit of his extremist agenda," ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis told AP in a statement.

the first Assistant Director of the Intelligence Community Center of Academic Excellence at Trinity in D.C.Additional research provided by Ron Brynaert

http://rawstory.com/2010/01/men-charged ... nce-links/