Free Republic

Since the undercover ACORN videos from James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles first broke, the grand pooh-bahs of journalism have gone into self-absorbed philosopher mode. Rather than report on the ACORN corruption playing out before our eyes, “journalists” have tsk-tsked their way through thousands of words and yards of column inches making certain that everyone understands that what James and Hannah did IS…NOT…JOURNALISM. (As if that is the existential question to make sense of the ACORN videos.) Undercover videos and assuming fake identities are things real journalists do not do…except when they do. Below is a page from ACORN’s 2005 Annual...

Original Title in Polish: "W ACORN Radzili, Jak Założyć Dom Publiczny "(TRANSLATION FROM POLISH TO ENGLISH): TEXT: "A young American amateur filmmaker and activist conservative revealed the illegal practices of ACORN, the well-known organizations help the poor and racial minorities. The film shows how an employee advises ACORN hand, how to set up a public brothel. .. . Hidden camera filmed the visit. O'Keefe asked the secrets from the pfficials ... Afera w ACORN: (17-09-09, 11:40) The ACORN affair: White House indignant, joins the criticism (17-09-09, 11:40) Filmmaker James O'Keefe hidden camera filmed their visit to the local branch...

This recent scam, which was attempted in San Diego, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia to name a few places, had failed for months before the results we’ve all recently seen. video follows...

And the hits keep coming

Here is video of Megyn Kelly talking with defense attorney Mark Eiglarsh and trial attorney Lee Armstrong on "Kelly's Court" about whether the undercover ACORN video will result in criminal charges. (Watch Video)

Tuesday, March 31, 2009 Washington D.C.: President Obama unveiled a new White House initiative designed to stimulate the economy, resuscitate ailing General Motors, and simultaneously support our federal and local undercover agents. “This plan brings Government/Business collaboration into a new era that breaches boundaries that were, up to this point, seemingly impenetrable.” The President said in an impromptu press conference late this afternoon. “As interim CEO for General Motors, I am in the unique position to offer the United States Government a deal too good to pass up!" “This Covert Agent Revitalization Plan (CARP) addresses the long overlooked problem of...

Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer said this afternoon that two officers in the department's narcotics unit have been arrested and two others are under investigation for auto theft.

The FBI on Monday officially opened a civil-rights investigation into the shooting by police of Adolph Grimes III, according to Sheila Thorne, spokeswoman for the agency's New Orleans division. Agents from the local office consulted with the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney Jim Letten's office in deciding to open the inquiry, Thorne said. The local bureau had been made aware of the shooting death shortly after the incident. Agents were trying to determine last week whether the incident warrants a federal investigation. The decision was made Monday.

Click here for the video... [WARNING: Cussing involved]

The undercover agent takes two guises in our national consciousness. At one extreme is the highly trained professional who risks his or her life to go after the worst drug dealers and mobsters. At the other extreme is the apolitical and poorly trained apparatchik, designated by a bureaucratic superior to infiltrate a group deemed subversive or otherwise troublesome to authorities. The infiltrator may even become a provocateur as a way to give the authorities an excuse to crack down. Government agents did a lot of this during the 1960s, while monitoring civil rights and far-left organizations. At this end of...

An undercover Robbinsdale police officer involved in a June road-rage incident was indicted today in Anoka County District Court on a charge of making terroristic threats. Landen Beard was shot in the leg during the June 7 rolling dispute on a Coon Rapids side street. The other man involved, Martin Treptow, 35, was charged Wednesday with drive-by shooting, reckless discharge of a firearm and making terroristic threats. At the time, Beard was in one vehicle; in the other were Martin and Rebecca Treptow and their two children. What is known is that a horn-honking shouting match broke out between the...

'I 'd like a one-way air fare to New York on the next available flight. I have no luggage. Could you make sure the ticket is refundable … in case I change my mind?" I was standing at the Delta shuttle counter at Washington's Reagan National Airport, dressed in my Saudi burka. "Sure, no problem," the clerk replied brightly. "Do you have Skymiles?" "Uh, no." "I'll need some form of identification." I handed her my driver's licence, which showed the occupant of the black tent to be a blonde, blue-eyed resident of the District of Columbia. "Thanks." Tap, tap, tap...

GENEVA - The United Nations has expressed regret that undercover Cuban officials attended a U.N. news conference on human rights, where they sought information on a French journalist asking critical questions about Fidel Castro's regime. Elena Ponomareva, spokeswoman for the global body's European headquarters, said she was unable to prevent two Cuban diplomats from entering the Oct. 11 news event with Jean Ziegler, a U.N. rights expert who was preparing for a mission to the communist-run island. The U.N. strictly prohibits government officials from attending news conferences unless they are explicitly invited and included among those presenting. Previous run-ins have...

Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson made an appearance at a Property Tax forum at Light of the World Christian Church. The Mayor excused himself to attend a previous engagement - a "interfaith dialogue forum" booked several months earlier. Doesn't it sound weird he would attend an "interfaith dialogue" considering most interfaith activities in Indianapolis are held at THAT VERY SAME CHURCH?!?!? Look at the YouTube video and find out where Mayor Brat REALLY needed to go....

This writer may (or may know) know about issues surrounding journalism, but it’s now clear I’m not much of a Hollywood type. Ken Silverstein’s Harper’s piece – the one criticized for its subterfuge in this space a month ago – has been optioned to former LA Weekly publisher Michael Sigman, and may potentially become a movie down the line. As reported in LA Observed a few days ago: Former LA Weekly publisher Michael Sigman has optioned the film rights to that piece about Washington lobbyists in Harper's by reporter Ken Silverstein, who posed as a customer to nab the K...

That was fast. The Sun-Times broke the story about Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record)'s relationship with Tony Rezko on Monday, but I think we may have already reached the point where Obama's reaction to the story is drawing more attention than the particulars of the story itself. Carol Marin, a reporter for NBC 5 and a columnist for the Sun-Times, puts the boot in today: Barack Obama tells us he is the messenger of a new kind of politics. Open. Transparent. Different. But put the pedal to the metal and ask Illinois' junior senator new and serious questions about...

NYPD bullet kills groom on wedding day NEW YORK - A bachelor party at a strip club ended early Saturday with police opening fire on a group of men leaving the establishment, killing a groom on his wedding day and wounding two others, one critically. There was no immediate explanation for what sparked the shooting, which drew angry protests from family members and the Rev. Al Sharpton. The New York Police Department's chief spokesman, Paul Browne, declined to comment. As many as eight officers may have been involved in the shooting near the Kalua Cabaret in Queens, said Sgt. Mike...

Three men have been indicted for allegedly trying to obtain defense information and stolen military equipment from an undercover US government agent, federal prosecutors said. Amen Ahmed Ali, 56, received what he believed to be secret defense documents from the agent and sent them to Yemen by fax or courier on several occasions since last year, federal prosecutors said. Ali was arrested at his cigarette shop in Bakersfield about 180 kilometers north of Los Angeles, on Thursday. He was scheduled to appear before a federal magistrate in Bakersfield on Friday. The arrest came after a two-year operation and investigation.

The American Civil Liberties Union released a compilation of covert government surveillance of political activists in northern and central California on Thursday, decrying a "greater expansion of government power and the abuse of power" since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The group's Northern California branch blamed weak oversight of law-enforcement and intelligence agencies, and called for a new state government watchdog over their activities. "With inadequate regulation and an insufficient understanding of the protections afforded to protest and dissent, law enforcement has overstepped its bounds in monitoring political activity," the group said. The ACLU of Northern California cataloged instances of...

Montana mother who is fighting al-Qa'eda from her sitting room By Francis Harris in Helena (Filed: 26/06/2006) Radical Islamists may not know it but their global jihad has more to fear from Shannen Rossmiller, an American mother-of-three, than from a squadron of F16s. The former cheerleader doesn't phrase it quite like that. That isn't her style. Shannen Rossmiller turned freelance spy after 9/11 Yet a summary of case histories and transcripts seen by The Daily Telegraph reveals that she has uncovered the whereabouts of al-Qa'eda fighters in the lawless highlands of Pakistan, shopped groups of would-be terrorists from Liverpool to...

On Feb. 20, The Augusta Free Press published my rant column, "The Betrayal of America," in which I took off on the American Left, especially the Communist Party and its sympathizers, foolish liberals, the mainstream media, the Democratic Party, and even the present Republican leadership of Congress and some in the White House. If I forgot anyone, I'm sorry, but there will be other columns in which to catch up with the blithering idiots in our political and media systems. The purpose of the rant was to let out a lot of intellectual frustration that I've been holding in, as...

A recent terrorist trial, and conviction, of an Islamic terrorists in New York City brought out the extent to which police have infiltrated Moslem communities in order to uncover terrorist plots. While most of this counter-terrorist activity within Moslem communities is kept secret, enough information has leaked out to make it clear that it's no accident that the United States has not suffered another terrorist attack since September 11, 2001. There is an extensive informant network within Moslem communities all over the United States. The FBI was pleasantly surprised right after September 11, 2001, by the number of calls they...

The $2.5 million book deal that Valerie Plame Wilson, the former Central Intelligence Agency officer whose identity was publicly disclosed three years ago, negotiated with Crown Publishing Group last month has fallen through. Ms. Wilson, who could not agree on terms with Crown, is now in exclusive negotiations with Simon & Schuster, which originally had lost an auction for the book to Crown. Although no contract has yet been signed with Simon & Schuster, David Rosenthal, the publisher, said, "We are optimistic about these talks." When Crown announced the deal last month, Steve Ross, senior vice president and publisher, said...

DANVERS — The brown SUV rolled to a stop in a Holten Street parking lot as two 17-year-old high school students in the back seat emptied their pockets of everything except their cell phones and a $20 bill. They wouldn't need much more to buy a pack of cigarettes in Danvers. The girl, wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt and a pair of jeans, stepped into the pouring rain, approached a sales clerk at the Mobil gas station and returned moments later with a pack of Marlboro Reds. The two teens work undercover for the North Shore Tobacco Control Program, the...

Two Operations Will Occur; Your Homeland Security Agency Must Surrender; States Far Away From Washington, D.C. Such as Arizona Will Be Hit; We Await Orders From Our Commander Osama Bin Laden; America Will Be Brought to its Knees On March 10, 2006, the Global Islamic Media Front (GIMF) posted, on the Islamic websites, a final warning to the American people, on behalf of "Rakan Ben Williams" who defines himself as "Al-Qaeda under cover soldier, USA [sic]." It is not clear exactly who is behind this name. Moreover, according to a previous statement by GIMF public relations bureau director Saif Al-Din...

Spotsylvania County's top prosecutor says Virginia's prostitution law could be expanded to avoid having detectives pay for oral sex as part of an investigation. Commonwealth's Attorney William Neely said yesterday that Virginia's prostitution law doesn't forbid paying for certain sexual acts--including fondling. The law requires the act to be either intercourse or oral sex. Neely said that aspect of the law put the county Sheriff's Office into a "dicey" position during a recent investigation into the Moon Spa--a now-closed massage business on State Route 3 in Spotsylvania that is suspected of prostitution. Authorities say a detective, who is single and...

Breaking on the Canteen!!! Santa Supports Our Troops!!!!!(So does the Canteen!!)Also:  What does Santa do after Christmas? Inquiring minds want to know!GummyIII went undercover to find out just what Santa does after his big day...uh...night.  You might be surprised to see just what he's into!  Of course, you probably have spied him sometime somewhere doing something.  If so, please share with us here!  (If he's undercover, please remember "Loose lips sink ships"!  What Gummy is going to share has been cleared for public knowledge.) Gummy has a good source who says Santa was working undercover for our troops while...

Photos Show Moments Before Officer Shot By OPD Apparent Badge Seen Around Jenkins' Neck ORLANDO, Fla. -- Photos snapped by a University of Central Florida grad student captured campus officer Mario Jenkins with his gun drawn and an apparent police badge hanging around his neck moments before he was mistakenly shot and killed by an Orlando police officer. Jenkins, an officer who had been working with state Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco agents to curb underage drinking, died after being shot Saturday outside the Citrus Bowl by a retired Orlando police officer working on reserve status. Witnesses said Jenkins...

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) - A university police officer working with the state to curb underage drinking was shot to death by an Orlando police officer outside the Citrus Bowl Saturday as fans were arriving for a football game, authorities said. Mario Jenkins, a canine officer working with Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco agents, was killed, said University of Central Florida Police Sgt. Troy Williamson. Williamson said Jenkins was wearing street clothes. He would not talk about the circumstances of the shooting. "You've got about 50 police officers and beverage agents who are in complete shock at this point," Williamson...

Hundreds of bras stolen from Victoria's Secret MANCHESTER — An undercover investigation is undoubtedly needed to find out who stole hundreds of Victoria Secret Very Sexy brassieres from a Mall of New Hampshire store. Victoria Secret manager Kelly Duvall called police Thursday at 4 p.m. to report that up to 200 of the push-up, but not padded, bras in various sizes and colors were missing. The bras were stolen from the storage area of a display case. Each is priced as between $40 and $45. Police said the total value of the stolen bras could exceed $20,000. Anthony Hebron, spokesman...

New Berlin cop allegedly solicited prostitute Off-duty officer arrested in Milwaukee By JAMES KOGUTKIEWICZ - GM Today Staff July 22, 2005 MILWAUKEE - An off-duty New Berlin police officer allegedly offered a woman $15 to perform a sex act Tuesday while visiting Milwaukee’s south side. Robert J. Scrima, 41, of Waukesha, faces one misdemeanor count of soliciting a prostitute in Milwaukee County Circuit Court, according to a criminal complaint filed Wednesday. The New Berlin Police Department acknowledged the arrest of one of its officers by Milwaukee police in a news release. New Berlin Police Lt. David Dunn interrupted a reporter...

SO much in this article .. sorry for all the snips .. ================================================= (snip) Valerie Plame had dinner with five of her classmates from the agency's training academy. (snip) But even though Plame's "cover" had been cracked wide open, her dinner companions didn't pry for details.(snip) "Cover is a mosaic, it's a puzzle," said James Marcinkowski, a former CIA case officer who attended the dinner. "Every piece is important [to protect] because you don't know which pieces the bad guys are missing." (snip) The case also has called attention to the precious, concealing commodity the intelligence community calls "cover." The...

/begin my summaryN. Korea: Internet CafeThe following photos show an Internet Cafe in Chong-jin, N. Korea. It is equipped with second-hand S. Korean PC's imported via China. It is not connected to outside world, only to internal N. Korean network. Games and e-mail service are available.It offers instruction for computer skills for 20,000 won per month (NOTE: N. Korean average monthly salary: 2,000 ~ 3,000 won, and 2,000 won = $1)Definitely not for the ordinary folks. The entrance of Internet Cafe in Chong-jin -- The store sign says, "Information Communication Technology Store" N. Korean teenagers playing a computer game inside The inside...

Rhode Island Governor Donald L. Carcieri has vetoed a "medical marijuana" bill, saying it would encourage marijuana use and criminal activity. His veto comes as an anti-drug group has released dramatic video footage of a marijuana activist declaring that he uses dope for a health problem that he doesn't really have. The bottom line for this activist, Ed Rosenthal, is that "I like to get high. Marijuana is fun." The video has the potential of dealing a major blow to the "medical marijuana" movement, largely funded by billionaire George Soros. The video footage, posted at the website http://www.sorosmonitor.com, gives the...

Time for Sharpton's Apology?By Larry ElderTownhall.com | May 26, 2005 Where is Reverend Al Sharpton's apology?"Black leader" and former presidential candidate Al Sharpton recently capped off a busy week by demanding apologies from Mexican President Vicente Fox and Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca. Fox, in defending Mexican illegals working in America, said such workers take jobs that "even blacks" refuse to do. Enter Sharpton. He demanded an apology, arguing Fox's words "confirm the stereotype that blacks are the lowest peons in the workforce of this country." Although Fox promptly "clarified" his remarks and told Sharpton that he "regretted any hurt...

Undercover group of commentators working for the government will post on blogs and Internet bulletin boards as 'ordinary netizens' The Times of India Friday, May 20, 2005 Beijing -- China has formed a special force of undercover online commentators to try to sway public opinion on controversial issues on the Internet, a newspaper said on Thursday. China has struggled to gain control over the Internet as more and more people gain access to obtain information beyond official sources. The country has nearly 100 million Internet users, according to official figures, and the figure is rising. A special force of online...

China goes undercover to sway opinion on internet 20.05.05 BEIJING - China has formed a special force of undercover online commentators to try to sway public opinion on controversial issues on the Internet, a newspaper said yesterday. China has struggled to gain control over the Internet as more and more people gain access to obtain information beyond official sources. The country has nearly 100 million Internet users, according to official figures, and the figure is rising. A special force of online commentators had already been operating in Suqian city in the eastern coastal province of Jiangsu since April, the Southern...

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) - The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California and members of a university peace group filed information requests with the FBI and the Fresno County Sheriff's Department on Wednesday after learning that undercover officers attended a student lecture. University officials acknowledged that three campus police officers and three Fresno County Sheriff's deputies attended a November 2004 talk by animal rights activist Gary Yourofsky at California State University, Fresno. The students and the civil rights organization filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the FBI and a Public Records Act request with the Fresno County Sheriff's...

Sen. Ted Kennedy's brother-in-law is the mystery witness who raised $100,000 for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and then went undercover and wore a wire to help the feds nab one of her top moneymen on charges of fund-raising-fraud, The Post has learned. The witness, Ray Reggie, 43, has a sister, Victoria, who married Kennedy in 1992, and prosecutors say Reggie secretly recorded "incriminating" statements made by David Rosen, a top Clinton fund-raiser. Reggie was close enough to Bill and Hillary Clinton to sleep over at the White House in 2000 and stay up chatting with the first couple into the...

Haley Dawson has never been a stripper. But Ohio liquor-control agents took her identity and gave it to a 22-year-old college student who they had recruited to work undercover as a nude dancer. As part of an investigation that resulted in nothing more than misdemeanor charges, police paid University of Dayton criminal-justice student Michelle Szuhay $100 a night to take it all off in early 2003 — as liquor-control officers drank beer and watched in the audience for three months, court papers show. Other officers watched her strip on the Internet, using an account created under the identity of a...

No one knew, however, what was going on with the Minutemen patrols when the reporters weren’t around—until now. Our 5i-Team has exclusive undercover video of the patrols at work. At 6:30 you can hear from our investigative reporter Morgan Lowe how he got the video and you can get the whole story tonight on CBS 5 News at 10:00.

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Sometimes going undercover in Texas means no cover at all. Houston police, long thwarted in their campaign against prostitution by an internal policy that barred officers from removing their clothes, have reaped results by shedding that unwritten rule. The change in tactics that allows vice squad officers to undress in pursuit of evidence is part of a crackdown on suspected brothels that advertise themselves as day spas, lingerie modeling studios, massage parlors and "stress relief clinics." Two investigations using the new rules have resulted in organized crime charges against six business proprietors and dozens of misdemeanor prostitution...

I never felt any longing to go to Orlando, Florida. What I felt, in traveling south to volunteer for the campaign of George W. Bush, was an obligation. Let me explain by first saying something about the critics of our president. A great many of them like to laugh at George Bush for not reading books and for being uninterested in visiting other countries. But a lot of those same people are guilty of the opposite offense. They prefer to read books and travel abroad rather than actually getting to know their own country face to face. These critics do...

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — A gun dealer should not face a misdemeanor charge for selling a firearm to an undercover law enforcement officer who indicated it was for an underage person who didn't have a license, the Michigan Supreme Court said in a decision released Wednesday. The court ruled that longtime Detroit gun dealer General Laney didn't violate federal or state statutes that allow licensed 18-year-olds to buy or receive a pistol from a private party, but prohibits them from purchasing a gun from a federally licensed gun dealer. In April 1999, two Wayne County sheriff's deputies — Walter Epps...

The soothing baritone rises effortlessly to navigate an exotic series of microtones and complex rhythmic cadences. The voice is that of Abdul Malik, imam of Oakland, California's Masjid Al-Islam mosque. He is delivering a prayerful invocation in perfect Arabic before followers of one of the most ancient religions of mankind – Islam. Soon he'll address a very contemporary subject: Media. Shatan's (Satan's) media, that is. The imam isn't alone in his criticism of media coverage of Islam in America. Out of the conflict and criticism have come loaded words like "prejudice," "intolerance," "civil rights," "terrorism," "militant," "radical" and "extremist." These...

Standing atop Saddam Hussein’s presidential palace, Walter Davis witnessed first-hand the “shock and awe” campaign that marked the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom in March. Watching as United States aircraft dropped bomb after bomb on strategic targets throughout Baghdad, Davis, a counter-intelligence expert, said he didn’t expect the Iraqi people to cooperate in his search for guerilla forces hiding throughout the country. Much to his surprise, it was Iraqi citizens who were his greatest asset. In fact, the people were eager to provide critical intelligence information, he said. “We didn’t have enough people to respond to all the Iraqi offers...

Berkeley in New Hampshire Installment One: Howard Dean DeepFreep at the Howard Dean Rally in Henniker, NH. So what do you do when you live in a small New Hampshire town? If it's cold you go skiing, or every 4 years you go listen to the candidate du jour speak. Yesterday 11/20, we were either lucky or un-lucky depending on your point of view to have Governor (Amway) Dean come to Henniker. Why Amway? More on that later. Suffice it to say his marketing bears resemblance to the maligned soap company. Upon arriving at the Simon Center on the New...

Undercover Israelis shoot two dead in West Bank By Justin Huggler in Jerusalem 31 January 2003 Just two days after Ariel Sharon was re-elected Prime Minister, Israeli tanks were back in action yesterday, demolishing a Palestinian vegetable market in Hebron. In Tulkarem on the West Bank, Israeli undercover soldiers shot dead two Palestinians. The army said both were militants. Palestinians said one was an innocent bystander. Reports said one of the men killed was Fayez Jabr, the local leader of al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a militant group which has connections with Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement. In Hebron, the Israeli army searched...

'Herald' Goes Undercover to Cover Carter Cuba Denies 'Herald' Reporters VisasBy Joe StruppThe CIA just might be able to learn a few things from The Miami Herald. If they want to improve their undercover operations in Cuba, that is.Because of a long-standing Cuban policy that denies reporter visas to Herald staff writers, the newspaper is forced to send reporters to the island undercover as tourists, according to executive editor Tom Fiedler. He told E&P on Wednesday that a Herald reporter is in Cuba and filed stories about this week's trip by former President Jimmy Carter -- which appeared under no...