Criminal Enterprise

ACORN has now decided to sue the two filmmakers who ran undercover sting operations at their satellite offices, for violating Maryland law by obtaining documentary footage without consent.

The group contends that the audio portion of the video was obtained illegally because Maryland requires two-party consent to create sound recordings.

The two employees seen in the video were fired after it was posted online. The lawsuit says the employees, Tonja Thompson and Shera Williams, suffered "extreme emotional distress."

The multimillion-dollar lawsuit seeks damages from James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, who played the pimp and prostitute in the videos, and from conservative columnist Andrew Breitbart, who posted the videos on his Web site.

When ABC News took hidden-camera video of Food Lion workers bleaching rotten meat for resale, they sued - and won in court, to boot. The law is pretty clear on all this.

Mind you, this is the second Breitbart operation in as many weeks where he has posted illegally obtained material on his website. This nascent NEA mini-scandal uses audio from a conference call whose taping seems to violate state law.

There's also the matter of the worker in one surreptitiously taped ACORN video calling the police and reporting the couple for human trafficking. For his effort, he got fired by ACORN based on what he said in the video, regardless of the fact that he did the right thing and reported the fake pimp and prostitute to the police.

James O'Keefe, the supposedly "independent" filmmaker responsible for the ACORN sting, may be getting all kinds of cash from the conservative movement, but he'll need a lot of it, with all the state laws he appears to be breaking.

You Can't Build A Progressive Movement With Conservative Republicans

Digby and I, along with a bunch of LA-based bloggers, were fortunate enough to have lunch a couple days ago with Darcy Burner, the progressive candidate in WA-08 who is fighting to upend Bush rubber stamp Rep. Dave Reichert. By the way, give money to Darcy.

She is optimistic about her chances in November, but as Howie Klein, who set up the luncheon, notes, she is being somewhat stymied by the counterproductive way that labor unions and Dem-leaning orgs sometimes do business.

One thing we did discuss, though, is the NEA and how they, and other "progressive" interest groups like them routinely sell out progressive candidates for their own pathetic, shallow and ineffectual Inside the Beltway politics. Earlier today I corresponded with someone from the campaign of Florida Blue Dog Christine Jennings. She was trying to persuade me that Jennings was a good match for Blue America and, naively, mentioned other "progressive" organizations that had endorsed her. One was HRC, one of the most craven and despicable of all the sell-out one-issue bottom feeders in DC. Desperate for the "credibility" of bipartisanship, HRC looks for Republicans who may be disastrous for gay families but who aren't quite as disastrous as a Jim Inhofe, John Cornyn or self-loathing closet queen Mitch McConnell. Take their shameful endorsement of Susan Collins whose so-so voting record is no match for her Democratic opponent's perfect voting record. Collins voted for all Bush's hideous, violently anti-gay judicial appointments. Tom Allen, of course, opposed every one of them and, as a senator, has vowed to never vote to confirm anyone who favors discriminating against any group of Americans.

The NEA, similarly desperate for that kind of bogus Inside-the-Beltway credibility, scoured the country for Republican incumbents in high profile, tight races who they could endorse. One was Darcy's abysmal opponent, Dave Reichert, and another was Missouri reactionary goon Sam Graves. Like HRC, the NEA has lost all credibility. (Fortunately the American Federation of Teachers endorsed Darcy, which means the bureaucrats who waste tax money are for Reichert and the actual front line teachers are for Darcy.)

This is just ridiculous. No matter how many endangered Republicans the NEA endorses, they are not going to fully support the kind of education policies the NEA purports to wanting. And the most important vote any member of Congress makes is for the leadership. Dave Reichert would vote for John Boehner. The NEA endorsement is an implicit endorsement for Boehner.

I'm sure the calculus here is that Reichert might be with them on one or two extra votes if he wins, whereas Burner will vote with their interests anyway, so why not cover all of their bases? This does nothing, of course, to help progressive leaders actually move education policy. And it's important to note that right-leaning groups NEVER do this, and certainly not in hotly contested races. Much like our leadership feels the need to extend remarks like "John McCain is a hero" before disagreeing with his policies, organizations like the NEA feel like they must appear bipartisan, while the NRA dispenses with such niceties. Look what they're running against Obama.

Burner is not the only candidate to speak out about this. Josh Zeitz, a progressive candidate in NJ-04, has spoken out as well.



Public pressure is what will end this perniciousness... or better, building truly progressive infrastructure to take the power out of the hands of the single-issue groups. Burner is endorsed by Blue America, which over its lifetime has raised $1.288 million dollars for candidates and causes. Until groups that claim to support progressives actually do so, they're your best bet.