"Nor did we try to cut or shut down her phone lines. Reports to this effect over the past 48 hours are inaccurate and false."
Read the whole statement from James O'Keefe about the circumstances of his widely reported — and apparently misreported — arrest.
January 29, 2010
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140 comments:
This is fun. We need to see the videotape. Maybe he was stalking a Woman which is also a horrible thing to do.
He never seemed like a terrible person but I'm pretty sure he still did something wrong. I'd hate to see the guy in jail but he shouldn't get a pass.
Crack was right.
Nothing about O'Keefe's "expose" on ACORN was misreported.
Who cares? Here's something interesting, Obama meeting with the house GOP.
Saying your phones have been "jammed" isn't the same thing as saying they are broken. To me it implies that there are way too many calls coming in for the system to handle.
Either way, I suppose, it can be determined if the phones are working or not and calls are getting through or not.
You know, he could have avoided this whole mess by not breaking the law.
John Lynch called it.
Well, Monty, we'll see how that goes.
Maybe Obama is proving he can learn. Maybe.
Oh... Obama was invited, so apparently the Republicans wanted to reach out to him.
@EnigmatiCore You know, he could have avoided this whole mess by not breaking the law.
Ah, yes, the well known law of liberal protest acceptability.
Giant paper mache' Bushitler hung by the neck? "Street theater."
Obama as Hitler poster? Racism.
Getting too close to Landrieu may be unhygenic, but it's not against the law.
-XC
If Lou Grant were this kid's editor, he might pull him aside and say, 'Kid, you got spunk.'
Too cocky. He should have known that Landrieu's staff would be harder to bluff than your typical ACORN clock watchers.
Heh, Monty... now he's scolding them...
Now he's accusing them of being hypocrits...
Now he's saying the partisanism wasn't his fault...
I was going to ask if Obama intends to insult them, but it sounds like he already has.
So, was O'Keefe charged and if so, with what?
@Synova
"Heh, Monty... now he's scolding them..."
"Now he's accusing them of being hypocrits..."
"Now he's saying the partisanism wasn't his fault...
So, he's basically re-delivering his SOTU Address?
MM. That little talk from Obama is embarrassing. Full of lies and so fraudulent it's laughable.
The Republicans in Congress should tell him to stick it.
In any case... sorry for going off topic.
Without excusing whatever laws were broken...
The media response and sloppy assumptions made and reported are interesting.
He's stating his position. They state theirs. That's insults? You're nuts. This is the most interesting political event in years... and you react like that?
By the way, here is a better link, at C-Span. MSNBC cut off the thing before the Q&A. It starts at minute 22 or so...
Seems like O'Keefe did something stupid here, but the more interesting aspect is how the media jumped on the story. MSNBC actually sent that hack Shuster to New Orleans to report on it and BigGovernment has a amazing take down of Shuster's bias. It is just the latest example of of how MSM is obviously biased against conservatives. The mostly ignored the ACORN story, but jumped on O'Keefe at the sniff he did something wrong. Same with Edwards, who you might compare with the interminable coverage the MSM gave the reports that Congressman Foley had propositioned a boy page.
The disparate treatement of democratic and republican scandals is so obvious it should embarass any media executive who has any intellectual honesty and shame.
Another example is the climategate stuff. The bias just shows up everyday day.
The Big Government and Breitbart take down of Shuster is particularly good becaue Shuster was stupid enought to tweet his true feelings about O'Keefe being guilty and headed to jail, and then send an email to Breitbart claiming he had no dog in the fight and was impartial.
MSNBC kept Shuster on the story, although allegedly talked to him about the tweets. A netword with integrity would have fired him. But then they keep Olberman on every night.
"The public will judge whether reporters who can’t get their facts straight have the credibility to question my integrity as a journalist." - O'Keefe
He's not appropriate for membership among the gossiping classes.
O'Keefe typed: The government has now confirmed what has always been clear:
Which government? The most recent US government statement I can find was about charging O'Keefe with two felonies.
Plus I've long been wary of self-serving statements made by politicians:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sh163n1lJ4M
He accuses the media of journalistic malpractice. The media have been committing this tort for years.
I agree with FLS, unless the government makes a statement, the only thing we know are what O'keefe was charged with- a trespassing on steroids statute.
O'Keefe went fishing for minnows and ended up hooking the whale.
The same MSM that for months looked the other way on the ACORN story, rushed to judge O'Keefe faster than you could say Ipad.
On the other hand, back at this post our friend Alpha went off half-cocked, as usual.
I think O'Keefe was trying too hard, but he definitely had the right idea, namely, to call Senator Landrieu to account.
The same MSM that for months looked the other way on the ACORN story, rushed to judge O'Keefe faster than you could say Ipad.
You mean for months the MSM flogged a completely edited and fabricated bullshit "sting" operation from this little prick? Why yes.
The pimp costume? Bogus. They never wore those costumes into an ACORN office.
Prostitute and pimp? Bogus. O'Keefe posed as the boyfriend tying to protect her from a pimp.
ACORN helping with child trafficking? Bogus. ACORN called the police immediately after these shit weasels left the office.
Suckers.
Hubris is a bipartisan issue. O'Keefe tried to punk Landrieu but got snarled in his own ambitions....This is a crime of sorts, but in my hierarchy of crimes I would put it lower than transporting minors for purposes of prostitution. O'Keefe's zeal to nail Landrieu looks overdone--so does MSNBC's presentation of the case against O'Keefe....I'm sympathetic to O'Keefe and hostile to MSNBC, but O'Keefe was the one who broke the law.
Like I said the other day, this has misdemeanor [at worst for O'Keefe] written all over it.
This may have been a scheme cooked up by Breitbart to highlight MSM treatment and interest in a dreaded conservative activist [O'Keefe] vs. the scummy little Dem agency called ACORN.
PhonyGate
Toldja
wv = "morti" The mem is dead.
What a douche.
He's quite well-spoken for a mere child.
Muckraking from the right.
Weren't the original muckrakers charged with crimes, too?
I see parallels.
The public's right to know should trump any private individual's rights, especially when they are supposedly acting as public representatives.
If I were on the jury, that would be the case I would make to fellow jurors.
"This may have been a scheme cooked up by Breitbart to highlight MSM treatment and interest in a dreaded conservative activist [O'Keefe] vs. the scummy little Dem agency called ACORN."
I can't even imagine this being cooked up by Breitbart. It's got "drunk frat boy" written all over it.
There was certainly an effort to connect this to Breitbart through some sort of money trail (media companies receiving billions of dollars from the feds should not attempt to make this connection) and I sure don't blame Breitbart for focusing on the MSM and their reaction, even if it wasn't such a huge tempting target, he still is entitled to defend himself.
In private, though, I would expect a head slap and severe chewing out.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. You only show up at someone's office with wire hangers to do one of two things: (1) perform a free-lance abortion or (2) wiretap the phones.
As Mary Landrieu is no longer fertile, we must assume these gentlemen arrived to bug the phones.
Here is the link to Shuster's lies and takedown by Breitbart (although neither is a particularly appealing character - at least Breitbart seems honest and Shuster is clearly dishonest):
http://biggovernment.com/2010/01/28/how-david-shuster-lied-to-get-me-to-appear-on-msnbc/
Here's how I'm guessing it went down - they showed up in goofy uniforms that said "telephone repair" on the back and made a big show of asking if the phones were working. When the receptionist said "yeah, they're working" they kept the schtick going. I'm sure they did nothing morally wrong just as they didn't when they surreptitiously recorded the criminals at ACORN but they probably did something technically illegal in which case the Senator can be expected to ask for complete prosecution.
Garage - do you ever provide citations for any of the claims you make?
Yes, read the link.
"I've said it before and I'll say it again. You only show up at someone's office with wire hangers to do one of two things: (1) perform a free-lance abortion or (2) wiretap the phones."
I'd suggest you think about it again rather than say it again. There are quite a few other possibilities including the one claimed. Wire hangers to tap an unknown line?. Unless they had the actual required equipment to bug, they were not there for that. Pretty easy to prove.
Althouse is wrong: there's no "apparently" about the misreporting. What almost bloggers and MSM reporters said the first day was wrong, and they couldn't even bother to read a brief PDF file.
Please see my discussion here. Think of this event like a drill in which everyone freaks out, runs the wrong way, and shows how much trouble we're in given our current commentariat/media.
James O'Keefe epitomizes the intellectual capacity of the new and improved tea bagger wing nut GOP.
And I love the judge making the little man stay at home while they wait to file charges. When was the last time you heard something like that about a 25 year old man?
as for this:
@EnigmatiCore "You know, he could have avoided this whole mess by not breaking the law."
Expat: "Ah, yes, the well known law of liberal protest acceptability."
What does a "protest" have to do with any of this? Are you saying this creep and his numbnut buddies were in the midst of a "protest" of some kind when arrested?
Get fucking real...
I hate to state the obvious, but you don't "bug" a phone any more. At least not like you did in 1968.
The phones in her office (it is hard to see) look like VOIP phones. I'd have guessed Avaya if forced. In any case they communicate to a server via IP.
So you can't really tap a recorder in-line. And you can't put a "bug" in the handset.
Did O'k have a computer or a line analyzer with him?
-XC
If you're gonna say The Government has now confirmed... on a blog, it would have more believability -- to me, at least, a cynic -- if there was something called a link. Because, you know, anyone can say anything on a blog.
P.S. I tweeted about what the government was actually saying around 3pm Pacific on Tuesday, a few hours after the story broke. If the timezones here are -2 hours, my comment (do a find here) was about 3:30pm Pacific. I then reposted that comment on another thread here. I also posted several comments at the Atlantic, volokh.com, and other sites.
Only that evening did Breitbart start saying the same thing, and only the next day did it get picked up by r/w bloggers.
garage -
Did YOU actually read the link?
Even in the severely redacted portions that ACORN publishes in its own defense, it's absolutely clear that Giles is attempting to set up a a house of prostitution in a house that she wants ACORN to get. There's no debating or getting around that.
They also make several provably false assertions about having called the police and having correct tax advice....The tape is quite clear that in at least one office Giles is counseled on how to describe prostitution as anything but.
Even ACORN itself can't defend what ACORN did. How many times has ACORN had to "correct" what they said only 24 hours before...It was only one office...Oh, maybe there were more....They were turned out...OK, maybe they weren't turned out....We didn't help them...OK, we LOOKED like we helped them but we were just kidding....
Oh, come on now...Are you REALLY this stupid or are you just playing stupid on the internet?
Your credibility in citing ACORN's self-serving defense and claiming that it shows something it absolutely doesn't? ZERO
You're just embarrassing yourself. Stop.
This is the most interesting political event in years
Monty, I agree with you on that. Great television. If this were done on a weekly or monthly basis, I truly believe it would revolutionize the political process in this country - the 24 hour news channels, talk radio and assorted pundits would not have the upper hand on telling the American people what to think; it would decrease their influence. Imagine if the actual players were seen in the actual back and forth process on a regular basis - I believe Americans would stay as politically involved all the time as much as they do in Presidential Campaign Years.
Jeremy -
Every time you open your mouth you embarrass yourself.
It's not uncommon to release a suspect to someone's custody - especially when little or no bail has been provided as security against their flight.
If you're going to laugh at something, look in the mirror. It's far more amusing than anything else you're going to see all day.
wv: unbra - when the breasts go commando
i love the local wing nut pack, trying their best to defend this idiot, based on the fact that he really wasn't trying to "wiretap" the phone lines...he was just...oh, you know...just trying to do something else.
there were all kinds of initial reports filed, but the bottom line is this: if he and his numbnut crew are charged, it's not going to be a walk in the park.
what they did was illegal...and if this was a group of "liberals" who were caught in mccain's office you fools would be screaming to high heaven, asking for mandatory jail time and a thorough investigation.
and i notice no one here appears to care about Andrew Breitbart (who served as an editor for The Drudge Report) -- and who was paying O'Keefe a salary to come up with sensational stories involving liberal targets, while at the same time saying he had no idea what the creep was doing??
if this was a liberal...you'd be bitching and whining...well, never mind...you do that all the time anyway.
jim - the bail amount is $10,000.
are you actually saying that most people who are arrested and this kind of bail is required, are ordered to stay with their mommy and daddy?
get your head out of your ass.
Did YOU actually read the link?
Every bit of it. See the report here from the attorney general of Mass.
Even in the severely redacted portions that ACORN publishes in its own defense, it's absolutely clear that Giles is attempting to set up a a house of prostitution in a house that she wants ACORN to get. There's no debating or getting around that.
Yes, Giles tried, and failed, moron! They called the police in both San Diego and San Bernadino. Maybe that's why there aren't any charges filed against ACORN? I love how you say Breitfart had to "redact the video in his defense". What else you can you expect but classic ratfucking from a Drudge flunkie.
Synova said...
Saying your phones have been "jammed" isn't the same thing as saying they are broken. To me it implies that there are way too many calls coming in for the system to handle.
I think part of O'Keefe's attempted sting was to show that the phones weren't "jammed".
Landrieu says the phones are jammed with calls. Video tape shows no phones are ringing. Therefore the phones must be 'broken'.
It sounds like he got a little too carried away with the impersonation schtick, and should have gone for the 'full Mooore' (ala Rodger and Me) ambush instead.
garage -
I didn't say that Breitbart redacted. In fact, to this day a number (I don't if all) of the ENTIRETY of the tapes - unedited - are available at Breitbart's site.
.I explicitly DID say that ACORN provides a couple of sentences here and there in an attempt to claim that it was representative of the entirety of the conversation which the tapes showed that it clearly wasn't. So there's FAIL #1 for you.
Giles didn't FAIL. The tapes clearly show that she didn't. You represent that ACORN's PR statement is some sort of be all end all argument. FAIL #2
The attorney general of Massachussetts is Martha Coakley. Is your memory that short that you should have forgotten so quickly who she is? Your link is to an ACORN-funded, ACORN-staffed "report" on their wrongdoing which does its best to claim they didn't know what was happening. And it even fails by that miserable yardstick.
It's not an independent report by: 1) a government agency which you falsely claimed it was, 2) wasn't even from Massachussetts where no taping (that we know of) took place, so that another falsehood, 3) wasn't even indepedent in any way shape or form, so that's yet another attempt at misrepresentation on your part. It's just an extension of the self-serving PR effort by ACORN.
How many lies and misrepresentations are you prepared to propagate here in defense of the indefensible?
You are really descending into a deeply embarrassing hole. Really. Stop. Stop now.
garage -
And the next time you call someone a "moron," you should really be sure that it's not you who's playing the fool first.
jeremy -
$10K is chump change for a bail amount. If you weren't living in your mother's basement, you'd know that.
When you can't get past first base on your facts, then you really should return to the minor leagues of posting. Isn't there a dKos diary that's missing a commenter somewhere?
you can't put a "bug" in the handset.
Why not? A bug for a VOIP phone would likely have to have its own transmitter, but no big deal.
it's absolutely clear that Giles is attempting to set up a a house of prostitution in a house that she wants ACORN to get. There's no debating or getting around that.
I agree. As a potential procuress and prostitute, Hannah should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
The trouble with the ACORN sting is that the the only brothels -- whether staffed by children or adults -- they have facilitated are the O'Keefe-Giles ones. The O'Keefe-Giles sting is like the Ruby Ridge one, where the only shotgun barrels Weaver cut off were for the government agent.
Jim
Just stop.
I didn't say that Breitbart redacted. In fact, to this day a number (I don't if all) of the ENTIRETY of the tapes - unedited - are available at Breitbart's site.
Yes you did say "redacted" anyone that can read can see it. I copy and pasted your paragraph. Breitbart has refused to release the unedited tapes. Jesus you are dumb. See page 11 of the report
"The unedited videos have never been made public. The videos that have been released
appear to have been edited, in some cases substantially, including the insertion of a substitute".
As far whether or not conservatives would be screaming if this was a liberal. I seem to remember the Leftists here and elsewhere jumping to the defense of the kid who hacked Palin's email. That he didn't do anything bad, etc., etc. Despite the fact that it was a blatant federal crime.
When it was originally thought that O'Keefe might have been attempting wiretapping, the dextrosphere was abuzz with condemnations of such stupidity. Where exactly are the condemnations of what that kid did to Palin's emails?
Your situational ethics would be amazing if there were any indication you had anything approaching an ethics code - which you have shown over and over again you don't.
But feel free to fall back on your old standby of the obscene ad hominem...it is, after all, the only thing at which you've ever shown yourself to be proficient.
Obama kicks GOP ass:
And so effective was the president that Fox News cut away from the broadcast 20 minutes before it ended.
Shocking.
1. He chastised Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) for calling his economic agenda radical and poked fun at the GOP's own platform. "I am not an ideologue, I'm not," he said. "It doesn't make sense if somebody could tell me, 'You could do this cheaper and get increased results,' then I would say, 'Great.' The problem is, I couldn't find credible economists who could back up the claims that you just made."
2. He rebuked a questioner who insisted that the monthly deficit is higher now than Bush's annual deficit. "That's factually just not true," he said. "And you know it's not true."
3. He lampooned Republican lawmakers seated in front of him for portraying his health care legislation as "some Bolshevik plot."
4. He mocked Republicans for railing against the stimulus package and then showing up at "the ribbon-cuttings for some of these important projects in your communities."
There's nothing like watching a bunch or GOP windbags getting their asses handed to them.
garage -
I said ACORN's severly redacted...
Do I really need to educate you on the English language and how to read for comprehension?
As far as ACORN's further statement that the unedited videos have never been released, it's just another provably false statement. They have been. They've been on Breitbart's website since September. You've had 4 months to find them. Do your homework before embarrassing yourself again.
Please note that even Jeremy agrees with my assessment of Pres. Obama's speech to the Republican caucus.
This was *not* an example of Obama making a genuine effort to open a dialog or work with the opposition.
Jimmy Cracked Corn - You really need to read more and talk less.
Trying to use some silly Palin email hacking job (does anybody even remember?) to defend the wing nuts here trying to make this O'Keefe fool into some kind of champion of the right is laughable at best.
This is just a spoiled little brat who's getting paid to stir up shit...and he's so dumb he got himself caught...and can anybody believe how incredibly stupid these people were...dressing up as telephone repair people, with no credentials, and then video taping themselves doing it?
This give a whole new meaning to the word: D-U-H.
One thing's for sure...he didn't know what he was doing would result in this.
"The O'Keefe-Giles sting is like the Ruby Ridge one, where the only shotgun barrels Weaver cut off were for the government agent."
But not like the Ruby Ridge one, in that no one was murdered by the government for showing a disregard for the law.
I said ACORN's severly redacted...
So in your view, ACORN was the party that redacted the tapes, and Breitbart has posted all the unedited tapes on his site?
Jeremy -
Obama talks a lot...Where's the mystery in that? You should know by now that just because Obama says something it doesn't make it true...or that it even has even a casual relationship to the truth.
When you can produce the tape of him condemning Pelosi and Reid for their attacks on Republicans, or of him retracting his invitation to Republicans to oppose him with the arrogant dismissal: "I won. I'll trump you on that," or that both he and Democrats have been blatantly lying about Republicans offering alternative policies, or any of the hundred other things that he flat out lies about even to this day, then I'll take your "ooooh...Obama really got them." seriously.
Just because Obama is lying today in the same way he lied yesterday isn't exactly news.
Synova - when someone of intelligence is forced to communicate with people who are really only interested in saying no or bitching and whining, it sometimes calls for an explanation.
Republican aides are already whining about how they should have never allowed the cameras because president obama came off so well and made the GOPer's look like fools.
one of my most favorite comments via president obama has to be:
*He mocked Republicans for railing against the stimulus package and then showing up at "the ribbon-cuttings for some of these important projects in your communities."
if it's such a bad idea...why show up at the ribbon cuttings?
very funny...
garage -
You're either being intentionally obtuse or you actually are that dense.
ACORN's little PR release that you swallowed hook, line and sinker (thereby displaying the complete lack of critical thinking skills) excerpts a sentence or two here and there and tries to build a case which simply doesn't exist.
It redacts by omission the entirety of everything showing their wrongdoing.
Therefore, my forumulation "ACORN's severely redacted...."
Tomorrow's lesson will include counting to 10 and reciting the entirety of the alphabet...no fair using cheat sheets....Are you sure you're up for it?
Since Obama is from Hawaii, I assume he can swim. Because he and his presidency are barely staying above water.
Landrieu says the phones are jammed with calls. Video tape shows no phones are ringing. Therefore the phones must be 'broken'.
The complaints about not getting through to her office go back a few weeks; were there people not being able to get through the day O'Keefe was in her office?
Jim - you saying president obama is lying means nothing. (remember the guys from the previous administration telling us all about those nasty WMD? NOW that's lying.)
your drift is nothing more than the same te bagger wing nut drivel anyone can hear on a nightly basis via beck, hannity, limbaugh and others...but at least they they get paid to say it.
you're just blathering on because you can't substantiate your arguments through objective or factual evidence.
Am I the only one who's noticed that Garage has absolutely lost it over the last two months?
Formerly witty and wrong, now he's just ascerbic, bitter, flailing, grasping, desperate and wrong.
Losing, and the prospect of continued losses, have not been kind to his attitude or outlook.
Come back from the brink, Garage. You used to be engaging.
The first thing Obama did [and he did it wrong bigtime} was ignore the economy for two months [Nov 08 to Jan-09] and let Pelois write the Spendulus.
That big f-up told me Obama was clueless- he had a huge problem and he failed to even step up to the plate and take a swing at it.
Obama is disengaged. Obama lacks the ability to prioritize. Obama is deluded in how an economy works and how consumers react. Obama has a playbook with one play in it....it says "profit bad, demonize someone, capitalism bad, the American game of life has always been rigged and is unfair, govt is good, more and more govt is even better".
ACORN's little PR release that you swallowed hook, line and sinker (thereby displaying the complete lack of critical thinking skills) excerpts a sentence or two here and there and tries to build a case which simply doesn't exist.
ACORN got their "PR release" from an independent report who analyzed the tapes. Did you read it? The report clearly states the unedited tapes have never been released. If the unedited versions were released, they could have analyzed them! Unbelievable. You are one dense man.
AJ -
He got zero bounce from his SOTU. That's almost unheard of for a president to get absolutely nothing. He's stuck under water at a sub-50% approval rating, and as his post-speechifying approval ratings are showing: people have stopped listening to him.
Jeremy, again... I agree with you.
I realize that blows your little mind, but clearly we're in absolute agreement that Obama was not actually reaching out but was scolding, mocking, and pretty much calling names.
The only difference in our assessment of these undisputed actions and attitudes is that you think they're groovy and I think they reveal a snotty jack-ass.
ACORN had an "Independent report"??
Stop it Garage, you are killing me!
And yes, it was Acorn who released tapes but with no sound and the tapes were edited [i.e the really good juicy criminal parts were left out].
garage -
You just can't help yourself, can you?
That report wasn't independent. It was run by ACORN cronies. A fact which was pointed before they ever began their "investigation." The second they named their "independent reviewers," every one of them was shown to have intimate ties to ACORN.
Citing anything they have to say isn't any more credible than ACORN's original claim that they were going to name an "independent review" panel to review their operations.
I notice how easily you slipped over your flat-out lies about the provenance of that report in the first place. Twice lied about, and the actual source proven to be ACORN hacks in the third instance. How much deeper are you going to dig this hole?
But if you want to go beating that dead horse, you go ahead. And as far as dense goes, I'm pretty sure you've got that covered so I'll leave you to it.
"The complaints about not getting through to her office go back a few weeks; were there people not being able to get through the day O'Keefe was in her office?"
It does seem to be all stupidly pointless.
"Giant paper mache' Bushitler hung by the neck? "Street theater.""
True. Street theater that makes sensible people roll their eyes.
"Obama as Hitler poster? Racism."
The racism tripe is annoying and generally indicative of a lazy, week mind throwing it out.
"Getting too close to Landrieu may be unhygenic, but it's not against the law."
Also true.
But he wasn't getting too close to Landrieu. He was tampering with the phones. That happens to be against the law, unlike giant papier mache puppets and reducto ad Hitlerum.
Jim - you have your head firmly buried up your ass...as usual:
Gallup 1/27/10
"Across all presidents," they report, "the average change in approval has been less than a one percentage-point decline.
(Gallup's report includes a table showing the level of presidential approval measured immediately before and after the last 27 State of the Union addresses.)
Synova -
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Obama has the emotional maturity of a 14-year old boy.
The first time I said it, I thought "Maybe I've gone too far, and I'll have to wind up eating those words."
But in the ensuing months, he has done absolutely nothing to make me even consider changing that evaluation. If anything, he has only reinforced it further.
With only 59 votes in the Senate, he NEEDS Republicans to advance his agenda. But still he can't stop with the playground games of name-calling. He can't help himself. He thinks if he bullies them long enough and hard enough, they'll just fall in line.
He's never dealt with serious opposition before in his life, and it's showing.
I was just telling my wife the other night that Obama thought he was elected king, not president. He truly doesn't understand why people don't just do what he wants - he won, after all. Don't they have to do what he wants?
The foot-stomping temper tantrums are getting old, and it's too bad for us all that he simply isn't grown-up enough to know how to stop throwing them.
Synova - here's a suggestion: much like the comments i post (that most here whine about on a constant basis, yet appear to be reading and responding to...on a constant basis)...why not listen to president obama, whether he's giving a speech, conducting a town hall meeting...or handing the GOP fools their asses on a plate?
none of them had a single reasonable response to president obama's challenges, they all just stood their with their dicks in their hand.
and, as usual, when he asked for alternatives or actual solutions...he got what he and americans always get from the GOP: NADA.
most of the wing nuts here love to whine and bitch, but you never hear a peep relating to how they think mccain and princess sarah would have handled matters.
nor do they offer up anything of substance to counter what president obama has been doing over the first year of his tenure.
oh, and when you get around to actually reading something:
THE ECONOMY GREW 5.7% IN FOURTH QUARTER
There was a speech today?
Huh.
"I think they reveal a snotty jack-ass."
and a clearly inexperienced leader. Who will fail due to poor leadership skills and arrogance.
EC -
"He was tampering with the phones."
Tampering with the phones means that he did something to them to change their functioning.
There's no allegation that they did anything of the sort.
He may well have, but there are no facts that he did. The feds aren't alleging that he did, and he's not claiming that he did.
Do you have some facts that everyone else isn't privvy to?
Jim "I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Obama has the emotional maturity of a 14-year old boy."
post your resume and accomplishments so we can compare...jimmy.
you must be an incredibly accomplished individual...so please allow us to compare what you've done over the course of your life...to president obama.
duh.
Jeremy -
"and, as usual, when he asked for alternatives or actual solutions...he got what he and americans always get from the GOP: NADA."
Now that's just a flat-out lie. One which Obama himself was forced to refute today when specifically asked about repeated assertions from the Democrats in Congress, from Obama himself, and from others.
You better get your facts straight. For a guy who claims to know what Obama said today, you evidently missed the part where he was specifically asked about the claims that Republicans haven't put forward any solutions of their own and he was forced to admit that they had.
The House leadership even talked to reporters about that central revelation afterward. I guess you must have missed all that while you were reading your talking points emails....
FAIL
jeremy -
The emotional maturity of a 14-year old should be a concept with which you are intimately aware. If not, try enrolling in Self Awareness 101. Take it pass/fail though, a bad grade would only drag down your GPA even further.
It's interesting, Jeremy, that Monty had a different take on the speech than you or I do. He seemed to think that the exchange was respectful and represented progress.
Jimmy - (as to "tampering with the telephones") - "There's no allegation that they did anything of the sort."
why did they want to get into the telephone closet...to whack off?
show each other their pee-pees?
better access to the internet
are you really this dense?
FBI Report:
They then told the staffer they needed to perform repair work on the main phone system and asked where the telephone closet was located. The staffer showed the men to the main General Services Administration office on the 10th floor, and both went in. There, a GSA employee asked for the men’s credentials, after which they stated they left them in their vehicle.
Even if one chooses to accept Creepy O’Keefe’s explanation, his crack team of knuckle-dragging wing nuts still appears to have broken the law by gaining admission to a federal office under false pretenses and attempting to access the phone system, possibly with “willful and malicious” intent to interfere with it.
As in:
Federal Statute 1362:
Whoever willfully or maliciously injures or destroys any of the works, property, or material of any radio, telegraph, telephone or cable, line, station, or system, or other means of communication, operated or controlled by the United States, or used or intended to be used for military or civil defense functions of the United States, whether constructed or in process of construction, or willfully or maliciously interferes in any way with the working or use of any such line, or system, or willfully or maliciously obstructs, hinders, or delays the transmission of any communication over any such line, or system, or attempts or conspires to do such an act, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
jeremy -
I'll be the first to admit this is speculation; however:
It appears that the purpose of the visit was Landrieu's prevarication about her phone system being "jammed for weeks." Since they attempted to call her phone line and still couldn't get through even though there was no one at the reception desk fielding calls and that the lines were open, my guess is that they wanted to see the phone closet to prove that the lines had intentionally been rerouted so that angry voters could not get through to express their dissatisfaction.
I will readily admit that this is based on O'Keefe's statement and on what basic facts are available in the public arena. Unlike you and others who have already decided what they were doing without actually knowing a single thing, I am willing to hear evidence that he was up to something more nefarious.
However, the low bond amount and what charges have been filed to date are more in line with my own supposition than they are with yours.
But I suppose 14-year old boys are more inclined to want to show each other their pee pees, I can understand why that would be the first thought that popped into your head.
Are you sure you're not an Obama adviser?
he NEEDS Republicans to advance his agenda
Republicans have been hoping he'd fail since Inauguration Day. A year later he's starting to lose some of his phlegmatism.
Synova - i think the exchange was long in coming and anything is better than the standard "no" bullshit via the GOPers.
i just thought it was fun to watch them getting trounced by president obama.
they're so used to throwing out lies and distortions, it was interesting to see the president being able to refute the garbage firsthand.
and please, i understand how much you dislike the president, and that no matter what he says or does you're going to bitch about it...but how much credence can i give someone who voted for george w. bush...twice?
Jim - please explain what this twit is doing at a u.s. senator's office, doing what he was doing in the first place?
why are you and others defending this idiot?
Jim - i'm still waiting for your resume and accomplishments for my comparison to the president.
do you even have a resume?
or an accomplishment?
my guess is that they wanted to see the phone closet to prove that the lines had intentionally been rerouted
And how is a philosophy major going to be able to tell?
While a philosophy background is sufficient for vandalism, they'd need a Greg Morris to be able to see if lines had been rerouted.
fls -
"Republicans have been hoping he'd fail since Inauguration Day. A year later he's starting to lose some of his phlegmatism."
This is the guy who gave the finger to both Hillary and McCain during the campaign and laughed at his own cleverness when he did so.
He made disparaging remarks about Palin, and tittered like a schoolgirl about funny he was.
This has been his MO from the get-go. This isn't new. He's always been a pedantic fool. The only difference is that more people are starting to call him out for being what he's always been: a child who resorts to playground tactics when he doesn't get his way.
So now you're backing off? Trying to tone it down before someone links and mentions *again* that Obama was forced to admit his own and the Democrat's distortions that the Republicans had presented no ideas and no alternatives when they clearly had?
And you're back to demanding credentials from other people when yours are only borrowed from Obama due to your insistence on bending over for him?
Is that the classic description of a sycophant?
The Q & A must not have been going well for FOX, they had to cut it off halfway thru.
Jeremy,
Regarding the GDP: 3.5% of the growth was due to businesses slowing down the liquidation of their inventory. This is the biggest chunk of GDP this has accounted for since 1987. This is a boost that's not likely to be repeated any time soon.
Removing that temporary boost means that the economy actually only grew by about 2.2%. Of that 2.2% only 1.4% of it was due to consumer spending, which grew slower than was predicted despite being affected by Christmas spending (which was down by .3%).
Although if you don't believe me about the weakness of the 5.7% number just read the Washington Post (hardly a hotbed of conservative apologists): here
"Many economists agree and warn against reading too much into a jump in GDP figures for the last three months of 2009. Ed Yardeni, president of Yardeni Research, said that even if there were no change in final sales of goods, the GDP figures would show a 4 percent increase simply because businesses that were emptying their warehouses a year ago are now buying enough goods to keep stockpiles steady."
I guess my point is, like the quote says, don't read too much into the numbers and don't forget that the last set were revised downward quite a bit.
fls, I really don't think that Republicans hoped Obama would fail for the sake of failing. Most people seemed to want to try to give him a chance, to hope that he'd do the right things.
Obviously, from day one, there were items on his agenda that people opposed. I don't think there is or should be any requirement that anyone whatsoever must cooperate with measures they think are bad ideas. Any one with the least bit of conservative or libertarian inclinations wasn't ever going to hope that Obama *succeeded* with his redistribution ideas, for example. And the bailouts and takeovers were shocking. Anything that has even a whiff of nationalized health care has a strong and long standing opposition. People can't be expected to suddenly decide that it doesn't matter after all because they'd seem churlish to fail to support a new President.
Obama got a lot of Republicans to sign on to the emergency stimulus bill. There was some push for even a little bit of accountability and focus and differentiation between what was stimulus and what was personal pet projects. That is hardly hoping that someone fails or opposing him just for the sake of opposing him.
As for congress... Obama said and did some things that were pretty rude, but the biggest issue there is probably Pelosi and her assumption and wielding of power. It is an easy choice to make to with hold a vote when a measure is going to pass in any case and you can't even use your vote to force concessions because your vote is simply not needed.
jayne -
And let's not forget this is a preliminary GDP number. Remember that 3.5% quarterly growth that was originally reported for the previous quarter?....Yeah, it's been revised down to 1.5%...2% GDP growth just up and disappeared mysteriously after Obama got all the mileage he could after trying to take credit for the temporary boost of Cash-for-Clunkers which simply moved up demand rather than boosted it.
After Obama gets all the mileage out of this number that he can, look for that number to be quietly revised downward a couple of times before we get to the actual number as well.
This is hardly the first time he and his administration have wildly overstated the initial reports and then did a Friday dump some time later with the actual numbers.
It's hardly unusual to have to revise the original projections, but the numbers and size of the revisions have led more than one economist to speculate that they are being toyed with on the front end.
Between this seeming propagandistic reporting of the numbers by the Obama administration and his eerie "5-year plan" during the SOTU to double exports (with absolutely zero concrete proposals to back up the assertion), is it any wonder that people are comparing him with "the Bolsheviks" as he whined about earlier today?
Somebody get Obama a tissue. Haven't you heard, "the media is against [him]." It's not his fault. He inherited the budgets and TARP that he voted for as a senator, so stop blaming him.
"Just the facts...."
garage -
Right before they "cut it off" - Obama was forced to admit that he and other Democrats had been lying all along about the Republicans not having any ideas and being the "Party of No."
Given how that shoots a hole in the entire narrative that he and the DNC have been trying to sell the public for the last year, I'd have to say that things were going pretty well for the Republicans at the time they "cut off."
Oh...and by the way...it wasn't a Fox camera in the meeting. It was a press pool camera.
But hey, you never let the facts get in the way of a good argument before...Why start now?
"Tampering with the phones means that he did something to them to change their functioning.
There's no allegation that they did anything of the sort."
Jim,
If I cut the cord to a phone, I have changed its functioning. Ergo, I have tampered with the phone.
Webster's 2a entry-- "to interfere so as to weaken or change for the worse".
fls -
O'Keefe wasn't the only one there. You know that. Trying to distort the facts to suit your narrative isn't going to work. There were 3 other guys there, and if I'm not mistaken, one of them works in networking.
Kind of takes all the heat out of your snark now, doesn't it?
It appears that the purpose of the visit was Landrieu's prevarication about her phone system being "jammed for weeks." Since they attempted to call her phone line and still couldn't get through even though there was no one at the reception desk fielding calls and that the lines were open
Jim, where do you see that O'Keefe tried to call and couldn't get through, that there was no one taking calls, and the lines were open? None of that is in O'Keefe's statement, linked to here. Also, where do you find evidence that Landrieu's statement that her office lines were "jammed for weeks" is a lie?
Jim
You win buddy.
EC -
So you're claiming that O'Keefe cut a cord? Really? Where does it say that he did?
The closest I've heard is that someone picked up a receiver and "manipulated it" which could be nothing more than pretending to do something with it.
Again, do you have some evidence to back up your claim or you just throwing out unfounded allegations?
It astounds me that anyone would defend ACORN at all after the constant stories of abuses that have surrounded them for years, bolstered by O'Keefe's indisputable proof. Why does such a poorly and possibly criminally run organization like ACORN that seeks to skirt the law defended at all?
I like that O'Keefe got indisputable evidence on ACORN abuses. But if he broke the law in this instance at Landrieu's Office, he should pay the penalty and do the time.
O'Keefe's scandal in Louisiana has absolutely nothing to do with the service he performed for this country in proving ACORN's illegitimacy.
I am more interested in why anyone would defend ACORN at all after the constant stories of abuses that have surrounded them for years?
Yea, and where do all these stories come from? ACORN is a shoddily run organization, the report I linked to blisters some of their practices. Tehy employ minimum wage employees for the most part, [in San Diego for instance, the person couldnt even speak english, and was just nodding "yes" to most of the questions] they aren't exactly swimming money if you can tell by their offices. These tapes were a complete farce, and real people got fired because of it, and they could have been completely defunded , hadn't a court overruled the congress cowardice. You can call them criminal, but you have almost no evidence of it. Let's see it.
Wow.
Jeremy and Garage & Co. are out on passes or something today.
garage,
did you watch the tapes?
I must let you win this round, my friend, as I am taking the wife to Urgent Care. After 3 days of fever and cough she finally consented to go (she hates doctors).Her sister just left after a 5 day visit and she had the last trails of pneumonia when she arrived. Imagine the fun I've had the last 7 days.
Enjoy the weekend. We shall spar another day, God willing.
Anyone here picking the Colts (sorry, Beth)?
"So you're claiming that O'Keefe cut a cord?"
Reading comprehension is not your strong suit, I see.
I did not say they cut her phone lines, or even attempted to do so.
I was showing how you don't understand the definition of the word tamper.
...ACORN is a shoddily run organization,...
Then they should not get one more red cent of tax payer money.
It astounds me that anyone would defend ACORN at all
They have helped the poor obtain housing, not white slavers set up brothels.
The Right fears ACORN because they register the poor to vote. The Right's message of lifting oneself up by one's bootstraps has little appeal to the shoeless, so ACORN voters align with the Democrats.
Who's the network dude? The only bio I can find is O'Keefe's.
"They have helped the poor obtain housing"
No, they've claimed to help the poor obtain housing.
As best I can tell, all they have really done is advocate for the election of 'progressives'.
Someone who equates progressive politics with helping the poor obtain housing might get confused by that.
Imagine what it must be like to be the President in a room full of Republicans. His entire life has been spent in the busom of the left, his every argument greeted with positive nods and praise, his very life cushioned by the academy. And now this...all these stupid people who don't get it. All these people pushing back against his splendid agenda. Horrible.
"The Right fears ACORN because they register the poor to vote. "
How dumb and f-ing lazy are these people if they need ACORN's help to register to vote?
And they are shoeless as well as dumb and f-ing lazy? Were you playing a violin when you typed that?
No, they've claimed to help the poor obtain housing.
And why not?
Here's a starter set of articles for you:
Homeownership Rescue
Homeowners who can't afford their mortgages can turn to nonprofit housing organizations for help.
http://www.shelterforce.org/article/print/733/
Saving Affordable Housing
Homesteading Program, Chicago
Single-Family Community Land Trust Housing
http://www.nhi.org/online/issues/90/homestead.html
Saving Affordable Housing
The Elements of Success
http://www.nhi.org/online/issues/90/success.html
The Battle in Brooklyn
New York ACORN’s deal with a major private developer to incorporate a higher-than-average number of affordable housing units could provide an unprecedented strategy for collaboration and partnership
http://www.nhi.org/online/issues/144/brooklynbattle.html
Struggling in the Crescent City
Grass-roots advocacy groups and community-advocacy organizations are taking the lead in restoring housing in New Orleans.
Tenants of the Marksdale project in Boston transformed a moderately deteriorated property into more than safe, decent affordable housing, while Denver's Mercy Housing Inc. (MHI) and Chicago's ACORN Housing Corporation (AHC) have dealt with seriously troubled housing. No person or organization was even willing to try to save the neighborhood AHC is attempting to save in our Chicago case study. MHI and AHC started with a disaster and made the housing safe, dry and affordable.
http://www.shelterforce.org/article/634/struggling_in_the_crescent_city/
Tenants of the Marksdale project in Boston transformed a moderately deteriorated property into more than safe, decent affordable housing, while Denver's Mercy Housing Inc. (MHI) and Chicago's ACORN Housing Corporation (AHC) have dealt with seriously troubled housing. No person or organization was even willing to try to save the neighborhood AHC is attempting to save in our Chicago case study. MHI and AHC started with a disaster and made the housing safe, dry and affordable.
http://www.nhi.org/online/issues/90/research.html
How dumb and f-ing lazy are these people if they need ACORN's help to register to vote?
I guess as dumb and fucking lazy as the Republicans who register their brethren in upscale malls around here.
The Right fears ACORN because it has morphed into the Plausible Deniability arm of the Democratic Party.
As in, it wasn't the Party's fault that more registered voters in Detroit than there are residents over the age of 18. It must be those pesky community organizers.
"...No person or organization was even willing to try to save the neighborhood AHC is attempting to save in our Chicago case study. MHI and AHC started with a disaster and made the housing safe, dry and affordable. .."
ACORN..experts at turning every $1.00 worth of government funding into $.75 worth of housing.
FLS:
So the Republicans also have some huge group like ACORN? and is it almost wholly funded with taxpayer money?
The Right fears ACORN because they register the poor to vote.
The poor people aren't the problem. It's the non-citizens and dead people we'd rather not see on the voter rolls. Although, personally I'm okay with Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck.
FLS,
I live in Chicago. I have never seen one neighborhood where ACORN did anything with troubled hopusing. I have worked in most of the worst areas in the city- on the streets. Sorry pal, yopu are believing the ficticious hype.
Jim, I'm still hoping for a link to what you read that answers my questions posted at 5:13 - I'm sure you found it somewhere and have good reason to say Landrieu is lying about her phones being busy, but I haven't seen evidence of that. And where does O'Keefe or one of his compatriots describe the scenario you detail?
beth -
1) It's simply not credible that a senator's lines were "jammed for weeks" when there have been no reports that any other senator has reported any such thing. Busy is one thing, "jammed" is another.
2) Here's the link you asked for.
It's the FBI affadavit which clearly states in Item #6 that one of them was holding the office phone in his hand while he tried to get through on cellphone and was still unable to reach Landrieu's phone.
If he was holding the phone in his hand, then by definition the office staff could not have been busy answering phones and there would have been no reason for his phone not to ring through.
Now, this isn't definitive proof, but given the facts as we know them at the moment, my speculation seems to fit most closely with what we do know.
As I said previously, I'm open to hearing evidence to the contrary. However, there isn't any support for any allegations of either wiretapping or tampering of the phone system by any of these young men.
It sounds to me like they wanted to prove what seems pretty obvious: Landrieu was ducking phone calls and had been ever since making her corrupt bargain for the rest of the country to pay for her state's free ride.
As others have pointed out elsewhere, this is the sort of stuff that 60 Minutes and investigative journalists do all the time, but I've yet to hear anyone calling for the arrest and jailing of any of them even though what they do breaks privacy laws, etc.
That being said, I think they could have made the same point without going through the dressing up as phony repairmen schtick - it unnecessarily exposed them to legal jeopardy. It might have been great political theater, but simply making phone calls and catching the office staff with open lines and the phones not ringing anyway would have made the point as well.
They apparently went for the "smoking gun" proof by asking to go the telephone closet so they could show the rewiring they suspected and get irrefutable proof of the phone shenanigans. It was a risky play, and if there are legal penalties to pay then they should pay them.
But all the jumping up and down about "Watergate" and "wire tapping" and "phone tampering" are pretty obviously merely posturing by political opponents.
beth -
I almost forgot the other link for you.
Here is O'Keefe's statement which says they were there to investigate Landrieu's fallacious claims about her phones being jammed.
From a narrowly technical point of view even accepting O'Keefe's version they did commit the offenses alleged in the affidavit I think.
They did misrepresent who they were when they walked in the building and announced they were from the phone company. If I walk in my local courthouse in a pizza-delivery uniform and try to get the clerks to say something stupid did I "fraudulently" gain entry? Well...I guess so but man that's lame.
They did interfere with the operation of the phone system - they got the receptionist to move away, picked up the receiver, fiddled with it, tried to call it, etc. While they were doing that he/she couldn't have answered any calls or used it, right? Interference with the operation of a phone system right there in black and white.
It is ticky-tack stuff, and I think they should have been chewed out rather than charged. But the elements of the crime(s) seem to be present. I don't think a responsible prosecutor would pursue this, and I don't think a federal judge would be pleased with it at all, and I seriously doubt you'd get a Louisiana jury to go along, but who knows? Maybe they had some sort of wiretapping gear with them, or a toner and tracer to identify the station cables and snips to "cut the lines" and all the rest, and maybe the FBI just needed time to get all that stuff evaluated and they'll hand down an indictment this week (my understanding is they have 10 days).
It is lame on many levels. It is juvenile pseudo shock journalism at the absolute lamest - they lied about their phones being busy! I'm shocked! The law enforcement reaction was overblown - a good ass-chewing is what was called for here not federal charges. The media reports were unprofessional.
Lameness of the year lottery tickets awarded for everyone involved.
I have worked in most of the worst areas in the city- on the streets.
Peter do you remember the combined funeral home and beauty school? This drives me crazy from time to time. It was a prime example of African-American enterprise , like the combination fish/record/barber shop I would pass -- I believe it was owned by a woman but googling does not help.
I used to pass it on the way to the Ryan L. It was just north of 79th as I recall but I may misremember and it was north of 87th or 95th. It was about as far west as Ashland, but again I can't swear to it.
Jim:
It's simply not credible that a senator's lines were "jammed for weeks" when there have been no reports that any other senator has reported any such thing. Busy is one thing, "jammed" is another.
Busy IS jammed. Call after call = jammed. The complaints about this came right after she'd made the deal for the $300 Medicaid money so that explains why HER lines, as opposed to those of "any other senator" were jammed. That's obvious.
If he was holding the phone in his hand, then by definition the office staff could not have been busy answering phones
That's a circular argument. He was holding the phone, so of course no staff was also holding it or answering it.
I've read O'Keefe's statement - again, you use the word "fallacious" when thus far, you have no evidence that Landrieu lied about her phones being overrun with calls a month ago. Lame.
Friday's FBI press release sure doesn't sound like the government's backing down from O'Keefe's charges.
Maybe he meant the Kuwaiti government?
Press Release
For Immediate Release
January 29, 2010
Washington D.C.
FBI National Press Office
(202) 324-3691
FBI’s Top Ten News Stories for the Week Ending January 29, 2010
New Orleans: Four Men Arrested for Entering Government Property Under False Pretenses for the Purpose of Committing a Felony
Joseph Basel, Robert Flanagan, James O’Keefe, and Stan Dai were charged in a criminal complaint with entering the New Orleans office of Senator Mary Landrieu. According to the complaint, several of the young men represented themselves as telephone repair technicians. They requested access to the main telephone on the office’s reception desk and tried to get into the telephone closet because they claimed they needed to make repairs.
I still want to know which of the Landrieugate Four was a networks specialist. Along with Philosophy major O'Keefe were Polisci majors Dai and Basel, and International Studies major Flanagan. In my experience few liberal arts majors even know which end of the soldering iron to hold.
They apparently went for the "smoking gun" proof by asking to go the telephone closet so they could show the rewiring they suspected and get irrefutable proof of the phone shenanigans.
Anyone know what callers are getting when they try Landrieu's office? Busy signal, reorder tone ("fast busy"), a message from the telco saying the call can't be completed?
It's pretty easy to get calls to go somewhere besides the receptionist's phone, without any visible evidence of "rewiring." All you really need is a voice mail system set up to answer all the incoming lines after zero rings. The "phone guy" term for this is "automated attendant."
You could also set it up to answer the line(s) dedicated to public calls while letting other lines ring through to phones (for example, some systems allow each phone to have its "own" number).
The point is, O'Keefe and crew were probably chasing a ghost and would never have been able to figure out why calls weren't getting through even if they hadn't been caught. I've got years of experience in the field and it still takes me a while sometimes.
Beth said... (replying to Jim) Busy IS jammed. Call after call = jammed.
My impression is if jammed = busy, then busy = *People on the phone answering other calls*. Or, with a nod to Mike, that their phone switch is routing the public office number to a dead-end while allowing calls dialed directly to unpublished numbers to ring through.
AFAIK, O'Keefe didn't film the staff busily answering non-stop calls from constituents. So either Landrieu is lying about the call volume, or her staffers weren't busy talking on the phone because they're doing something to avoid answering them.
O'Keefe should had avoided the 'repairman' schtick given the sensitivity of trying to obtain unauthorized access to communication equipment.
He could have gotten the same story by sweet talking someone into allowing him to use their office phone to make an *outbound* call ('Can I call a cab? my cell battery is dead'), which would have also been impossible if the phones were jammed with in-coming calls.
Der Hahn,
AFAIK the complaints about not getting through to Landrieu's office were weeks ago, at the height of the reaction to the health care bill debate - not now.
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