October 2011 Recent E-News: Can’t Crack Us
Posted October 17, 2011 in eNews
We were amused to read last Monday’s top story in the Huffington Post, titled “This Acorn Won’t Crack“. The story described a caller to our Cleveland office, dangling the bait of having “a lot of money” and trying to get our director, Amy Hanauer, to reveal a desire to release biased research. Maybe it was the offer of a lot of money or maybe it was the leading questions, but Hanauer asked some skeptical questions back and the caller soon hung up. It turned out he’d also tried, as HuffPo said, to “punk” our colleagues at the Economic Policy Institute. Some sleuthing revealed that the phony e-mail he provided was from a domain registered to Project Veritas, which was founded by James O’Keefe. O’Keefe, who is on probation (he pled guilty to a misdemeanor to avoid felony charges for wiretapping), is known for deceptively editing videos attempting to discredit ACORN, NPR, the Medicaid program, Planned Parenthood, the New Jersey Education Association, and public school administrators.
The story, which first broke in the Ohio blog Plunderbund, has since been seen on Daily Kos, Firedog Lake, Columbus Business First, Media Matters, and the Media Briefing.
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The Policy Matters Ohio Team