The Department of Justice Visited My Blog and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt

Back in August I posted a few videos of Rep. John Dingell's Town Hall on Health Care.  Over the next few days I wasn't surprised to see a few visits from House.gov and Senate.gov on my web site.  As you can see, near the bottom of my blog is a counter that tracks visits to this site.  I can't tell who visited, but I can see what I.P. address they were using.

Imagine my surprise that a few weeks later I see that someone from DOJ.gov logged onto my site.

That's right:  The Department of Justice.  Why would they be looking at my blog, a blog that was getting at that time an average of 50 visitors a day? Sure, I have been critical of the Obama Administration, but there has been nothing on this site that broke any laws in anyway.

Well, I may have found my answer.

The New Republic Online posted this story on October 6th:

Is the Department of Justice engaging in fraud, or is it simply trying to hide its propaganda? Those of you wondering how DOJ uses your tax dollars to enforce our nation’s laws might be interested to learn that Eric Holder has apparently hired former Democratic campaign bloggers to work at the department in what appears to be a secret propaganda unit. According to a story at The Muffled Oar website, the bloggers are housed in the Office of Public Affairs (the press office). Their job is to place “anonymous comments, or comments under pseudonyms, at newspaper websites with stories critical of the Department of Justice, Holder and President Obama.” One of the bloggers is former DNC and John Edwards staffer Tracy Russo, whose name was featured prominently on the department’s introduction of its new website on October 1.

 Matthew Miller Director of Public Affair at the Justice Department told the Washington Times:

"There is no 'blog squad'. There is Tracy [Russo] who handles online media.  It’s the policy of the office of public affairs to not post anonymous comments.  We have not seen any evidence that anyone does post comments, and if we did have evidence of that, people would no longer work here."

Mr. Miller countered accusations of the existence of a "blog squad" pointing to what he says is lack of evidence.

Except for the fact that the DOJ.gov was on my site back in August.  Now maybe I gained a fan from someone in Attorney General Holder's office, but considering it was a one time visit, I figure they were looking for something.

Are we seeing a trend develop in the Obama Administration?  First we read about employees working out of the White House to get artists to work with the National Endowment for the Arts to create propaganda that will "push" the President's agenda on health care.  Now we may have the Department of Justice scanning web sites for dissent against the policies of the White House.

What's next?    Stay Tuned....



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When Orchids Are Made Illegal, only Criminals Will Own Orchids.

We are all becoming criminals.  Here is yet another example of the Government overreaching its authority and criminalizing ordinary citizens who had no intention of breaking the law.

In 2006, Federal Agents burst through the door of the home Kathy and George Norris, 60 and 66 year old Grandparents of six grandchildren.  They ransacked the house, overturned drawers, emptied bookshelves, threw the Norris' belongings on the floor and searched their home.

Were these SWAT clothed agents from the FBI?  The ATF?  Homeland Security?

Nope.  They were from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service....and their mission:  Looking for illegal orchids.

That's right.  Orchids.  Seems that Mr. Norris, who owned a home-based business cultivating, importing and selling legal orchids, did the unthinkable:  he ordered perfectly legal orchids from a supplier overseas, but failed to fill out the necessary paperwork properly.  The result?  Mr. Norris spent two years in prison.

As Brian W. Walsh writes: 

The judge who sentenced George had some advice for the Norrises: “Life sometimes presents us with lemons.” Their job was to, yes, “turn lemons into lemonade.”

Never mind how difficult it is to run a successful lemonade stand when you’re a diabetic with coronary complications, arthritis and Parkinson’s disease serving time in a federal penitentiary. If only George had been a Libyan terrorist, maybe some European official would have lobbied to secure a health-based mercy release.

Common sense would tell you that a simple inquiry into the background of Mr. and Mrs. Norris would have shown that they were not smugglers, but simply two citizens that have done what many in Washington have done, filled out their paperwork improperly.  When a politician does this, its OK; when two grandparents do so, it means two years in a federal penitentiary.

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Speaking the Unspeakable: Rosemary's Baby Isn't "Good-Good"

Quick

Name three Roman Polanski films.  (Don't use IMDB.com)

Rosemary's Baby
Chinatown
and......

Thought so.  

These movies, plus many others in subtitles, seem to excuse this man of raping a 14 year old girl.  According to Whoopi Goldberg, it wasn't "Rape-rape".  Fellow cradle robber Woody Allen has come to Polanski's defense, as well as many other Hollywood directors and stars that seem to believe Polanski, being overseas, making movies, getting rich, enjoying Europe, winning awards, and generally being able to do his thing...has suffered enough while on the lam for running from the police for a crime he pled guilty to.

Debra Winger complains "the whole art world suffers" in such arrests.  I beg to differ. Polanski should be in prison for subjecting the movie viewing world to the abomination that is Rosemary's Baby, an absolutely horrible horror film.  I'm seen it twice hoping that after a second viewing it would get better.

It doesn't.

Weinstein Co. co-founder Harvey Weinstein, who is circulating the pro-Polanski petition said that people generally misunderstand what happened to Polanski at sentencing.  Apparently so does Weinstein, who forgets that Polanski pled guilty.

The LA Times has this passage from Peg Yorkin, founder of the Feminist Majority Foundation:

"It's bad a person was raped. But that was so many years ago. The guy has been through so much in his life. It's crazy to arrest him now. Let it go".

They sure don't make feminists the way they used to, huh?

Have you thought of a third yet?  (The correct answer is The Pianist or Frantic, actually Roman Polanski's Frantic).  I will give Polanski this, The Pianist was a very good film.  But it no way excuses the Hollywood elite from their obscene support of this rapist.  Running off to Europe to live your life is not how most people convicted of the same crime do their "time". Ask yourself two questions:  If this were you, how do you you think you would be treated?  Why should we hold "celebrities" to any different standard?

All Animals are Equal; Some Animals are More Equal than Others.

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5 Year Old Boy Catches 800lb Gator

The Hippo's Ass is taking a few days off to go fishing. I am heading Up North to Northern Lower Michigan for a weekend of hanging out with some old school buddies, sitting on the boat, drowning a few worms and maybe, just maybe, catching a Walleye or two. We have a rule though, "You Catch Em, You Clean Em."

Which leads me to this particular story.

Harvesting an alligator that's 20 times your size is a piece of cake, according to 5-year-old Simon Hughes. "Well, its pretty much simple," said Simon who caught the alligator.



Simon's father said Simon is a natural born hunter, so an 800 pound alligator was no match for him. "Well I my got my gun out and shot him," the 5 year old said laughingly.

Um...yeah.

Sometimes we just need to get away from the craziness and put all the worries behind us. Thoreau had the right idea: head into the woods near a pond and simplify, simplify.

Have a great weekend folks.

The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way.

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Killer Facebook Groups

 Is your baby a Facebook Hater or Lover?

The blog-o-sphere and the media (in their own little world) was all-a-buzz the other day when a poll on Facebook was discovered that asked if President Obama should be assassinated. Before it was removed, 700 people voted.

The Secret Service, we are told, has launched an investigation into who created the poll.   This didn’t stop bloggers and pundits from speculating if this was an outgrowth of the anger from conservatives and "teabaggers" toward the current Administration.  One commenter wrote:

It is truly amazing that no one ever considered doing anything this outrageous or disrespectful to Dubya, who was a much more inept Commander-In-Chief. His education credentials are bonafide, as opposed to Dubya who skated through school on the coattails of his father. And people have the nerve to think this is not racism?

A reader of the Huffington Post declared:  "Glenn Beck is partially responsible for this."

My personal opinion is the creator of the poll is a sock-puppet, phishing for just enough idiots to respond to the poll to deduce that all opposition to President Obama wants him dead. Had any of the reporters or bloggers actually used the search function on Facebook, they would have found several groups on the social networking site dedicated to killing, or wanting the death of, a political leader, particularly the death of one George W. Bush.

This group professes that We all Want To Kill George Bush  It has 427 members and has been on Facebook since 2007.

The "I Bet I Can find 1,000,000 People Who Wanted to Kill Bush Group has only 517 members.  Their description states:

Come on is this how u can share ur feelings about bush..
I think that we dont want to put bush in prison, we dont want to burn him, we dont want him to get burned.
(WE WANT TO SEE HIM FRI TO DEATH)That little basterd

Stating, "LEts kill the fukin guy !!!" (sic) the "I bet i can find more than 200 people hu (sic) wanna SHOOT DOWN GEORGE BUSH" has 64 members and has one of those trendy WANTED: For Crimes Against Humanity posters that you see at campus novelty shops, right next to the I Heart Che T-shirts.

This particular group "If George Bush Wants To End Terrorism, He Should Go Ahead and Kill Himself" doesn't want to personally harm Bush.  What I found interesting about this one was the picture of George Bush as Hitler.  I thought progressives and liberals were all above that sort of thing???

Then I looked up Sarah Palin. Apparently if she had been elected Vice President, there would have been a number of Birkenstock wearing slackers that planned on killing themselves.

Will those group members that "wanted George Bush dead" be subjected to the same Secret Service Investigation that the Obama Assassination Poll creator was?  Why did Facebook act so quickly on a President Obama themed question, yet has left these groups continue to exist for years? Or is it O.K. to want SOME people dead, but not others?


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Over-reaching Bureaucracy Goes After Babysitters and Grandmothers

The TODAY Show on Tuesday featured a story you read here last week.  A Michigan woman is threatened with a fine by the Michigan Department of Human Services for letting her neighbors' kids stay at her house before the school bus arrives. 

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The shocking  part is when a State of Michigan employee tells Lisa Snyder to have the kids "get an umbrella" as a solution to the problem.  Meanwhile in Chicago, unsupervised kids go on a rampage.

Then there is this story from Terre Haute Indiana:

Sally Harpold is a grandmother of triplets who bought one box of Zyrtec-D cold medicine for her husband at a Rockville pharmacy. Less than seven days later, she bought a box of Mucinex-D cold medicine for her adult daughter at a Clinton pharmacy, thereby purchasing 3.6 grams total of pseudoephedrine in a week’s time.

The end result?  Mrs. Harpold was led away in handcuffs by the police!  Her "crime"?  Purchasing more than 3 grams of pseudoephedrine within seven days. It carries a penalty of up to 60 days in jail and a $500 fine. The law was enacted to stop drug users from making methamphetamines.  Another "well intentioned" law that oversteps its authority and ends up punishing or inconveniences the innocent.

Now Mrs. Harpold has to fight to clear her name all because two people in her family had the audacity to get a cold within a seven day period. The Prosecutor stated that "ignorance of the law is no excuse". What may be even scarier is realizing that there is a database out there that keeps all of your cold medicine purchases on file and flags the authorities when your weekly ration of Vick Formula 44 D has been surpassed.

In the end, all we do know is this: the bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the ever expanding bureaucracy.

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Media Blackout on NEA Scandal Continues

A Member of Artists Supporting Socialism

It’s been five days since questions were raised about the White House’s apparent desire to create a Department of  Propaganda  by leveraging  Government funding for the NEA to create art that will push the administration’s agenda for Health Care.

A cursory search on CNN and MSNBC’s website show no stories about this by either “news” organizations. ABC and CBS both did one story about the scandal, but nothing since Yoshi Sergent, one of the key players in the conference call, resigned late last week from the White House.

Other news organizations that trumped the Most Trusted Name in News  and… I don’t know what MSNBC’s cute name is:

• The Washington Times
• Associated Press (which by the looks of it, no one else picked up on)
• Washington Post
• Pajamas Media
• The Insurance News Net 
• And 37 blogs

Are you fraking kidding me?!?!? 

Thirty seven blogs have covered this story and CNN.com and MSNBC have YET to write ONE article?  I mean I’d expect the obligatory “Attack on the Arts by Right Wing Conservatives” slant article by now.

If you like what you read, please become a fan of The Hippo's Ass on Facebook, feel free to reblog us on your site, or follow us on Twitter @thehipposass.  If you see something that is worthy of being on The Hippo's Ass, please email us the story or video at hipposass@gmail.com

The Michigan Babysitting Police

This is a prime example of a law that was supposed to have good intentions, but ended having unintended consequences.  As is usually the case, the law comes down on the wrong side of the issue, overextending its reach and creating more authoritarian control over our daily lives.

Lisa Snyder of Middleville is threatened by the State of Michigan for having the audacity to watch her neighbors kids.  According to WZZM13 News, the neighborhood school bus stop is right in front of Snyder's home. It arrives after her neighbors need to be at work, so she watches three of their children for 15-40 minutes until the bus comes.

Let me repeat that...SHE WATCHES THREE KIDS.

Some nosy, bitter, "government-will take-care-of-me" neighbor called in a complaint to the Department of Human Services and the State issued Snyder a stern warning threat to get licensed or "face the consequences".

The law was obviously poorly written.  When did we reach that point where government has such control over our daily lives?  This woman was not babysitting 12 kids for 5 hours a day. She was simply doing a favor for her friends, watching out for their kids so they would be safe before they headed off to school.

The State of Michigan's response? They have no choice but to comply with state law.

If Government's "well intentions" go so astray in small issues like this, what gives you the confidence they won't for health care?

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Are You Racist? Use the Flowchart! (Plus... Violent Anarchists!)

Former President Jimmy Carter called you a Racist.
Janeane Garafalo called you a Racist
According to Melissa Harris-Lacewell, professor of African-American studies at Princeton, words you use like "personal responsibility" are "code words for racism".
Chris Matthews of MSNBC doesn't believe that protests against health care can be anything other than racism.

Still confused on whether you are a racist or not in the post racial Presidency of Obama? Well, print this handy dandy flowchart and hang it in your cubicle or on your refrigerator.  Next time you believe you have a legitimate issue with the current Administration in Washington, just follow the chart to see of you are really a racist or not.  Fun for the whole family!

Michael Moore's movie, Capitalism: A Love Story isn't scheduled to be released for another week or so, but did the movie, which concludes that "Capitalism is Evil", help incite anarchist violence during the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh?

This week 20 leaders from around the globe met in Pittsburgh to discuss various economic issues plaguing developed nations. Outside the summit, police clashed with black-veiled protesters.

Mike Nance, 28, a graduate student from Philadelphia, said he had no problem with so-called anarchists vandalizing businesses.  I don't think property violence is particularly immoral," he said.

Consider that lately, Moore has been busy promoting his new film, claiming that capitalism is actually legalized greed and that we need to do away with it. This is not much different with the rally cries heard outside the G20 summit this weekend.

When taxpayers turned vocal at Town Hall meetings this summer, the news media attacked this "angry crowd of racists" while commentators from The Huffington Post, Daily Kos and MSNBC feared that this will all turn to violence.  Yet the opposite has occurred.  Hundreds of thousands of taxpayers marched on Washington and reports of violence were non existent.  Now 500 - 1,000 black-clad, veiled anarchists that are too lazy to get a job are in Pittsburgh and the police are making arrests daily, windows are being broken, tear gas is being used.

After the release of Michael Moore's movie, will Nancy Pelosi stand at a podium once again, invoke the turmoil of early 70's San Francisco, and bemoan the potential violence this movie will produce?

I'm betting she won't.

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An Inconvenient Friday: Stupid Hypocrisy, Windmills and Steve McNair

The new "green" movie, The Age of Stupid, attacks the idea of flying in airplanes because the producers believe it is harmful for the environment. Guess how most of the promoters and producers of this film arrived at the Manhattan premiere? The answer is wonderfully provided in this video featuring Phelim McAleer who also posted his commentary at Big Hollywood:



Tilting at Windmills

Every two years, Michigan Governor Jenny Granholm comes up with an idea that she hopes will kick start the state's economy since the auto business went bust. A while ago it was the New Technology State, next was The Raise Taxes State, then it was the Canada's Garbage Dump State. Now its The Windmill State..or something, who knows.  She is proposing putting these monstrosities in Saginaw Bay and in the Thumb Region of the state. Yeah, I want one of these in my backyard.




Crossing the Line for Halloween?

On second thought, maybe creating a Halloween scene that reenacts Steve McNair's murder scene WASN'T such a great idea

 From Deadspin.com:  A spokesperson for Kings Island, Don Helbig, said the following,

"There will not be a scene at our Halloween event that features Steve McNair or anyone that resembles him."

With video and pictures of the skeletons circulating online, Helbig at first declined to acknowledge that they had ever existed. "There was no reference to Steve McNair at all. No jersey, nothing." Upon being informed that the pictures and video were already online, Helbig again insisted that the skeletons would not be featured on Friday when the event opens. Pressed as to when the skeletons were removed from the park, Helbig stuck to his talking points. "Our event does not open until Friday," he said, "We meant him no disrespect."

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Owner Strips Foreclosed Home: Blames Bank for Loan

Evil Mortgage Lender Mr. Potter

We are not exactly sure what is going on with the producers over at NBC News and the TODAY Show, but the quality of people they are digging up for their news and interview segments has certainly been lacking. Last week, ignoring the whole ACORN scandal, they were only able to dig up a former neighbor, when police arrested accused murderer Raymond Clark, III. You can see the clip HERE.

Yesterday, The TODAY Show featured a segment detailing the latest “trend”: people in foreclosed homes are stripping them bare and selling the contents before turning the property over to the banks, going so far as even selling the toilets for $20.

In this video clip, NBC Reporter Kerry Sanders is talking with Zorene Brodek (sp?) who justifies her actions: (the key section is at 1:08)

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Sanders: What about the banks?
Foreclosed Homeowner: Well, It’s their tough luck. They (the bank) are the ones who gave me a loan that was really ridiculous in the first place, so they are stuck with it.

Really, Ms. Foreclosed Former Homeowner? The bank held a gun to your head and made you get a loan? They are the ones that are responsible for you not investigating what you were getting yourself into? Did they hold one of your relatives hostage so you’d sign the loan?

I’m not sure what the situation was that caused Ms. Foreclosed Former Homeowner to stop making her payments to the bank. Maybe it was a lost job; maybe it was a personal illness. Regardless, blaming the bank for your inability to make payments smacks of personal entitlement. And for NBC News to just let her statement hang there, solidifying the notion that “Evil Mortgage Lenders” are behind the whole mortgage crisis is beyond irresponsible.

And thus the Age of Personal Responsibility comes to a close, not with a bang, but with mighty whining and snooty indignation to a reporter from NBC News.

Nothing is your fault anymore, Americans.


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Yes We Can Sell Out

"A government-supported artist is an incompetent whore!" -- Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

It's been more than 24 hours since BigGovernment went live with their report on how the Obama administration used the National Endowment for the Arts to push their agenda, specifically for health care. I don’t know about you, but this turns the hair on the back of my neck straight up. We all know that money sometimes wrongly gets funneled to “charities or corporations of choice” during any administration. Bush was accused of improperly funding Blackwater and Haliburton, Obama has ACORN and Community Organizers. But using the NEA to push a certain agenda focus smacks of propaganda.

Wait...didn't hear about it?  Of course you didn't.  The Old World Media has kept it under wraps pretty well. 

The last time BigGovernment broke a story that was unfavorable to the Obama Administration *cough ACORN *cough  it took days for the Ostrich Media to report it or  in some cases nearly ignore it.

So we here at The Hippos Ass decided to track how long it takes for the media to actually cover this story. We decided to track the web sites of ABC News, CNN, MSNBC, CBS and The New York Times, as well as explore what other websites are covering this story.

Day 1 Search for National Endowment for the Arts

CNN      Nothing
MSNBC  Nothing
ABCNews   One story (Charlie Gibson probably didn't want to be embarrassed again)
CBS News One Story  CBS's story is very much a CYA story from the administration)
The New York Times One story...same story as CBS. Hmmmmmm
The Washington Post is covering...O'Keefe and Giles?

So going into day two of the Media Blackout Finals we have CNN and MSNBC.  Stay tuned.

There is a certain creepiness behind this whole scenario. Take the opposite stand if you will for one moment.  Imagine if President Bush, in the run up to the Iraq War, had asked the NEA to create Pro War art and songs.  The whole mess would never have gotten past the initial email invite before there was an uproar from the liberal community and the press. They would be justified as well.  This is not the purpose behind the National Endowment for the Arts.

Artists have always been looked upon as pushing the boundaries of the status quo, forcing us to look outside the little boxes we live in and view reality from a different angle.  Art does have a very prominent place in a well educated and cultured society.  All the more reason for the Federal Government to stay the hell out of it.  The fear of Government funding has always been that one administration or other would seek to control the funded organization for some nefarious purpose.

The transcripts from BigGovernment.com show all too well that this was a coordinated attempt to use art to help push through the Obama Administration's agenda. The art community seem to have found it easy to sell out for a few pieces of the Government Pie.

A pie that you and I pay for.  And right on the heals of the media ignoring the ACORN and NEA Scandals, we find that the Obama Administration is open to the idea "aid" for newspapers...(find out more in tomorrow's Hippos Ass).

It may be time to pull out my well worn copy of Orwell again.

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Deception Not En-Dearing

 Jai-Lee Dearing, Candidate for Detroit City Council, tried to defy the laws of physics by being in two different locations at the same time. (I think it’s physics…the only thing I know about physics is from watching Star Trek)

The Detroit Free Press was conducting a live chat with council candidates and on Thursday it was Dearings turn. Except that at the time, he was appearing live on WCHB with two other candidates.

When challenged in the chat, the Fake Jai-Lee Dearing wrote:  “I have a member of my staff in the studio typing for me and I am approving these answers before they come to you”

Except that he wasn’t.

The “chat” was being conducted by Mike Carroll, Dearing’s campaign manager.  The hosts of the program he was on confirmed to the Free Press that no notes were passed to the candidate.


Not the first time Dearing has had some controversy during his campaign.  According to the Detroit News:

Dearing, who is waging his third run for council, stumbled twice last month over fliers. Days after the primary, he had to disavow one that featured scantily-clad women. Later, he caught flack for another that listed endorsements from notables such as the Rev. Horace Sheffield III who hadn't given their support.

This upcoming election is very important to the citizens of Detroit.  As a tax payer to the city who is not allowed to vote due to taxation without representation, I would love to be able to help choose the future leaders of the city.  Unfortunately I cannot.  Detroiters can and need to be wary of who they vote for.

If they are looking for change, a candidate that endeavors to deceive is not change: its just another Kwame Kilpatrick or Monica Conyers.

TODAY Show Runs Out of Quality People to Interview

We've been wondering why NBC has devoted hardly anytime to the snowballing scandal surrounding ACORN.  What could be preventing them from covering one of the hottest topics in the past seven days?

Well, Thursday morning, police in Connecticut were sitting outside the apartment of Raymond Clark, III, getting ready to arrest him for the murder of Annie Le, the young Yale graduate student who dissapeared a week ago.  Her body was found inside a wall in the research laboratory where she worked.

NBC's Today Show, with Meredith Vieira, was right there to bring us the latest with this exclusive interview of a neighbor, er... ex-neighbor. Their crack research staff, obviously pulled off the ACORN investigation, pulled out all the stops to get the exclusive to this first hand report "inside the mind of Raymond Clark, III"

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

An exclusive into the mind of a killer...?  Ann Marie Goodwin knows, cause eyes are the window to a person's soul...or something.  Well, he owned 2 pit bulls...who yelped all day.   And he didn't like the apartment.  This was the best TODAY could come up with? An Ex-Neighbor? The look on Meridith's face at the end of this interview is truly a classic. 

Meanwhile, the near media blackout of coverage on ACORN continued.

Except on Twitter.  #acorn was a trending topic the past two days, beaten only by such earth-shattering  topics as #kaynewest, #jackass (which is code for Kanye West) and #happybirthdaynick, who I find out later was not for Nick Lachey, but for Nick Jonas from the Jonas Brothers.  Imagine MY embarrassment....

Yesterday afternoon the Republicans slipped the Defund ACORN Act into the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2009, which passed 345 - 75.  All 75 nay votes were Democrats, including Detroit's own Momma Kilpatrick herself, Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick from Michigan's 13th District.

Momma Kilpatrick's son Kwame Kilpatrick, the former Mayor of Detroit, who pled guilty to two felonies, was removed from office and served jail time. He now makes $10,000 a month in Texas working for a Compuware subsidiary, lives in  a monster house, drives a Cadillac Escalade and owes the City of Detroit $6,000 a month till he pays off the $1 million he cost the city.  He recently petitioned the courts to drop his payment to $6 a month.  I   KID    YOU   NOT! 

Just an FYI for any young reporters out there looking for something to do...Detroit has a local ACORN Chapter.

Just saying.

Embarrassed By Two Independent Reporters, The Media Finally (sorta) Notices ACORN

What does it say when John Stewart covers a story before Katie, Brian, and Charlie?

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The Audacity of Hos
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Healthcare Protests

ACORN suspended operations yesterday, calling the actions of their employees at four separate locations indefensible.  This was after ACORN Bertha Lewis called the BigGovernment videos a scam, that ACORN employees were just "playing along", which came right after they claimed they were suing FoxNews for making ACORN their Willie Horton for 2009, which wasn't too long after they called this an isolated incident.

Next up?  Bertha Lewis saying "we would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for you meddling kids"?

Zoinks!

 

The Gang at BigGovernment.com

CNN finally got around to writing an article on the controversy for their web site, after six days of ignoring the whole damn thing.  Wolf Bitzer did exactly what you would expect, get the "victim" on for some screen time:



MSNBC took two days off from covering the affair, but the TODAY show did go out of their way this morning to mention that ACORN's spokesman was quoted as saying the whole thing is faked. (Someone must not have given him the memo that said they were going to suspend their operations for a bit).  Ed Shultz couldn't help putting Nuts vs ACORN on the screen:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Charlie Gibson, meanwhile, was replaced by a rock, who broke the story that the Earth was round.  Gibson was quoted as saying "well, that's the first I heard about this."

The New York Times did finally write an article as well, however the reporter couldn't help throwing in the usual labels (as Newsbusters reports)

portraying the scandal in pure political terms, with  "the right" as "gleeful" in claiming its "latest scalp," as opposed to expressing outrage over a tax-funded leftist organization with connections to the Census Bureau and IRS (!) encouraging tax evasion and child prostitution. Shane couldn't even bring himself to call the housing activists at ACORN leftist; instead he said "the right" are trying to weaken Obama "by attacking allies and appointees they view as leftist.

Stay tuned to The Hippo's Ass for further updates, as we hear the kids over at BigGovernment have plenty more videos to show.  Since the Ostrich Media refuses to cover this story, I guess it's up to us bloggers to spread the word.  Follow us on Twitter @thehipposass or become a fan on Facebook.  If you have a tip or would like to send in a story, email us at hipposass@gmail.com

See no Evil; Why Is the Media Refusing to Cover the Acorn Scandal?

It is day five of our CNN.com ACORN Watch.  The Hippo's Ass has been monitoring the CNN web site for the past few days looking for any indication they are aware of the astonishing events surrounding the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

According to CNN.com's own search engine, the last time CNN wrote a story about ACORN was September 10, 2009

1 Day before the Obama Administration fired ACORN from their Census collection program.

2 Days before a third video (this time in New York) surfaced showing workers giving questionable advice to filmakers posing as a pimp and a prostitute.

3 Days before the Senate took up a vote to add an amendment to the Housing bill to cut all funding to ACORN. Seven members of the Senate voted to keep funding ACORN.

4 Days before a fourth video is broadcast, this time of a worker telling how she "laid some groundwork" before shooting her abusive husband dead.

Five Days.

Five days and not one written story on the CNN.com web site.  Oh, there are a few video clips hidden on the site (you really have to look for them) but nothing on the front page.  One video clip is from Lou Dobbs of all people, but doesn't really address the videos, just politicians' ties to ACORN (and they make it sound like they are doing an "investigation".)  Another video is of an ACORN lawyer calling the undercover videos a sham.

This is the last article they wrote about ACORN:

ACORN workers caught on tape allegedly advising on prostitution updated Thu, September 10, 2009

Two employees at the Baltimore, Maryland, branch of the liberal community organizing group ACORN were caught on tape allegedly offering advice to a pair posing as a pimp and prostitute on setting up a prostitution ring and evading the IRS.

CNN is not alone.

• Charlie Gibson of ABC News told WLS AM in Chicago, yesterday morning was the first he heard of it!"(of the scandal)

• MSNBC's coverage has been mainly about Joe Wilson and whether or not the Tea Party participants are racist.
• CBS...are they still around?
• Rachel Maddow is making teabagging jokes (as if she knows....)
  
• The big story on Monday was Kanye West.  The big story on Tuesday?  It was a toss up between Joe Wilson getting his hand slapped and President Obama calling Kanye West a Jackass.

Well, I guess a broken clock IS right twice a day.

The House of Representatives is set to vote on the amendment that will cut funding for ACORN, an organization that is tied to SEIU (who have been a force behind the Health Care Debate) and to President Obama himself.

But if Sarah Palin makes a statement about Death Panels, you can be sure CNN, Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow and the New York Times will be all over it.

Today, the top story is former President Carter calling dissent against the Obama Administration based on Racism.  As I type this, the TODAY show is saying this is a "conservative" sting and ACORN has "long been the target of conservative".  Well at least they are finally reporting it.

The fact is, the main stream media was upstaged by two young adults, aged 25 and 20, who spent all of $1,800 on this investigation and exposed one of the largest community organizations in the country as being crooked and corrupt, an organization that stood to gain billions of tax payer money, and an administration that is tied to the President of the United States. (oops, sorry Jimmy...I must be racist for saying that.)

The media outlets that were known for being mainstream are now the Ostrich Media, their sense of self importance and worth leading them by the hand to obscurity and shown the door by a filmmaker in a bad pimp outfit you'd never even think twice about wearing for halloween.

And my little obscure blog that averages now 112 readers a day has printed more stories in the past few days about this scandal than a Global Media Conglomerate.  Pretty pathetic don't you think?

Send a message or a twitter to the news outlets and tell them to get off their butts.  Here is a list of media twitter addresses (thanks to Resist Tyranny Now)

ABC @abcnews

George Stephanopoulos @GStephanopoulos

Jake Tapper @jaketapper

CBS @CBSnews

Katie Couric @katiecouric

Mark Knoller @markknoller

CNN @cnn

Alexander Mooney @AWMooneyCNN

Anderson Cooper @andersoncooper

Allison Blakely @AllisonCNN

Don Lemon @donlemonCNN

J. Smith @JSmith_CNN

Kim Segal @CNNkimsegal

Kristie Lu Stout @klustout

Rick Sanchez @ricksanchezCNN

Saad Abedine @CNNSaadAbedine

Suzanne Malveaux @SuzanneMalveaux

Fox

Glenn Beck @GlennBeck (send him a thank you)

Huffington Post @HuffingtonPost

MSNBC @msnbc_breaking

Joe Scarborough @JoeNBC

Rachel Maddow @maddow

NBC @NBCnews

David Gregory @davidgregory

New York Times @NYTimes

Nicholas Kristof @nytimeskristof

Opinion @nytimesopinion

Politics @nytimespolitics

USA Today @USAToday

If you like what you read, please reblog or pass us along to your friends and family; become a fan on Facebook or follow us on Twitter @thehipposass

UPDATE  This afternoon CNN.com posted a video that attempted to explain the ACORN scandal; a link was added to the front page of their web site.  In the clip, a good deal of time was given to the spokesman for ACORN who called the video a "scam".  Later in the day, ACORN suspended some of their operations, calling the actions of their employees "indefensable".

CNN has yet to publish any WRITTEN article on their site abput the scandal since September 10...now 6 days ago.

The Ball is in Nancy's Court

What was virtually improbable a week ago, the Senate voted 83 - 7 to add an amendment to H.R.3288 (Making appropriations for the Departments of Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development, and related agencies) that would cut funding to ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

The Johanns Amendment is #2355 to H.R. 3288.

Johanns cited the BigGovernment.com sting videos as evidence that ACORN cannot be trusted with government money:

“Until a full investigation is launched into ACORN, no taxpayer money should be used to fund its activities. A vote in favor of my amendment is a vote in favor of the taxpayer and a vote against the status quo.”"

Only seven Senators, all Democrats, who are being called the Child-Whoring Pimp Assitance 7 voted to continue funding the organization whose employees gave advice to a fake pimp and prostitute looking to import underage girls for exploitation, get a house loan without a job and looking to avoid paying taxes.

Ladies and Gentlemen...The Child-Whoring Pimp Assistance 7

• Burris (D-IL)
• Casey (D-PA)
• Durbin (D-IL)
• Gillibrand (D-NY)
• Leahy (D-VT)
• Sanders (I-VT)
• Whitehouse (D-RI)

ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis said the following after learning of potentially being cut from the taxpayer's teat:

"We're disappointed that the Senate took the rare and politically convenient step of supporting eliminating some federal funding for a single organization, one that has been the target of an historical political assault stemming variously from the Bush White House, Fox News, and other conservative quarters," said Bertha Lewis, CEO of ACORN, in a statement after the Senate vote. "Fortunately, ACORN derives most of its income from its members and other supporters, so the decision will have little impact on overall operations. Tonight's vote will burden the families who benefited from ACORN's important work to improve housing conditions in the United States."

Wait...What?? It will have little impact but it will also be a burden? Whatever... Cutting federal funds and forcing this non-profit organization to raise their own money from members is a good thing. If ACORN can't sustain themselves without TRUE public support, then they do not deserve to be around.

The amendment will now go before Nancy Pelosi and the House of Representatives. Will they bury the amendment, turn it down, ignore it or do the right thing: Pass it by an overwhelming majority. I can't wait to see who votes against this.

Or will "the powers that be" kill the whole thing, like he/they did when Rep. John Conyers tried to investigate these crooked organization earlier this year?

Last night, CNN.com, as of 10:00 pm had yet to post any story at all about the vote, ACORN, or the videos.

Stay tuned to #thehipposass or follow @thehipposass on Twitter for updates throughout the day. If you like what you read, make us your friend on Facebook or reblog us.

New Zealand Tops CNN in ACORN Reporting

You know it’s Autumn when every time you turn around, acorns are falling from the tree. You have to be vigilant: if you leave them there on the ground, they will 1) ruin the grass that you worked very hard to maintain and 2) sprout more trees that will take over your yard.

Big news of the day? Kanye West made an ass out of himself at the MTV Video Music Awards last night. I didn’t see it, but how do I know it happened: It was one of the top stories on the TODAY show this morning.CNN featured the "incident" on their web site. In fact, as of 1:00 pm this afternoon, it was the lead story of the day until President Obama started admonishing Wall Street again.

A quick look on Google’s News search at the time resulted in more than 2,288 hits from such reputable news sources as:

• TIME
• Reuters
• Los Angeles Times
• New York Times
• ABC News
• Associated Press
• Washington Post
• The Huffington Post (O.K….my bad, this one shouldn’t fall in with the reputable group, but they still mentioned it.)

The other big story of the day? For the third time is less than 6 days, a video showing ACORN workers giving advice to a pimp and a prostitute was released by the good folks over at BigGovernment.com. This video features New York City ACORN workers giving advice on how to hide prostitution profits in a tin can buried in the back yard, how to lie when applying for a housing loan and ways to shelter the money for tax purposes.



The number of hits on Google search at 4pm this afternoon? 58.
Some of the news sites that covered the story?

• Fox News
• The Baltimore Sun
• The New York Post
• Examiner.com
• The San Francisco Chronicle (the article was actually defending ACORN against the evil people that exposed them)
• And THE NEW ZEALAND HERALD???

No Kidding...True Story. The New Zealand Herald actually put out a story on the third video before CNN did. (The last article on CNN.com about ACORN was four days ago.) Not only does New Zealand make a great setting for Middle Earth, they also know when to call a scandal a scandal, unlike some of our more prominent news organizations here in the United States. Seriously, when was the last time you read about a scandal in New Zealand?

Hell, looking up Blackwater Contractors will give you more than 1,000 hits from various news sites.

What is it about ACORN that the media turns a blind eye towards? What are they afraid will happen should they do some real investigative work on this organization that stands to get billions of taxpayer money and has been involved in numerous incidents of voter registration fraud, the housing scandal and now these videos? It certainly is a tough nut to crack. (sorry)

Good thing you have The Hippo’s Ass to report on these stories. Otherwise you’d be left talking about Lady Gaga’s outfit from the VMAs.

(Should I know who she is???)

We here at The Hippo's Ass have a feeling that this is not the last of the ACORN videos to surface. Should any more come to light, you know where you can turn to get the news other outlets refuse to cover: The Hippo's Ass....and The New Zealand Herald.

ACORN is a Criminal Enterprise

ACORN was trying to register Mickey Mouse during 2008 Election

Each week we look forward to the Friday News Dump, that special time when the Government "dumps" a news story that will be unfavorable to them should it be well publicized. The theory being the public will be too busy to pay attention to the news during the busy weekend and when the news cycle begins on Monday, the "dropped" story will be old news.

Yesterday, Obama Administration literally dropped one of its biggest supporters: ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now)

The week didn't start out so well for ACORN. First they announced they had to fire several workers in Florida for registering false names during the last presidential election. (Imagine that...pitty someone didn't warn voters about them last year.)

Then a very damaging YouTube video was posted by BigGovernment showing ACORN workers in Baltimore giving advice on how a prostitute and a pimp could avoid paying taxes on the underage El Salvadorean sex workers the couple were going to import.

ACORN quickly fired the workers, saying that it was an isolated incident and that it was just a smear campaign by Conservatives.

In what can only be called a classic "one-two" punch, a SECOND video, this time showing District of Columbia workers doing the exact same thing.



Bertha Lewis, Chief Organizer, ACORN Regarding Recent News Reports:

We are their Willy Horton for 2009. We are the boogeyman for the right-wing and its echo chambers. If ACORN did not exist, the right-wing would have needed to create us in order to achieve their agenda, their missions, their ideal, retrograde America.

Three Scandals in one week to an organization that was connected in the last election to our current President and nary a word on the major news sites. Well it's a good thing you follow The Hippo's Ass. We report what the main News Sites fail to cover.

Which brings us to the Friday News Dump. The Administration announced that ACORN was being dropped as a "participant" in the upcoming census. MSNBC's response? They showed an in-depth report on whether ShamWow really works or not.

Shouldn't someone be investigating these "community organizers" who stand to reap millions in tax payer dollars as part of the TARP bills recently passed to "help" the economy? Rep. John Conyers of Detroit was supposed to, but mysteriously he dropped the case one day before his wife Monica Conyers, a Detroit City Council member was brought up on bribery charges. Rep. Conyers claimed "powers that be" put the kibosh on the idea. Hmmm..... Anyone in the media care to follow that up? Didn't think so.

The kicker of the whole story? You have a National Community Organization that is connected to the President of the United States, being involved in voter registration tampering, tax evasion advice at TWO locations and counciling a prostitute how to hide underage El Salvadorean girls and what happens?

The State of Maryland may prosecute the FILMMAKERS who exposed ACORN as the Corrupt Organization they really are.

An you wonder why more than 1 million people marched on Washington D.C today?