Two observations about the right’s noise makers are in order today.
The ‘gotcha’ clown known as James O’Keefe got booted by his fellow workers at Project Veritas. And Fox News is engaged in a “gray out” of fearless leader Trump.
It’s hard to believe that the edgiest grift in propaganda is finito. Oh, they still have a ‘Board of Directors,” offices and staff, but the end is near.
Here’s the short version of Veritas, via the New York Times:
Project Veritas, based in the New York suburbs, regularly carries out undercover stings, surveillance operations and ambush interviews, mostly against liberal groups and journalists.
The group grew quickly as Donald J. Trump — an ally and past donor, through Mr. Trump’s own nonprofit — came to dominate Republican politics. Between 2014 and 2021, Project Veritas’s revenue grew to $20.7 million, from $2.4 million, tax filings show.
Now, O’Keefe’s gone, a victim of his ego and repercussions from poorly managed operations.
Strike One was founder James O’Keefe’s dips into Veritas donations –primarily from the Koch-created Donors Trust– made the leap from boosting his ego into activities most people would consider beyond the pale.
There was the $14,000 he spent “on a charter flight to meet someone to fix his boat under the guise of meeting with a donor,” the $60,000 to support O’Keefe’s dalliances with theatrical productions, and the $150,000 spent on premium riders app transportation.
Strike Two was the 11 page memo from a group of staffers sent to the board of directors regarding O'Keefe's management style. Here’s the money shot:
“James has become a power-drunk tyrant, and he is exactly who he pontificates on who we should be exposing.
Strike Three was the ever-tightening legal noose resulting from the group’s investigative tactics and distortions aimed at discrediting what it considered foes of right wing politics.
Legal fees for the group topped $4.7 million in 2021. O’Keefe’s home was searched by F.B.I. agents with a warrant in the fall of 2021 as part of an investigation of a stolen diary kept by Ashley Biden, President’s daughter.
Things weren’t looking too good in long standing legal battles with state governments, especially New York, because corporate papers failed to mention O’Keefe’s criminal record. He was charged with felonies and pled down to misdemeanor charges in 2010 for tampering with phone lines at former Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office.
The group’s latest investigation involved big pharma, purporting to offer evidence that Pfizer is intentionally mutating the coronavirus to test new vaccines. Although Big Pharma plays an outsized role in far right mythology, they’re also BIG. (Pfizer has defended its research methods.) The Board of Directors acknowledged that things don’t look good legally in a statement following O’Keefe’s dismissal.
This wasn’t an expose of a non-profit, like community organizing group Acorn, which was proven untrue, and ended up costing the group $150,000 in a lawsuit settlement. The videos at the heart of this sting were recorded in San Diego’s south bay area, and got airplay nationally on Fox news.
I suppose O’Keefe could argue that those fees were money well-spent, since the ‘exposed’ organization dissolved, and right wing legislators to this day are integrating language into spending bills stipulating no funding for Acorn, which no longer exists.
It’s been much the same with many of their other targets; a damning video gets released and by the time it’s proven wrong, the reputational damage is done. Despite getting supposedly top shelf assistance from spy-for-hire Erik Prince, many of their infiltrators failed to get past the front door.
Still, Project Veritas’ campaigns to push misinformation about COVID-19, attack educators over LGBTQ-inclusive schooling, cater to QAnon adherents, and assistance in undermining confidence in the 2020 presidential election were effective in bolstering the political falsehoods right wingers wanted projected.
You might think that the self-inflicted reputational damage that brought down O’Keefe, would be the end of his story. But you’d be wrong.
As Jack Winstanley and Gideon Taafe at Media Matters for America discovered, virtually all of the US right considers O’Keefe to be a hero who did nothing wrong.
Here’s a sampling from the 20 quotes in their reporting:
Far-right provocateur Milo Yiannopolous declared: “Project Veritas must now be assumed an enemy organization.”
Human Events senior editor Jack Posobiec claimed, “Project Veritas 2.0 brazenly lied about what happened to James and now don’t seem to care they lied to everyone.”
Former Trump aide and January 6 coup plotter Steve Bannon heralded O’Keefe as a “patriot and a hero” on his podcast after declaring “war” against anyone “that had anything to do with O'Keefe being terminated.”
Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk dismissed the claims of professional abuse and financial mismanagement, saying, “So what?” after declaring, “There is no Project Veritas without James O'Keefe, period.”
In today’s right wing/MAGA/GOP, unethical behavior and fraud are considered to be good things.
Look no further than Republican Congress members George Santos (R-NY/ America’s Finest Liar)), Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL/ lied about her ethnicity and being a victim of crime), and Andy Ogles (R-TN/ who falsely claimed to an economist, and artificially inflated his time as a reserve sheriff’s deputy).
And that’s before getting to the extraordinary lies being told by elected and appointed Republicans. This week’s best example would be former Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, who sat on findings from his office showing that a series of 2020 election fraud claims were not backed up by evidence.
***
Speaking of liars, the liar-in-chief is being shadow banned at Fox News, meaning that his name is uttered as infrequently as possible. Big Daddy Murdoch is finished with The Donald, and now is all-in on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
If you were looking for the former President’s words of wisdom and self promotion at the train wreck site in Ohio, you wouldn’t have found them on Fox. Live coverage was left to the minor leaguers at News Max and the One America News Network.
Freddy Gray at the Spectator has the lowdown:
The wider Murdoch empire is showing favour to the Republican hopefuls hoping to beat Trump in the 2024 primaries. The New York Post, Murdoch’s leading American tabloid, has been notably positive in its coverage of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Along with Murdoch’s other big US paper, The Wall Street Journal, the Post has made its editorial line clear: it’s time for the party to move on.
But DeSantis, the just-declared Nikki Haley and even the gonzo newbie runner, Vivek Ramaswamy, have all appeared on Fox in recent weeks. But the Donald remains persona non grata.
Trumpworld is seething with their sense of being snubbed. ‘There is definitely a soft or silent ban on Trump,’ says a source close to Trump. ‘They have clearly gone all in for Ron DeSantis, judging by their fawning coverage of his events week.’
***
Here’s your ‘outrage the libs’ video for today
You can follow me at:
Twitter (for now)---> @DougPorter506
Post —→DougPorter@wordsdeedsblogger
Tribel ——> DougP Porter@dougporter506
Mastodon ——> DougPorter506@mastodon.social
NEW! –Spoutible —>@dougporter506
Facebook —----> https://www.facebook.com/WordsAndDeedsBlog
Email me at WritetoDougPorter@Gmail.com
Veritas is Latin for "truth." Project Veritas is anything but truthful.
As I follow along as the Republican Party tries to distance itself from the orange one, it seems to me they are attempting to stand up to the orange one's blackmail attempt. That's how I understand his claim (or threat) that if he is not the nominee, that he will start a 3rd party. I truly hope he does because all the nutters who worship him as their deity will vote for him and thereby the Republican vote would be split.
Something I would really love is to see that party shatter into a bunch of parties leaving Democrats in the majority in both the House, the Senate, and the White House for many administrations. I can hope, can't I?