James O’Keefe (remember him? weird guy who’s always filming himself doing unethical and occasionally illegal things in order to somehow prove that liberals do unethical and illegal things?) has broken the law again, in his never-ending quest to prove that liberals have no respect for the rule of law. The conservative filmmaker and master of disguise attempted to commit voter fraud in the New Hampshire primaries.
“Voter fraud” is a right-wing obsession used to justify restrictive ballot access-limiting measures that are actually designed to suppress turnout among people who tend to vote for Democrats. It does not and cannot exist in anything approaching a large enough scale to affect an election, and even isolated incidents of fraud prove difficult for right-wingers to dredge up to prove that their concerns have merit. Dozens of people have spent years tirelessly attempting to prove that organized “voter fraud” is a real thing and all they have ever managed to prove is that sometimes lazy volunteers make fake registration forms, sometimes former felons mistakenly vote despite being disenfranchised, and sometimes people double-vote. There is nothing remotely resembling coordinated voter fraud, carried out with the intention of stealing an election, taking place anywhere in the United States. Those who sincerely believe that there is are deluded, though most of the people who constantly crow about it don’t sincerely believe in it; they just want to make it harder for blacks and Latinos and poor people to vote.
O’Keefe has pretty clearly violated the law and TPM reports that a federal prosecutor is reviewing his video. But at least he finally proved that voter fraud is a very real threat, and one that could lead to upward of a couple of phony ballots being cast in a statewide primary election, depending on how many registered voters died quite recently. As we all know, once you prove that something is hypothetically possible, it is a factual certainty that ACORN has done it.
And now O’Keefe might finally get that felony conviction that he avoided last time. Fingers crossed.
Admittedly, I spend a lot of time grousing and naysaying. Today, though, we put that negativity briefly aside, as we celebrate a day of thoughtful reflection, and a night without a GOP presidential debate. I thought it appropriate, on the occasion of Thanksgiving, to thank some of the people who’ve worked to make the country and the world a better place over the least 12 months.
Thanks to Wall Street Occupier Jesse LaGreca, who didn’t only show up the Fox reporter sent to embarrass occupiers, but also managed to get the OWS message across on a Sunday political chat show, which is essentially unheard of. So thanks to you, for bringing up economic justice to the ancient panel of crusty establishmentarians on “Meet on Press.”
Thanks to Scott Olsen, the Iraq vet and victim of brutal police overreaction at Occupy Oakland, for showing the many forms that fighting for one’s country can take. We’re especially thankful that he’s recovering from the coma induced by a tear gas canister fired directly at his head, and is well enough to give public statements.
Thanks to retired Police Capt. Ray Lewis, who participated in Occupy Wall Street in full uniform, and was arrested for his participation. As stories of police brutality spread, Lewis reminds us that most cops are fellow members of the 99 percent, working hard to stay afloat in an increasingly class-segregated nation. Most of them aren’t happy being seen as serving the interests of the oligarchy, and where there’s abuse, it’s generally the result of poor training and misguided priorities from the top, not the rank-and-file.
Thanks to Diane Ravitch, and other school reform critics like Dana Goldstein, for adding desperately needed perspective and balance to the school reform debate, a debate in which one side receives what could charitably be referred to as the lion’s share of favorable press coverage and philanthropic support. Their needling forces school reform advocates and foes alike to examine their assumptions and strengthen their arguments, and they sometimes end up causing even dilettante education policy gurus like Steven Brill to see that the seductive claims made by technocrat reformers tend to be overstated. Better, smarter policy debates are enough of a rarity that we should all be thankful for anyone who can manage to produce them.
Thanks to Wael Ghonim for putting aside his very good job with Google to put his life on the line for freedom and liberty for his people in Egypt. Lots of tech entrepreneurs and engineers talk of changing the world; few of them spend weeks in custody as political prisoners for their efforts. Wael Ghonim was instrumental in organizing the popular revolt that toppled a dictatorial regime,
Thanks to Nick Davies, who, along with Guardian investigative correspondent Amelia Hill and others at the Guardian, has been relentlessly exposing News Corps’s criminal news-gathering practices in the U.K. Reporting on the misdeeds of the powerful — and News Corp is hugely powerful, especially in Great Britain — is the best reporting there is, and the investigations and arrests that have resulted from Davies and Hill’s reporting will change the culture of the international media industry for the better. We’ll be especially thankful if News Corp shareholders force the giant conglomerate into more responsible corporate management.
Thanks to Elizabeth Warren for perfectly articulating the liberal ideal of the social contract. One good senator may be limited in how much she can achieve, but if she wins and inspires more like her to follow — and imitate her unapologetic rhetoric of fairness — we’ll have even more to be thankful for.
Thanks to Sree Sreenivasan, dean of the Columbia School of Journalism, for making a mockery of dishonest bully James O’Keefe. O’Keefe’s only power comes from other media outlets taking him seriously. In one hilarious video, Sreenivasan showed why O’Keefe’s a joke.
Her antiabortion compatriots call Lila Rose — a friend and disciple of James O’Keefe — the crusading Upton Sinclair of her generation. But her latest right-wing sting operation, an attempt to “expose” the truth about whether birth control pills will actually be banned if Mississippi passes a Personhood amendment next week, is pretty much a giant bust.
Planned Parenthood, Rose’s bête-noire, is involved in the official coalition to defeat Initiative 26, which would amend Mississippi’s constitution to grant full “personhood” to fertilized eggs. Mississippi being Mississippi, the official anti-26 campaign has focused on what it calls the amendment’s “unintended consequences” beyond banning abortion: criminalizing miscarriages deemed suspicious, severely limiting in-vitro fertilization and banning many popular forms of birth control.
Rose’s “sting” involves calling up the one Planned Parenthood in the state (which doesn’t even provide abortions) and asking the receptionist whether the birth control pill would be available after the November election. “OK, so far as we know, birth control will still be available,” the person answering the phone responds. The longer video includes calls to public health officials who also sound confused. “We all know this is not about birth control. This is about saving lives,” the narrator continues over an image of a fully developed fetus.
Except it is also about birth control, as I learned firsthand when I was in Mississippi recently. One of the local doctors most closely associated with the Yes on 26 movement, Beverly McMillan, told me unequivocally that the IUD and the morning-after pill would be banned, and has written that she “painfully agree[s] that birth control pills do in fact cause abortions.” Another doctor, Freda Bush, who has gone on television to claim that contraception wouldn’t be banned, wouldn’t give a straight answer about which contraceptives would be banned, claiming she wasn’t an authority. She herself already refuses to prescribe the highly effective IUD out of the fear that it would block a fertilized egg – in her mind, an “abortion.”
But on the Diane Rehm show Monday, pro-Personhood pastor Walter Hoye was even clearer, saying, “Any birth control that ends the life of that human being will be impacted by this measure.” Asked, “What about the birth control pill?” Hoyes paused and said, “That falls into the same category.” No wonder rank-and-file healthcare employees aren’t sure: Not only has the amendment not even been voted on yet, its supporters can’t get their own message straight.
The video also makes much of the anti-26 Mississippi for Healthy Families being “not even from Mississippi” because it’s received funding from Planned Parenthood affiliates outside the state. But as the sleuths at the grass-roots anti-26 efforts noticed, one-third of that funding was in-kind contributions, for a total of under $100,000 in cash from Planned Parenthood. Meanwhile, the total amount of cash the Yes on 26 campaign got from the Colorado-based Personhood USA, according to its filings with the secretary of state: over $300,000. Meanwhile, both Hoye and Rose are based in California, not quite the Mississippi heartland.
Puckish conservative prankster James O’Keefe may have ditched his pimp outfit for a suit and tie, but he’s still out there, searching for the truth. We wrote on Monday how the (ethically challenged) documentarian — who in the past has shaken up NPR’s leadership and brought ACORN to its knees — was conspicuously lurking around Zuccotti Park, and seemed to be working on a video about Occupy Wall Street. Well, that video has finally surfaced, and, boy … it’s actually pretty boring!
Viewers of the clip will see Mr. O’Keefe — feigning the appearance of a Wall Street banker — as he tries to converse with the hoi polloi. One protester rambles on about a “Constitutional World Federation.” Another chats about Amalgamated Bank. And a third gave O’Keefe a piece of cake! What will those dastardly liberals think of next?
Conservative activist James O’Keefe caused a commotion in the blogosphere this afternoon when reports began to circulate that he had made a surprise appearance at the Occupy Wall Street protests. Photo and video evidence soon followed. Only one problem: He might not have had permission.
O’Keefe, who has nabbed headlines with high-profile video stings against NPR, ACORN and other left-leaning targets, was arrested in 2010 for attempting to tamper with phones in the New Orleans office of Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu. Three years of probation were a condition of his sentence. Since then, every trip the activist takes outside of New Jersey (where he resides with his parents) has had to be cleared by a judge.
[A]ccording to court records, a judge never approved his trip across the Hudson River and out of the state of New Jersey, where he lives with his parents. A judge has regularly approved all of his trips since hepleaded guilty to entering U.S. property under false pretenses back in May 2010 and received three years probation.
Ryan Girdusky, a spokesman for O’Keefe told TPM that O’Keefe got permission to make the trip from his probation officer.
A message posted earlier this evening on O’Keefe’s Twitter feed reads: “Can’t take your calls, journalists. Busy producing a video.”
James O’Keefe, whose conservative coterie’s “rogue journalism” escapades have grown infamous in recent years — his most recent prank resulted in the resignation of NPR’s former CEO, Vivian Schiller — has just scored a major victory: The IRS has classified his organization, Project Veritas, as a nonprofit (prompting the Huffington Post’s Jason Linkins to quip: “Hey! Now they’re more like NPR than ever!”).
Although Project Veritas’ application for nonprofit recognition was approved in early April, the Chronicle of Philanthropy first reported the news earlier this week, after gaining access to relevant papers through the Freedom of Information Act. O’Keefe told the Chronicle:
“We’re pleased that Project Veritas’s nonprofit status has been approved. Our nonpartisan mission of exposing corruption while training new, investigative journalists can now be fully supported by donors who require a tax-exemption for their generous contributions.”
He also spoke to the New York Times, explaining how the new status would aid in the expansion of his organization:
He said the money saved with the status would help Project Veritas train and equip “an army” of citizen journalists to carry out its mission: “to investigate and expose corruption, dishonesty, self-dealing, waste, fraud and other misconduct in both public and private institutions in order to achieve a more ethical and transparent society.”
Some interesting takeaways from Project Veritas’ full application, which the Chronicle has now posted online:
While O’Keefe has apparently not taken a salary from the organization in the past, his estimated future compensation is $120,000 per year.
The organization claims it will not “support or oppose candidates in political campaigns in any way,” nor will it “attempt to influence legislation” through lobbying.
Project Veritas says it took only $2,367 in income last year — and lists $2,200 in expenses. The team provides an optimistic three-year fundraising target of $1.65 million.
By next year, the organization hopes to be paying its “lead full-time investigator” an annual salary of $200,000.
Komen’s Nancy Brinker Should Explain or Step Down 
Whose Wisconsin recall is it? 
Can Greece thwart a complete meltdown? 
Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s alternative abortion history 
Inside Syria’s whirlwind of war 
Syria’s looming threat of civil war 
Santorum’s well-compensated love of fracking 
The Tea Party’s war on mass transit 
At the CPAC-Occupy beer summit 
Whitney Houston’s lessons in love 
Our non-withdrawal from Afghanistan 
