The Totalitarian Leftist Tactics against the Right

Project Veritas is proven liar James O'Keefe. So Chiroptera was right and you are ignorant. One CNN producer (not executive) totally unconnected to the hard news part of the organization (he produces medical stories with Sanjay Gupta and some others) appears to have said he thinks the Russia thing may be BS. We don't know whether or not he really said that; O'Keefe is famous for intentionally misrepresenting people by scurrilous edits in his videos. But even if the guy did say that, what reason do we have to think he knows anything on the subject?Chiroptera was also right about what CNN did. They retracted one peripheral story and fired three people. The vast majority of the evidence remains.

As I said above, O'Keefe is famous for editing to make it appear that people said something they really didn't. Such as showing a question and then the answer to a different question. Also see especially the last sentence of the last quote:Questions Raised About O'Keefe's Editing Of NPR Sting Video : The Two-Way : NPR:

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As NPR's David Folkenflik says on Weekend Edition Sunday, conservative broadcaster Glenn Beck's website The Blaze has done some judging and concluded that O'Keefe did make some misleading edits.

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The Blaze wrote Thursday that some things O'Keefe did were "editing tactics that seem designed to intentionally lie or mislead about the material being presented." For instance, The Blaze says that in the edited tape "NPR exec Ron Schiller does describe Tea Party members as 'xenophobic ... seriously racist people.' " But, it notes:

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"The clip in the edited video implies Schiller is giving simply his own analysis of the Tea Party. He does do that in part, but the raw video reveals that he is largely recounting the views expressed to him by two top Republicans, one a former ambassador, who admitted to him that they voted for Obama.

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"At the end, he signals his agreement. The larger context does not excuse his comments, or his judgment in sharing the account, but would a full context edit have been more fair?"

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James O'Keefe - Wikipedia:

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When his videos portraying ACORN workers seemingly aiding a couple in criminal planning hit the 24-hour cable news cycle, the U.S. Congress quickly voted to freeze funds for the non-profit. The national controversy resulted in the non-profit also losing most of its private funding before investigations of the videos concluded no illegal activity occurred. In March 2010, ACORN was close to bankruptcy and had to close or rename most of its offices.[8] Shortly after, the California State Attorney General's Office and the US Government Accountability Office released their related investigative reports. The Attorney General's Office found that O'Keefe had misrepresented the actions of ACORN workers in California and that the workers had not broken any laws. A preliminary probe by the GAO found that ACORN had managed its federal funds appropriately.[9][10] One of the fired ACORN workers sued O'Keefe for invasion of privacy; O'Keefe issued an apology and agreed to pay $100,000 in a settlement.

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O'Keefe and Breitbart ACORN Videos 'Severely Edited':

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O'Keefe stated he was out to make a point and to damage ACORN and therefore did not act as a journalist objectively reporting a story. The video releases were heavily edited to feature only the worst or most inappropriate statements of the various ACORN employees, and to omit some of the most salient statements by O'Keefe and Giles.

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Videotapes secretly recorded last summer and severely edited by O'Keefe seemed to show ACORN employees encouraging a "pimp" (O'Keefe) and his "prostitute," actually a Florida college student named Hannah Miles, in conversations involving prostitution by underage girls, human trafficking and cheating on taxes. Those videos created a media sensation.

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Evidence obtained by Brown tells a somewhat different story, however, as reflected in three videotapes made at ACORN locations in California. One ACORN worker in San Diego called the cops. Another ACORN worker in San Bernardino caught on to the scheme and played along with it, claiming among other things that she had murdered her abusive husband. Her two former husbands are alive and well, the Attorney General's report noted. At the beginning and end of the Internet videos, O'Keefe was dressed as a 1970s Superfly pimp, but in his actual taped sessions with ACORN workers, he was dressed in a shirt and tie, presented himself as a law student, and said he planned to use the prostitution proceeds to run for Congress. He never claimed he was a pimp.

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You don't know how sleazy and capable he is at editing. He settled with an ACORN employee for $100,000. See above. I don't know about the others. No, It's about how they lie and take things out of context. Didn't look very hard, did you? See settlement above. O'Keefe facing $1 million lawsuit over video sting against Democrats is all over the news. A Texas grand jury was formed to investigate Planned Parenthood after his famous videos of them. They wound up exonerating Planned Parenthood and indicting O'Keefe and an accomplice. The criminal case was dismissed on a technicality; Texas law limited the scope of the investigation.

It's true. Translation: Faith can't just admit one of her heroes is a villain.

Why didn't they mention O'Keefe's past as significant in evaluating his current work?Can you honestly think about hat question and what its answer says about your source?Care to bet that none of your favorite sources will ever run this kind of information?Some more from What the latest James O’Keefe video intentionally leaves out:O'Keefe is an admitted and convicted felon:

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O’KeefeJames O'Keefe Avoids Jail Time pleaded guilty in 2010 to unlawfully entering the New Orleans office of then-Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) after he and three associates went to the office dressed as telephone workers in an alleged attempt to tamper with the senator’s phones. He received three years of probation, a fine of $1,500 and 100 hours of community service.

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He's attempted a pretty sleazy sex sting, from the same source:

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Later that year, O’Keefe attempted to lure a CNN correspondent, Abbie Boudreau, onto a boat filled with sex toys in order to film the encounter and punk Boudreau, who was reporting a story on conservative filmmakers. Among the props O’Keefe reportedly intended to use were a jar filled with condoms, posters and paintings of naked women, fuzzy handcuffs and a blindfold. Boudreau declined the invitation.

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From the same source, a critique of his CNN producer video:

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Yet the video includes several journalistic evasions and shortcuts that would likely elicit outrage from critics if a mainstream news organization had employed the same techniques.

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For example, it never mentions that Bonifield is a producer of health and medical stories, raising questions about how relevant his views are, and how informed he is, about CNN’s political coverage. It also doesn’t disclose that he is based in Atlanta not in Washington or New York, where most of CNN’s coverage of national affairs and politics are produced.

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Instead, the video identifies him a supervising producer, suggesting a senior decision-making role. O’Keefe, who appears on the video as a kind of master of ceremonies, furthers this impression by saying the footage describes the real motivation behind our dominant media organizations.

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But CNN said Bonifield speaks only for himself. In a statement, it said stood by him and that diversity of personal opinion is what makes CNN strong. We welcome it and embrace it. The network said it had no plans to take any disciplinary action.

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The video also doesn’t identify the man to whom Bonifield is speaking, nor does it provide any clue about how he came to record Bonifield.

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A Project Veritas spokesman, Stephen Gordon, declined to offer details on those points, saying that doing so could reveal the organization’s methods and identify its practitioners. He said, however, that the undercover journalist was introduced to Bonifield by a third party, whom he also did not identify.

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And to illustrate how pathetic he really is, Fox News Host Isn't Amused By O'Keefe's Osama Bin Laden Border Crossing Stunt. He waded across the Rio Grande in an Osama Bin Laden mask to illustrate how easily terrorists could get in, not mentioning the several obstacles he would have to surmount to actually get past the border.

Not directly OT, but somewhat germane: A tale of two networks: How Fox News and CNN handled recent retractions

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In recent months, both CNN and Fox have retracted stories on their websites regarding particularly high-profile topics on the left and right, respectively. Both sites issued similar excuses: A breakdown in normal editorial standards that led to something being published that shouldn’t have been.

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Yet in most other ways, the two cases are a study in opposites.

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CNN, on one hand, retracted its story within a day and issued an apology. The network immediately carried out an internal investigation. Three employees resigned. Those that remained were told that any future stories on the topic would need to be vetted by two top executives before publishing.

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Fox, on the other hand, took a week to retract the story, though it was debunked by other news outlets within hours. Little news of an investigation within the network emerged. No on-air apology was issued, despite a week of speculative coverage on the cable network. No employees resigned. And one of the network’s stars  Sean Hannity  continues to promote the conspiracy theory to this day.

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Edited by JonF, : No reason given.

Van Jones: James O’Keefe’s CNN video took me out of context

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News commentator and former President Barack Obama aide Van Jones is skewering President Donald Trump’s White House on CNN for being gullible enough to fall for an edited, right-wing propaganda video.

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Part of conservative provocateur James O’Keefe’s newest video shows Jones standing outside CNN’s Los Angeles bureau saying, The whole Russia thing is a big nothingburger. There is nothing you can do

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But as Jones pointed out, this video omited important context about what Jones was saying and why.

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Did I mean that there is ‘nothing’ to the allegations that members of team Trump colluded with the Russians and then tried to cover it up by firing FBI Director James Comey? Jones writes. No and far from it.

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Jones said that he was actually talking about how Democrats need to focus on bread and butter issues rather than hoping that the Russia investigation will lead to Trump’s impeachment or resignation. Although he believes that there is something fishy about Trump’s relationship with Russia, Jones also thinks it’s unlikely that any evidence will come out that is powerful enough to force the craven GOP to oust Trump.

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That O’Keefe may have taken Jones out of context isn’t a surprise O’Keefe, as Bob Cesca noted, has a track record: Every single video O’Keefe’s ever produced has been resoundingly debunked

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His concern, in other words, is that too many Democrats see the Russia controversy as some kind of magical ‘get out of jail free’ card. They insist that we will be delivered from our misery as soon as the next shoe drops and Trump is impeached.

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This is what Jones meant when he referred to the scandal as a nothingburger.

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O'Keefe is working for the ultra-right-wingers. Such as you.Mistakes get made once in a while. The real media acknowledges the errors and fixes them. Your pals don't.Your lack of doubt does not affect the reality that the Russian investigation is justified and necessary.Edited by JonF, : No reason given.

Yeah, some random guy at CNN with nothing to do with hard news, a serial liar and right - wing felon, and your soul mate in hate and conspiracy theories are trustworthy.Sorry, Faith, calling real news fake is not a magic wand that makes reality go away. The many Russian contacts under suspicious circumstances that Trump associates have tried to conceal by lying, sometimes under oath, demand explanation.

It's still not a magic incantation that makes reality go away. As I have pointed out twice in this thread, nobody who could possibly know has said there is no evidence of collusion with Russia. The right wing media has taken carefully crafted statements that do not say there is no evidence and misrepresented them. You have not replied.Let's see some quotes of what people have really said. When we were discussing Alex Jones a few days ago you admitted you are a hater, both you and he hating those who deserve (in your mind) to be hated.I don't hate you. I am appalled by your abysmal ignorance and determination to remain that way, I am astonished at your many inabilities, and I pity you for living inside a tight right-wing YEC box without ever appraciating all there is to enjoy in the real world.

I'll start. james Comey:

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In that context, prior to the January 6 meeting, I discussed with the FBI's leadership team whether I should be prepared to assure President-Elect Trump that we were not investigating him personally. That was true; we did not have an open counter-intelligence case on him. We agreed I should do so if circumstances warranted. During our one-on-one meeting at Trump Tower, based on President Elect Trump's reaction to the briefing and without him directly asking the question, I offered that assurance.

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Note that he said "counter-intelligence investigation", not just "investigation". that leaves the possibility of a criminal investigation. Also since he made that statement a lot more relevant information has come to light and thre is now an investigation.From "Meet the Press":

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Todd: "Does intelligence exist that can definitively answer the following question, whether there were improper contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian officials?"

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Clapper: "We did not include any evidence in our report, and I say, ‘our,’ that's NSA, FBI and CIA, with my office, the Director of National Intelligence, that had anything, that had any reflection of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians. There was no evidence of that included in our report."

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Todd: "I understand that. But does it exist?"

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Clapper: "Not to my knowledge."

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Note that he did not say no evidence exists. He did say he wasn't aware of any at that time. He later clarified that he was not aware of the existing investigation:

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Asked about Trump’s tweet in a May 12 interview on MSNBC, Clapper explained that the director of national intelligence position would not necessarily offer a vantage point into FBI evidence.

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Clapper said that in his more than six years as DNI, he regularly deferred to the FBI when a counterintelligence investigation could possibly morph into a criminal investigation.

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"That was certainly the practice I followed here," he said of the FBI’s ongoing Russia investigation. "So it’s not surprising or abnormal that I would not have known about the investigation, or even more importantly, the content of that investigation.

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"So I don’t know if there was collusion or not," added Clapper, who resigned at the end of President Barack Obama’s term.

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Later in the interview, Clapper was asked if he agrees with Trump that the Russian investigation is a "witch hunt," to which he replied, "I don’t believe it is."

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Instead, Clapper compared it to a "dark cloud" that would continue to linger until the investigation is complete.

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"What needs to happen here is to clear this cloud that’s hanging over the administration, over the president, the White House," he said. "It would be in everyone’s best interest to get to the bottom of this."

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And as a effect, I was not aware of the counterintelligence investigation Director Comey first referred to during his testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee for Intelligence on the 20th of March, and that comports with my public statements

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Your turn, Faith.

Nope. What they said is not equivalent to saying there is no evidence. E.g. "I don't know of any" is not "None exists". They're not weasel words. They're carefully considered and accurate expressions of the speaker's knowledge of the affair. They mean exactly what they said, no more and no less.

You have no means of knowing that, nor do I. Investigations continue, and so do new revelations. Just yesterday GOP Operative Sought Clinton Emails From Hackers, Implied a Connection to Flynn. What is the significance of that, if any? I don't know and neither do you. But new information is constantly being revealed.Edited by JonF, : No reason given.

The right wing media sure did. But for the most part the insinuations against Clinton were lies and the accusations against Trump are largely founded in fact.What spell are you going to cast to avoid addressing that fact?Do you approve of his tweet about Mika?Edited by JonF, : No reason given.