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Any time someone has to use James O'Keefe and one of his phoney sting videos to validate their argument, they don't have one, which is exactly what Heritage Foundation flack Brian Darling did this Monday to justify the GOP's voter suppression laws they've been passing across the country: Heritage Foundation ‘Expert’ Cannot Cite Any Examples Of Actual Voter Fraud:

In an interview with Chuck Todd on MSNBC’s The Daily Rundown this morning, Heritage Foundation senior fellow Brian Darling argued for the importance of Florida-style voter suppression laws in order to stop potential voter fraud. But when pressed by Todd to identify any actual examples of voter fraud, Darling appeared stumped:

DARLING: And there’ve been examples of voter fraud… in Florida. Look at ACORN.

TODD: Where is this voter fraud? I mean it is not this giant…

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Is it just me, or does anyone else think James O'Keefe has some real issues with liking to play dress up a bit too much? I'm not sure when we're finally going to see the last of James O'Keefe and his brand of ambush "journalism", but yesterday could not be too soon for me.

From TPM -- James O'Keefe's Latest 'Terrorist' Medicaid Sting Goes After Woman For Following Law:

Stop me if you've heard this one. A man goes into a public assistance office in Charleston, South Carolina in a kilt, tells them he's a member of the Irish Republican Army and asks for help for 25 fellow Irishmen in a hospital who need Medicaid.

A government employee follows the rules and explains the process for filling out a Medicaid paperwork and the qualifications they'd need to meet. She informs them that a federal law intended to protect patient privacy requires her not to divulge any information he's told her.

So what happens next? James O'Keefe's Project Veritas releases a deceptively edited video that makes the woman look like a terrorist sympathizer, though it isn't even clear if she knows the background of the IRA.

In the edited version, the woman says it would not be in her best interest to divulge anything because she could not afford it and she doesn't want to go to jail. As it turns out, that's what she's supposed to do under the law.

To his credit, O'Keefe posted the full unedited video of the "sting" directly after the edited version. Which makes it all the more curious that Project Veritas edited the tape in a way that paints the government employee in a bad light. Read on...

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Fox News reaired a segment they originally ran on their business channel earlier this week where John Stossel attempted to rehabilitate the reputation of the ambush "journalist" James O'Keefe. All I can say is I hope these two just gave anyone who is suing this hatchet man some extra material to work with.

Media Matters caught this earlier in the week and has more -- Stossel Rehabs O'Keefe In Absurd Segment On Undercover Sting Videos:

On the April 21 broadcast of Fox Business' Stossel, John Stossel hosted disgraced right-wing filmmaker James O'Keefe to debate privacy rights of those targeted by undercover sting videos. During the segment, which was rebroadcast April 23 on the Fox News Channel, Stossel praised the so-called success of O'Keefe's sting videos against ACORN and NPR, but at no point did he mention that O'Keefe's videos were found to be deceptively edited. Moreover, Stossel falsely claimed that O'Keefe is "careful not to go to" states with two party filming consent laws, when, in fact, O'Keefe has conducted his undercover video operations in several states with law prohibiting such activities.

As Media Matters has repeatedly noted, O'Keefe has been widely criticized for deceptively editing his videos. For instance, O'Keefe's ACORN videos were found to be edited to falsely suggest criminal violations by ACORN employees. Then-California Attorney General Jerry Brown's office conducted an investigation into the ACORN videos that concluded there was no evidence of illegal activity by ACORN, and that O'Keefe's videos were deceptively edited to suggest otherwise. According to Brown: "[T]hings are not always as partisan zealots portray them through highly selective editing of reality. Sometimes a fuller truth is found on the cutting room floor." Glenn Beck's website, The Blaze, compared the raw video footage of O'Keefe's video hit against NPR executives and found that the video was edited to "intentionally lie or mislead." NPR contributor David Folkenflik also asked independent consultants to review both the edited video and the raw footage, and wrote of their findings: [...]

Given the wealth of real investigative journalists who conduct their important work in an ethical manner, it is simply unfathomable why Stossel would stoop to hosting O'Keefe as a pillar of investigative journalism. After all, this is the same guy who recently was caught trying to frame CNN correspondent Abby Boudreau by attempting to seduce her on a boat filled with sex toys. Stossel has certainly hit some low points during the course of his career, but this one just may take the cake.

More there so go read the rest. I've got to agree with Media Matters' Julie Millican. This very well may be a new low even for the likes of Stossel.

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Looks like Chris Wallace was in the mood to give Breitbart's buddy James O'Keefe, another plug this week as his "Power Player of the Week." Wallace's omissions about O'Keefe's record were nearly as bad as O'Keefe's deceptive video editing. Shameful.

Media Matters has more -- Wallace's "Power Player" Designation For O'Keefe Ignores His History Of Deception:

For the second time, Chris Wallace named James O'Keefe Fox News Sunday's "Power Player of the Week." But Wallace ignored O'Keefe's history of discredited claims and allegations that O'Keefe deceptively edits his videos, including the NPR video that earned him the latest "Power Player" designation. [...]

Wallace Touted ACORN Sting, Promoted Upcoming Video Release. Wallace began his "Power Player of the Week" segment by touting O'Keefe's ability to go after "big targets" and get "stunning results," regardless of "[w]hether you admire or condemn his tactics." Wallace went on to tout how O'Keefe's ACORN videos "pushed Congress to cut off federal funding," and concluded by noting that a video from "an undercover sting of a public television executive" would be released by O'Keefe in the coming week. From the March 13 edition of Fox News Sunday: [...]

Wallace Ignored Deceptive Editing Of O'Keefe's Videos

Beck's Right-Wing Website Found "Questionable Editing" In O'Keefe's NPR Video. Citing an examination of the NPR video conducted by Glenn Beck's website TheBlaze.com, Politico's Ben Smith and Slate's David Weigel reported that the video of Schiller released by O'Keefe's Project Veritas was deceptively edited to portray certain statements by Schiller out of context. Smith described the editing as "some really serious, dishonest lily-gilding." [Ben Smith, Politico, 3/11/11; David Weigel, Slate, 3/11/11; The Blaze, 3/10/11]

In Touting ACORN Video, Wallace Ignored That O'Keefe Deceptively Edited Those As Well. Wallace noted that O'Keefe's ACORN videos "pushed Congress to cut off federal funding," but he didn't mention that the videos were edited to falsely suggest criminal violations by ACORN employees. Then-California Attorney General Jerry Brown's office conducted an investigation into the ACORN videos that concluded there was no evidence of illegal activity by ACORN, and that the videos were deceptively edited. According to Brown: "[T]hings are not always as partisan zealots portray them through highly selective editing of reality. Sometimes a fuller truth is found on the cutting room floor." [California Attorney General's Office, 4/1/10]

Wallace Plucked Schiller's Statement On NPR's Federal Funding Out Of Context

Read on...

Transcript below the fold.

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By now everyone has heard about James O'Keefe and his attempt to "punk" CNN reporter Abbie Boudreau. That special aired over the weekend and it basically glorified a bunch of right wing wingnut ambush "journalists" with friendly interviews and no perspective from anyone being harmed by their actions. The special completely glossed over what happened with James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles and their doctored tapes of ACORN employees. They showed the two of them in their pimp and prostitute outfits without mentioning that they weren't wearing those clothes when they entered the ACORN offices.

The special featured Andrew Breitbart, James O'Keefe, Hannah Giles, Lila Rose, Jason Mattera and Ryan Sorba, many of whom you would have never heard of if you weren't watching Fox News. The show featured a series of softball with the group that were about as hard-hitting as you might expect when watching the Oprah Winfrey Show.

I would imagine that it would have been all favorable coverage of them had it not been for the stunt O'Keefe tried to pull on Boudreau. The show basically glorified the type of crap Bill O'Reilly has been doing for ages now and treated it as some new form of journalism that's going to keep the "mainstream" media honest.

All they did is lend some very undeserved credibility to Andrew Breitbart and his minions who have a terrible history with ambushing politicians or anyone else they decide to scapegoat for the week and then putting out highly edited videos later. That's not journalism. CNN should really be ashamed of themselves for this horrid piece of "investigative journalism."

You can read the entire transcript here.

The clip above is a bit from the end of the special. Apparently James O'Keefe is going to be featured in a music video and thinks he's Michael Jackson reincarnated.

Time for your weekly podcast with The Professional Left, our own Driftglass and Bluegal. Enjoy and have a great weekend everybody.

You can listen to archives on a free web-based player (and throw five bucks in the hat to help keep these going) at The Professional Left.

Rachel Maddow hits the nail on the head again on the hypocrisy that is the Republican Party. She gave a little bit of pre-show homework on this segment at her blog.

Preshow homework: Acorn (sorta):

Today's homework involves ACORN, though the segment it pertains to tonight is only partly about ACORN -- and that's all we'll say about it ahead of time.

For now, we advise you to look back at California Attorney General Jerry Brown's investigation of ACORN and the James O'Keefe pimp-umentary sting tapes, the ones that helped bring the community organizer to the brink last year. You can take the quick route, with this LA Times report:

California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown said in a report Thursday that the community organizing group ACORN engaged in "highly inappropriate behavior" in the state but violated no criminal law.

Or you can read Brown's 28-page report (pdf), after which you'll understand much more about what happened to ACORN.

As she noted here after the Republicans railing on about how horrible the "criminal" ACORN was, which of course we know they only cared about destroying since they were doing too good of a job of with registering voters that were likely to be Democrats and god knows we can't have those poor black people out there deciding our elections for us, the Republicans now have complete disregard for their talking point when it comes to how much money BP is getting in government contracts from the United States. Heaven forbid a company that has actually killed 11 people on that oil rig and destroyed god only knows how much of our coastline might be held to the same standard when the money ACORN was receiving was miniscule in comparison to BP.

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Rachel Maddow calls bull-pucky on Fox News and the GOP for fake outrage on everything from fake pimp James O'Keefe who helped take ACORN down, to Climate-gate, to recess appointments, to the individual mandate in the health care plan, to Miranda rights, to trials for terrorists, to the birthers to you name it.

She asks "Has there ever been a time where we shared so few political facts?" and after noting that we need some actual serious political discourse in America and how important that is to our democracy adds this:

Two things disqualify you from this process. You can't threaten to shoot people, and you have to stop making stuff up.

Amen sister. She's right, the Republicans and their allies in the press should be disqualified from this process for propagandizing the public and for allowing the violent rhetoric coming out of these Tea partiers, Fox News and Republican members of Congress to continue. Until some more of your cohorts in the media are willing to do the same thing you did here, that's not going to happen. This dangerous nonsense only going to get worse until we get these media monopolies broken up.

We should have hundreds of those like Rachel Maddow, Amy Goodman, Thom Hartmann, Bill Moyers and others out there that everyone that visits this site is well aware of, giving equal weight to liberal voices that there is a market for, but has been suppressed by our corporate media that wants to pretend to play fair while marginalizing those that care more about facts over hype.

I don't know what it's going to take to finally get Glenn Beck off of the air or for someone in the GOP to finally tell Michele Bachmann to sit down and shut up but something's got to give or we're headed down a very dangerous path with how this all ends. I truly think some of these useful idiots would rather destroy our country than ever stop what they're doing, and it saddens and terrifies me. I was happy to see Rachel call some of them out for what is just a small portion of how destructive they've been to our democracy and our political discourse.

Sean Hannity joins Stephen for a heavily edited interview to talk about James O'Keefe's deceptive ACORN videos.

Or as the NY Post put it -accurately for once:

ACORN set up by vidiots: DA

The video that unleashed a firestorm of criticism on the activist group ACORN was a "heavily edited" splice job that only made it appear as though the organization's workers were advising a pimp and prostitute on how to get a mortgage, sources said yesterday.

The findings by the Brooklyn DA, following a 5½-month probe into the video, secretly recorded by conservative provocateurs James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, means that no charges will be filed.

Many of the seemingly crime-encouraging answers were taken out of context so as to appear more sinister, sources said.

There's still no word on the result of the charges made against O'Keefe in New Orleans for the intended bugging of Sen. Mary Landrieu's offices. O'Keefe and his cohorts face possible maximum terms of 10 years and $250,000 fines if they end up being indicted on felony charges for that bit of idiocy.

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Mike Barnicle apparently thinks that actual investigative journalists bear some sort of resemblance to Republican dirty trickster, Karl Rove wanna’ be and probably soon to be felon James O’Keefe. The cast of Morning Joe talks to author Gabriel Thompson, who “spent a year going undercover working alongside immigrants and citizens in jobs that most of us wouldn’t want to do,” in the words of Willie Geist in his intro. His book is Working in the Shadows. In what should have been just an interesting interview about what Thompson experienced while researching his book, Mike Barnicle throws this stink bomb out there.

Barnicle: You know it’s great for people to get more information about what kinds of jobs are being done by largely an immigrant population but you mentioned, you know, journalism, and it’s important also to note—you didn’t deceive any of your employers did you—in going to work?

Thompson: I totally deceived every employer because at the outset—it was more of a mission of when I told them my work experiences, did I say I’d spent years as a community organizer or years writing about Mexican immigrants—no. Because none of them would have allowed me access.

[…]

Barnicle: Do you view yourself in a similar fashion as, you know, the guy who got grabbed trying to wiretap the phones of Senator—or whatever they were trying to do at Sen. Landrieu’s office?

Thompson: Well… he was trying to commit a felony, right?

Barnicle: Yeah.

Thompson: I don’t think I was trying to commit a felony.

Barnicle: No.

Thompson: What I was trying to—what I wanted to experience and get access to is what it’s like to work in these jobs.

File this one under you’ve got to be friggin’ kidding me. And don’t tell me Barnicle didn’t know better than to even try to equate these two men. Someone going to work in these horrid conditions for a year and writing about what they experienced and not allowing the employers to know they are a journalist in no way, no shape and no how resembles what the mainstream media keeps trying to call journalism by the likes of O’Keefe.