You'd think the wingers would figure out that James O'Keefe makes them look like fools every time he posts another one of his "videos." You'd think they might consider not pimping those videos like they're real when they're so easy to debunk. You'd think.

This time, it's North Carolina under fire, but O'Keefe ridiculously claims voter fraud when the only fraud is O'Keefe and his bogus claims. This time around, O'Keefe features a "dead voter" and a voter who he claims is illegally registered to vote because he was not a citizen at the time he was called for jury duty. Unfortunately for O'Keefe, he became a citizen in the 80s, a fact that was easily verifiable before publishing the video.

As for O'Keefe's dead guy, it turns out James forgot that "Jr." at the end of a guy's name means he's the son of the dead guy and also happens to be a very much alive registered voter.

Via Media Matters:

Yes, as multiple obituaries for Bolton note, he was survived by, among others, his son Michael Gordon Bolton, Jr. Public records searches using the Nexis database confirm that Bolton Jr. was registered to vote at the same address given to the poll worker by the O'Keefe operative.

This isn't the only error of this sort O'Keefe made. As ThinkProgress noted, the "non-citizen" voter supposedly exposed by the video is actually a naturalized citizen.

The best screw-up of all is the one where O'Keefe punks the Daily Caller, Breitbart.com and Michelle Malkin. I love it when one of their own hangs them out to dry so thoroughly. In the opener of his ten-minute long video, O'Keefe's minions are walking up a driveway to "prove" that a non-citizen has voted in the North Carolina primary.

Via ThinkProgress Justice:

Now, it turns out that the second “non-citizen,” William Romero, is actually a citizen as well, according to his family.

The video opens with O’Keefe’s cameraman walking up Romero’s driveway and confronting a member of his family about whether he is a citizen. O’Keefe points to court records from 2010 where Romero was excused from jury duty because he was not a citizen at the time. Therefore, as O’Keefe argues, Romero’s voter registration dated December 5, 2011 is fraudulent because Romero “is not a United States citizen.”

Oops! That calendar can be a pesky thing. It turns out Romero became a citizen in early 2011, and registered to vote because that's what good citizens in this country do: they vote.

In fact, Romero’s family told ThinkProgress he became a naturalized citizen in early 2011.

What’s more, Romero’s family told ThinkProgress that they had began receiving harassing telephone calls two weeks before the incident in the video asking if Romero was a citizen. They confirmed to the caller — it’s unclear whether they were speaking with O’Keefe himself or another individual — that Romero is indeed a citizen. Nevertheless, O’Keefe proceeded to ambush the family at their home and publish this video claiming he’s not a citizen.

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SAN DIEGO -- Explosive new information obtained by 10News reveals for the first time the payout for an undercover video that helped bring down the group ACORN.

James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, who played the role of pimp and prostitute in the video, were both deposed in a civil suit. O'Keefe wore a suit, while Giles donned a dark blouse, in contrast to the images that are familiar to many.

Back in 2009, they were the ones applying the pressure. After posing as pimp and prostitute, the two filmed undercover footage at an office in National City that appeared to show ACORN worker Juan Carlos Vera giving tips on bringing teen prostitutes across the border.

After the footage was posted by conservative activist Andrew Breitbart, Vera was fired. A state probe eventually confirmed Vera was simply playing along with the pimp conversation and had called police.

Eventually, amid a string of other videos, ACORN lost its federal funding and dissolved.

Vera filed suit, claiming O'Keefe had violated state privacy laws, and in a March deposition, there were some revealing statements from O'Keefe.

"He [Breitbart] said he would like to find a way for me to get paid to publish the videos," testified O'Keefe.
O'Keefe gave details about the payout. He testified that before the San Diego undercover taping, Breitbart first saw undercover ACORN videos from the East Coast and wanted to see more.

"Now we have evidence for the first time, Breitbart agreed in advance to participate in the violation of California law," said Gene Iredale, Vera's attorney.

O'Keefe said he was eventually paid $65,000 by Breitbart to blog about the video.

Vera's attorneys now plan to file suit against the estate of Breitbart, who recently died of heart failure.

Another key issue was why O'Keefe made only minimal attempts to follow up with Vera to confirm what was said in the footage.

"I did want to follow up," testified O'Keefe. "I just didn't end up following up."

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Credit: Gawker

One of the things that I've found curious about the pearl-clutching over the revelation that dramatist/monologuist Mike Daisey embellished his experiences at Foxconn is that these self-same media types have no problem breathlessly reporting the next "gotcha" journalism prank of punk James O'Keefe and other Breitbart minions, no matter how ridiculous or epic fail it might be. You'd think "fool me once..." would apply when it comes to a convicted criminal like James O'Keefe, but sadly, it hasn't.

However, there's at least one person who sees O'Keefe clearly for what he is and she's sharing what she knows. Of course, it shouldn't surprise you to hear that she's been subjected to some of the most ugly attacks on Twitter for daring to expose what a puerile, ugly and downright pathological jerk he is.

Last week, we reported that Nadia Naffe, self-described “accomplice” to conservative activist James O’Keefe , had begun publishing a multi-part tell-all series of posts to her blog. Thursday morning, Naffe published the second part, which details her version of the events that led her to file a criminal harassment complaint against O’Keefe in November, and which includes documents related to a sexual harassment settlement between O’Keefe and “CNN Sex Boat Caper” whistleblower Izzy Santa. O’Keefe filed suit against Naffe on Wednesday to obtain an injunction against publication of those documents, and of emails that O’Keefe claims she stole from his computer.

Since publishing the first part of her tell-all, Nadia Naffe has been the subject of relentless attacks on Twitter, and has responded defiantly, promising to publish 7 years worth of O’Keefe’s emails and documents (which she says she obtained when the conservative provocateur borrowed her Android phone and linked his Gmail account with hers), and to give a full accounting of the events that led her to file a criminal harassment complaint against him in November.

Naffe's account is really seedy, suggesting that O'Keefe may have drugged her beer, leaving her disoriented and unable to get herself back to the train station and away from O'Keefe. But that's not even the seedy part:

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So it seems James O'Keefe has gone to Vermont and made a stupid video. It's stupid because it does what James O'Keefe always tries to do -- exaggerates a problem in order to shame public officials into accepting his point of view. Only the only one who should be shamed is O'Keefe.

Just as he did in New Hampshire, he sent in "undercover" people with video cameras to ask for ballots in the name of voters, living and dead. In each case on the video, O'Keefe's minions ask whether they need to show ID, and in each case, poll workers tell them they don't.

One of the more interesting anomalies on the video are the dates. The first subject, "Mohamud" is dated March 9, 2009. The "John Adams" video is dated February 27, 2012, as is "Adam Berger." "Travis Houle" is dated March 8, 2009. "Evan Bean" is March 8, 2009. The date of the Vermont primary was March 7, 2012. None of these videos have that date. The 2009-2010 Vermont elections calendar does not have any elections scheduled for March 8-9, 2009, nor was anything scheduled for February 27, 2012. There was a very close mayoral election in Burlington, VT on March 3, 2009, which went to an instant runoff where a progressive was elected over the Republican candidate, knocking the Democrat out of the race altogether. But why would video referring to a city race be dated March 9th when the election was March 3rd? The ballots cast on March 3rd were used in the instant runoff voting, so there wasn't a new vote on the 8th or 9th.

Vermont does, however, permit voter registration until five days before the election. In the case of "John Adams" and "Adam Berger", it's possible they were requesting voter registration forms, which they would not need ID to request, but would need ID to submit.

In Vermont, a valid photo ID is required when one registers to vote. Applicants are also required to take the "Voter's Oath", which must be certified by an appropriate official before the registration is valid. Once those requirements are met, the voter's name is entered on the rolls.

All of this begs the question: Where were these videos filmed and for what elections? It would appear they weren't even filmed in Vermont! And if they were filmed in Vermont on those days and actual ballots were requested, then O'Keefe forgot about this:

While one can indeed register to vote (in most places) without showing an ID via third party, what O'Keefe fails to mention in his video, is that the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002 already requires those who do not register in person to provide ID when voting for the first time at the polling place. In other words, if "Thomas Brady" registers to vote via the registration forms received via O'Keefe's video, he would be required, by federal law, to show an ID the first time he votes in person at the polling place.

He also evidently ignored this as he continues to push Voter ID laws with his highly suspect videos:

The only type of voter fraud which could possibly be deterred by such measures would be in-person, polling place impersonation, which is so rare that even George W. Bush's own Dept. of Justice was unable to find even a single instance of it, out of hundreds of millions of votes cast across the nation during the years from 2002 to 2005, when they placed unprecedented resources into ferreting out such instances of voter fraud.

The bulk of this video is O'Keefe trying to make false equivalences between showing ID to drink, get a hotel room, and complete a civil union, while completely ignoring the fact that yes, ID is required to vote, at the time of registration to vote rather than on Election Day. He also ignores the fact that voting is a Constitutional right rather than an optional act such as drinking, renting a hotel room, or entering into a contractual civil union with another person. What's truly laughable is that this particular line of thinking is one that's already been pushed on by conservatives, including J. Christian Adams. Via Media Matters:

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Let's get this out of the way: James O'Keefe, the wannabe gotcha journalist who can't hide his punk stupidity, is a big, fat liar. If he directs his hidden camera at you, you can be sure that what turns up will be wildly edited and quickly discredited.

O'Keefe loves to go after liberal stalwarts: ACORN, NPR, voting and democracy. You know, basically things that aren't at all threats to anything other than the mindset that we're a center-right nation. In his latest stunt, he tried to "prove" that voting fraud was rampant, with dead people actually voting in the New Hampshire primary. Except....

With his last set of videos largely seen as meaningless and pathetic, his fundraising in shambles, and his allies leaving him in disgust, O'Keefe clearly hopes to press this non-issue to revive his standing in the conservative movement. As always, the Daily Caller is happy to help out, already trumpeting the "bombshell video" that they received "exclusively" from O'Keefe.

In the service of this aim, O'Keefe and associate Spencer Meads visited a number of polling locations during the January 10 New Hampshire primaries armed with hidden cameras. At each polling location, the videographer in question would approach a poll worker who was checking in voters and ask the poll worker if a recently deceased voter's name is on the rolls. When the poll worker, assuming that the right-wing operative is presenting themselves as that person, attempts to give them a ballot, the videographer says that they don't have their ID and leaves.[..]

But O'Keefe's claim [of rampant fraud] aside, there is simply no evidence that such fraud occurs more often then, say, community organizations are asked to help set up child sex rings. In a 2007 report, the Brennan Center for Justice reported that there are a "handful" of cases when votes have actually cast in the names of the deceased, compared to thousands of such allegations that ultimately proved fruitless.

Again, this whole conservative bugaboo demanding Voter ID to prevent voter fraud is a solution to a non-existent problem, and one that has been shown to actually prevent legitimate voting from taking place. But convicted parolee O'Keefe may have reached too far:

[E]lection law experts tell TPM that O’Keefe’s allies could face criminal charges on both the federal and state level for procuring ballots under false names, and that his undercover sting doesn’t demonstrate a need for voter ID laws at all.

Federal law bans not only the casting of, but the “procurement” of ballots “that are known by the person to be materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent under the laws of the State in which the election is held.”

Hamline University law professor David Schultz told TPM that there’s “no doubt” that O’Keefe’s investigators violated the law.

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James O'Keefe could use a few lessons in logic. He was so determined to get his "big scoop" on voter fraud that he may have had his goons commit voter fraud in order to prove it.

TPM Muckraker:

It was one of the few — if not the only — coordinated efforts to attempt in-person voter fraud, and it was pulled off by affiliates of conservative activist James O’Keefe at polling places in New Hampshire Tuesday night. All of it part of an attempt to prove the need for voter ID laws that voting rights experts say have a unfair impact on minority voters.

Now election law experts tell TPM that O’Keefe’s allies could face criminal charges on both the federal and state level for procuring ballots under false names, and that his undercover sting doesn’t demonstrate a need for voter ID laws at all.

Federal law bans not only the casting of, but the “procurement” of ballots “that are known by the person to be materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent under the laws of the State in which the election is held.”

It still amazes me that O'Keefe is allowed to do this as a tax-exempt entity. Here is how he describes his "sting" operation on the YouTube page with the published video:

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The thing about joining up with other people to scam someone is that you need to give them some of the credit for the scam or else they get ticked off and start talking. That is precisely what is happening to James O'Keefe right now. It seems his partners in scamming NPR are upset over O'Keefe snatching the limelight away from them, and are talking to Howard Kurtz about it.

The Daily Beast:

As the world would soon learn, Simon Templar had secretly recorded National Public Radio executives saying disparaging things about conservatives by passing himself off as Ibrahim Kasaam of the Muslim Education Action Center. He had even gotten a phone call with Vivian Schiller, NPR’s chief executive.

James O’Keefe, the man behind the undercover project, wanted to make the hidden-camera video public immediately last February as Congress debatedwhether to kill NPR’s funding. Templar insisted on waiting, and a confrontation ensued.

Templar insisted on waiting because, well, he didn't really have anything, and he was planning to up the ante and rope in other organizations.

Templar grew a beard and dyed his hair dark for the sting. After the lunch, Templar and Adeleye wanted to stick with the plan of approaching other media outlets and academic institutions to expose their purported hypocrisy.

But O'Keefe was in need of something to bolster his incredibly deserved bad reputation, and insisted they release it immediately.

But Templar says O’Keefe told him the video had to be released within three days because he was in touch with sources in Congress and a vote was about to be taken on a budget resolution that could eliminate federal funding of NPR. O’Keefe said he had been assured that "this story would push it over the edge,” according to Templar.

“James was insistent … My position was that trying to beat that deadline was not only futile but irrelevant, even if the desire was to directly prompt the defunding of NPR,” Templar says. “The only result would be an extremely slipshod product.”

So there you have it. O'Keefe was in touch with members of Congress who let him know that they were voting on whether to defund NPR, and he was happy to provide them with ammunition. For O'Keefe it was a win-win proposition, given that NPR executives reacted with extreme cowardice and fired Vivian Schiller and Ron Schiller summarily, despite the fact that they didn't do or say anything particularly wrong.

I've always wondered who the money is behind O'Keefe. He's been well-funded and now has the shield of a tax-exempt organization to receive large, tax-deductible contributions. This paragraph might give a clue:

The next day, according to Templar, O’Keefe and others on the team held a conference call with conservative fundraiser Richard Viguerie, whose firm was retained to send out financial appeals for O’Keefe’s nonprofit group, Project Veritas.

Oh, Richard Viguerie. Ron Paul fanboy and Howard Phillips buddy. Member of the mysterious Council for National Policy (CNP). That Richard Viguerie. He and his buddies made sure James O'Keefe survived to smear another day, courtesy of his buddies in the conservative cabal.

What a motley bunch of people these folks are. James O'Keefe is a perfect standard-bearer.

Previously on Hell's Kitchen my C&L blog, I cooked an absolutely stunning beef wellington wrote about the disturbing trend of Americans being arrested for filming cops.

I happen to be one of the unfortunate saps who's been put in the slam simply for pointing a camera at police. So without further ado, here's the second installment of my own private police state...

“They got me on some straight-up bull----, son!” exclaimed the kid sitting next to me in the bullpen at the Erie County Holding Center. “What they get you on?”

“I shot a cop,” I growled, shooting him an icy stare. “And I’d do it again.”

“Son?!” His face froze in delighted dismay. “Real? That f----- dead?!”

“I really doubt it.”

“Jablaow!” he mimicked a gunshot, aiming his hand at the mucus-encrusted, blood-smeared brick wall.

“What’d you use–a nine, forty-five…”

“A Sony Handycam,” I said with the unflinching nerve of a coldblooded videographer. “It’s the same kind James O’Keefe uses; he told me himself.”

“James who, f-----?” he balked. “Pfft! You on some f-----’ camera shit, son?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I shot a video of a cop.”

“Pfft! That ain’t no law, son. Somebody need to tell them motherfuckers!” he hollered, slapping the cold, metal bench. “We all in here on some bull----!”

***
Bunting swung by my place at about 2pm and we headed to the demonstration downtown. The New York Marriage Equality Act went into effect the previous evening, and the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) was protesting gay marriage throughout the state, for reasons of a religious and hate-filled nature. We wanted to cover the event properly, so we brought along a video camera, a couple bibles, and a massive latex dildo/microphone. The jiggly kind is best for serious journalism.

We circled the block a few times, parked and walked over to the growing crowd at Niagara Square. To our surprise (and because most had been bused in from out of state), the delusional NOM bigots totaled about 250. The righteous counter-protesters were only about a dozen strong. As press, we moved among both factions, asking questions.

“The bible says nothing about gay marriage,” I told a NOM supporter, “and marriage invariably results in less sex, so wouldn’t it stand to reason that, as a Christian, you should support gay marriage?” He was confused.
“Would it be fair to say that you’re doing The Lord’s work here today?” I pressed him. After much squirming, “Yes,” was his answer. I pointed to the bible, politely informed him that he shouldn’t be working on the Sabbath, and told him he was going to hell. It’s in the bible.

We also talked to this hayseed who subsists, ostensibly, on moneys derived from the Tooth Fairy. In a hill-folk whistle, he claimed to be “a low-level politician.” He had glossy, moonshine eyes. And dementia, possibly. “They took our rights!” he claimed. I didn’t bother to ask how.

“Your pants are clearly a poly-cotton blend,” I informed him. “You’re going to hell. It’s in the bible.”

The crowd started chanting, “Let the people vote!” Because social conservatives are not allowed to vote for governor or state legislature. Then they started singing; it was pretty gay. “How great is our God?” went the seemingly endless refrain. Not great enough to stop gay marriage which, for an omnipotent being, should have been pretty easy. One would imagine.

“This here’s a chocolate protest,” I heard one woman say to another. Indeed, most of the NOM supporters were black and, apparently, incapable of detecting the historic irony in their prejudice.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” I beckoned one lady. “Are you menstruating?”

“Well, this is what this is all about,” she inexplicably answered.

I was like, “Whaaaa?”

“He’s trying to say you’re unclean,” her husband chimed in.

“It’s in the bible,” I said. “You’re going to hell.”

She then claimed that the New Testament was her guiding principle. I quickly shot back that in Matthew 5:17-20 Jesus said he didn’t come to change the law. Bunting had made a note of this in anticipation of her predictable nonsense. He spends his spare time studying apologetics. I prefer to stab at my eyes with needles. But to each his own–unless it impinges on the rights of others.

We lingered on the outskirts of the protest. Bunting taped while I interviewed. I snagged a beardy bible-humper, but the noise of the rally was ruining our audio, so I broke out the dildophone. “How do you define marriage?” I asked him, waving the wobbly latex member near his face.

“I hope someone does this to your child,” he said, slowly slinking away.

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One of the slimiest things about the Right Online convention is that they make a point of planning their event in the same city as Netroots Nation. It's not enough to bring together conservative bloggers and politicians together, creating some nexus of unspeakable evil, but they have to do it withing taunting distance of progressive bloggers. That's why Andrew Breitbart can troll around the convention entrance and my friend and radio host Nicole Sandler can find none other than James O'Keefe hanging out in the hotel lobby.

O'Keefe, accompanied by some fawning male friends, agreed to sit down with Nicole Sandler to "have a conversation." I'm not sure any conversing happened, and by the smug smile on O'Keefe's face, that was probably by design. Admittedly, trying to make herself heard over the din of the lobby traffic, Nicole did sound increasingly agitated, which is of course, exactly what O'Keefe sought. Notice how carefully he parses his answers (or rather, non-answers) on his conviction for entering Sen. Mary Landrieu's office, dressed as a telephone repairman. As part of his plea deal, the government stated that O'Keefe and his colleagues were going to pretend to "test the phone system" rather than tampering with her phones, as had been originally reported. That's not to say that's the full truth of what happened, merely what O'Keefe and the feds mutually agreed to charge him and he plea guilty to.

But O'Keefe will stick to his lessened and lightened version of the story, because it suits. Just like the "posing as a pimp" story suits, even though it ignores the manipulation that edited tape had.

Because in the end, it's not about the truth for O'Keefe. It's about a partisan agenda, and he will do anything and violate any ethical (and criminal) code to achieve it.

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Credit: Bradblog

James O'Keefe has had a mixed blessings week. The IRS has granted his ridiculously hacky "investigative" group C3 (non-profit) status.

In its application, Project Veritas said it planned to pursue as many as a half-dozen journalism projects and conduct five two- to three-day training sessions for people interested in learning how to do such projects on their own. “I can’t tell you the secret sauce of it, but we do have a training method,” Mr. O’Keefe said. “There are many people learning this method and learning how to expose abusive power in creative ways.”

He said he would work as the organization’s “muckraker in chief,” for which he will be paid about $120,000 a year, according to the group’s application.

It raised $2,367 last year, according to the filing, and expects that figure to grow to $1.65 million over the next three years, though Mr. O’Keefe described that as “a sort of dream.” The group has hired a firm led by Richard Viguerie, a conservative strategist, to help it raise money.

Charities are constrained by law from participating in lobbying and political campaigns, and in response to a question posed by the I.R.S., Project Veritas specifically said it had no plans to lobby on behalf of specific legislation.“We’re designed to expose malfeasance, waste, fraud and corruption, to expose things for what they are,” Mr. O’Keefe said. “That’s not policy work, that’s educational work.”

Jeffrey S. Tenenbaum, a lawyer specializing in nonprofit matters, looked at the Project Veritas Web site and said he could see nothing that would cause the group to run afoul of the rules on politicking.

I don't know, seems to me that illegal acts like attempting to break and enter into Sen. Mary Landrieu's office for the purpose of illegally wiretapping her and whatever creepy plans he had with CNN journalist Abbie Boudreau on the boat might have tipped off the IRS that O'Keefe deserves no such classification. It's not his partisanship; Heritage Foundation is a C3 organization too. It's his fast and loose playing with ethics and rules that should work against him.

But luckily for all of us, a federal judge is not so easily persuaded by O'Keefe's machinations. O'Keefe and his partner Hannah Giles are being sued in San Diego by ACORN employee Juan Carlos Vera. Giles previously tried to get out of the suit by claiming that all the recording was done by O'Keefe and she was there merely as a prop. O'Keefe, for his part, claimed that his First Amendment right as a "citizen journalist" absolved him of liability. The judge didn't buy either argument. Bradblog:

According to Maria Dinzeo of Courthouse News Service: Juan Carlos Vera claimed James O'Keefe III and Hannah Giles visited his office in August 2009, and conspired to create video and audio tapes of him, even after asking him if their conversation would be confidential.
...
[Lorenz ruled] that the law "is directed to the surreptitious recording of confidential communications and not the manner or method of recording the conversation." Given the meaning of the word "record," Lorenz found Giles equally responsible.

Lorenz also rejected O'Keefe's motion for judgment on the pleadings, in which he argued that First Amendment protections for journalists supersede the California Privacy Act. Since there was a mutual understanding that the conversation was confidential, Lorenz found that the privacy law "is not an overbroad intrusion on exposé newsgathering in which O'Keefe participates."

"Exposé newsgathering" is not what O'Keefe traffics in, as demonstrated again most recently by, ironically enough, the "news" website of Fox "News" host Glenn Beck after a similarly deceptive and secretly video taped smear of an NPR employee by O'Keefe last March.

But O'Keefe's long track record of deceptive video hit-jobs was not at issue in this particular legal argument.

In his ruling [PDF], Judge Lorenz highlighted specific portions of the CA law which is violated by "Every person who, intentionally and without the consent of all parties to a confidential communication, by means of any electronic amplifying or recording device, eavesdrops upon or records the confidential communication."

The ruling goes on to further cite the statute which reads "The term 'confidential communication' includes any communication carried on in circumstances as may reasonably indicate that any party to the communication desires it to be confined to the parties thereto."

"California's law is quite clear," Lorenz wrote in response to the First Amendment arguments by O'Keefe and Giles, "that persons who engage in news gathering are not permitted to violate criminal laws in the process."

Now the question remains if the IRS will continue to allow Project Veritas (a misnomer if ever there was one) its C3 status with a convicted criminal at its helm.