Media tries to discredit James O’Keefe, Project Veritas

So yesterday in prime time, Fox News ran some footage from James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas video exposé on dirty tricks implemented by various organizations supporting the Clinton campaign. Then Fox went into overdrive to discredit James O’Keefe. The dismissive remarks of course referenced O’Keefe’s 2010 arrest when he got caught impersonating a telephone company employee (the charge was phone tampering) while working to expose then-Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA), who was allegedly avoiding any and all calls from her constituents who were upset about Obamacare. O’Keefe’s standards as a journalist were not at issue, yet the Fox narrative claims that he is known for phony and misleading editing.

O’Keefe has made enemies, to be sure. His exposés on Planned Parenthood and ACORN provoked all kinds of attacks on him, his ethics, his editorial bias, and his selective editing. Salon describes him as “best known for selectively editing undercover footage to get people fired.”

Let me say something about selective editing.

I was interviewed for a television documentary a few years ago. I was in front of the cameras for about 2½ hours and appeared in the final cut for maybe 3-4 minutes. Before the documentary was broadcast, somebody asked me how I thought I did. My reply was that if the producers wanted me to look good, I’d look good. If they wanted me to look bad, I’d look bad. Ah yes, was the reply. That ole cutting room floor.

Everything we see on TV or read in the news has been edited. The question is: was the edited final product faithful to the original report? You’ll decide if O’Keefe has/had his thumb on the editorial scale or not.

From where I’m sitting, O’Keefe is doing the investigative journalism that the mainstream media not only refuses to do, but works aggressively to suppress and discredit. Already, the progressives are claiming on Fox that the statements caught on the Project Veritas video were merely hypothetical ideas that were never implemented. Then how come two of the principal players in the undercover videos have been fired or have resigned? That would be Democratic consultant Robert Creamer (who visited the White House multiple times) and Scott Foval, national field director for Americans United for Change. (No doubt they will turn up wearing another hat in another room real soon.) 

# # #

Ohio Rep. Bill Patmon in the news

A few days ago, Ohio Rep. Bill Patmon (representing the 10^th district in Cuyahoga County in the Columbus statehouse) made a speech that is getting picked up at Red State, Lucianne, and other blogsites. Breitbart reported:

Ohio State Representative Bill Patmon (D) declared Black Lives Matter protesters “skipped one place, they should be in front of Planned Parenthood” at a rally at the Ohio Statehouse on Tuesday.

In the speech, video of which was first posted to Dix News’ and the Youngstown Vindicator‘s Statehouse Bureau Chief Marc Kovac’s Capital Blog, Patmon states that his mother would have been a “prime candidate” for an abortion, but chose not to have one.

He later said, “‘What business is it of yours, Mr. Patmon that 56 million unborn –?’ It is my business, especially 17 million of them are black women. 17 million, more than any other population. 17 million…that look, and act, and talk, and would be similar to myself. But, even more than that, they’re Americans, and they’re human beings.”

After saying he doesn’t like the term “African-American” because he’s just an American and there’s “no need for any extras,” Patmon stated that 5,499 abortions that take place in Cuyahoga County, which he represents, and “63% are black women.”

According to CNS News:

In 2014 alone, Planned Parenthood, America’s largest abortion provider, received $528.4 million in taxpayer funding, according to its 2014 annual financial report.

Whether you are Pro-Life or Pro-Choice, the taxpayer should not be subsidizing Planned Parenthood. Lest you think the GOP in DC is on the case, the current legislation being crafted is, according to a blog on American Thinker, merely symbolic, and its sponsors already missed their opportunity to vote on an amendment with teeth in it. Read the analysis here. 

UPDATE: Townhall reports: Ohio Dem Introduces Bill to Strip Planned Parenthood of State Funding.

# # #