Ignoring The Sunshine Laws

Most states have ‘sunshine laws’ that allow the public to attend meetings or various legislative groups and boards. Generally speaking the public has the right to observe what their government is doing.

On Thursday, BizPacReview posted an article about what happened when a member of the press demanded that those laws be enforced.

The article reports:

Investigative journalist James O’Keefe has released bombshell police bodycam footage showing New Jersey school board officials colluding with the police to target “Trumpish” school board hearing attendees.

According to O’Keefe, head of O’Keefe Media Group (OMG), the footage offers “the most riveting and fascinating psychological case studies into what school board officials, superintendents, and cops are saying, thinking, and believing about you.”

The article contains a video (posted on Twitter) of a recent incident:

The article includes the following:

“There’s a group of about nine men. They’re there, they’re on their phones, they’ve never been there before. It was just a little bit of a concern,” one official could be heard saying in a recorded 911 call that was made that day.

“There’s about eight of them, and none of our administrators recognize them as past students. They’re not parents. They’re different-looking. Some look Trumpish. They look a little scary,” the same official, identified as executive assistant to the superintendent Toni McLaughlin, later told a responding officer.

What does Trumpish look like? School boards are under scrutiny right now because of the trash they are feeding our children. This is the time that parents and concerned citizens needs to be a school board meetings to find out what their children are learning and what is in the school libraries. If we are going to turn this country around, we need to include changing much of what is being taught to our children.

A New Venture

Many of us have appreciated the efforts and successes of Project Veritas in recent years. I was stunned when James O’Keefe was suddenly removed from the Board of Directors. Well, you can’t keep a good man down for long.

On Wednesday, Just the News reported the following:

Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe on Wednesday announced his latest project following his departure from the group.

In a video posted to Twitter, O’Keefe announced the creation of the O’Keefe Media Group, which will include a handful of dedicated journalists with whom he has long collaborated.

“I spent 14 years creating the most effective, non-profit newsroom this country has ever seen,” he said. “And in paving the way to establish citizen journalism, I have been defamed, arrested, raided, and ultimately removed from the organization I spent so much time developing the credibility of.”

“We are going to build an army of investigators and exposers. They have awakened a sleeping giant. I’m back,” he declared.

I am looking forward to James O’Keefe’s reporting in the future. He has done a lot of work to expose things Americans need to know about.

The ACLU Actually Supports Civil Rights

On Thursday, Just the News posted the following:

Last week, attorneys for the ACLU wrote a letter to Judge Analisa Torres of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York objecting to the court declining to unseal the search warrant application and related judicial documents filed in connection to the raid of the home of investigative journalist James O’Keefe, founder of Project Veritas.

In November, federal prosecutors obtained and executed warrants to raid the homes of three Project Veritas journalists, including O’Keefe, and seize their electronic devices. O’Keefe was handcuffed by FBI agents during the search of his home and required to stand in the public hallway of his apartment building dressed in his underwear, according to court documents.

In December, the magistrate judge assisting Torres in the case declined requests to unseal the search warrant materials, arguing the government’s stated interest in protecting both the integrity of an ongoing grand jury investigation into Project Veritas and the privacy of uncharged individuals named in the documents outweighed the public’s interest in accessing the information.

The magistrate judge’s opinion led the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP) to file a motion calling on the court to unseal the materials.

The ACLU’s new letter expresses support for the RCFP’s objection, noting that a significant amount of information about the government’s investigation has been made public since the magistrate judge issued her order.

If you remember, the FBI search of the home of James O’Keefe happened about the time it became known that James O’Keefe had been offered a copy of Ashley Biden’s diary (see story here). The raid on James O’keefe at his home appeared to be another example of the federal government attacking someone they perceived as a possible enemy or person who might release negative information about people (or relatives of people) in the Biden administration.

The article at Just the News concludes:

Through the Microsoft search warrants, which were unsealed in March, the government seized nearly 200,000 Project Veritas emails and other files, many of which were unrelated to the Justice Department’s purported reason for initiating the warrants.

The Justice Department has contended there’s probable cause to believe Project Veritas was involved in stealing the diary and transporting it — a claim denied by the sources, who have consistently said it was abandoned at the Florida house, and O’Keefe’s legal team.

Calli (O’Keefe’s attorney, Paul Calli,) has accused the FBI and Justice Department of a witch hunt targeting a media organization openly critical of the Biden administration, arguing the government is violating the First Amendment, Fourth Amendment, and the Privacy Protection Act.

“The ACLU has taken a righteous and principled stance regarding the government’s desecration of the First Amendment,” Calli told Just the News. “Project Veritas is grateful for the support of the ACLU and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.”

Calli added, “Sadly, partisan political activists like those at the New York Times, and others in the for-profit, credentialed, cloistered, legacy media, as well as blogs like the Columbia Journalism Review, have not woken to the threat to all journalists.”

Calli has previously told Just the News that the government doesn’t want to unseal the search warrant materials for Project Veritas because federal prosecutors and FBI agents lied and misled in them to obtain warrants from judges.

The Justice Department declined to comment for this story.

The politicization of the Justice Department in America will eventually become a problem for both political parties. It is good to see the ACLU getting involved in this case.

A New Level Of Chutzpah

Yesterday Just the News posted an article about some recent rather questionable activities by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). There has been some criticism that the FBI has been politicized under the Biden administration. There recent actions do nothing to dispel that idea.

The article reports:

Even as the Department of Justice Inspector General released a report this week criticizing the politicization of the department, the FBI on Tuesday raided the homes of a Republican election official and several of her associates in Mesa County, Colo., in connection with a dispute about efforts to preserve 2020 election files.

In collaboration with state and county law enforcement, the FBI raided the homes of Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters, Colorado Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert’s former campaign manager Sherronna Bishop, and two others.

The FBI operations targeting skeptics of the 2020 election results follow the bureau’s raids earlier this month on the homes of conservative guerrilla journalist James O’Keefe and several of his associates with Project Veritas.

Numerous elected officials, reporters, and the American Civil Liberties Union have voiced their concerns about potential infringement of press freedom by the FBI and Justice Department in the O’Keefe raid. These fears were exacerbated when information collected in the raid was published in the New York Times, which has been defending itself against a lawsuit filed by Project Veritas.

The DOJ’s inspector general released a report this week rebuking the department for straying from its own policies on avoiding the appearance of political bias.

The article concludes:

The secretary of state alleges that Peters lied about having the unauthorized person involved in the voting system update as she attempted to expose alleged election irregularities.

Peters said in August at a news conference, “The Mesa County Clerk and Recorder’s office directed her staff to turn off the video surveillance of the voting equipment,” CBS 4 Denver reported.

Peters explained that she had copied files on the voting machines for security before the update was made.

“I was concerned they were going to delete important election files, I did a backup image before and after they did that,” Peters told the news outlet.

She alleges that the images showed numerous voter files were removed during the update and her job was to supervise the files.

In October, Peters was prohibited by a Mesa County judge from overseeing the county’s election in a ruling on a lawsuit filed by Griswold, according to Colorado Politics.

If you don’t see a pattern by now, you probably never will. It seems that ordinary Americans who are trying to do their jobs conscientiously and who happen to support President Trump are being investigated, and intimidated while having their civil rights ignored by the current Justice Department. I have no idea how we clean this mess up, but it definitely needs to be scrubbed thoroughly.

I Wonder What The Real Story Is

Yesterday The Washington Examiner reported the following:

The FBI has conducted searches of at least two New York locations tied to the conservative investigative group Project Veritas, reportedly in connection with the alleged theft of a diary belonging to Ashley Biden, the youngest daughter of President Joe Biden.

“I awoke to the news that apartments and homes of Project Veritas journalists, or former journalists, had been raided by FBI agents,” Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe said in a statement posted on his website on Friday. “It appears the Southern District of New York now has journalists in their sights for the supposed ‘crime’ of doing their jobs lawfully and honestly. Or at least, this journalist.”

The Biden family claims the diary was stolen in a burglary in 2020, but that may or may not be the case.

The article notes:

A right-wing outlet called the National File published dozens of pages of 40-year-old Ashley Biden’s purported diary in October 2020, with the handwritten pages covering a number of salacious, personal topics. The outlet said at the time it “has obtained what a whistleblower has identified as a copy of the complete diary” belonging to Biden’s daughter with first lady Jill Biden, as well as an audio recording of Ashley Biden, “admitting this is her diary.”

O’Keefe said Friday, “Late last year, we were approached by tipsters claiming they had a copy of Ashley Biden’s diary. We had never met or heard of the tipsters. The tipsters indicated that the diary had been abandoned in a room in which Ms. Biden stayed at the time, and in which the tipsters stayed in temporarily after Ms. Biden departed the room.

“The tipsters indicated that the diary included explosive allegations against then-candidate, Joe Biden. The tipsters indicated that they were negotiating with a different media outlet for the payment of monies for the diary.”

O’Keefe added, “At the end of the day, we made the ethical decision that because, in part, we could not determine if the diary was real, if the diary in fact belonged to Ashley Biden, or if the contents of the diary occurred, we could not publish the diary and any part thereof. We attempted to return the diary to an attorney representing Ms. Biden, but that attorney refused to authenticate it. Project Veritas gave the diary to law enforcement to ensure it could be returned to its rightful owner. We never published it.”

So where is the diary now? Why is the FBI spending its time looking for a diary?

Frightening Insight Into Some Of The Campaign Workers In The Bernie Sanders Campaign

Yesterday Townhall posted an article about the videos released by James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas showing some disturbing comments made by a Bernie Sanders campaign field organizer.

This is the video (warning–horrible language–the man needs his mouth washed out with soap):

The article at Townhall concludes:

Ok, so it’s not as earth-shattering as PV’s excellent series on CNN, but it shows who we’re dealing with in the trenches of the 2020 election. There will probably be more videos like this, but at the same time, you can see why the Democratic establishment doesn’t want these folks gaining more prominence within the ranks of the party. Again, we shouldn’t be shocked that a) there are nutty people out there; and b) the Sanders operations hire such people. In terms of sexual harassment, Sanders’ 2016 campaign was totally infested with such a problem. It was a den of sexism and harassment that was not really addressed, and Sanders’ excuse was that he was too busy losing to Hillary Clinton to tackle it. I doubt Jurek will be purged, but it’s always good to keep tabs on people like this. they do the same against us and our totally radical ideas about…the Constitution, lower taxes, freedom, more jobs, and a strong economy. But we’re the extreme ones, right? 

We need to remember the words of Benjamin Franklin at the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, “A Republic, if You Can Keep It“. There are a number of Democrats running for President who are talking about ‘transforming’ America in ways that are totally opposed to the Republic established by the Constitutional Convention. Voters need to pay close attention to what is said openly and what is exposed about these campaigns.

Where Has Our Freedom Gone?

James O’Keefe is a name many people are familiar with. He exposed ACORN by posing as a pimp with a supposed underage prostitute. He exposed voter fraud in a number of states, and generally he has been a continuing thorn in the side of the Obama Administration. Under normal circumstances that would not be a problem, but evidently free speech in America is truly under attack.

Yesterday The Daily Caller posted an article about James O’keefe’s latest adventures with U.S. Customs Agents in the airport in Nassau, Bahamas en route to Miami.

The article at The Daily Caller includes the entire dialogue with the customs agent as Mr. O’Keefe remembers it. I strongly suggest that you follow the link above and read the entire article, but here are a few highlights:

James: That was the one where I legally waded into the Rio Grande dressed like Osama bin Laden and embarrassed the federal government. DHS secretary was grilled under oath. Are you telling me this is retaliation for that?

Customs: I’m telling you that each time you go through here you will need to give an extra hour because we will do this each time. You have a prior criminal record and broke the law crossing into the United States unlawfully.

James: It wasn’t unlawful, I did nothing but wade back and forth. Millions of Mexicans cross and you don’t detain them for unlawful entry

Customs: You broke the law!

James: I broke the law? I’m a journalist who is trying to expose something important. Deep down in your heart when you set the burocreacy aside you have admit it needed to be exposed.

Customs: Come with me.

If only we were that conscientious with the illegals crossing into the United States illegally.

Playing Politics With Immigration

The Hill posted an article today about President Obama’s decision to delay any executive order regarding immigration. First of all, it is not President Obama’s job to write an executive order regarding immigration–that responsibility belongs to Congress.

The article reports:

Latino groups on Saturday promised they would “not soon forget” President Obama’s move to delay any executive action on the border crisis until after the midterm elections.

A White House official said Obama decided to postpone acting on immigration until after November because of the tremulous political season and “Republican’s extreme politicization of the issue.”

Loosely translated this means that if the President unilaterally passed amnesty for illegal immigrants, the Democrats would seriously lose the midterm elections.

The article further reports:

While a number of Democrats facing reelection pressured Obama to delay action after he vowed on Friday to move on immigration “soon,” a leading Democrat, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (Ill.) has urged the president to “lean in” on reform.

Gutierrez scolded his colleagues earlier this week, telling them to “stand aside” and let Obama take action.

Gutierrez is scheduled to hold a press conference in Chicago on Monday with immigrant families that will be impacted by the administration’s decisions on immigration and deportations, an advisory states.

Our immigration system needs reform, but more than that, our borders need to be secure. Anyone can enter America through our porous borders. (In August I posted a picture at rightwinggranny of James O’Keefe crossing our southern border dressed as Osama Bin Laden.) What kind of a terrorist attack do we have to have in America before we pay attention to border security?

 

 

Fighting For An Honest Election Process

Breitbart.com posted an article today about complaints that Battleground Texas has violated election laws in Texas by misusing voter registration information.

The website posted a copy of a letter from Texas Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst to Secretary of State Nandita Berry regarding complaints against Battleground Texas:

It has been apparent that the Democrats have decided to turn Texas from a red state to a blue state. I don’t have a problem with their goal–I do have a problem with their methods if they are not above board.

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Silencing The Opposition Before 2014

I have written a number of articles about the IRS and the Justice Department targeting of conservative groups and their donors. It seems to be a way of life under the Obama Administration. (Use the search engine at the top of the page if you are curious to see who has been targeted and when.)  Evidently Governor Cuomo has decided to follow the example being set by the White House.

NewsMax is reporting today that James O’Keefe, founder of Project Veritas, a group based in New York has been served a subpoena by the Board of Labor asking for every single financial transaction over the last three years.

Mr. O’Keefe is considering relocating to New Jersey because of the harassment he has experienced in New York.

The article concludes:

O’Keefe said among the documents the New York State Department of Labor is demanding to see by next week are general ledgers, journals, caches, pay roll records, checks, stubs, and copies of Social Security returns.

“Like I said, I’m happy to comply with all this stuff, it’s not my first audit, I’ve been audited nonstop for the last three years but it gives us pause. We’ve got to take a step back and look at what’s happening to our country right now,” O’Keefe said.

“I’m a journalist, OK, and I’ve decided to maintain a small nonprofit. When you look at the corruption in the state of New York, when it comes to the pension funds have been robbed and the state university system, all the stuff that’s going on, I wasn’t going to look into these things but now I think I am.

“The American people need to know that they think this is just standard procedure, [but] it’s politically motivated and it’s got to stop.”

James O’Keefe has done a good job of uncovering corruption in our government from ACORN to voter fraud. Any state government that was interested in honest, transparent government should be glad to have his organization in the state. If he is being harassed and driven out of the state, there is probably something in the state that those leading the state do not want exposed. New York needs more of James O’Keefe and less of Andrew Cuomo.

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Honesty In ObamaCare???

Yesterday, John Fund posted an article at the National Review featuring some recent undercover videos produced by James O’Keefe. These videos include quotes from ObamaCare navigators telling people asking about the cost of their new insurance policies to lie about their income.

The article reports:

“You lie because your premiums will be higher,” one navigator advises an investigator for O’Keefe’s Project Veritas, who tells the worker he sometimes smokes. “Don’t tell them that. Don’t tell ’em.”

The investigator then poses as a low-income worker at a university who has unreported cash income on the side, worrying about how that might affect his premium subsidies. That’s no problem for a navigator, who says, “Don’t get yourself in trouble by declaring it now.”

“Yeah, it didn’t happen,” another navigator says. One more chimes in: “Never report it.”

Records show that the National Urban League was paid $376,000 by the federal government for its Obamacare outreach in Texas.

John Fund concludes:

The law’s problems are coming from more sides than a pentadecagon. But one of the most serious things undermining its credibility is the Obama administraion’s seemingly complete indifference to corruption within one of the key groups tasked with its implementation. We’ll have to see just how much worse it gets.

Where do the problems end?

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Limiting The Freedom Of People Who May Disagree With You

James O’Keefe has irked the political left on numerous occasions. He has exposed voter fraud in various locations, at one point receiving Eric Holder‘s ballot in Washington, D.C. He has also exposed some real dishonesty inside the workings of ACORN. The political left would very much like for him to go away, but they seem to be making fools of themselves in their efforts. Tulane University is the location of the latest battle in the war for freedom of speech.

On Monday, The Examiner reported that James O’Keefe was unlawfully detained on the campus of Tulane University by former Louisiana Attorney General Jim Letten. James O’Keefe committed the crime of offering Jim Letten’s wife a copy of his book.

The article reminds us of the past history between Jim Letten and James O’Keefe:

Letten had been the longest serving AG in the US until he was forced to resign, when it was found that his office had posted material on NOLA.com that contained libelous charges against Fred Heebe and other targets of Letten’s office. His second in command and another top deputy confessed to the postings. Letten was never accused of posting himself but there was a question about his investigation into the posts. Letten was asked for his resignation.

Letten’s office leaked emails and other alleged evidence to the press from OKkeefe involving the incident in the office of US Senator Mary Landrieu. Letten says he recused himself from the case, but his office did prosecute the case. He handed the case to US Attorney Jan Mann. Mann was one of the prosecutors posting on NOLA.com.

Patrick Frey at Patterico.com also reported the story. James O’keefe was fined for secretly recording an ACORN employee telling him how to handle his tax returns while smuggling under-age girls into the country to become prostitutes.

Patrick Frey reports:

O’Keefe has maintained that someone from the U.S. Attorney’s office leaked his privileged attorney-client emails, a subject he discusses at length in his book. Letten insists that he had nothing to do with it, if it indeed happened at all. “He’s just very deceitful and deceptive,” Letten said, who again said he had recused himself.

Letten wouldn’t say why he recused himself, but it is most likely because one of the defendants, including Robert Flagan, who is the son of the then acting U.S. Attorney of the Eastern District of Louisiana. Letten and Flagan are social acquaintances.

Letten insisted that he recused himself from the case, but after prodding acknowledged that it was “my office who continued to make the decision.” “When someone recuses themselves it isn’t done lightly,” Letten insisted.

The decision to prosecute O’Keefe and to accept Letten’s recusal was made at “the very highest levels of the Justice Department.” “[O’Keefe] was appropriately convicted.”

Letten declined to answer if his office worked with Attorney General Eric Holder to prosecute O’Keefe.

There’s reason to think that he may have. Last month, J. Christian Adams, a voting rights expert, revealed documents that showed coordination by Holder’s Justice Department with Attorney General Richard Head of New Hampshire after O’Keefe’s successful voter fraud investigations. [Editor’s note: Richard Head has worked directly with Brett Kimberlin associate and professional harasser Neal Rauhauser.]

This is another incident of the unequal justice administered by the Holder Justice Department. It really is time for Eric Holder to leave office.

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