Last night we posted about the Washington Post catching a Project Veritas operative lying to them in one of its more clumsy “sting” operations.  The story gets better –  a lot better.  None other than DJT donated $10,000 to Veritas in 2015; in 2016, they leaked another false story about Hillary supporters supposedly paying protestors to disrupt Trump campaign events.  This silly “sting” operation is yet another sorry attempt to smear anyone who opposes conservative politicians.

Even more shocking, O’Keefe’s merry band of propagandists are getting serious dollars from somebody; so far, we haven’t found the full 2016 Form 990, and the 2015 we found had the donor names redacted.  However, if you look at the screen shot below, O’Keefe has scooped up over $12 million since 2012, AND he pays himself and his cronies nice hefty salaries.

More important, though, is how in the hell did a 100% partisan political organization get non-profit charitable status from the IRS?  O’Keefe is a self-confessed political operative.  As far as we know, he’s never done any project through Project Veritas that wasn’t racially partisan and sometimes illegal.  The fact that he gets away with it while purporting to be charitable is pretty blatant.

We’ll continue to follow this story.

Y’all remember James O’Keefe, right?  He’s the guy who gained notoriety in conservative circles for posting highly edited and misleading videos of ACORN, a community service organization about 8 years ago.  Those false stories stuck, destroying the organization.  Later, O’Keefe was arrested and then found guilty of impersonating a telephone technician while trying to bug then senator Mary Landrieu’s telephone in her New Orleans office.  Since then, O’Keefe has solidified his reputation as perpetual dirtbag and liar, attempting a number of times to entrap the “liberal elite” in various states of non-existent wrongdoing.

Welp, he’s back.  Several weeks ago, one Jaime Phillips contacted the Washington Post with a blockbuster story that Roy Moore had gotten her pregnant when she was a teenager, forcing her to get an abortion when she was 15 years old.  The problem?  The story is utterly and completely bullshit.  Assuming that reporters for the Washington Post are stupid and would fall for the “sting”, she wove an irresistibly salacious (so she thought) story hoping the Post would just print without fact checking.  Her story broke down pretty quickly, especially when she was observed by Post reporters going into the New York office of…wait for it…James O’Keefe and his very inappropriately named organization, Project Veritas.

The Post reporters were so incensed by this idiotic attempt of entrapment that they published the statements and video from Phillips conversations with it’s reporters.  Not only are O’Keefe and his minions dishonest, they’re just plain box-of-rocks stupid.  Who in the hell is giving this moron money for this Keystone Cops clown show?  Apparently, it’s box-of-rocks stupid conservative donors.

One gratifying shift we’ve seen in the chaos since January 20th is the rejuvenation of the Fourth Estate – the press.  In the last 20 years we’ve seen the press devolve into the 24 hour news cycle, infotainment, and simply blatant partisanship which willfully misinforms the electorate.  At the same time, that same electorate has become less and less engaged, seemingly divorced from reality and facts.  American Idol and The Voice get higher participation than elections that actually matter.  The election of the worst candidate for the presidency in US history has changed that.  His withering attacks on facts, truth, decency, compassion, AND the press have finally awoken a sleeping giant.  Major news outlets have geared up and are actually digging for the facts, digging for the dirt, going after lies and the liars who speak them, and aggressively fact checking.

My response to this?  It’s about goddam time (sorry Momma).  Where the hell have you all been (besides working on your SEO and re-marketing strategy)?  To demonstrate this awakening, The Washington Post recently altered their longstanding logo, to wit:

During the Oscars broadcast, The New York Times aired its The Truth is Hard ad, which is powerful:

Even Fox Noise has backed off of at least some of its perpetual GOP cheerleading.

The result of the press waking up is that our system of government has begun to actually function again.  Cheeto Jesus stupidly accuses President Obama of wiretapping him (on Twitter), and the press relentless pursues the story until even HE admitted he got that BS story from Brett Baier of Fox Noise.  He claims that busloads of fraudulent Massachusetts voters went to New Hampshire to commit voter fraud, and the press runs down the facts exposing that as false.  Now, I’m not naive; even an army of reporters would be hard pressed to run down every one of CJ’s lies since he spews a bushel basket full on a daily basis, but with a functioning press, his big lies are quickly debunked, or at least vigorously challenged.  So, instead of spewing more lies and misinformation at the daily press brief, all of Sean Spicer’s time is spent answering a barrage of questions about his boss’s most recent incendiary lie.

As ugly as this is, our republic is still hanging together.  And it’s critical to our survival.  With the rise of the alt-right propaganda machine, the actual Fourth Estate must continue to beat back lies with truth.