Contributors

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

So That's What Happened To James O'Keefe

I haven't heard much lately from James O'Keefe these days except the begging for money to continue his "truth seeking" and here's why. Boy, conservatives really pick some winners with which to hitch their wagons! The rape barn story has been out for awhile but this is the first I've heard of it. Seems like a similar MO to the CNN dildo boat story.

I'm looking forward to his next big expose!


18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ah, good old Mark falls victim to his confirmation bias once again. That's an old story. Did you even try to find out what has happened since?

Let's start with the transcript of the probable cause hearing:

But when you read the actual transcript, it turns out that the allegations are quite different from the portrayal by Olbermann and Shuster. According to the transcript, we learn that after O’Keefe had left, Naffe decided she wanted to leave, and insisted that O’Keefe return to the barn. She claimed to be feeling sick, which she suspected was from the alcohol she had drunk: “I thought the alcohol had made me sick.” Apparently not suspecting O’Keefe of having done anything wrong, she tried to get him to come back to the barn. He initially refused:

[From the transcript] But he refused to come back to the barn. He said that all he cared about was his project. He insisted that I spend the night there and that we take the matter up in the morning. He wanted to go shoot videos the next day.



Maybe not the most gentlemanly behavior, if the allegations are true — but not the behavior of a sex fiend.

Finally, Naffe got O’Keefe’s attention when she threatened to destroy O’Keefe’s computers (as well as call the police):


[From the transcript] [A]s the evening went on, there were phone calls and texts and things like that. At which point, I finally threatened James that I was going to call the police and even destroy his Macs, his computers, if he did not come back to the barn and get me back to the train station. It was at that point that he agreed to come back to the barn.



In court, Naffe repeatedly told the judge that she was not claiming that what happened at the barn was harassment — much less a “rape allegation” or an “alleged sex assault plan.” The court repeatedly said that he could not find anything in her certification that sounded like harassment, and she confirmed that she had not been threatened or touched:

[From the transcript:]

COURT: In reviewing your certification, it’s clear that there was nothing that set forth there [sic] regarding any striking, shoving, touching or any other threat to do so; is that correct?

NAFFE: That’s correct.

COURT: . . . I didn’t discern any course of alarming conduct in this statement. . . . I’m just trying to determine — it appeared to me from your statement that you voluntarily met with Mr. O’Keefe and voluntarily came to Westwood. At some point it appears that there was a dispute between you and Mr. O’Keefe, and Mr. O’Keefe left the area where you had been, and then you were calling him and texting him to come back and take you to some form of transportation.

NAFFE: That’s correct, sir.

COURT: That in and of itself doesn’t show me that there was any harassment. So I need to know if there was anything — see, your statement doesn’t, doesn’t make out a case for harassment.


Finally, there's the judge's ruling:

. . . I don’t find that there is a course of alarming conduct or repeatedly committed acts directed to you. You made a case that sounded perhaps that would have tones of slander, but those are civil matters and not quasi criminal matters and not cognizable in this court. . . . So I am making a ruling that I am not finding probable cause for the issuance of the harassment complaint.

Anonymous said...

So what did Nadia Naffe do after losing this case? She teamed up with Brett Kimberlin—one of the slimiest individuals to walk this planet—to file harrassing lawsuits.

(More on Brett Kimberlin here, and Nadia Naffe here.)

Of course, it's no surprise that you have your head in the sand over what O'Keefe has been up to lately:

Earlier this week, undercover video emerged from conservative activist James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas, seemingly showing Obamacare “navigators” in Dallas, Texas, advising a man to lie on his healthcare exchange application in order to receive more subsidies and a lower healthcare premium.

One of O’Keefe’s undercover “investigators” went into the National Urban League’s Dallas office and told so-called Obamacare “navigators” that he does not typically report his outside income when filing taxes. The video shows the navigators suggesting he not generate any “trouble” by reporting that income to the Internal Revenue Service at this point.

“Don’t get yourself in trouble by declaring it now,” said a woman identified as “Mrs. Dorothy.” Another navigator, named “Lakisha Williams,” adds: “Yeah, it didn’t happen.”

At another point in the edited video, a navigator at the National Urban League’s Irving Community Center tells the undercover man to avoid reporting himself as a “smoker,” so as to receive a lower healthcare premium. “You lie because your premiums will be higher,” the navigator’s assistant added.

“I always lie on mine,” she later said.

As always, it should be noted that the Project Veritas video is heavily edited and so viewers do not get a full glimpse of the tactics used in order to obtain such responses.

In response to the footage, the Urban League has fired one of the navigators in the video and suspended the certifications of three others.


And he has promised to release more. (I don't know if he has yet.)

Mark Ward said...

So, O'Keefe is a good guy and your hero then?

Larry said...

Good old Markadelphia, going for the cheap ad hominem instead of addressing O'Keefe's arguments and evidence.

Anonymous said...

He has made mistakes, but not nearly to the degree of the slanders* leveled against him. (See this very topic for one example of such slander.) He is, after all, human and young. (See Romans 3:23) The Senator's office thing was stupid, and a minor crime, not the massive felonies you and your side gleefully (in contradiction to the "love your enemy" standard you quoted) and repeatedly accused him of.

But he has done really good work—and backed it up—at exposing the systemic corruption of leftist organizations such as Acorn, which led to their disbanding. So yes, exposing such corruption is a good thing.

Whoops. I forgot that such exposure is a mortal and unforgivable sin in your book. No wonder you think he's evil incarnate.

* Slander is just another word for Lie

Mark Ward said...

Well, that sounds like a ringing endorsement to me. Let's remember that in the future:)

Anonymous said...

that sounds like a ringing endorsement to me.

That's a distortion of what I said.

Remember this?

Authors of words have a meaning they intend to communicate, and that meaning is the only valid "interpretation" of any writing. Do you agree or disagree? (Started 133 days ago and counting)

Mark Ward said...

So, you are leaving yourself an out...hilarious.

GuardDuck said...

See Mark, unlike you I don't have to totally support the person in order to support the statement made or idea espoused by the person.

You however have a messiah complex in conjunction with a lack of higher order logic functions. You can't parse the idea from the person as a whole. You can only buy and worship the person in the entirety.

Which is why you consider the defence of legal and proper actions by George Zimmerman to be 'hitching of the wagon to his star'. No. Perhaps it's just defending the legality of his actions and not a ringing endorsement of his entire personhood.

Mr. reflective by nature just can't see any nuance here.....

Anonymous said...

What GuardDuck said… Ditto

I likely disagree with GD on some things, but I absolutely agree with what he wrote here. That's how rational adults relate to each other.

::: Sits back and waits for the "they're in lockstep"/"they're not in lockstep" self-imposed contradiction to rattle Mark's skull :::

Juris Imprudent said...

Well, that sounds like a ringing endorsement to me.

That must be a voice in your head you are listening to. No surprise, it is what you do all of the time.

Mark Ward said...

A fantastic series of statements that illustrate why I allow open comments. And why I need to rarely comment:)

Larry said...

A fantastic series of statements that illustrate why I allow open comments.

Because you're not really here for the hunting, are you? ;-)

Anonymous said...

To any of Mark's readers that may have some sympathy for his views:

A fantastic series of statements…

Notice what Mark has done here. We have offered evidence and explanations for our views. When Mark asked questions, we answered him. We have good reasons for the conclusions we've reached, and we've given them.

And what has his response been? To mischaracterize what we've written and ignore every single piece of evidence and argument given. And for his final comment, he threw out a vague accusation lacking even the slightest detail, just a variant of "it's just wrong, m'kay?" or "because I say so!" as he withdraws from the debate. Somehow it reminds me of a squid that squirts out a cloud of ink and swims away when facing a perceived threat it thinks it can't handle.

That is not how rational, critically thinking adults discover the truth. They examine as much evidence as they can gather, grapple with various theories that explain that evidence, and argue and bicker over which theory fits best. And in the end, those theories which hold up best get us closer to the truth of how things really are. That is how knowledge is gained.

Knowledge is something which is true and you have good reasons to accept. Does gravity work because Isaac Newton said, "because I say so"? Do atomic reactors work because Albert Einstein and his colleagues said, "just trust us"? Do airplanes fly because the Wright brothers or some engineer says, "it's just the way it is, m'kay"? No, they have good reasons to think the theories they work with actually match how the world really works.

But look what Mark does: name calling, hand waving, gainsaying. But no reasons. No theories to fit all the available evidence. (Though he does sometimes have theories that fit carefully selected evidence and conflicts with other evidence, such as his attack on O'Keefe in this instance.) And even when he promotes those theories, when challenged to back up his assertions, he always eventually reverts to name calling, hand waving, gainsaying, and ultimately, running away.

That is why those of us who try to debate him have little respect for his Calvinesque pronouncements, and why you should not either. It is not Markadelphia, or GuardDuck, 6Kings, Larry, Juris, or me that matters. It is not who "wins". It is "what is the truth of things" that matters. Look at the reasons given. Look at the evidence. Look at the logic. When you know what the truth is, that is when you can build a better world.

Mark Ward said...

These last few threads have really crystallized something for me. You guys post here to basically show off for each other. It's like a virtual circle jerk because no on reads comments other the same half dozen people. It's a giant show off for your buddies and that's really a bore. You're not really serious about testing the "strength" of your arguments given your repeated refusal to engage in a forum where there are rules and a format. This format would reveal your adolescent and borderline psychotic method of debate. That never happens here because I allow open comments and you have the same people supporting you no matter what.

You are right about one thing, though. The world is becoming better and people like me are building it. I know you guys are lacking in the attention department in your social lives and were likely bullied in your lives (were you?) hence the obsessiveness and the need to post here but wasting your time in the comments section of a blog accomplishes nothing. In fact, I'm largely wasting my time right now except to note the above thoughts and that the reason why the world is getting better (and why you are really freaked out right now) is that it's changing and moving away from your ideology. In less than a decade, far right idealism will be buried for good and our country will have moved forward.

Larry said...

Self-centeredness, grandiosity of thought, persecution complex, Daddy issues. Check, check, check, check.

Time for another "tune-up" session with your mental health professional, Markadelphia. Or if you're on a weekly schedule, maybe you can wait a few days since it is the holidays. Though if family's coming, another self-praising post about how much better you are than your yokel relatives ("at least I'm not them!") really isn't needed, but would be further diagnostic of your mental state, as if any is needed after all this time.

Anonymous said...

BTW, Modern Marvels frequently does episodes called Engineering Disasters. They vividly demonstrate what happens in the real world when "building" things based on assumptions that are not true.

Juris Imprudent said...

The world is becoming better and people like me are building it.

Woohoo. You and the Obamessiah huh?

I can't wait to see the next election and you crying like the spoiled little girl that didn't the pony she wanted.