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Conservative “journalist” James O’Keefe has reached a settlement with one of the people he smeared in the notoriously edited ACORN videos.
From Wonkette
James O’Keefe—the blonde bombshell who set the conservative world of hidden-camera YouTube movies ablaze—has just agreed to a $100,000 settlement to calm down the unjustly fired (and weirdly litigious about it) ACORN employee Juan Carlos Vera…
According to the final 5-page agreement, signed by O’Keefe and his legal counsel Mike Madigan this past Tuesday, the boy detective now publicly “regrets any pain suffered by Mr. Vera or his family.” O’Keefe and his counsel have also consented to fork over the $100,000 within 30 business days of the settlement agreement’s being signed.
The settlement should put to rest any lingering doubts about the validity of the ACORN tapes as the other participant, Hannah Giles, has also paid for her sins. And of course this isn’t the first time O’Keefe has broken the law to further his “journalism.”
With Andrew Breitbart dead and O’Keefe further discredited there does not seem to be much left from glory days of conservative media activism especially as the tapes of President Obama that Breitbart promised would do damage fell flat. Ironically, Mitt Romney would be the one taken down a peg by a hidden video.
This is perhaps the beginning of the end for this particularly virulent strain of conservatism. With demographic changes and a country increasingly waking from the American Dream (though often begrudgingly) the audience for reactionary racial dog-whistle hit pieces is shrinking. Nothing is reaffirmed by conservative media anymore, it’s just a primal scream against the forces of change which can’t hear them anyway. So Good Night and Good Luck.
12 Comments
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Crime does pay. Giles and Okeefe were rewarded quite well by Zombie Breitbart. It is always so difficult to follow the money. Does the money come from the Koch Brothers? Peter Peterson? Republican Party? Blackwater?
We should all be so lucky.
Next time (and there will be a next time),
the production values will be better.
Geez: a mere $100,000? I’m not kidding. That’s frickin CHUMP CHANGE. Thanks for the post ‘n all, but this just pisses me off even more.
Frickin parasitical lying scumbags. I’m sure some fat cat reached into his pocket and pulled that $100k out and flipped it over Mr. Vera with a snarl & a laugh. Why HOW CHEAP that was!
Bastards.
This excessively LIGHT tap on the wrist will provide no disincentive to this slimey weasels. Big deal. There will be more forthcoming & it will be worse.
Thanks for the post; unfortunately, I am not amused.
With respect, I seriously doubt it, at least not for awhile. These creatures are highly motivated, have friends in high-traffic media outlets (read: Rupert Murdoch, etal), have very deep pockets (and thus access to the most sophisticated marketing techniques), and a shit-ton of mouth-breathers out there in Gerrymandered Jeezuzland to which they can peddle their fiction. Are the long-term demographics working against them? Of course. Will that happen soon? Not soon enough to suit my taste.
Also, too: Who’s writing the check for the $100 Large? I’m guessing Little Jimmy has himself a sugar-daddy.
Also, too: Who’s writing the check for the $100 Large? I’m guessing Little Jimmy has himself a sugar-daddy.
They all do in Wingnuttistan. For people who believe in rugged individualism, they’ve constructed a hell of a welfare state.
Big Business underwrites all these “rebels”
Exactly: OUR tax dollars at work. Not kidding. BigCorps don’t pay taxes anymore – but you ‘n I do. And this is our “benefit.”
My thoughts exactly. How else does someone of his age have $100K to fork over within 30 days? O’Keefe is merely a good foot soldier for the plutocracy. He’ll be rewarded handsomely for his work smearing people that threaten the power of the Koch brothers, et al.
The smarmy little brat should pay out of his own pocket. Then he should go to jail for kidnapping and attempted sexual assault. Jerk.
Whoever wrote the check or checks is/are of a class of people rich enough that coughing up $100k for his fine is well worth it to keep the case from going to court — and risk being exposed as his patron(s) during the discovery process.
$100k is a minuscule price to pay (not that Jimmy will pay it himself) for the destruction of a means through which tens of millions of voters – and their votes – were enfranchised in our so-called democracy.
Jimmy will be rewarded well just as Eliot Abrams and countless other right-wing ratfuckers have been.
“the unjustly fired (and weirdly litigious about it) ACORN employee Juan Carlos Vera”
Who fired him? And why since (if I heard it right) he immediately reported the incident to the police?
I’m just askin’…