O'Keefe's Beef with CNN

I�m out of town this week so here is an article I wrote on June 29^th.

A lot of Republicans are happy today after a group called Project Veritas dropped a �bombshell� video that exposed Van Jones at CNN after he said that the, �Whole Russia thing is a nothing-burger.�

Republicans are happy about this because it cements their belief that CNN is leading a witch hunt on President Trump for ratings and bad publicity. While I do think that CNN has focused so much on the Trump-Russia collusion scandal purely for ratings, Republicans should not be so quick to rejoice at this video.

James O�Keefe is the head of Project Veritas, a group that supposedly undercovers corruption and exposes people and organizations. They were behind the infamous Planned Parenthood videos in 2009 that alleged that the body parts of aborted fetuses were being sold on the black market. If you followed that story you would learn that the whole thing was a lie and that O�Keefe took words out of context and edited the videos in an attempt to discredit the organization. He was forced to settle $100,000 in a lawsuit for those videos. O�Keefe is a well-known con artist, not some noble knight bringing justice to the evils of our country.

With that said, let us dive into this video. The video itself opens with a Project Veritas undercover reporter approaching Van Jones, a contributor to CNN. The video shows the reporter walking up to Jones who smiles and the reporter says, �What�s up.� It then cuts to Jones saying, �The whole Russia thing is a nothing-burger.� That is all we hear from Jones. Then the video launches into this rant about how CNN is biased and just trying to trap the President. The whole video was based on one sentence less than 3 seconds long. That is the textbook way to take something somebody says out of context. Jones could have been referring to a number of �Russia� things. He could have been referencing the investigation into President Trump�s possible collusion with Russia (which is what Project Veritas alleges). He could have been referencing the debate over whether Russia meddled in our elections. Or he could have been referencing a tweet put out by the President earlier that day, blaming the Obama Administration for Russia.

The tweet reads, �The reason that President Obama did NOTHING about Russia after being notified by the CIA of meddling is that he expected Clinton would win� and did not want to �rock the boat.� He didn't �choke,� he colluded or obstructed, and it did the Dems and Crooked Hillary no good.�

Until we know what the Project Veritas reporter asked Jones to get that response, one cannot put faith in the credibility of O�Keefe because of his past and the loose ends of this video. Even if Jones did say that the Trump-Russia collusion was a �nothing-burger,� O�Keefe is not �exposing� him. Jones has been known for being skeptical about the eagerness of Democrats to jump on the story and point fingers. A few days ago, he went on Facebook Live to express his concern towards that issue and criticize CNN for not focusing on jobs and the �real issues� as he called them. If O�Keefe had done his research he would know that and there would be nothing new to �expose.�

A lot of people are celebrating this event as the downfall of CNN. Nothing that Jones said in that video had to do with CNN. At most, it was his personal beliefs about an issue. His views do not necessarily reflect that of the media organization.

Jones shrugged the whole thing off in an article he wrote today but other media organizations, specifically Fox News, were very interested in the video, to say the least. Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity reacted with glee to watching the video and then went on to attack CNN for being one-sided and biased. Hannity said at one point in his monologue last night, �Zucker is the person who is overseeing and steering CNN on the destroy Trump fake news coverage.�

Oh Sean, all I can say in response to that hypocritical statement is, �C�mon man!� You were the guy who spent eight years trying to do the same thing to President Obama, slamming him every night and calling for his impeachment. You did the exact same thing you are currently accusing Jeff Zucker and CNN of doing.

While on the subject of Fox News, I would love to point out that yesterday on Fox and Friends, Lisa Kennedy Montgomery downplayed the Democrats outrage at the Republican healthcare bill and how it would leave 22 million people uninsured. Democrats said that the passing of this bill would kill thousands of people. Kennedy�s response was, �We�re all gonna die.� I sighed when I heard that. Kennedy spoke in an amused, carefree way and the rest of the hosts responded with encouraging laughter at the thought of our impending doom. It shows how low some people can go to have the dignity to laugh after defending something by saying, �We�re all gonna die.� That is honestly the worst argument you can make. I mean have you ever heard that argument and felt reassured about something?

�Dude jump off of this bridge with me.�

�Why would I do that? I�ve got a life to live.�

�We�re all gonna die. Why wait?�

Anyways back to the main subject of this article: Project Veritas and CNN. I think this video did expose a lot about the political atmosphere in this country. Many people are so skeptical and hateful towards CNN and the media that they, without hesitation, put their trust in an obscure, unverified source just because it caters to their narrative. Everybody is biased. We are all human. Everything in the media or on the internet should be viewed with a little bit of skepticism because there is always a narrative or agenda behind it. That�s all for this week.