Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

Disappointing to see gov. newsom with his finger to the wind.

Giving in to doom is how we fail to fight for ourselves & one another.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Let there be snark.

Radicalized white males who support Trump are pitching a tent in the abyss.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Saturday Night Sludge Open Thread: Jimmy O’Keefe Just Wants to Be SEEN!

Saturday Night Sludge Open Thread: Jimmy O’Keefe Just Wants to Be SEEN!

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Since my religious beliefs hold there’s nothing wrong with a little Saturday-night schadenfreude…

… An internal message sent to Project Veritas employees by the organization’s executive director, Daniel Strack, said that O’Keefe would be taking “a few weeks of well-deserved PTO.” An image of the message was shared by a source familiar with the organization’s internal operations, and its authenticity was confirmed by a current employee. When reached for comment on his personal cell phone, O’Keefe said nothing in response and did not respond to follow-up calls and text messages. Through a Project Veritas spokesman, Strack later released a statement on behalf of the organization. “Like all newsrooms at this stage, the Project Veritas Board of Directors and Management are constantly evaluating what the best path forward is for the organization,” the statement read in part. It did not directly address questions about O’Keefe’s employment status. “There are 65+ employees at Project Veritas dedicated to continuing the mission to expose corruption, dishonesty, waste, fraud, and other misconduct in both public and private institutions,” the statement read. “To our supporters: We hear you, we care about you, and we will never give up.”

O’Keefe is his organization’s guiding ideological force and onscreen face, but his status as its day-to-day manager has become uncertain amid reports of internal turmoil, lawsuits from former employees, leaks about its internal workings, and a federal investigation into its conduct in purchasing a diary stolen from Ashley Biden, the president’s daughter. Strack’s internal message to employees made reference to what he called “a distracting time” and said that a board meeting had been held to discuss “the health of the organization” and that while “we have not come up with final solutions yet we have made a few immediate decisions.” The message said two top Project Veritas executives, including the nonprofit’s chief financial officer, had been “reinstated.” Multiple sources said that the pair had recently been fired by O’Keefe.

A meeting of the Project Veritas board is scheduled for Friday, when O’Keefe’s potential removal is set to be discussed, according to one source familiar with the matter. The source said that Project Veritas was currently divided between a group of employees who are perceived to be loyal to O’Keefe, including his communications adviser, R.C. Maxwell, and the board, which has been dissatisfied with what it perceives as O’Keefe’s mismanagement. Matthew Tyrmand, a conservative journalist who serves on Project Veritas’ board, said he was about to walk into a meeting and could not talk when reached on his cell phone on Wednesday. When asked specifically if O’Keefe was being ousted, he replied: “I just said I was walking into a meeting and this was not the appropriate time. What don’t you understand about that?” He did not respond to subsequent phone calls. Two other board members did not respond to phone messages.

As rumors of O’Keefe’s potential ouster circulated among his friends and enemies on Wednesday, his usually pugnacious Twitter and Instagram accounts were silent…

Even as O’Keefe continued his confrontational act, long-standing infighting at the Project Veritas headquarters in Mamaroneck was coming to a head. Over the dozen years since he founded the nonprofit in a carriage house behind his parents’ home in suburban Westwood, New Jersey, the group has grown from a shoestring YouTube prank operation into a large, ideologically driven news organization with an annual operating budget of more than $20 million. But former employees describe O’Keefe as an erratic and often angry boss. According to a letter dated February 6, which was circulated by Project Veritas staff who were critical of O’Keefe’s management, he “berated” and fired the organization’s CFO, Tom O’Hara, and its chief strategy officer, Barry Hinckley. Hinckley later wrote a message to the staff saying he had “stood up to a bully” and had lost his job as a result. The letter included an 11-page list of testimonials from anonymous current employees, describing O’Keefe, in the words of one, as a “power drunk tyrant.”…

Making naughty YouTube videos about the staff of that Obama person is one thing, Mr. JOKe. Spending *our* millions to get crosswise of Mr. Biden and his vicious, extremely professional law squad, however: Not best management practice.

I’ve been keeping an eye out for (possibly willfully misedited!) leaks from the Friday meeting, but I guess they’re all prepping for their all-singing, all-dancing Superb Owl halftime show.

The undercover video operation run by right-wing operative James O’Keefe is in turmoil, wracked by unhappy donors and O’Keefe’s “outright cruel” behavior towards his staff, according to an internal memo signed by a third of its employees.

Working for O’Keefe at Project Veritas can mean being “publicly humiliated” by him in what amounts to “public crucifixions,” and even being required to take lie detector tests, his unhappy employees write in the memo…

On Monday, Project Veritas staffers presented the nonprofit’s board with the document covering his behavior, saying they were “troubled and frustrated” by O’Keefe’s management style. Later that day, the board voted to reinstate two executives O’Keefe had fired a week earlier, while O’Keefe went on paid leave…

The internal dissension comes as Project Veritas faces a number of threats, including an FBI investigation and an ex-employee’s lawsuit alleging O’Keefe oversaw a raucous, sexually charged workplace complete with at least one drug overdose. Project Veritas has denied breaking any laws in the FBI investigation, and is fighting the lawsuit. In December, the group laid off several staffers.

The memo, which was obtained by The Daily Beast, covers its founder’s demanding and allegedly abusive treatment of his staff, even laying out concerns that Project Veritas will soon collapse entirely as donors and employees flee. Sixteen staffers signed their names to the memo, according to the document…

The memo’s authors also raised concerns about O’Keefe’s use of Project Veritas money to promote his own theatrical ambitions. Project Veritas is best known for its undercover stings against Democratic groups and other Republican targets. But O’Keefe, who performed in high-school musicals, has added a series of musical productions to the group’s repertoire, including an elaborate “Project Veritas” experience that involves O’Keefe dancing while wearing a bulletproof vest.

In December, Project Veritas acknowledged improperly giving O’Keefe $20,500 in “excess benefits” to pay for Project Veritas staff to accompany him to Virginia as he performed a lead role in a production of the musical Oklahoma!…

But musicals weren’t the only thing irritating donors, according to the petition. O’Keefe is portrayed throughout the document as badgering uncomfortable donors for five- and six-figure checks. Other donors didn’t like his treatment of his employees, the employees say.

When a woman O’Keefe had asked for a $75,000 check requested a picture with him, according to the memo, he “very rudely” refused…

Warning: The video is every bit as terrible as its cover screen, so don’t blame me if you insist on watching.

Reader Interactions

54Comments

  3. 3.

    Geminid

    @Alison Rose: You’re not missing a thing. That video is pretty bad.

    O’Keefe has really blown it career-wise. He looks unemployable without Project Veritas.

  4. 4.

    West of the Rockies

    Why does someone as talentless and unphotogenic as O’Kiester insist on being on stage.  Christ, I hope he doesn’t have a spouse or kids.

  8. 8.

    Freemark

    I felt the absolute need to watch that. It fails so hard that it could be a good Mystery Political Science Theater 3000 episode. That someone actually spent money on that…no words.

  9. 9.

    Old School

    @Geminid:

    That video is pretty bad.

    It is, but O’Keefe probably dances better than I would.  I just know better than to film videos of me dancing.

  14. 14.

    piratedan

    to think, if only some judge had the wherewithal to actually make the fucker go to jail for the OTHER times he broke the law with reckless abandon, he could have avoided all of this and put on a show in prison.

  16. 16.

    Scout211

    @Alison Rose: It’s actually amusing in a parody kind of way. If you visualize it as an SNL fake music video, it seems kind of cool okay. But have the brain bleach in hand just in case.

  17. 17.

    HumboldtBlue

    So, a guy who had dreams of making big on the theater stage instead turned to the trolling stage and is mad as hell about it and everyone is gonna know about that anger, pisses everyone off and gets the hook from Sandman while stumbling off stage?

  18. 18.

    eclare

    OMG that video!  Prince must be spinning in his grave, that’s one of my favorite songs by him.  I wonder if his estate can sue?

    At least he didn’t co-opt Darling Nikki.

    Why yes, I am a child of the 80’s.

  23. 23.

    NotMax

    OT. Pleasantly surprised by the new interim loading screen for the Tubi channel on the Roku box (probably elsewhere as well.)

    The Tubi logo still there as per usual. Now above it fades in a circular opening in what would be (if there were one) the ceiling. A rabbit pokes its head out, upside-down, and the additional words “Rabbit Hole” show up right before the screen switches to the regular grid layout.
    :)

  25. 25.

    Martin

    @Freemark: It’s not really that. It’s that after they did it, they edited it and thought ‘Yep, nailed it! Let’s release it’.

    I mean, everyone does something hoping it’ll be good and then realize ‘oh no, that sucked’. And you rethink your plan.

    But these folks, they have that Dunning Kruger energy like they just can’t see it. I mean, maybe they were going for TikTok cringe? But it’s not TikTok cringe because the joke doesn’t come at their expense.

  27. 27.

    CarolPW

    @Mr. Bemused Senior: I knew tons of Eliot poems decades before I encountered Practical Cats. Glad Cats (the musical) could encourage a larger audience for the other poems. I have seen satirical revisions of The Wasteland about Iraq by people serving there that made me fall on the floor both weeping and laughing.

  28. 28.

    MomSense

    Ok I’m sitting in a bar trying to be cool – having just met oldest Spawn’s girlfriend. I really like her.  Band sounds awesome.  They have groupies now – which is really weird.

  29. 29.

    HumboldtBlue

    Young American runner Yared Nuguse sets a new American record at the Wanamaker Mile at the Millrose Games. Helluva race.

    @MomSense:

    Ok I’m sitting in a bar trying to be cool

    Don’t make direct eye contact, maintain an air of insouciance and “I’m too sexy for this bar” and you’ll start reeling them in.

  34. 34.

    CarolPW

    @Mr. Bemused Senior: I would like to see it again too, but we have been trained to treat such as ephemeral (and delete after reading) because it would not reflect well on the author and their future prospects.

  41. 41.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @PJ:  when @piratedan wrote “make the fucker go to jail for the OTHER times he broke the law with reckless abandon, he could have avoided all of this and put on a show in prison,” my first thought was Prisoners of Love.

  42. 42.

    laura

    @MomSense: your reputation as the one who gifted the shreddingest guitar proceeds you, so sit up tall, shoulders back, and enjoy every single bit of the night.

  46. 46.

    MomSense

    O’Keefe should go to jail for that video.  WTF was that?  Clearly the choreographer loathed him because that was tragic.

  51. 51.

    ...now I try to be amused

    So O’Keefe, crowder, and shapiro are all failed theater kids. Starting to see a trend

    So theater is the new painting for right-wingers?

  54. 54.

    RA

    His only hope now is to let it all go and come all the way out of the closet. He will never be able to sing and dance until he accepts himself.

Comments are closed.