Analysis by Kyle A. Lohmeier
It’s lonely, sometimes, wandering this rock half convinced that nothing is really on the level and that forces unseen actually control the world we live in and our “choices” on matters of politics are utterly illusory. “Paranoid schizophrenia,” I believe I’ve heard it called. So, it’s extremely gratifying when those rare occasions happen that seem to suggest I might not be completely bat-shit.
Sadly, however, because nothing in this world is totally on the level, the “evidence” of my potential sanity comes from a group whose own trustworthiness is highly questionable. Lemmie back up.
Project Veritas Action recently released a new video that claims to expose the corruption of the Hillary Clinton campaign, which seems a wonderful endeavor. This same group, years ago, sent undercover microphones and cameras into an ACORN office and sought advice on how to open a brothel and avoid taxes. The badly cobbled-together video and audio seemed to suggest ACORN staffers helping them with their endeavor. A judge later ruled ACORN had done nothing wrong, and then some of the affected members of ACORN filed suit against James O’Keefe, head of Project Veritas Action. In 2013, O’Keefe paid $100,000 settle a lawsuit that arose from those ACORN videos. In 2010, O’Keefe was convicted of a misdemeanor for breaking into the office of Louisiana Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu, where he apparently was going to tamper with her phone.
So, O’Keefe is no angel; which, in a way made him well-adapted to descend into the hell of internal Democratic National Committee operations and expose some pretty shady stuff.
The video is just over 16 minutes long and captures some fairly big wheels at two big DNC-supporting organizations talking candidly about their tactics. According to two of the men, both of whom no longer have the jobs they had at the beginning of the week, not much of the violence that the world has seen at Donald Trump rallies around the country has been spontaneous. Featured prominently in the video are Scott Foval, the former National Field Director for Americans United for Change – a group that was contracted by Democracy Partners ostensibly to start riots; and Robert Creamer – husband of Illinois Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D) and founder of Democracy Partners. Foval was fired after the video was released and Creamer has “stepped back” from his role on the campaign.
The snakes, cornered as they are, have begun turning on each other. Already Creamer has called Foval’s statements “flat out wrong,” which explains why they were sufficiently embarrassing to cause Creamer to step down and Foval to be fired. In all fairness, Creamer is no angel himself. He pleaded guilty in 2005 to charges of tax violation and bank fraud and served five months in prison and 11 months of house arrest.
Again, the thrust of the video is to show the lengths the men went to in order to cause chaos outside Trump rallies – outside being very important because, as they point out, inside the building falls under the purview of the United States Secret Service, and even these guys have some limits.
Of course, CNN, for their part, is helping as best with damage control they can by making sure to use words like “purportedly”:
“’I mean, honestly, it’s not hard to get some of these a——- to pop off,” Foval purportedly says at one point in the video. ‘It’s a matter of showing up, to want to get into their rally, in a Planned Parenthood T-shirt. Or ‘Trump is a Nazi,’ you know. You can message to draw them out, and draw them out to punch you,’” wrote CNN on their website, describing a scene in the video where Foval says those exact words. Being text, however, the CNN reporting of it failed to convey the swelling sense of pride in Foval’s voice.
According to the video, among Creamer and Foval’s trickiest task was making the violence they incited seem organic.
“If you’re there and you’re protesting and you do these actions, you will be attacked at Trump rallies. That’s what we want… The whole point of it is that we know Trump’s people will freak the fuck out, his security team will freak out and his supporters will lose their shit,” says audio that sounds like Foval’s voice and is in perfect sync with the movement of his face on the video.
Now, having brownshirts running around the street starting shit on her behalf is hardly the image the Hildabeast is attempting to cultivate here. That’s why even though Foval was acting in his capacity as national field director of Americans United for Change, he’s also acting as head of his own company, the Foval Group, while taking money, and orders from Democracy Partners under Bob Creamer – the more layers between the agent provocateurs and the DNC and Hillary’s campaign, the better.
“The campaign pays DNC, DNC pays Democracy Partners, Democracy Partners pays the Foval Group, the Foval Group goes and executes the shit on the ground,” Foval says on tape. “Priorities (USA, Clinton’s Super PAC) is a big part of this too. The campaigns and DNC cannot go near Priorities. But I guaran-damn-tee you that the people who run the super PACs all talk to each other and we and a few other people are the hubs of that communication.”
At this point the PVA reporter, waving his e-cig in front of the hidden camera, interjects, clarifying that the groups then work as intermediaries between the campaign, DNC and super PACs – which aren’t supposed to coordinate under federal election law.
“We’re consultants, so we’re not the official entity and so those conversations can be had between consultants who are working for different parts, yeah. That’s why there’s Bob who is the primary there (Democracy Partners) and I’m a sub to him and I’m also primary to AUFC separately. That’s why,” Foval’s voice can be heard in perfect sync with his face, again on the video.
Again, the PVA reporter interrupts, describing the process of the various groups communicating with the DNC and Clinton Campaign as a sort of Morse Code.
“It’s less of a Morse Code than it is a text conversation that never ends. It’s like that. It’s kind of like an ongoing Pony Express. It’s not as efficient as it could be, but that’s because the law doesn’t allow it to,” Foval says on tape before the camera cuts to another scene, still showing Foval clearly speaking. “The thing that we have to watch is making sure there is a double blind between the actual campaign and the actual DNC and what we’re doing. There’s a double blind there. So, they can plausibly deny that they knew anything about it.”
“Well, Hillary knows through chain of command what’s going on,” Creamer answers a question that was edited out of the video’s opening montage of damning-sounding statements, so, for all I know the question could have been about who goes for morning coffee runs.
Later in the video, activist Zulema Rodriguez and Aaron Black – DNC Rapid Response Coordinator – take credit for starting the riots in Chicago that got a Trump event cancelled and resulted in injuries to two Chicago police officers and who knows how many civilians. Rodriguez, who claims to get a call from the DNC itself every day at 1 p.m., also took credit for the anti-Trump protest that shut down the highway in Arizona. She was being interviewed where she had been posted up at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland this past July.
“So, the Chicago protest, when they shut all that, that was us. It was more him (Bob Creamer) than me, but none of this is supposed to come back to us, because we want it coming from people, we don’t want it to come from the party. So, if we do a protest and it’s branded a DNC protest, right away the press is going to say it’s partisan. But if I’m there coordinating with all the groups on the ground and sort of playing field general, but they’re the ones talking to the cameras, then it’s actually people. But, if we send out press advisories with DNC on them and Clinton campaign, it doesn’t have that same effect.”
The video then cuts back to Foval explaining the tightrope he and the various groups he works for / owns / represents must walk.
“We have to be really careful because, what we don’t need is for it to show up on CNN that the DNC paid for X people to, that’s not going to happen,” Foval says on tape in plain English with no apparent editing glitches or video / audio dropouts.
While Foval might come across as a scheming demon working behind the scenes to foment chaos regardless of any actual cost to lives or property, he really does have a good heart.
“Because the one thing I’m never going to do is have some kid get punched out at a rally and then not have his doctor bill, and his legal bill, if he gets arrested, paid for,” Foval says on tape.
So, to sum up, a group whose founder has engaged in some dubious video production practices in the past has put forth a video that purports to show collusion among various groups supporting the Clinton campaign to foment violence at Donald Trump rallies around the country. The strongest pieces of video evidence supporting those claims comes in the form of hidden camera / microphone interviews where the subjects speak at length and without apparent editing tricks about the horrible stuff they’ve done in an effort to get Clinton elected. Americans United for Change fired Foval outright – so, there may well be something to the story. Having founded Democracy Partners, Creamer couldn’t really “fire” himself, so he’s “stepped back,” from being the “diabolical” (Foval’s word) Chief Agent Provocateur for the Hildabeast campaign.
Already the mainstream media is doing what it can to throw cold water on the story, as is evident in CNN’s write-up, and that’s even if they bother to mention it at all. I only heard about it by listening to conservative talk radio (NPR is having another of their seasonal beg-a-thons, so, I’ve spent more time on the right-hand side of the radio dial this week). So, now you’ve all heard about it without having to listen to conservative talk radio.
This is just one of the many services you can expect from your friends at The New Mercury.
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