[fidgewidge]

No insult to anyone's intelligence intended, because it feels actually the other way around. This supposed far right agenda is asserted but never proven. It's just claimed that it must exist.

Here is their agenda in their own words:

"Project Veritas journalists working undercover on their own or by, with and through idealistic insiders bring to the American people the corrupt private truths hidden behind the walls of their institutions."

That's classical investigative journalism. But given this mission statement it's pretty obvious why the left thinks they're being targeted: they managed to take over practically all powerful institutions, including media institutions that would once have held up Veritas style reporting proudly and given it awards. How many important American institutions are run by "powerful right wing figures", exactly? Maybe a handful at most? Now how many institutions explicitly and loudly align themselves with the agenda of the left (idpol, Follow The Sciencism etc)? It's uncountably more. Just given the sheer quantities of captured institutions in question, any Veritas style initiative will inevitably uncover more corruption on the left simply because that's where the power actually is.

He didn't say they plan to release new viruses, obviously none of the idiot scientists in this whole sorry saga actually intend to release the viruses they make. What we do know is they seem to delight in using vaccine development as the justification for fiddling with dangerous viruses, even though there's no clear link between the work Wuhan was doing and later vaccine development, that they much prefer doing dangerous work in very low safety conditions because the higher BSL levels are tedious and get in the way, and we also know that they'd rather engage in coverups than admit the possibility that a virus escaped from their own labs.

That's why the executive in the video states clearly that it's a secret, the journalist shouldn't tell anyone, and that the public would hate it if they found out.

Edit: reading a bit more, they say that their biggest scoop ever was an ABC News anchor saying she had the Epstein story and killed it due to pressure from the British Royal Family. So their top hit is actually one that attacks what is arguably the most conservative institution in Britain! It doesn't really get more "powerful right wing figure" than the Queen, yet Veritas didn't hesitate to reveal their machinations. So this far right claim is clearly just a smear.

[hotpotamus]

Would you then classify Epstein as on the right? Certainly he had some power, but I’d classify him more as a toady of people like my ultimate boss for a time, Leon Black, the president of Apollo Private Equity. My own experience with these people would call them extremely right wing - I suspect that if they could abolish all government and install themselves as permanent monarchs, they would see it as a reasonable start. I wonder how you would classify such people and what you imagine the agenda of the right wing to be.

Are Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell on the right? I would think their success in re-shaping our federal judiciary where laws are actually made. I have not heard of these institutions like follow the sciencism or anything like that, although I will trust your characterization of them as being of the left, I haven’t noticed any influence on my local laws, but as a resident of Southern Texas, I have certainly noticed the right wing influence on local laws, most notably the medical procedures that the women around me are legally allowed to undergo.

I suspect that your example would more be seen as an investigation into ABC (and likely used as an avatar for the “mainstream media”) by the people carrying it out.

Nymag actually had an interesting article on Project Veritas recently that you may want to peruse. Apparently they were after Joe Biden’s daughter’s diary but it caused them some issues. That said, it sounded like they already had some problems brewing before then.

[fidgewidge]

Don't know much if anything about Epstein so couldn't try to classify his politics.

"I suspect that if they could abolish all government and install themselves as permanent monarchs, they would see it as a reasonable start"

We are likely talking at cross purposes then because that's the exact opposite of what I consider right wing. Abolishing democracy and becoming dictator for life is something associated with hard left revolutionaries. Stalin, Mao, North Korea that sort of thing. To me right wing means pro market, pro capitalist, pro democracy, small government, it's all about decentralization of power. Libertarian stuff. If they'd really want to abolish government and take over they'd be the pastiche of WEF-attending elitist globalists, surely.

"Are Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell on the right?"

Maybe? I don't think Trump had politics clearly aligned with any party. He used to be a Democrat and sort of took over the GOP from the outside didn't he. Plenty of never trumpers who were also Republicans. Don't know anything about McConnell, not from the USA, that's too detailed for my knowledge.

Flicking through their results pages, there's one investigation they did into poor conditions in border detention centers. Isn't that normally a topic for the left in the US? I thought the US right normally just want more border enforcement and don't care much about how illegal immigrants are treated.

[Jon_Lowtek]

>> Abolishing democracy and becoming dictator for life is something associated with hard left revolutionaries. Stalin, Mao, North Korea that sort of thing.

Left + Right in modern discussion are non-descriptive words and as such tend to vary widely in definition. The classic definition comes from european parliaments. In previous centuries, when monarchy was far stronger and the established power, in those lands where a parliament or senate existed, those who wanted to abolish monarchy and establish democracy sat left. The monarchists who wanted to keep or strengthen the established power of the king sat right. Keep slavery on the right, establish universal suffrage left. Liberalism demanding basic human rights was a far left concept for a very long time, and authoritarianism a far right concept. But it is not all about progressives and conservatives.

To understand "Left+Right" ask the question: if we seat these people next to each other on thanksgiving (or in parliament) how likely is physical violence.

In the early 20th century in Germany, in the Weimar Republic to be precise, monarchy has been abolished and democacy established. The monarchists were still sitting at the right in parliament, and they wanted to abolish democracy and establish a kingdom. At the far right sat the fascists. The monarchists and fascists both were nationalistic, authoritarian and somewhat accepting of capitalism.

At the far left sat the communists, who were about international communist revolution and abolishing capitalism. The communists themselves were split in liberal communists and authoritarian communists. The later took power in Russia and later Stalin became their dictator, and the european communists faced a dumb choice between "international communism" and "liberal-democratic communism". The Stalinists sat far left and the those favoring liberal democratic communism sat between them and those favoring democratic capitalism with social benefits within the current nation. Then the far right abolished democracy in Germany and established a dictatorship.

In early 20th century "liberalism and democracy" became a center opinion, because both the far left and the far right were pushing for an authoritarian dictatorship, with the "moderate left" and "moderate right" typically agreeing with their extremists on other things while being more liberal-democratic.

But those times are long gone in europa and have never the USA has a bit of a problem with this eurocentric view anyway, because they haven't had a party sitting anywhere in parliament being in favor of abolishing their facade of a liberal democratic republic hiding corporate rule in centuries. At the moment many far right groups are trying to claim liberalism as their concept, as a "conservative" thing pointing out that progressive political streams like environmentalism have authoritzarian tendencies as they strongly regulate the economy. But in truth the parliamentarian right wing is not about conserving your right to destroy the environment, they care far more about conserving the established power of large corporations.

[Erem]

> Here is their agenda in their own words

Despite the group's self description, Veritas are not (only?) journalists, they are also a political spying operation.

But don't trust me on that -- instead review the submitted evidence that convinced the DC Circuit Court to permit describing the group in those exact terms. Start at page 14 of Democracy Partners v. Veritas (PDF):

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-dcd-1_17-cv-010...

[fidgewidge]

Yeah that's interesting but seems like an incredibly technical reading of the term "political spying operation". They argue that it's an operation because it was planned. It was spying because the undercover journalist was recording everything secretly. And it was political because:

> Defendants make clear that they researched plaintiffs and developed the plan for this operation in response to plaintiffs’ activities related to supposed voter fraud and campaign events, supporting the “political” nature of their conduct

That's pretty nuts, saying that investigating voting fraud is "political". Any police force that enforces ballot laws would then be considered political too? They seem to be using it to mean "something related to politics" instead of the more obvious meaning of politically biased.

They also make a big deal out of some passages from a book O'Keefe wrote where he compares an undercover journalist living out a character to the same strategy as used by Soviet spies. Any undercover investigation could be described as spying in this way.

Doesn't seem very convincing overall? I can think of lots of investigations by big media orgs that could be described exactly the same way. The UK had one called cash for questions some years ago where politicians were recorded accepting bribes. Guess that was also a political spying operation lol.

[Erem]

I disagree with your reading of the evidence and agree with the reading of the presiding judge. But I included the root document so that the rest of the thread can form an opinion.

In all, starting from the court's high bar of impartiality then continuing to the many, less impartial resources on the Internet which nonetheless largely support the point it feels like a situation of: "Who will you trust -- Veritas or your lying eyes"

[fidgewidge]

There isn't any evidence to disagree over. It's just a dispute over whether "political spying operation" is a reasonable description of what they do or exaggerated. I don't think it's reasonable unless all undercover journalism about politicians gets described that way, which it isn't, and you do think it's reasonable. Don't think there's much that can be debated there.

[Erem]

The court disagreed that the term was an exaggeration, and the fact that, as you note, not all undercover journalism is called this way in court should hopefully send a signal that there's something real you are choosing not to see that distinguishes Veritas from more honorable investigation journalism.

But I can't make you see what you choose not to see.