Murphy, Ciattarelli, and the Truth about Project Veritas
James O’Keefe, the New Jersey native and right wing provocateur, has elbowed his way into the governor’s race.
O’Keefe through his group, Project Veritas, promised a “bombshell” video would arrive Monday night related to the campaign. It arrived, but by any objective analysis, the bombshell was close to being a dud. But that’s not the whole story.
The video shows two so-called high level Murphy campaign advisors admitting that if the governor wins reelection, he will implement vaccine mandates.
This question has come up periodically in recent months and Gov. Murphy has more or less said there are no plans for such a thing, but that everything is on the table.
The advisors are identified as Wendy Martinez, who works in Hispanic outreach, and Matthew Urquijo, a digital manager for the Democrats’ statewide campaign.
One immediate question is why would a digital guy and a Hispanic advisor be privy to state health policy? If anything, the individuals may have been simply giving their personal opinions.
Some describe the interviewers here as “undercover journalists,” but that’s a little misleading as reputable journalists identify themselves when interviewing people. That apparently didn’t happen here.
The methods of Project Veritas have faced legal challenges over the years.
A judge ruled earlier this month that the group’s undercover activities against a Democratic consulting firm could be termed “political spying” as opposed to journalism. The ruling came as part of ongoing litigation against Project Veritas dating back to 2016.
Getting back to the Garden State, we’re not done yet with the videos.
The state Democratic Committee released a video of its own Monday night showing O’Keefe and others confronting Martinez in a Newark parking garage. The Dems said Martinez and another campaign staffer were lured to the garage by an apparent phony report that one of their vehicles had been struck.
The video released by the Democrats shows O’Keefe and others following Martinez and asking her questions about the Project Veritas video. Questions include why she has to “lie” to voters and how could she sleep at night.
Leaving partisan politics aside, ambushing people in a parking garage is thuggish behavior to be sure. These are not public officials, they’re campaign workers.
A statement from the Democrats called the episode “criminal harassment” and said Jack Ciattarelli should denounce it.
As of early afternoon, the Ciattarelli campaign has not responded to that video. But it said the earlier video about vaccine mandates, if verified, is the ultimate in hypocrisy and lack of transparency.
So, here’s a more telling question – what does all this mean?
The guess here is nothing – even for those who believe the Project Veritas video,
On that, three points need to be made.
Those outraged by the possibility of a possible vaccine mandate are probably not going to vote for Murphy anyway.
Those who support Murphy may actually like the idea of a vaccine mandate on the belief it will save lives.
As for this supposedly being kept under wraps until after the election? Let’s be real and eschew the pious indignation.
It’s not as if something like that never happened before in the history of American politics. By all sides.
The only surprise is that a NYC style vaccine mandate without exception has not already been implemented. Might as well flush what’s left of New Jersey.
I’m not surprised and it’s the whole point of the Veritas video: #SanctuaryPhil is waiting until AFTER the election to do this.
https://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/projectveritasbackgrounder_may2018.pdf
Hahaha a memo from the American Federation of Teachers. Yeah that goes a long way. Let’s post a memo filled with crap by a union that is bought and paid for by liberal trash bags. Good one Kathleen.
Do people like you ever have the ability to give your OWN opinions? Here’s an honest question. Based on the videos that PV released what exactly do YOU think? Do you think those women were “ambushed” in the garage? Now asking people follow up questions about statements they made is considered ambushing? Seriously what do YOU think?
Not Kathleen but “ambush” feels like a stretch. They work for the campaign, so it’s expected that they would get questions from people including “undercover reporters.” I’d prefer that people take the fight to the politician’s office and not their home or at a restaurant with their family, but it’s pretty consistent for both sides to push the envelope.
What it means is that vaccine mandates are POLITICAL and not for HEALTH reasons. The mandates would be a big deal. You seem to just shrug off like it’s nothing.
hahaha “pious indignation” sounds like exactly what you’re doing with this “reporting” sir. Instead of focusing on the content of what project veritas reported you instead want to carry water for your boy Phil with a shitty hit piece. Shocked you didn’t throw in “far right wing” in this article.
When Murphy was approached twice and asked a very straight forward question, why did he duck it? Also love the way you portrayed asking someone a question in a public space as an “ambush”. If you believe that was an ambush I DARE you to reply and state the people following kyrsten sinema into a bathroom and hounding her in public is also an ambush. You won’t. Because you’re a hack.
Um—Project Veritas released its follow up video of the garage encounter at 3pm in the afternoon. If anything, the State Democratic Committee lagged Veritas by releasing “a video of its own” later that evening. Once again, Veritas is way ahead of the Dems.
Furthermore, this type of undercover journalism is necessary when our government continuously operates behind a curtain in a shady way. Hats off to James for exposing them all!
So instead of addressing the issue, you’re just going to smear the messenger. Typical of this administration. Time for you lying sack of carpetbagging TRAITORS to get out of NJ. On a rail. No one wants your arrogant, communist, control freak, sick and deadly policies. You are not “by the people, of the people, for the people.” You only use We the People as guinea pigs and means to your selfish ends. You enrich yourselves at our expense. We the People have had enough of what you’re doing to our children, our elderly, our veterans, our small businesses, our jobs, our churches, our doctors, our homes, our livelihoods…our lives, period. Get OUT!
Hey Fred still waiting for you to denounce the illegal alien that “ambushed” kyrsten sinema in a bathroom when she was taking a piss! C’mon Fred! You won’t do it because you’re a hack.
The idea that Fred Snowflake here considers himself a “journalist” capable of “leaving partisan politics aside” is nonsense. He’s a partisan hack and an enemy of the people of NJ.
This article was obviously not written by a “reputable journalist” as it is nothing but opinion and propaganda. Also an ” undercover journalist” does not represent themselves as a journalist when they are ” undercover”. That is just common sense, which this supposed journalist-activist Fred Snowflack clearly is lacking.
This is f’ing hilarious!
These feminist-in-political-clothing are nothing more than previously identified liberal activists who’ve spent their entire man-hating lives bending/breaking every political rule known to man.
Do the research: this whole thing is cooked up by Mexican/latinos and dumpy/hyper-aggressive white women with a history of male rejection.
Now that it’s been brought up, I’d like to know more about Murphy’s potential mandates and how that will affect me and my coworkers. I’m vaxxed, but is it going to apply to the boosters? Is this going to become an annual or biannual thing? I need to know before I renew my lease.
P.S. No love for Murphy, PV, O’Keefe, or Ciattarelli. I wish we had better options.
You should follow PV. They do real journalism. The msm hates them and smears them because they pull the curtain back abs show how the sausage is made. They currently have a lawsuit against the NYT and won all their motions to throw it out. Wait till you see them put out videos of the depositions when these scumbag NYT editors and reporters are questioned under oath.
Murphy is a snake so disparaging Project Veritas won’t get him too far. All I needed to know is that he put Covid positive elderly people into nursing homes and killed even more elderly patients! Does that sound like he takes his job seriously??? How about the constitution being above his paygrade? This guy wasn’t fit to be Governor in the first place. He’s nothing but a political hack who put party over the People of New Jersey!!!
Freedom in America: The freedom to be coerced into voting for a shitty party to prevent an even shittier party from taking power.
HACK
Too bad the other PV story didn’t hit in time…oh yeah, truth never gets out on the corruption. Just a repeat of 2020 Georgia, Arizona style, yep, they have it on video two poll workers allowing someone to walk in on the day of, sign up to vote, and…wait for it, he divulged he was not a US citizen. And surprise, they tried to handle him on person said she couldn’t be certain his vote would count (you got that 1/2 right, but the manager or poll supervisor hurried the guy through, so that kind of nefarious activity is definitely on the supervisor. The press will say it was isolated and blow it off, meanwhile this supervisor has been doing this for 20 years, was there EVER an honest election in NJ?