James O’Keefe
Credit: Twitter
While much of the media obsesses over a pointless debate about whether “free speech” should protect an employee who abuses his co-workers with outrageous claims masquerading as “science” (the answer is no), there’s a serious assault on real science underway. Conservatives, including those in the Trump administration, are now trying to undermine the ability of scientists and activists to communicate ideas to the public. Climate change, unlike the supposed intellectual inferiority of women, is a genuine scientific finding with a strong consensus behind it. That’s likely why the right is increasingly looking to McCarthyite tactics to demonize and suppress information about it.
On Tuesday, Jane Mayer of The New Yorker reported that James O’Keefe, the notorious right-wing hoaxer who tries to pass off his disinformation campaigns as investigative journalism, may have been caught trying to run one of his scams on the League of Conservation Voters. League officials have filed a complaint alleging that O’Keefe’s team at the Veritas Project created an elaborate scheme […]
