Skiphil writes in Tips and Notes:
Too funny, too funny….. this is a serious matter, but funny when leading Greens and Hollywood types get caught on film in a genuine conspiracy to hide Middle Eastern “oil” funding to make an anti-Fracking film for the “movement” ….
(Added: One of them caught out in this sting was Ed Begley Jr., clearly Michael Mann’s hero, as this Twitter posting shows:)
Anti-fracking fanatics get seriously PUNK*D
Hollywood Greens in real life anti-fracking conspiracy
[from the Youtube page for this video]
In the investigation, an undercover journalist from Project Veritas posed as a member of a Middle Eastern oil dynasty and offered $9 million in funding to American filmmakers to fund an anti-fracking movie.
In video from a meeting with Ed Begley Jr., Mariel Hemingway and Josh Tickell, a Project Veritas investigator disguised as “Muhammed” offered $9 million for an anti-fracking film. “Muhammad” clearly states: “If Washington DC continues fracking, America will be energy efficient, and then they won’t need my oil anymore.”
In the same conversation, Begley and Hemingway accept the funding and agree to hide the source of funds for the anti-fracking movie. Hemingway agreeing that those who will know the source of the funding are “only at this table.”
Ed Begley Jr. is an outspoken environmental activist and current Governor on the board of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science (the organization that brings us the OSCARS every year.)
Mariel Hemingway is a Golden Globe- and Oscar-nominated actress.
Josh Tickell is a Sundance Film Festival Winner and the director of environmental message movies “Fuel”, “The Big Fix” and “PUMP”.
Team Begley even submitted a video of Oscar-nominated actor Mark Ruffalo offering his unwavering support for the fictitious anti-fracking film project.
The meeting came about after a series of discussions with Josh and Rebecca Tickell. A Project Veritas journalist posed as an ad executive seeking to broker a deal for his client (“Muhammed”) to fund an American-made anti-fracking film.
In a phone call to Tickell, the ad executive states: “My client’s interest is to end American energy independence; your interest is to end fracking. And you guys understand that?”
Tickell’s response: “Correct. Yes, super clear.”
Tickell makes it clear on the tape that revealing the source of funding for an activist film can undermine its credibility. Tickell notes that the movie “Promised Land” undermined its own message because it was labeled as being funded by Image Nation Abu Dhabi. His advice: “So rather than putting that [the source of funding] up front, don’t mention that.”
In a follow-up call with Josh and Rebecca Tickell, Rebecca Tickell assures our investigator: “We would never tell about where the funding is coming from. That would be really awkward for us.”
Josh Tickell: “We’re confident that we can keep this zip locked, you know tight, air-tight forever. If we don’t protect who is kind of funding this thing, if we have to disclose that or that becomes a necessary part of it, the whole enterprise will not work.”
Project Veritas founder and president James O’Keefe stated Wednesday:
“This latest investigation shows the dark side of Hollywood’s environmental movement. Hollywood is willing to take and conceal money from Middle Eastern oil interests in order to advance their cause of destroying American energy independence.”
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I think it isn’t so much funny as obscene.
“You could cut the irony with a scimitar.”
Americans Hustled
Well, they aren’t really corrupt, in the sense of insincerely shilling for money, or selling out. Their opinions are sincerely held. They aren’t doing anything worse than accepting a Tides foundation grant, except they’ve cut out the middleman. (Probably future direct funding offers like this will be rerouted thru Tides.)
Whoever has the stomach for it, could you report back how the warmists are justifying this away?
Is there no place for morals?
Well assuming that it’s for real, don’t you guys have any legislation for treason?
I guess that they will justify it by saying that they were not getting paid to lie, but to tell the truth – as they see it. However, these people are so lost in the conspiracy that they would be unlikely to recognise truth if it jumped up and bit them in backside.
Consider this, they were prepared to lie in order to get their truth out there even if it damaged one part of America’s interest. In their web of deceit do they imagine that everything that have been told about fracking is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
If they had a single brain cell between them they would surely understand that the truth that they perceive is inevitably a farrago of half truths, mistruths and convenient omissions. That, in fact, nothing that they have been told is entirely true.
This needs as much exposure as possible. It gives a perfect example of the term Hypocrisy and exposes the greens as activists that have no interest in America nor the American people.
Geoff Sherrington says:
May 21, 2014 at 11:23 pm
Is there no place for morals?
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
in Hollywood??? 😝😝😝😝😝😝😝😝😝😝😝😝😝😝
Now, could this have been repeated earlier in Australia? i wonder…..
It exposes things, but this is kind of a slimy way to do it. Pretending to be someone you’re not only leads to a slippery moral slope and makes you as bad as the amoral people on the other side of the issue.
Difficult to separate fact from fiction; bit like AGW really!!
Tom Steyer says, “I’ll see your $9 million, …and raise you another $91 million.”
And just last week, Ed Begley Jr. and Michael Mann engaged in some mutual hero worship on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/MichaelEMann/status/467324724817588224
Green is a color. Anything else is just pure leftist political BS with an agenda. These Hollywonk idiots should be deported for anti-American agenda propaganda.
If increasing energy prices, distorting the truth about fracking, increasing CO2 by preventing the use of more natural gas, and funding terrorism through the purchase of Middle East oil doesn’t bother them, then what does? What ends do they hope to achieve that justifies such deceptive and destructive means? Does getting involved in activism give meaning to their miserable lives even when their actions are likely to do more harm than good to the environment?
The other half of the mutual admiration exchange:
https://twitter.com/edbegleyjr/status/467324896842756096
[snip – language -mod]
Ed doesn’t: “walk the walk”. He probably flies his own personal jet. Mikey Mann does a lot of flying in jets too.
sinewave says:
May 21, 2014 at 11:35 pm
It exposes things, but this is kind of a slimy way to do it.
————————————
I disagree, do you think if they are asked outright they would tell the truth? No of course not, they basically state that in the video. This type of journalism is used throughout the world to expose hypocrisy and corruption and this is another excellent job. Well done to the team that produced this.
We’ve seen members of our Royal Family, politicians and leading sportsmen ensnared by the ubiquitous “dodgy Arab”. In fact, it’s happened so often, the originators are struggling to find people stupid enough to fall for the scam. Then they struck gold. Hollywood alumni on an environmentalist crusade. Now, what could be stupider than that?
sinewave says:
Pretending to be someone you’re not only leads to a slippery moral slope and makes you as bad as the amoral people on the other side of the issue.
—
So you would be against any kind of under-cover investigation then? Do you really think that cops posing as 13-year-old girls in chat rooms are just as “amoral” as the pedophiles they take off the street? I don’t.
sinewave – A truly interesting point. How can the ethical ever expose the unethical? Do we have to accept that the unethical, short of making a very big mistake, are always going to be able to act with impunity? At what point if any does this kind of subterfuge become ethical, for example police in the US use sting operations and AFAIK that is not generally regarded as unethical? Is it OK to use this kind of subterfuge against people who are sceptical of something as well-established as the IPCC’s climate science (25yrs old?), but not against Hollywood personalities who are sceptical of a recent tecnical development such as fracking (60yrs old?)?
The far left and hard liberals are just as repugnant as the neo-cons and religious right. Extreme political positions may be minorities but they are dangerously certain about their rightness and are unapologetically cynical and manipulative.
Ugh, in the good ole days this kind of cooperation used to be called high treason. Just imagine a representative of the Japanese Imperial Navy approaching guys from the American ship building industry in 1941.
“My client’s interest is to end American naval superiority in the Pacific; your interest is to get government contracts to build destroyers. And you guys understand that?”
“Correct. Yes, super clear.”
“Therefore we’d appreciate your cooperation in sending information back to Tokyo about ships stationed at Pearl Harbor on the condition casualties are our responsibility.”
“Sure. No problem. Whatever.”