email from PFAW re Armstrong

[medeak]

It's time for an intervention. The Bush administration has become addicted to taxpayer-funded, "fake news" propaganda. We, and our elected representatives in Congress, must step in.

News reports have revealed that the Department of Education used $240,000 of our taxes to hire Armstrong Williams, an ultra-conservative black columnist and talk-show host, to promote the controversial No Child Left Behind Act to his readers, viewers and colleagues in the media.<1> Williams did just as the Department asked, praising Bush's signature education initiative in his columns as well as on his and other television shows. Repeatedly, he failed to inform his audiences that his comments were bought and paid for with their own taxes.

This is not an isolated incident or simply bad judgment. The Government Accountability Office found last year that the Department of Health and Human Services violated two federal laws by producing propaganda videos touting Medicare's new drug benefits which were misleadingly packaged to look like news reports from independent journalists. Last week, the GAO announced that the Office of National Drug Control Policy had also potentially broken the law by using taxpayer dollars to produce similar "fake news" video segments.<2> Both agencies distributed the videos to news broadcasters, which in some cases aired them without telling viewers that they were watching government-sponsored propaganda.

Behind its rhetoric about moral values, the Bush administration is undermining ethical standards in government and attempting to hook the public on White House spin with undisclosed pay-offs to journalists.

Help break the administration of its nasty propaganda habit:

Tell your members of Congress to call for a top-to-bottom investigation of the Education Department's contract and all similar schemes at other federal agencies.
http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=16842&action=1641

Tell them this isn't about right and left, it's about right and wrong.

Demand that the Department of Education do everything it can to get back the $240,000 it paid to Armstrong Williams.
http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=16842&action=1642

Remind Department officials that you paid your taxes in good faith to fund educational programs for the children in your community, not to pay for propaganda.
There's plenty of blame to go around, but our tax dollars are another matter. President Bush has underfunded No Child Left Behind by billions each year since it passed.<3> Meanwhile, his administration has spent large sums on propaganda intended to be fed to us as real news. They even spent our tax dollars to produce ratings of how truly independent news organizations were covering Bush's programs and policies.<4>

Help restore accountability, ethics and financial sanity to our government. Write Congress and demand that they get tough with the Bush administration. Americans shouldn't have to get their news wondering, "How much did the government pay them to say that?"

[Ganja Ninja]

1. $240.000.00 is a hell of a lot of money for on man on one issue.

I think we're seeing an across the board pattern here of payments for not just favorable press on one issue but on all issues. This is a glimpse of how the Bush administration, the GOP and it's corporate allies are controlling the media in this country. The people writing the checks may be guilty of racketeering and misappropriation of government funds. The people receiving the checks may well be guilty of tax evasion. There needs to be and independent investigation and prosecutor.

[sinkingfeeling]

2. Done. Love it because they always fill in all my info for me!

I think Armstrong is just the icing on the cake...if we were to actually dig in, I think we will find many others who are being paid to whore for Bush & Co.