The Environmental Protection Agency engaged in “covert propaganda” in violation of federal law when it blitzed social media to urge the general public to support President Obama’s controversial rule intended to better protect the nation’s streams and surface waters, congressional auditors have concluded.
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ObamaCare ads will now appear on 7-Eleven receipts at more than 7,000 stores nationwide as government health officials expand their outreach in the second year of healthcare sign-ups.Information about ObamaCare sign-ups will appear on the bottom of receipts for anyone using an mobile payment company called PayNearMe, which allows bank-less customers to pay in stores like 7-Eleven and Family Dollar.Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell announced the new partnership with the tech start-up PayNearMe on Thursday at a store in Washington, D.C.
LAS VEGAS – On stage at Harry Reid’s National Clean Energy Summit at the Mandalay Bay Thursday was a parade of Democratic politicians touting planet-saving platitudes and assorted palliatives.
Nevada Congresswoman Dina Titus pulled out and dusted off one of Obama’s favorite putdowns for those global warming skeptics, calling them members of the Flat Earth Society.
“Ignoring these kinds of issues of climate change while also disregarding the economic benefits that individuals and companies can have by reducing their energy use and conserve resources is just an irresponsible response to a serious problem,” she declared in her thick Georgia drawl, though she has lived in Nevada most of her life. [...]
Titus went on to call for educating people about the threat of climate change. “Educating people is very important. We should educate them beginning at a very early age in kindergarten,” said the former UNLV professor.
Several opinion columns praising Russia and published in the last two years on CNBC’s web site and the Huffington Post were written by seemingly independent professionals but were placed on behalf of the Russian government by its public-relations firm, Ketchum.
The columns, written by two businessmen, a lawyer, and an academic, heap praise on the Russian government for its “ambitious modernization strategy” and “enforcement of laws designed to better protect business and reduce corruption.” One of the CNBC opinion pieces, authored by an executive at a Moscow-based investment bank, concludes that “Russia may well be the most dynamic place on the continent.”
There’s nothing unusual about Ketchum’s work on behalf of Russia. Public relations firms constantly peddle op-eds on behalf of politicians, corporations, and governments. Rarely if ever do publications disclose the role of a PR firm in placing an op-ed, so it’s unusual to get a glimpse behind the scenes and see how an op-ed was generated.
Senior adviser to President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign Roberts Gibbs said the Obama campaign is not going to allow GOP nominee Mitt Romney to keep playing his “tried-and-true role” of “prep school bully.”
During “This Week” on ABC News Sunday, Gibbs was asked about the recent ads run by both the Obama and Romney campaigns.
The Obama campaign is today beginning a new effort to enlist and educate at least 2 million supporters for a "grassroots communications team" they're calling the Truth Team.
"The goal is to ensure that when Republicans attack President Obama's record, grassroots supporters can take ownership of the campaign and share the facts with the undecided voters in their lives," the campaign said in a statement.
The teams will be first launched in 13 "swing states," including Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, Nevada, Ohio and Virginia.
The rollout also includes a social media blitz, directing supporters to three new websites: KeepingHisWord.com, which highlights Obama's record and "promises kept"; KeepingGOPHonest.com, which highlights GOP policy positions; and AttackWatch.com, which fact-checks claims made against Obama on the campaign trail.
"If the other guys are going to run a campaign based on misrepresenting the president's record - and their own - we have two options: sit back and let these lies go unchallenged, or fight back with the truth," deputy Obama campaign manager Stephanie Cutter said in an email. "We're fighting back." Keep on reading...
If you type “Obamacare” into Google and then click on the first link that usually comes up, you’ll learn all about Obamacare from the most unbiased source imaginable — the Obama administration. The link will take you to healthcare.gov, where you’ll learn that Obamacare is all about “bringing down health care premiums,” “improving health care quality and efficiency,” “making care more affordable,” “reducing paperwork and administrative costs,” spawning “new innovations to bring down costs” (this heading introduces the Independent Payment Advisory Board), “ensuring free choice,” “preventing disease and illness,” and, of course, “promoting individual responsibility.” Really, when it’s described like that, it’s hard to imagine why anyone would oppose the president’s signature legislation.
How is it, you might ask, that healthcare.gov — which is neither the talk of the town nor the home page of all that many Americans — somehow comes up first when you type in a term as widely used as “Obamacare”? Because your tax dollars are financing that paid link. I reported in January that this was happening and in February that it was still happening — and it continues to happen today. As President Obama moves into full campaign mode, he and his secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, are using your tax dollars to help ensure that those who want to learn more about Obamacare will learn it from them.
Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it obtained documents from the Obama Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) showing that the Obama White House helped coordinate a multimillion dollar taxpayer-funded campaign to use Internet search engines such as Google and Yahoo to drive web traffic to a government website promoting the Affordable Health Care Act (also known as Obamacare). The expressed purpose of this campaign is to increase public support for the president’s health care overhaul among key Obama campaign demographics, specifically Hispanics, blacks, and women.
The 2,328 pages of records, obtained by Judicial Watch pursuant to a March 23, 2011, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit (Judicial Watch v. Department of Health and Human Services (No. 11-608)), include internal correspondence between officials at the HHS office of the Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs (ASPA), as well as communications with representatives from The Ogilvy Group, the public relations firm hired by the Obama administration to manage the Obamacare campaign.
(LA Times) — The Obama administration is kicking off a nationwide ad campaign urging seniors to take advantage of free preventive services such as cancer screenings made possible in Medicare by the new healthcare law.
The campaign — featuring television and radio ads in English and Spanish — comes on the heels of a new report showing that less than one in six Medicare beneficiaries have taken advantage of the new benefit since President Obama signed the law last year.
The new law includes numerous provisions to encourage more preventive care, which many health experts believe is critical to controlling long-term health costs.
(LA Times)- It is a mutually beneficial arrangement. Hollywood stars grasp at gravitas; the U.N. pushes for publicity.
Now the beleaguered multi-national agency, fresh from a disappointing round of climate negotiations in Cancun, wants something more concrete: actual story lines in movies, television and social media drawing attention to the dangers of global warming.
The National Science Foundation has awarded a $700,000 grant to the Civilians, a New York theater company, to finance the production of a show about climate change. “The Great Immensity,” with a book by Steven Cosson (“This Beautiful City”) and music and lyrics by Michael Friedman (“Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson”), tells the story of Polly, a photojournalist who disappears while working in the rain forests of Panama. The grant is a rare gift to an arts organization from the foundation, a federal agency that pays for science, engineering and mathematics research and education.
