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Buying of News by Bush's Aides Is Ruled Illegal

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posted on Oct, 1 2005 @ 03:42 PM
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If you wanted to do a really intersting Research Project here on ATS, I think American Propoganda would be a dandy topic to cover. Yes I said American Propoganda.


http:// www.nytimes.com
Free Copy
Buying of News by Bush's Aides Is Ruled Illegal
By Robert Pear
The New York Times
Saturday 01 October 2005
Washington - Federal auditors said on Friday that the Bush administration violated the law by buying favorable news coverage of President Bush's education policies, by making payments to the conservative commentator Armstrong Williams and by hiring a public relations company to analyze media perceptions of the Republican Party.

In a blistering report, the investigators, from the Government Accountability Office, said the administration had disseminated "covert propaganda" in the United States, in violation of a statutory ban.

The contract with Mr. Williams and the general contours of the public relations campaign had been known for months. The report Friday provided the first definitive ruling on the legality of the activities....

In March, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel said that federal agencies did not have to acknowledge their role in producing television news segments if they were factual. The inspector general of the Education Department recently reiterated that position.

But the accountability office said on Friday: "The failure of an agency to identify itself as the source of a prepackaged news story misleads the viewing public by encouraging the audience to believe that the broadcasting news organization developed the information. The prepackaged news stories are purposefully designed to be indistinguishable from news segments broadcast to the public. When the television viewing public does not know that the stories they watched on television news programs about the government were in fact prepared by the government, the stories are, in this sense, no longer purely factual. The essential fact of attribution is missing."

This is a small piece of a really nasty puzzle that I hope people start seeing for what it is. We have laws designed to protect us from Government Propoganda, Believe it or not and the last line of this article spells it out in no uncertain terms.


Congress tried to clarify the ban on "covert propaganda" in a bill signed by Mr. Bush in May. The law says that no federal money may be used to produce or distribute a news story unless the government's role is openly acknowledged.

Of course this doesn't mean we can finally stop listening to the likes of Mark Hyman's little "Editorials" on Sinclair Affiliates, but at least he would have to tell us where he gets his 'facts' now eh?
Why in the hell hasn't SOMEBODY in Congress started some Impeachment Proceedings yet? Is the two party system really that illusionary? Or is this yet another law that has been broken by some poor aide who will be dragged down into political hell for doing what he was told to do.



posted on Oct, 1 2005 @ 03:59 PM
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Giving this one to Political Conspiracies in the hopes you will get that research project going. There's also coverage in Education & Media and PTS now. So please no more.



posted on Oct, 2 2005 @ 04:21 PM
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Even the Downing Street Memo has been discussed in the mainstream media now in the United States and our population of sheep (no offense to actual sheep) still doesn't "get it". Bush could go on live TV wearing a devil costume with fire raging behind him and admit he's an evil bastard and people would still vote for him, and attend these pro-war rallies. I'm ashamed of the morons living in my country.



posted on Oct, 27 2005 @ 03:39 PM
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Originally posted by CyberSEAL
Even the Downing Street Memo has been discussed in the mainstream media now in the United States and our population of sheep (no offense to actual sheep) still doesn't "get it". Bush could go on live TV wearing a devil costume with fire raging behind him and admit he's an evil bastard and people would still vote for him, and attend these pro-war rallies. I'm ashamed of the morons living in my country.


You must be right, I never hear any republican's come out of the word work and explain these things away... They love defending Bush and would put down their jackets for him to walk on, but once in awhile these things come out and they are totally disregarded by those who voted for him, are they speechless and can't believe it, or are they being ignorant and don't believe it so they dismiss it?

I am sickened as well, I used to like the guy too until one lie turned into two lies, and two lies turned into three, and so it went. I can't even watch fox news anymore without getting a churning feeling in my stomach... Boy i'd love to vomit on o'reilly's head and make hannity eat it.




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