Charlotte Highway Roadsign Hacked to Read, “Impeach Obama”
Ben Johnson, The White House Watch
The North Carolina Department of Transportation called for Barack Obama’s impeachment — at least for one day.
Over the weekend, someone hacked into an electronic highway sign and changed its message to a huge, blinking, “Impeach Obama.”
The sign — which is located at the intersection of Unionville-Indian Trail and Ridge roads in Union County, North Carolina — attracted drivers’ attention but apparently no complaints to the state. WSOC-TV reports it notified the NCDOT about the sign’s message on Sunday, and an engineer corrected the sign that evening.
Although one cannot condone this instance of defacing public property, the “Impeach Obama” message could be seen as equal time for the Obama propaganda signs that still….
Obama’s New “Terminator” – Paid With Your Taxes
Ben Johnson, The White House Watch
Throughout his time as president, Barack Obama has made ample use of Saul Alinsky’s rules for political warfare. Alinsky’s Rule #5 states “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon,” while Rule #13 prescribes: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Obama has repeatedly mocked and belittled his political opponents, attempted to stifle dissent, and tried to delegitimize news outlets that do not adhere to his party line. Now, he has hired an employee to engage in the politics of personal destruction on behalf of his re-election campaign – at your expense.
Sam Stein of The Huffington Post reported on Monday that Obama had named Jesse C. Lee the first Director of Progressive Media & Online Response. Stein wrote his story based on “an internal memo from Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer, provided to The Huffington Post.” The article noted, “Lee is a personal friend of Stein.”
Pfeiffer’s memo stated: “For the last two years, Jesse has often worn two hats working in new media and serving as the White House’s liaison with the progressive media and online community. Starting this week, Jesse will take on the second role full time working on outreach, strategy and response.”
The term “response” gives insight to Lee’s new duties; he is a full-time political hack posing as a federal employee.
New Records Reveal How You Paid for ObamaCare Propaganda
Tom Fitton, BigGovernment.com
The American people do not support Obamacare. This much we know. So I’m willing to bet they’re going to be furious when they learn that the Obama Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) wants to spend as much as $200 million on a propaganda campaign to convince them they’re wrong about the president’s socialist health care overhaul.
Last week Judicial Watch obtained documents from HHS that provide new details on a massive, taxpayer-funded, multimedia campaign designed to promote the Affordable Health Care Act (also known as Obamacare) and other HHS policy initiatives (such as the anti-obesity — or food control — campaign that is a vanity project of Michelle Obama). According to the records, which we obtained through a March 23, 2011, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, the total cost of this campaign, which notably targets Obama’s electoral coalition, could reach as much as $200 million over the next five years!
The following are highlights from the documents, which you can read in full here:
- An April 27, 2010, Department of Health and Human Services Acquisition Plan entitled “National Multimedia & Education Campaign & Grassroots Outreach,” details a comprehensive five-year communications program covering a variety of HHS policy initiatives, including “health care reform.”
•According to a section of the Acquisition Plan entitled, “Independent Government Cost Estimate,” the Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs (ASPA) states: “ASPA is unable to provide a definitive government cost estimate. Campaigns vary is [sic] size and scope. Some campaigns involve radio, some TV, and some print. Other campaigns may involve all of those avenues plus on ground events, website, bus tours, etc.” However, “ASPA is letting this contract in order [to] produce three to four campaigns per year through the life-cycle of the contract. We are requesting a contract with a $200,000,000 maximum.” - According to a subsequent March 14, 2011, contract included among the documents, HHS hired The Ogilvy Group “to provide services to design, develop, and execute a multiplatform educational media campaign to promote the new website Healthcare.gov, including the new Spanish language version of the website.” The total amount of the contract awarded was: $3,998,928.
- The Ogilvy contract “task order” describes the purpose of the Healthcare.gov website: “To accompany such a monumental piece of legislation [The Affordable Health Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare], the law charged the Department of Health and Human Services with the creation of a website to aide [sic] Americans about the health insurance coverage options available to them.” (U.S. Senator Charles Grassley has deemed the HHS online program “state-sponsored propaganda.”)
- The Ogilvy contract also describes the “audiences” that will receive “targeted messaging” during the campaign: “Hispanic Americans, African Americans, Young People, Women/Mothers,” all considered key target demographics for the Obama reelection campaign.
•According to the Ogilvy contract, HHS sought to receive “media training” in the following areas, among others: “controlling your message,” “handling hostile interviews,” “artful repetition,” “identifying loaded questions” and “being persuasive.”
And now for the really creepy part…
Lawsuit: How Did HHS Create the ObamaCare Propaganda Commercials?
Judicial Watch
Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has filed a lawsuit against the Obama Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to obtain records related to the creation and funding of advertisements pushing the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare. Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on March 23, 2011, which marked the one year anniversary of President Obama signing the Affordable Care Act into law.
On December 15, 2010, Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with HHS seeking the following information: “All records concerning the creation and/or funding of advertisements on the Affordable Care Act.” On December 17, 2010, Judicial Watch received confirmation from HHS that its request was received. Judicial Watch received additional confirmation from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a component of HHS, on January 14, 2011. By law, a response to Judicial Watch’s FOIA request was due no later than February 14, 2011. However, to date, no documents have been produced. Moreover, HHS has failed to indicate when a response is forthcoming.
In November 2010, Judicial Watch separately obtained documents from the Obama Department of Health and Human Services regarding a series of three Medicare television advertisements featuring actor Andy Griffith. The Obama Administration spent $3,184,000 in taxpayer funds to produce and air the advertisements on national television in September and October 2010 to educate “Medicare beneficiaries, caregivers, and family members about forthcoming changes to Medicare as a result of the Affordable Care Act.”
However, according to FactCheck.org, a project of the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center, the advertisements intentionally misinform the American people….
Do We Want Obama to “Reorganize the Federal Government”?
Ben Johnson, FloydReports.com
As Egyptians half a world away ponder what kind of government they want to live under, Americans must also ask themselves the same question in the wake of Barack Obama’s latest State of the Union Address. Although his salmon joke got a few (undeserved) laughs, few commented that it came just after President Obama “proposed a “major reorganization of the government.” Although he promised to make America “more competitive,” he provided astoundingly few details about what this would look like. So, Americans must ask ourselves: Do we really want to see a major restructuring of the government under Barack Obama?
We Do Big Things Government
As part of his theme that “We do big things,” Obama told the little people they “need to think bigger. In the coming months, my administration will develop a proposal to merge, consolidate, and reorganize the federal government in a way that best serves the goal of a more competitive America.”
He began by getting his history wrong. “We live and do business in the information age, but the last major reorganization of the government happened in the age of black and white TV,” he claimed. Actually, the last major reorganization of the government was in 2002, with the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security, which consolidated 22 separate agencies. Yet federal bureaus told to work together after 9/11 continue to wage turf battles nine years later.
Richard Nixon, too, reorganized government. Casper Weinberger, Nixon’s budget director, told The Washington Post, “Nixon sort of thought that by the stroke of a pen he could do it, but then Watergate came and destroyed his leverage.” Obama, too, is determined to make law with the stroke of a pen. He claimed in his address, “I will submit that proposal to Congress for a vote – and we will push to get it passed.” But if it does not, much of it may be eligible to be implemented by executive order. After all, it has been done before. Leaving aside the objectionable nature of his (likely) means, what ends will they secure?…
The Top Stories We Broke in 2010
Ben Johnson, FloydReports.com
As we end 2010 and begin a new year, the media take a look back at the year gone by. We too wish to look back at all the stories this website has broken in the few months of our existence. Some have been ignored, others have been reported nationally — without credit to those of us who discovered them. Nonetheless, we are happy the information has spread and look forward to leading the charge in 2011. We want to take this time to celebrate all we have accomplished in so little time by highlighting a baker’s dozen of stories that we broke. Counting down our stories, from least to greatest.
13. Obama Apologizes to Guatemala for a Guatemalan Government Experiment (story). On October 1, Barack Obama phoned Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom with a heavy heart. He learned that from 1946-48, the U.S. Public Health Service had tested the effectiveness of penicillin in treating syphilis by infecting Guatemalan prisoners and soldiers with the disease, then treating them. Guatemalan politicians howled for “compensation,” and Obama promised “a thorough investigation.” The experiments — discovered by Susan Reverby of Wellesley College and revealed in the January issue of the Journal of Policy History — were inhumane. However, Reverby noted one fact Obama overlooked: The Guatemalan government approved of the experiments at the time. The story shows Obama’s focus on what he describes as America’s “tragic history” and absurd reflex to apologize for American behavior. In this case, the courageous leader of the free world apologized to the president of a third world backwater for experiments both their governments approved and conducted before either one of them was alive.
12. Oklahoma’s Muslim Law Ban Struck Down by Clinton Diversity Pick (story). On election day 2010, more than 70 percent of Oklahoma voters approved State Question 755, which forbids state courts from considering Islamic religious law, Shari’a, in pending court cases. However, federal judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange of the 10th Circuit Court issued a series of injunctions against the measure. In her tangled view, a law prohibiting judges from deciding cases based on religious law constituted an attack on the First Amendment. As we alone exposed, Miles-LaGrange, whom Bill Clinton appointed in 1994 as “first African-American federal judge in the six states that make up the 10th Circuit,” is a thoroughgoing mediocrity who has spent her entire career benefiting from or promoting Affirmative Action. She now sees Muslims as the next victims of an oppressive Christian America. Remember this the next time someone calls Bill Clinton a “moderate.”
11. Left-Winger Confirms Obama’s “Covert Propaganda” Scandal (story). In August, Rep. Darrell Issa’s House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform issued a 36-page report accusing Barack Obama of engaging in “covert propaganda” activities that were “inappropriate and sometimes unlawful.” The White House, Issa wrote, would enlist third parties to promote its talking points without mentioning its connection to Obama, a move he alleges is illegal (and thus impeachable). Within days, far-Left activist Sally Kohn confirmed another facet of this story on The Huffington Post. I reported the administration invited Kohn to a May 2009 “cultural policy summit” with five dozen other radical activists and extremists. Kohn wrote this was the beginning of the Obama administration’s weekly “Common Purpose” meetings, where “the White House dictated its agenda and appealed to the professional left for back-up.” Kohn, a onetime Ford Foundation employee, is a self-described “Jewish lesbian” who once wrote a DailyKos diary entry entitled, “Why I Have a Little Crush on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.” Her allegations that the president used them in a covert propaganda campaign are worthy of inclusion in an investigation of this scandal. To date, no one else has noticed them.
10. Obama’s Stimulus Put Microchips in Your Trash (story). Nearly half-a-million dollars of the stimulus bill went to….
Biden Says Stimulus Fraud at “Surprisingly Low Level”
Judicial Watch
In yet another delusional assessment of the administration’s disastrous stimulus program Vice President Joe Biden claims that fraud and abuse has been kept “to a surprisingly low level” thanks to rigorous oversight.
The laughable estimate comes just a few months after Biden made a fool of himself touting a scandal-plagued welfare program to make low-income houses energy efficient as an example of success in stimulus spending…
Biden conveniently omitted reality (9.6% unemployment rate) by failing to mention that tens of billions of dollars have gone to wasteful projects, including international ant research, studying why monkeys react negatively to inequity, a “tunnel to nowhere” in Pennsylvania and a $3 million turtle crossing in Florida, to name a few. At least $20 million has been spent on road signs declaring that the stimulus is “putting Americans back to work” and tens of millions more on a number of other frivolous projects that have been documented in several different reports.
The Obamas’ Radical Pal Wants a New Popular Front
Ben Johnson, FloydReports.com
- Fmr. SDS Radical Marilyn Katz
All of Obama’s radical revolutionary friends seem to be coming out into the light. Just weeks ago, former Weather Underground leader Bill Ayers endorsed Jon Stewart’s “Rally to Restore Sanity.” Then his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, told cameras, “The American government is the real terrorist.” Now Marilyn Katz — a lifelong “revolutionary” and longtime, intimate friend of Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Barack’s alter ego Valerie Jarrett, and David Axelrod — has written an article in the socialist magazine In These Times calling for the creation of a new “progressive” organization to motivate his hard-Left base. Katz has spent decades attempting to create socialist-oriented groups dominated by Marxists that included enough deluded liberals to give the appearance of a mainstream political venture. Her article, and the re-emergence of Obama’s Marxist supporters, may signal the beginning of just such a renewed effort.
Darrell Issa Wants to “Make the President A Success”?
Ben Johnson, FloydReports.com
We were disappointed when incoming Government Reform and Oversight Committee chairman Darrell Issa seemed to sidle up to Barack Obama by saying there was “not a chance” he would consider investigations that might lead to impeachment, at least “at this point.” Issa channeled Chris Matthews in his most recent pronouncement to reassure his implacable political foes.
On election night, just as House Minority Leader John Boehner finished his tearful victory speech, Issa told reporters on a conference call, “I want to prove the pundits wrong.” As he saw it, he said, “My job is not to bring down the president. My job is to make the president a success.”
No, that is not the job of a watchdog chairman. That is Chris Matthews’ job. Those less slavishly devoted to Obama than the talking head with the tingling leg are more interested in serving their defined roles, uncovering corruption, and making the United States a success.
Calling Off Impeachment is Premature, a Bad Sign of Republican Weakness
Floyd Brown, FloydReports.com
Floyd Brown, Chairman of ImpeachObamaCampaign.com, called Republican Congressman Darrell Issa’s recent comments on Impeachment “premature” and a “bad sign of Republican weakness” in the upcoming Congress.
Brown, who is calling on Congress to Impeach Obama for crimes committed while in office, said it is disappointing for the future chairman of the Government Reform and Oversight Committee to rule out any course of action before he has even begun his investigations.
According to a report by CBS News, Representative Issa said about impeachment on Bloomberg’s “Political Capital” over the weekend, “Not a chance at this point. I don’t see it happening…Look, disagreeing with the president — the president using his authority, maybe even misusing it — that’s not what impeachment’s for,” Issa added. “Do we have disagreements? Yes. Do we want to see that the president strictly adheres to process? Yes.”
But with the facts at hand, Brown clearly points out and makes the case for at least four impeachable offenses Barack Obama committed while president of the United States: “The Obama administration has been mired in controversy and corruption since day one. Bribes were offered to Congressman Joe Sestak and former Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff not to run for Senate. This is a felony and clearly an impeachable offense.”
