Feingold questions legality of Propaganda Program
By John Amato Thursday May 01, 2008 11:00am
Good for Sen. Feingold
From Feingold's letter:
According to the article, the documents suggest that the Pentagon supplied retired officers serving as analysts for several major American broadcasters with private briefings with Sec. Rumsfeld, talking points in anticipation of appearing on TV, and commercial airfare. Allegedly, the Pentagon discouraged the analysts from publicly describing the nature of their relationship with the Pentagon. This clearly violates the spirit, if not the letter, of the law.
Feingold wants the GAO's "legal views as to whether the Department of Defense violated appropriations prohibitions on publicity or propaganda activities."
Full letter here.
Go for it and investigate it to the fullest. This was an outrageous con game played by military men and the Pentagon looking for payoffs as well as selling a war to America.
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Wake up America . . . this isn't America anymore and hasn't been in quite some time. Oh that's right, most of you don't give a damn. Oh well. So much for the "Great Experiment".
Im movin to dubai..
Murikans need t'understand dat I'm da d'cider.
An investigation? The pentagon must be really worried now. :P
I wonder how far that will go? In a week the only info you'll be able to find on it are the original articles because faux will be busy flooding the airwaves with further 'wrightisms'. You know, because they're so concerned about providing relevant commentary about issues.
Where's the collective spine of these retired military brassario? They were lied to and told to go pedal the muck. They've got to be pissed.
what we are forgetting here is the talking points flow to the editors and journalists as well.
In an interview with Rumsfeld, Stephanoplis made a reference to Rummy advocating the invasion of Iraq. Rummy replied "Come on George you know better than that!"
I always felt that was an indication of the agreements that are made with the journalist about what is to be said and what is not to be mentioned on air or during an interview.
We shouldn't be so surprised. CNNBCBBCABCFOX are pure talking points, if not for politics, then for corporations.
What grates on me is that the sheeple who watched those analysts believed everything they said, were happy with what they heard, but are probably not following whats emerging now. They will continue believing that the war is good and we are winning. After all, it's much easier than coming to grips with your own government going through convolution after convolution to screw you over.
Its all play-back these days as the powers that be just tell people what they want to hear because they need us calm and quiet. They have a very real fear that the people will storm the whitehouse and drag those fuckers out into the street and skin them alive.
Personally, I think the people who should be skinned alive are the banking families and their subsidiary cartels- then the whitehouse fucksticks.
I wonder just how long and how much we are going to take of this bullshit.
Scy @ 1:
How very true and how sad that we have given away so much for so little in return.
Folks, you have got to see this Youtube clip. in this clip James carville, george Stephanopoulos and Cliinton Advisor Mickey Kantor talk about folks in Indiana ( Indianans "Shit", "Worthless White N*rs"), this is awesome.. Watch the clip....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sN_nQOHj__s
obama feingold 2008
ak @ 10:
No thanks.
It's been posted around but I'm not interested. I'm well aware of the type. They're called 'politicians'.
marko @ 11:
I second this motion
Great! Another investigation where every will say, "Yeah, this was wrong and totally innapropriate...in fact, it's veven damned illegal!!!! But, we won't do anything or hold anyone accountable...so f*ck you, America! We've got your oversight right here!!!!"
(The Bush administration and the Pentagon, joined by GOP members of Congress, then gather outside on the lawn of the Capital, grab their junk through their pants and shake it at America!)
YourMom @ 13:
I do too... thought I'd rather see Russ as the Senate Majority Leader.
well if we can have our druthers i,ll take kucinich ,edwards 08!!!!
Investigate? About three hundred million of us should storm the goddamn gates!
++++
Once again, Feingold shows why he's one of America's best assets in the US Senate.
Coup Coup Kachoo!
We are run by the military and warhawks and have been. All laws as we knew them have been tossed out the window because "we're at war!". And no one wants to let go of their war time power.
Feingold wants the GAO’s “legal views as to whether the Department of Defense violated appropriations prohibitions"
Legal views? We don't need no stinking LEGAL VIEWS!
We are BushCo. We make reality and rule the world.
They don't even let the US government's international broadcaster the Voice of America (VOA) to broadcast within the United States. Before the intertoobz you had to have a shortwave radio and pick up signals reflected back from their SC transmitter or from overseas.
But hire a bunch of cronies to sell a war to the American public? Calling the Creel Commission!!
Arizona @ 18:
Why is that? Because he points out the dreadfully obvious, yet nothing is EVER done about it? Sounds like he accomplishes little telling the media what everyone already knows.
It is long past time we got rid of a bunch of these federal jackass groups who think they are above the law,cia,nsa and about 100 other packs of shitfaces. tomjs@17 Thats more than likely what its going to take!----CEO, have handcuffs,will travel.
Feingold rules!
Hopefully the left and the citizens in general arew learning that this propaganda from both ends of the microphone is the modern playing field. We need to move on from Whaa Fix News is at it again. How could they. Time to immobilize Fix or reconstruct the playing field to counter the Fox operation. The blogs are doing a good job. Still there is much more to do.
The politicians can be doing a way better job at constructing a proper framework around the fix news machine. Need to figure a way for the minority 20 percent not to have 90% of the voice.
It is necessary legal pro forma. Someone with the authority to rule it legal or not must do so.
With a cast of characters the likes of the Bush crime family, this is an uphill battle.
Mayhap this will start the house cards a'tumblin!
liberalHUSSEINmoderation @ 26:
dammit! house OF cards!
Let me tell you how Pelosi, Reid, et. al FAILED as a congress. Or rather let me ask you, why did they not, from the first 100 days on, begin holding tenacious hearings on war profiteering? Did they think it would divide the country for us to know where our tax money was going? They should have been following the money from day one, and I'll tell you we probably would have known about this little scheme months earlier. They would have discredited the neocons by following the money, the pres and his minister of vice if they had followed the money, would probably have had enough muscle for timetables tied to funding squeak through the senate if they had followed the money, they'd probably be bringing up a few indictments by now including some in the pentagon and the justice dept....
Overall that has been their absolute biggest failure, simply not making clear where the money has gone. One more question. Why not? I bet it's because too many of them, like Diane Feinstein, are likely complicit in the money grabs.
The awesome thing, that people know little about, is that at any time, we feel our government is being ran in a tyrannical fashion, we do have the right to over throw it. Time to use our constitution to its fullest before we let other nutters completely abolish our given rights as citizens to be the deciders.
ak @ 10:
Jesus H Hockeysticks - this is a clip from 1992! Relevance to today????? It's not like Kantor is advising Shillary.
we need to shake this notion that this is something different than what was happened for decades in america.
yes, this is a new tactic, but the use of grey propaganda on the american public is nothing new. and, it seems, that with every new administration there is, once again, shock that *gasp* we are lied to on a regular basis.
the pentagon, and the media, deserve our total lack of trust. they assert something, assume the opposite is true.
that said, feingold is one of the very best we have. and any effort he can make to charge these fucks with a crime the better. that might be one way to curtail the regular lies emanating from the govt, that is supposed to be 'for the people'
As I have said before,
America will not heal unless there are trials and prosecutions for the crimes committed against it's people.
If that doesn't happen, we will continue on as an Autocracy with our right eroded no matter what party is in the Oval Office. Powers are not given up easily once they have been enjoyed. We either heal or we heel.
CEO,citizens,eyes,open @ 23:
Good Luck!
There's a nice warm bed waiting for you in Guantanamo.
I have never been so depressed about our country then I am now. All scandals in the past cant measure up to this President and his henchmen. We are the laughing stocks of the world, that fact that he was reelected still boggles me. The criminality of our government is to awful to bear. I wish I could(like many other Americans) stick my head in the sand and black out everything, but I cant. I guess I'm a glutton for punishment.
liberalHUSSEINmoderation @ 27:
LOL ... House Cards sounds like a fixed game ... so your correct both ways.
No one in the MIC makes any money without a Bogeyman.
Dr. Acula @ 30:
About as relevant as Obama sitting in church for twenty years or the weather underground of twenty years ago. But what is relevant is the way the bush thugs have taken this country to the edge of a pure dictatorship.
ak @ 10:
P.D. @ 34:
Watching the daily news grinding out in horror is hard work.
John Amato correctly notes that "This was an outrageous con game played by military men." This is true as far as it goes. But what has gone unnoticed and is equally outrageous is the fact that there have been no anti-war activists on television, where so many Americans receive their news, who would easily demolish the lies that were and are put forth by these military "experts." Even that quasi liberal Keith Olbermann rarely sees fit to have any anti-war voices on his program while allowing people like Colonel Jack Jacobs and General Barry McCaffrey to utter their propaganda unchallenged. This happened before the buildup to the war and, amazingly, it is still happening today on the corporate airwaves. Thankfully, there is an alternative source to be found and that is Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman.
And the CORPORATE / REPIGLICAN/ GOVERNMENT MEDIA = MAFIA repression of this continues .. but hey THE CORPORATE PIMP CALLED BRIAN WILLIAMS AND THE REST OF THEM ARE STILL MAKING THEIR MILLIONS ....
Here's a nice read:
http://uspolitics.about.com/od/electionissues/a/01_propaganda.htm
I think our country needs to strengthen laws against lying/propaganda against it's citizens. See also The Smith-Mundt Act.
Fiengold/Obama
If I hear about Obama and Hillary again, I'm going to scream! I have been reduced to watching reruns of Malcom in the middle and King of the Hill. The rehashing of the polls and election coverage have been mind-numbing. God, save us from MSM!
We're still the biggest and most inefficient and wasteful GLUTTONS on earth.
We put a whole recycle bin a week out front with junk mail and catalogs we never even open or look at.
You can't even get them to STOP. They just keep on sending it.
See, ex military *are* encouraged (and paid) to speak out on the war - as long as they're delivering the government's message.
I agree with those who think that nothing will ever be done about this.
Talk about whoring. These retired military pricks are an embarassment to their uniforms. Anyone with a once of military knowledge, experience or has read up a little on military history KNEW the Iraq clusterfuck was bound to fail. Yet these bastards went on TV and lied for the government. They deserve to be arrested, indicted and convicted for their deeds.
But, of course, that won't happen.
L.A. Confidential @ 44:
Send them back, postage due.
It works... so I've heard.
MargeAggedon @ 48:
Yeah but the problem still is . . We're still the biggest and most inefficient and wasteful GLUTTONS on earth.
Determined to make the World our Slave Laborers and Natural Resource providers to keep it up.
Scy @ 1:
Amen to that.Fiengold`s letter may be letter is right on the money,but this administration pays no attention to operating within the law.What will happen? Nothing substantial, nothing at all..
Sen Feingold:
If you wont even CONSIDER impeachment, then dont even bother with all this peripheral medial crap. You're just showboating.
It wasn't just the military. Woolsey of the CIA has massive investments in the war machine, and was seen everywhere on TV before the Iraq insurgency began in earnest.
liberalHUSSEINmoderation @ 26:
I`ll believe it when I see it,and maybe not even then.It`s hard to believe what we`ve seen over the last 8 years.
I hope, for whatever hope is worth in todays America, that Feingold does something real about this. And that someone or some group is held accountable for it, and pays a price over it. And, more importantly, that this practice of 'lying' verses laying out actual facts, to garner public support is halted permanently. He among a handful of D.C. pols from the Dem side still holds my faith, and it is a precious few now, that haven't been tarnished or coopted by the Bush administrations crimes!
Yea yea yea, I know the American public has been fed lies upon lies officially sanctioned by various arms of this nations government (but mostly the military/MIC and attendant propaganda support agencies) for as long as I have been alive and longer... Gulf of Tonkin, Iraq has WMD's, Roosevelt knew and let Pearl Harbor happen... All that and more. I don't know if the Pearl Harbor situation is the one that cast the dye on this sick and perverse policy but it's been that way, it seems, at least since then.. Truth is it probably dates back to the Spanish/American war of 1898 at least, but this current pack of immoral louts has turned it from a 'we'll use it when we have to in order to launch wars' which in and of itself is bad enough in the extreme, to a policy of being daily standard operating procedure and apply it to every act and function of government, be that domestic or part of foreign policy.... Another legacy the Bush fucks have given all of us....
And I for one am sick of it. This whole Iraqie debachle is the end result of amoral and immoral people who think they have big brains with even bigger egos sitting around making up lies to tell American citizens so they can pursue agressive policies that may or may not have anything to do with the best interests of the nation, but will undoubtedly fill their pockets with coinage. Everything flows down from the top so its said, and our government has been peddling shit like this for generations and too many people know it, if not understand the details of specific instances. Frankly given this widespread knowledge of how our top leaders behave as a routine, I am not the least bit surprised at the degree of criminality at all levels of our society now.
Ya just don't have to be a banger, a pimp, a bankrobber from the hood or poor white trash looking to hijack or kidnap for ransom to end up tagged as a criminal. Your local banker, stock market analyst, mayor, state representative or even just your city counselperson to name but a few, is just as likely to be ripping you off or scheming to as the crackhead down on the corner might be... THAT'S the reality of what immoral/illegal behavior by leaders fosters in a nation. When the top people of any society stops abeying its own laws, then there really isn't any law anymore, just a weakening facsimile that continously erodes over time till it's just nothing much more than law of the jungle time in the end...
And lest I forget to mention this little caveat, trying to justify it or explain it away by quoting or hiding behind a bible only adds to the hypocrisy of it all. Bad is bad, period, no matter how many hail Mary's or our father who art in heaven, they mutter....So yea, I hope Feingold can manage to do better then all the rest of the losers who claimed they would change things for the better and to date....have not! We'll see... I ain't holdin my breath though...JD
FOX is State Sponsored TV @ 42:
Well there's the rub. The system will not be fixed because the house makes the laws. They are not going to police themselves!
In simplistic terms, it is very easy to say what needs to be done:
1) Eliminate corporate capitalism (i.e. the use of vast wealth to buy power and prevent competition).
2) Allow third party candidates a fair chance to get elected (i.e. remove the state sponsored monopoly that is the two-party system, and eliminate the wealth advantage).
Sound impossible? That's because it is. Suggestions? I don't have any.
sully18 @ 53:
It has been one hellish ride for sure...I am still optimistic that good will prevail, and this country will soon begin the long process of righting itself.
YourMom @ 55:
It is decided. It is not illegal for the Corporate News machine to lie to you.
Here, watch this and weep.
What makes this con game even more outrageous is that the military men involved in it did not believe it was a con game. This in no way excuses their culpability. It just shows that, in order to institute a con on this level, which is huge, you don't have to let everyone involved in the con in on the con itself. You only need prey on particular demographics' willingness to believe in their narrow perspective enough to not even consider questioning the con's legitimacy.
As an afterthought to my last post, what comes to mind for me are the documented instances of certain neoconservatives expressing disdain, bordering on disgust, for those U.S. citizens who choose to go into the military.
It appears that, basically, the neocons acted on their own distaste for people in our military by using them to carry out this Middle East fiasco.
And they've not only succeeded at getting us to invade and occupy a sovereign nation that never attacked us and that never posed a direct threat to our national security, they've succeeded at setting up a situation where their military "spokesmen" are now blaming the press, and not the neocons themselves, for the results of this abuse of a proprietary relationship between the state dept and the pentagon.
What a ruse, eh?
Too bad we don't have a semi load of people like Feingold on the hill. An army of one (or a few) is a tough job. I hope after the next election he gets a position that will reward his efforts to expose the bad and promote the good as he has done better than anyone over the last 7 years.
Did anybody notice that Col. Allard was drunk when he gave this interview with Howie Kurtz? Listen to him try and say "remunerate" and "reward" at 4:15.
I'm curious why the print media haven't picked up this story. They have every reason to use it to leverage some market share away from television if they are truly independent. (of course they aren't independent, but that's my point.)
The fact that this story is being supressed proves that the media is propaganda.
Same with the Deborah Palfrey story. Are we supposed to believe that TWO SUICIDES before trial or sentancing are just coincidental?
LOVE feingold, jesus knows i do, but why do you have to use the phrase "spirit of the law?" I love you russ, but you know they dont give a DAMN about the law and they give 2 wet farts less about the "SPIRIT" of the law.. call them what they are... OUTLAWS!! and quit playing these SILLY ASS SEMANTICS GAMES! phrases like that makes me want to tear the remainder of my HAIR OUT!!!
Let's not forget the 100,000+ still breathing, the 30,000+ that have been maimed for life, the 4,000+ that have given the ultimate sacrifice and the untold 100's of thousands innocent Iraqis that have been killed because the lies and spin coming from our derelict, incompetent and negligent President, his criminal Vice President and their equally criminal cronies. Look at all the blood and treasure that this once great country has wasted because of the propaganda and lies. The current Administration and some of the leaders of our military have so much blood on their hands I wonder how these people, and I use that term loosely, sleep at all knowing the destruction they have caused not only to The United States, but also Iraq.
And to think...they maybe plotting even worse destruction upon Iran.
craig @ 61:
The exact same thought crossed my mind.
Russ Feingold is the last Democrat left in the Democratic Party!
Alice@57;
Watched the clip... Disgusting... Pretty much illustrates what I'm ranting about upthread regarding shit flowing down from the top...corrupting everything in its path, everything and everyone it touches. THAT is what Bush has brought to America as just normal business routine. Criminal schemes and endeavors as just normal politics and average American business practices....."We just paid three million dollars for these stations, we'll tell you what is news and what isn't".... And the Courts opinion??? "Falsifying news is not a crime"......
(Sigh)... I got nothing... When the courts themselves sanctify this type of mendacity, this brand of criminal behavior with lies regarded as facts... Fuck.. it's over...we're done...
There is no finessing around this matter, no amount of pretending will do or make it go away. We either have to stop this shit and make people responsible for why and how things are done in Bush's America pay for it.... Or someone might as well start shoveling the dirt into the grave and raise the tombstone... America 1776ad ~ 2000ad.... We've been dying as a nation a little every day since Bush walked into the oval office... We just haven't been noticing but shit like this is the manifestation of this nations death.
Are we the ones in 'our' 'last throes".... Dunno, probably are, if we don't make fundamental and significant changes in how we conduct the country right now, this year.... Step one is getting rid of the bastards that have set this all up and that means most of the people in the executive branch of our government as well as a significant amount of this administrations appointee's across a wide swath of the nations governmental infrastructure. thru legal or political means, whatever gets that job done... Then we have to bring the private business sector to the table and tell them the parties over.. For the good of the nation long-term, their little bait and switch practices has to end... News corporations? They need to go back to reporting news, not manufacuring bullshit and calling it newes... Not worrying about profit margins or democraphics and market share. Just this much probably means repealing that bullshit from the 1870's that granted corporations personhood.... That's always been bullshit from day one, but it is now really hurting us as a whole, not just enriching a few corporations. It is, as pursued now by corporate America, in a globalized economic structure, undermining the very concepts of democracy in favor of myopic pursuit of profit even if it means committing white collar crimes of omission and commission to achieve those profits.....
Shit, I'm rambing on about what I think minimally needs to happen and just those few ideas outlined are such huge undertakings and I don't see anyone anywhere with the financial and/or political juice to even want to undertake it.. And even if some did, I am no longer certain that this rot hasn't already done terminal damage to the United States as we all have thought of it these last 50 years or so... It's pretty much a 50/50 proposition as whether we can undo this Bush damage now.....50/50 at best.. So much for the pathetic fantasies of 'shining city on a hill' and 'morning in America' that Reagon spoonfed us and others have been workin as a facade to hide their evil ever since... Someday maybe we, or whomever comes after us can be proud of this land...This place currently operating under the general name 'America'... That's not going to be today, likely not tomorrow either or anytime real soon......JD
I've been talking about this blatant propaganda for years!!!
The military/ promo/news/analysts are just the latest evidence we have uncovered.....
WAKE THE HELL UP!!!
C&L is part of the disinformation problem.Whores
Ah yes, another sternly worded letter. That will teach'em!
once again they are pissing on our legs and telling us it is raining.
allard is working way to hard to seel it in this clip.
I saw a documentary a while back after WW11 were Jews were so parnoid of Palistanian's they hired hit men to kill off any threat to them as a people. If there was one GD true patriot detective they would see the similarity now, 100's of soldiers being killed mysteriously (Pat Tillman) for one, then you have the whistle blowers and reporters who have been dying by suicide at a rate of 10 a year. lastly the politicians, there are 6 or 7 who are on news talk every week along with same TAlking brass. Week after Week after year after year. I say for one retire Charlie Ross and Larry King.
I've asked this before and no one has answered. Were these "analysts" double-dipping. Were they being paid by the networks for their expertise and by the government to paint a rosy picture of this debacle?
Jack Damage @ 66:
I too, am profoundly distressed. The corruption of the system, that you thought was here to protect your safety, the air you breathe, the food you eat, the merits of the system are an illusion. It is completely hollowed out. The institutions that you thought would report to you the failings of system, those institutions are integrated into failings of the system itself.
This is the dark future, NOW.
So what else is new ? This entire administration Bush on down is literally a criminal enterprise which makes the Mafia in their hay day look like the girl scouts in scope and scale , and it is for all practical purposes a dictatorship . This nightmare ain't over until it's over , we shall see .
Kathy in St. louis @ 72:
In instances they had undisclosed contract interests with the Pentagon. Inasmuch as they were also hired by networks as analysts, that is double dipping, it is misrepresentation and lack of necessary disclosure.
They were presented as unbiased analysts, they were not. They were part of a Pentagon information program.
It is not, apparently, illegal for the Pentagon to have an information program, they must disclose it. They did not. Until they were sued by the New York Times.
Of this bs isn't legal? How could it be? Propaganda at its finest!
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