Propaganda

Dude, Where's Our Surgeon General?

Last July, President Obama nominated Regina Benjamin, M.D., an African-American doctor from rural Alabama and recipient of a 2008 MacArthur Foundation "genius grant," to be the next Surgeon General, the nation's top public health official.

Armey's Anti-Poverty Campaign

Dick Armey, who was the Republican Majority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives between 1995 to 2002, has been doing well for himself as the Chairman of FreedomWorks, a conservative lobby group. Meredith Simons reports that, according to the group's tax filings for 2008, Armey was paid $550,000. “I don't apologize for my paycheck. I'd like to think I'm worth it," he said.

Chamber of Commerce Launches Massive "American Free Enterprise" Campaign

What do Americans need most right now? Jobs. If you wanted Americans to buy your snake oil, what would you promise them right now? Why, jobs of course, even though the snake oil being peddled is the very thing that sank the economy in the first place.

Medical Malpractice in the Health Care Debate: Sucking Us Back Into the "Tort Reform" Bog?

The current debate over health insurance reform has led to renewed calls by conservatives for tort reform, which they point to as the best way to decrease the cost of medical malpractice cases. "Tort reform" refers to any changes in liability laws that place higher burdens on people injured by products or services, erect barriers to keep their grievances out of the court system and generally tilt the legal playing field in favor of big businesses. Ample information, like that put out by Public Citizen, SourceWatch and investigative reports from other news sources have demonstrated that the so-called "tort reform movement" is actually a massive, corporate-funded, fake "grassroots" campaign perpetrated by American industry to try and restrict citizens' access to the legal system for redress against harms caused by defective products and negligent practices.

Exposing How the Government Lied about National Security Letters and the Patriot Act

Last week, I was honored to be invited to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee about the Patriot Act, a new endeavor for the Center for Media and Democracy, even though CMD has covered national security-related issues in its books and on SourceWatch.

One of the reasons I was so pleased to be able to join CMD is because in Washington, DC, I saw first-hand how propaganda and selective disclosures were used to influence and distort public opinion. In my testimony, I highlighted examples from the Patriot Act debate in 2005 where key information was hidden while the bill for reauthorization was being publicly debated, and did not come out until after the bill had passed. With parts of the Patriot Act up for renewal and reform this fall, I wanted to make sure the public record included the story of how the previous Bush administration misled the American people. I also wanted to share my views about why these extraordinary powers need to be fixed to better protect civil liberties and human rights.

Making War Spin McChrystal Clear

General Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. military and NATO commander in Afghanistan, wants to change strategic communications goals there from a "struggle for the 'hearts and minds' of the Afghan population to one of giving them 'trust and confidence'" in their government and their future. He also wants to focus on exposing insurgents' "flagrant contravention of the principles of the Koran," which is already a talking point for U.S.

The Lie Machine Killing Health Care Reform

"According to internal documents obtained by Rolling Stone, Conservatives for Patients' Rights had been working closely for weeks as a 'coalition partner' with three other right-wing groups in a plot to unleash irate mobs at town-hall meetings ... .

The Pentagon's New Multi-Lingual Web

The U.S. Special Operations Command awarded General Dynamics Information Technology a $10.1 million contract to build the "Trans Regional Web Initiative." The project will include "a minimum of two and no more than twelve websites" in languages such as Arabic, French, English, Chinese, Farsi, Russian, Urdu and Malay / Indonesian, in support of U.S.

Originator of False "Death Panel" Rumor Worked with Philip Morris in 1990s to Kill Health Care Reform

The woman credited with originating the false "death panels" claim about health care reform legislation worked with Phillip Morris in the 1990s to derail the Clinton administration's efforts to reform health care, according to the October 1 issue of Rolling Stone magazine.

Rendon's Embed Vetting Scandal

The military newspaper Stars and Stripes reported that the Pentagon was using one of its favorite public relations firms, the Rendon Group, to produce profiles of reporters requesting to embed with U.S.

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