FOIA Request Finds White House Spent $3.66 Million of Taxpayer Funds on Andy Griffith’s Pro-ObamaCare Ad…
Another interesting FOIA nugget; Obama’s Labor Secretary Hilda Solis met with union bosses over 40 times in a 12-month stretch.
(Politico) — Crossroads GPS, the cash-flush Republican advocacy group, is launching a new initiative and website Thursday, Wikicountability.org, which is designed to crowdsource FOIA files from organizations, individuals and journalists who have sought, and who have received, public information from the Obama administration. Thousands of pages of information from the departments of Labor and Health and Human Services have been uploaded to the site, and Crossroads is encouraging other groups and individuals to upload their own FOIA reports as well.
The site is also designed to spotlight what it suggests is the administration’s poor record of compliance with FOIA — with a special section devoted to unfulfilled FOIA requests.
The launch of Wikicountability.org will reveal:
— The Andy Griffith ad promoting Obamacare last year cost taxpayers $3.66 million — including $404,000 in production — according to records obtained from HHS in a FOIA request earlier this year.
— Labor Secretary Hilda Solis met with union bosses or attended their events on more than 40 separate occasions from February 2009–January 2010.
— Consumer Financial Protection Bureau head Elizabeth Warren made time for dinner with liberal journalists including American Prospect’s Bob Kuttner, Mother Jones’s David Corn and DailyKos.com’s Markos Moulitsas.
Posted by ZIP on Wednesday, March 23, 2011, at 7:16 pm | 
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Bandwidth decreasing from the new site (through Zero’s Google connections) in 5, 4, 3…
obozo should be held personally accountable for every dime wasted promoting this marxist crap
Issa should be BOMBARDED with requests to take action about taxpayer funds being used to sell a rabidly partisan program and the impropriety, if not outright lawlessness of Solis meeting with union leaders. That is NOT her job.
They overreached and the grifters actually think they have gotten away with it.
next we’ll get barney fife in a gun control ad.
A whole lotta mayberries into Andy’s safe-deposit box…
andy is an old commie rat bastard using his folksy charm to sell a dead horse to a bunch of useful idiots for the communists in washington.may andy’s body rot in the belly of a constipated buzzard for eternity.
Paulie2: Maybe Andy really was playing himself when he portrayed “Lonesome Rhodes” in A Face in the Crowd.
boy it sucks to realize that Andy Griffith is an anti-American greedy asshole
Amen to that Pat.
What it was, was political football.
So, did him, Aunt Bea, and Opie move out of that little house?
How much had Carl Rove, the Koch Brothers and others spent to tell lies. Big Insursance is not for your health care, they are for profit. They deny coverage when you need it, say outdated coverage is the best for you.
I am sorry because of all the lies told, the American People deserve the truth, and they are not getting it. Is it the best, no single payer would have been the best so we were not slaves to our jobs to keep our kids insured.
Guaranteed the Koch brothers didn’t spend a dime of tax money. And if you’re going to throw Karl Rove out there at least get it right. And lefties like to think they are so fucking smart.
Allen……enjoy paying for Trumka’s and Stern’s “Cadillac” health plans.
All that money goin’ down the fishin’ hole.
If he believes in it that much he shouldn’t be alive.
Bad Cracker!
So Did Andy get a mill and Opie a mill too?
Well, I’ll dipped and rolled! Andy, are you goofin’ on Elvis?
Such a damn waste of money. That same amount could have put 3 dozen people to work, at 80K to 100K per year. Instead, we got nothing!
The report begs the questions:
1) What does a “normal” advertisement cost in production and air time? $3.3 million sounds like a lot, but it could depend a great deal on what is included in that cost. I get that most of the commenters here don’t like the message or the program the ad supported, but that’s beside the point. Let’s compare this ad to, say the ones the Marines put out a few years ago with all the classy CGI. It might turn out that $3.3 million was just about what these things cost when they get done.
Now, granted, you don’t like the message in this one, but that is a different issue from whether or not the cost was outrageous.
2) Is it a problem that cabinet members meet with journalists and organizers? If so, we need a tracking system and let’s see who ALL our representatives and government appointees are meeting with at all times. I would actually LOVE to see full disclosure of meetings with lobbyists, industry members, etc. in advance of legislative events, for example. Anyone else want this? I seem to recall a secret meeting at the beginning of the Bush Administration regarding energy policy. They refused to divulge the names of attendees because it would have “put a chill on corporate America’s ability to participate in government decision making” or some such quotation. We never did get that list. FOIA or no FOIA, that list was never made public. Congress had to sue (and lost, actually) to get the info on who was present. Only when it turned out ENRON execs were part of the task force and they were in full melt-down mode did the Administration release “partial” data on only six of the meetings that took place.
I think disclosure rules, government-in-the-sunshine laws are exactly what is needed at the Federal level. Let’s see who really sets policy in this Nation!
Also for Trey, your math ignores the actual cost of employees, and the fact that at least some of the money spent on the ad was converted into salaries. Depending on assumptions made, you could be off by a factor of 4 (downward). I see your point, but if you’re going to go for economic comparisons, you really should spend the effort to be accurate.