Pentagon contractor admits to propaganda campaign against USA Today journalists by Jeff Sonderman Published May 24, 2012 5:04 pm Updated May 24, 2012 5:05 pm USA Today USA Today reporter Tom Vanden Brook and editor Ray Locker both had complained of a number of fake online presences created in their names — fake websites, Facebook and Twitter accounts, a Wikipedia entry and “dozens of message board postings and blog comments” — after they reported critically on the military’s spending on propaganda contractors. A Pentagon official told the paper in April that all contractors denied involvement. Thursday, Gregory Korte reports that Camille Chidiac, the minority owner and former president of Leonie Industries, took “full responsibility.” || Related: GAO auditing Pentagon propaganda campaigns (USA Today) Tags: Military ... Continue reading →

Christopher Hitchens memorialised Toby Harnden wins Book Prize for Dead Men Risen Amelia Gentleman wins Journalism Prize for her work in The Guardian Rangers Tax-Case wins the Blog Prize The winners of the Orwell Prize 2012, Britain’s most prestigious prize for political writing, were announced tonight, Wednesday 23rd May 2012, from 7pm at a ceremony at Church House, Westminster. Book Prize Toby Harnden’s Dead Men Risen (Quercus) was the unanimous and almost spontaneous choice of for of the Book Prize judges. The whole book was pulped by the MOD and the published edition contains redacted passages. Harnden’s is a story of male comradeship and the military tradition in action with the Welsh Guards in Afghanistan. It is forensically angry both with politicians who failed to ... Continue reading →

A super PAC trying to help Texas Rep. Ron Paul is out with a new video deriding Rick Perry and Mitt Romney as "plastic men" and slamming the news media for making the GOP presidential nomination fight into a choice between "this pretty boy or that pretty boy." Continue reading →

If these forays seem random, it’s because at least some of them almost certainly are. To those familiar with the campaign’s operations, such irregular efforts at paid communication are indicators of an experimental revolution underway at Obama’s Chicago headquarters. They reflect a commitment to using randomized trials, the result of a flowering partnership between Obama’s team and the Analyst Institute, a secret society of Democratic researchers committed to the practice, according to several people with knowledge of the arrangement. (Through a spokeswoman, Analyst Institute officials declined to comment on the group’s work with Obama and referred all questions to the campaign’s press office, which did not respond to an inquiry on the subject.) Continue reading →

Diana Stewart, a retired teacher from Paris, Ind., is worried about jobs "for my children and my grandchildren and my neighbor's kids." John Turner, who works in the oil fields of Texas, is focused on the rising federal debt because "you don't borrow more than you can pay." The top concern for Valerie Field of New London, Ohio, is the cost of health care, especially since her husband's job as a butcher doesn't provide insurance coverage.Americans have different and sometimes conflicting priorities on the economy and clashing expectations about what's ahead. The uneven impact of the Great Recession and the uncertainty of the recovery have shaped those divergent views and with them the campaign appeals of President Obama and likely Republican nominee Mitt Romney.A USA ... Continue reading →