ActiCons

Over the course of the last year, the Obama administration has taken on an increasingly hostile tone towards critical press. During the campaign, of necessity, it was more muted (although not nonexistent, as conservative reporters discovered).

Since the inauguration, however, the practice has become more frequent and more sophisticated. Time reports that the White House has decided they are going to be a “player” in how the press is won.

So a new White House strategy has emerged: rather than just giving reporters ammunition to “fact-check” Obama’s many critics, the White House decided it would become a player, issuing biting attacks on those pundits, politicians and outlets that make what the White House believes to be misleading or simply false claims, like the assertion that health-care reform would establish new “sex clinics” in schools. Obama, fresh from his vacation on Martha’s Vineyard, cheered on the effort, telling his aides he wanted to “call ‘em out.”

Time calls it a “take no prisoners” stance; a war. And this war has a general: Anita Dunn. Dunn is the White House communications director and a longtime Obama advisor. She’s been a heavy-weight Democrat strategist since the 80s.

As with the citizen reporting system and many other such initiatives, censorship 2.0 is strongly internet focused. Mediaite characterizes Dunn’s new role as being the White House’s “own Glenn Beck.” She is aggressive, and is the brains behind using the White House blog as a vehicle for attacking Fox News. Dunn has crafted this adversarial pose, and stands by it. Something which would certainly disappoint a formerly vocal critic of such tactics: Anita Dunn.
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I love these little now and then moments, don’t you?

HuffPo Now:

Protesters have taken to the streets of Pittsburgh in opposition to the Group of 20 summit taking place Thursday and Friday. The protests have turned violent, the AP reports, with demonstrators rolling trash bins towards police, and officers firing tear gas back. Read more here.

Check out this slideshow of protesters and vote on your favorite protest tactic. Any creative ones that stand out to you, or have you seen these all before?

And are you going to any G-20 protests? Send us your photos! We will publish the best ones of the HuffPost.

Dude, the anti-capitalism party is turning violent. Teh awesome. Vote your fav!

I guess it’s like Spring Break, but with more marijuana and less coherence. Also they replaced the wet t-shirt contest with a waterboarding demonstration. Plus, I hear for a few beads the gals will show their … ignorance of global markets. Man, I can’t wait for the “Greenpeace Gone Wild” videos. Wait. On second thought … yes I can.

Anyway, that’s the now. Let’s look at the then, eh?
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The “Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009″ imposes a “surtax,” or income tax increase, on all Americans making $280,000 a year or more.

Under the bill, those making $280,000 ($350,000 for couples) will have their taxes increased by 1 percentage point, those making $400,000 ($500,000 for couples) by 1.5 percentage points, and those making more than $800,000 ($1 million for couples) by 5.4 percentage points.

This would make the top marginal federal tax rate 40.4% – the highest it has been since the Clinton years. If President Obama keeps his promise to let the Bush tax cuts expire (which he reiterated at a Portsmouth, NH town hall on Tuesday) that top marginal rate will increase to 45% – the highest it has been since the Reagan tax cuts of 1986.

If a review in 2013 by the Congressional Budget Office determines the health care overhaul has failed to save at least $175 billion, the bill provides for an automatic doubling of the tax increases on the lower two of those three incomes.

Further, with state income taxes rising across the country, this surtax and automatic 2013 increase would put the top combined federal-state income tax rates in over half of all states at 50% or more.

Source: HR 3200 §59C

Under the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee’s “Affordable Health Choices Act,” local governments can apply for “community transformation” grants to build jungle gyms, sidewalks, bicycle paths, and grocery stores, to install streetlights, and to establish new farmers’ markets.

The dollar amount of these grants, and of the total “community transformation” earmark program, is left to the discretion of the Obama administration.

Cities can also apply for “community makeover” grants, which can provide them with up to $10 per resident in taxpayer dollars for “beautifying streets.”

Sen. Tom Coburn, MD (R-OK) sponsored an amendment to the HELP Committee bill that would have prevented any funds it made available from being used “to build, develop, or maintain sidewalks, parks, bike paths, or street lights.” The amendment was defeated by party-line vote.

The “Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009,” the House of Representatives’ health overhaul legislation, also contains an earmark for these grants. The House bill sets the amount available for their funding at $1.6 billion.

Sources: “Affordable Health Choices Act,” Title III, Subtitle C
HR 3200, § 3151

Watch this.

Dude.

Huge “Well Done” to Steven Crowder. In fact, there’s little to add. Make sure to post your comments here and at YouTube, and vote it up. Conservatives, we need to start being heard on health care, before we all end up in terminal waiting rooms.

Somebody is lying.

This is an update to my previous story regarding the anti-American ads designed by Ogilvy & Mather. I mentioned in that article that History Channel parent A&E Television Networks has been issuing cease & desist letters to websites and others who were running the Ogilvy designed advertisements that featured the History Channel logo. This afternoon, I found one website which has already received a letter: MarkLives.com.

MarkLives received a cease and desist letter from AETN, parent company of The History Channel, demanding we remove advertising material for The History Channel from this site. For the record, the campaign in question was submitted by Multichoice agency Ogilvy Johannesburg, along with the information in the copy still below to MarkLives.com who published it in good faith.

The AETN letter read in part;

AETN is the owner of numerous trademarks associated with its History network, including the world famous marks THE HISTORY CHANNEL and the H logo (which are the subject of numerous trademark registrations worldwide).

Neither the use and display of AETN’s trademarks nor the purported advertisements themselves were authorized by AETN. As such, your display and hosting of this unauthorized content violates our rights under relevant law and constitutes, among other things, trademark infringement, dilution and tarnishment of our brands and marks, misrepresentation, interference with contract, and unfair business practices.

A&E is not taking this apparent abuse of their brand lightly, nor lying down. Please note the date of the original post at MarkLives is yesterday, presumably prior to my article at 9pm last night.

It also seems clear I’m not the only person who can’t get a response from Ogilvy.

Normally we would stand firm against such editorial interference. However, in an email to AETS, Ogilvy Johannesburg and MarkLives.com, Graham Pfuhl, Marketing and Sales Director at Multichoice, stated that the campaign in question was in fact rejected by Multichoice, and confirmed “no History Channel ads can be published without the prior authorization of AETN.”

Would an ad agency really go ahead and produce a campaign without some sort of authorisation? The point remains unclear as no official correspondence was received from Ogilvy Johannesburg at the time of publication.

That’s certainly the question, isn’t it? Multichoice is a major Cable/Satellite television provider. But the big news comes at the end of the article. MarkLives.com has posted the copy provided to them along with the ads, by Ogilvy Johannesburg:
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… or at least, by the ad agencies.

The History Channel is a generally well-respected brand in the United States. The shows routinely make “water-cooler” conversation at sites like Redstate. Indeed, the sister networks like The Military Channel are staples among conservative viewers, as anyone who spends any time around conservatives and veterans is well aware. So you can imagine my surprise reading an article earlier this week titled “Anti-American History Channel Ads You Won’t See In The US Or Online” at the Business Insider website. There were three images included which are, to say the least, inflammatory.

The campaign, titled “History is Written By The Winners” was represented by three images (History Channel logo has been removed):

Highly inflammatory, as well as disputable, and clearly anti-American. I immediately started looking into the story to find out why, or even if, the History Channel would actually run such vile ads, and why Ogilvy & Mather would create them. While I was researching, the story changed.

Less than a day after I read it, the article was updated with the following information:

Update: A rep for A&E Television, which owns HIstory Channel, says these are not authorized History Channel ads. This rep did not know if they were created by Ogilvy and Fran Luckin, as they were attributed on Adsoftheworld.com. We’ve updated the images with watermarks reflecting their inauthenticity.

Interesting. But a number of questions still remained. If A&E didn’t order the ads, who did? And why? Are they actually fakes?

Well … no. Not exactly.
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