Report: Obama Stimulus Bucks Paid for Advertising on MSNBC

Report: Obama Stimulus Bucks Paid for Advertising on MSNBC

A recent report has revealed that in 2009 Obama’s Department of Labor used Obama stimulus bucks to fund advertising on MSNBC.

The advertisements were created to promote Obama’s so-called “green training” job programs and were handled by the PR firm McNeely Pigott & Fox Public Relations LLC at a cost of $495,000 to the taxpayers.

Two video ads ran for two months, 14 times a week during Countdown With Keith Olbermann and The Rachel Maddow Show.

In a joint email statement to The Times from two Labor Department spokesmen, David Roberts and Michael Volpe, officials said the money was used for outreach efforts to raise awareness among potential employers about the Job Corps’ green training in career areas, including automotive, advanced manufacturing and solar-panel installation.

Records appear to show that the program created no jobs.

Strangely, few other TV outlets were considered to run the ads. PBS was apparently rejected because ad rates were too expensive, and Fox, ESPN, and others aren’t even mentioned in the report. The ads did run on CNN after the stint on MSNBC.

So, shockingly, MSNBC and CNN were the lucky recipients of Obama’s stimulus bucks for a jobs program that netted no new jobs.

“The placement really reeks of a political ad rather than a job ad, and taxpayers see through this,” David Williams of the nonprofit watchdog Taxpayers Protection Alliance told the Washington Times.

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