Okay, he is buying them one more year -

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WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 - Federal auditors said on Friday that the Bush administration violated the law by buying favorable news coverage of President Bush's education policies, by making payments to the conservative commentator Armstrong Williams and by hiring a public relations company to analyze media perceptions of the Republican Party.

In a blistering report, the investigators, from the Government Accountability Office, said the administration had disseminated covert propaganda in the United States, in violation of a statutory ban.

The contract with Mr. Williams and the general contours of the public relations campaign had been known for months. The report Friday provided the first definitive ruling on the legality of the activities.

Lawyers from the accountability office, an independent nonpartisan arm of Congress, found that the administration systematically analyzed news articles to see if they carried the message, The Bush administration/the G.O.P. is committed to education.

The auditors declared: We see no use for such information except for partisan political purposes. Engaging in a purely political activity such as this is not a proper use of appropriated funds.

The report also sharply criticized the Education Department for telling Ketchum Inc., a public relations company, to pay Mr. Williams for newspaper columns and television appearances praising Mr. Bush's education initiative, the No Child Left Behind Act.

When that arrangement became public, it set off widespread criticism. At a news conference in January, Mr. Bush said: We will not be paying commentators to advance our agenda. Our agenda ought to be able to stand on its own two feet.

But the Education Department has since defended its payments to Mr. Williams, saying his commentaries were no more than the legitimate dissemination of information to the public.

The G.A.O. said the Education Department had no money or authority to procure favorable commentary in violation of the publicity or propaganda prohibition in federal law.

The ruling comes with no penalty, but under federal law the department is supposed to report the violations to the White House and Congress.

In the course of its work, the accountability office discovered a previously undisclosed instance in which the Education Department had commissioned a newspaper article. The article, on the declining science literacy of students, was distributed by the North American Precis Syndicate and appeared in numerous small newspapers around the country. Readers were not informed of the government's role in the writing of the article, which praised the department's role in promoting science education.

The auditors denounced a prepackaged television story disseminated by the Education Department. The segment, a video news release narrated by a woman named Karen Ryan, said that President Bush's program for providing remedial instruction and tutoring to children gets an A-plus.

Ms. Ryan also narrated two videos praising the new Medicare drug benefit last year. In those segments, as in the education video, the narrator ended by saying, In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting.

The television news segments on education and on Medicare did not state that they had been prepared and distributed by the government. The G.A.O. did not say how many stations carried the reports.

The public relations efforts came to light weeks before Margaret Spellings became education secretary in January. Susan Aspey, a spokeswoman for the secretary, said on Friday that Ms. Spellings regarded the efforts as stupid, wrong and ill-advised. She said Ms. Spellings had taken steps to ensure these types of missteps don't happen again.

The investigation by the accountability office was requested by Senators Frank R. Lautenberg of New Jersey and Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, both Democrats. Mr. Lautenberg expressed concern about a section of the report in which investigators said they could not find records to confirm that Mr. Williams had performed all the activities for which he billed the government.

The Education Department said it had paid Ketchum $186,000 for services performed by Mr. Williams's company. But it could not provide transcripts of speeches, articles or records of other services invoiced by Mr. Williams, the report said.

They don't want to buy any more of our debt, as our $ is almost worthless. They've been buying up homes in southern CA big-time. They already know that this most liberal "plan" will make the US self-destruct.

Those who voted for this man and refused to listen to many of us who said h'ed do this, don't cry to me. This is merely the beginning.

anything about being "gay." I'll tell you where, in the indoctrination centers known as public education.

Excuse me, being homosexual does not make one happy and well adjusted. I've never ever seen when blatant sin ever lead to being happy and well adjusted.

As I watched Americans caucus in Iowa and enter voting booths in New Hampshire these past two weeks, I felt the first stirrings of hope for my country that I've felt in a very long time.

It is as though we are peeking out of our caves of fear and despair, still wearing our winter coats and galoshes but preparing to shed them as we step into the promise of springtime.

For seven years, this country has been held in the grip of men who have used us for their own ends. On Sunday, it will be exactly one year until we see the last of the Bush administration.

That is reason for celebration. But it is not reason for turning our attention away from the criminals in the White House. There are times when I barely recognize the carcass of America that they continue to strip as they prepare to discard us.

Only one more year. But we know from experience the kind of damage George Bush and his crowd can do in the space of 12 months. Lest we forget, let's look at just a single year � 2001 � under this, the worst regime in America's history.

Jan. 20, 2001: On the day of Bush's inauguration, his chief of staff issued a moratorium halting all new health, safety and environmental regulations issued in the final days of the Clinton administration.

Jan. 23: Bush reinstates the global gag rule barring U.S. funding for abortion counseling abroad.

Feb. 5: Bush suspends the "roadless rule," which protected 60 million acres of forests from logging and road-building.

anti-union executive orders, including measures to prohibit project labor agreements at federal construction sites.

March 7: At Bush's urging, Congress repeals ergomonic regulations designed to protect workers from repetitive-stress injuries.

March 15: Bush abandons his campaign pledge to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.

March 20: The Bush administration moves to overturn a regulation reducing the allowable levels of arsenic in drinking water.

March 29: Bush shuts down the White House Office for Women's Initiatives and Outreach.

April 4: Bush's Department of Agriculture proposes lifting a requirment that all beef used in federal school lunch programs must be tested for salmonella.

April 9: Bush's Department of Interior proposes a limit on lawsuits seeking protection of endangered species.

May 11: Bush abandons the nation's international effort to crack down on offshore tax havens for the rich.

May 16: Vice President Dick Cheney's task force releases its National Energy Policy report, calling for weaker environmental regulations and massive subsidies for the oil and gas, coal, and nuclear power industries.

June 19: Cheny refuses to release records of his energy task force meetings to the General Accounting Office.

June 28: Attorney General John Ashcroft announces a policy that would require gun records be destroyed one day after a background check rather than 90 days later.

July 9: Bush opposes a UN treaty to curb international trafficking in small arms and light weapons.

July 26: Bush rejects an international treaty on germ warfare and biological weapons.

Aug. 6: During the presidential daily briefing, Bush is warned that Osama bin Laden is determined to strike in the United States.

Sept. 11: Terrorists organized by bin Laden crash hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing thousands.

Oct. 29: Bush's Justice Department acknowledges but won't identify more than 1,000 individuals detained since the Sept. 11 attacks.

Oc.t 31: Ashcroft authorizes monitoring of attorney-client conversations in terrorism investigations.

Nov. 1: Bush issues an executive order blocking the release of presidential records.

Nov. 14: Bush's Justice Department issues regulations allowing illegal immigrants to be detained indefinitely.

Dec. 12: Bush announces that he intends to pull out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty unilaterally.

Dec. 27: Bush repeals the "responsible contractor rule" that had required scrutiny of safety and environmental law violations in the awarding of federal contracts.

There are 372 days left 'til Jan. 20, 2009. Let us hang onto hope for the future.

Some of my political views are not the norm here, but that is ok, viva LA difference! I will just explain a couple,

1- I do not understand why anyone, particularly women, would vote for the Republicans- they are sort of like the Chinese Communist Party, or the govt. in 1984. For example, a few years ago, the said Murphy Brown was a terrible influence. Never mind that the character was financially well established, and a mature woman actually making a decision, rather than a teenage whoops! This year at the convention, lots of folks wore buttons talking about how much they support unwed mothers. My feeling is they only support them while pregnant, and don�t care about them once the baby is born. In fact, they scorn them. If a woman works, and something happens to her child, she is viewed as an unfit mother because she should have been home. On the other hand, the whole �welfare mom �was demonized because she just �sat at home making babies rather than working�

In addition why support a party who does not have your best interests at heart? Most people are middle/lower middle/ and lower class� why support the elite few?

2- Roe v. Wade is a very smart ruling, and anyone who really understands constitutional law, would agree. �Roe v. Wade was decided primarily on the Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution, a part of the Bill of Rights. The Court's decision in this case was that the Ninth Amendment, in stating that "the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people," protected a person's right to privacy.�
No one has the right to say that their belief should supersede mine. I believe life does not begin at conception, ergo, no one should legislate my body, worry about your own.

3- I believe in gun control. No one needs anything more than a hunting rifle (if that) in their home. Period. No one is keeping the government in check by keeping a gun- it is a load of malarkey. Crime has decreased- not because of guns, but because people were more prosperous. That has ended. We need social programs, and for corporations to be a part of society and not just answer to share holders so that we can all work together to turn things around. That will keep crime down- not everyone owning killing machines.

4- Everyone is entitled to health care. It should be a right, not the privilege of the few. We call ourselves civilized, yet we have people starving or dying from lack of health care right in our midst.

5- I am against the death penalty. I never got the eye for an eye thing. Yes, I have been the victim of a violent crime, but a violent reaction doesn�t undo what happened, it only re-enforces the whole cycle.