"State officials struggling to convince critics about the safety of aerial spraying to control an invasive moth awarded a $500,000 no-bid contract to a prominent public relations firm with ties to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger," reports Associated Press. The contract, with the Porter Novelli firm, was suspended after AP began investigating it. California's agriculture department "invoked emergency powers to award the contract without competition." Upon review, a state lawyer questioned why the department "could not get bids or go through [a national competitive bidding] process." The Porter Novelli deal included subcontracting work for Jeff Randle, "a frequent campaign and political adviser to Schwarzenegger." California began the spraying last year, to fight a moth species unintentionally imported from Australia. After spraying two counties, "more than 600 people complained of health problems." A University of California report suggests the moths "can be kept in check by natural predators" instead. The Porter Novelli contract involved holding focus groups and designing advertisements "to counter the concerns raised by local environmentalists and residents."

Kelly Dougherty, the former sergeant who is the executive director of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), announced on March 13th the start of the group's three-day Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan investigation into the United States' conduct of its wars, featuring testimony of scores of anti-war veterans. Dougherty promised that "No longer will public debate on the Global War on Terror be framed solely by politicians and pundits. IVAW will use the ongoing Winter Soldier project to ... broaden and strengthen our strategy to end the Iraq occupation." The Winter Soldiers at IVAW held a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington to kickoff their hearings, and luckily were not relying on the mainstream media who attended the news conference but then almost entirely ignored the three days of testimony. "Every minute of testimony will be broadcast live and will be available to watch in an online on-demand library." The pro-war lobby, including Eagles Up, the Gathering of Eagles, Move America Forward, Free Republic and commentator Michelle Malkin condemned and protested the event. With the exception of Dennis Kucinich, politicians did not attend, and the major Democratic Party-aligned peace groups with multi-million dollar budgets, such as MoveOn and Americans Against Escalation in Iraq also completely ignored the riveting Winter Soldier testimony and failed to publicize it to the millions of people on their email lists.

"The 16-year old lobbying firm that used to be called Barbour Griffith and Rogers -- that's Barbour as in Gov. Haley Barbour (R-Miss.) -- has hired its first Democrat," reports Al Kamen. The lucky Democrat is Michael Meehan, former chief of staff to Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and communications adviser to Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.). Meehan "will be president of the firm's new public relations division, BGR Public Relations, and vice president of the overall firm BGR Holding LLC." Meehan has been tasked with building out "both the public relations firm and the Democratic component of BGR," said the firm's chair, Ed Rogers. The firm had been planning to hire Democrats since "Election Day 2006, when Democrats won control of Congress."

The watchdog group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is criticizing the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) for dropping its sponsorship of RSF's Online Free Expression Day. As part of the event, RSF published a list of countries it dubbed "Internet Enemies," for imprisoning people for their writings online. The list includes Belarus, Cuba, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Zimbabwe. RSF accused UNESCO of "groveling" to "authoritarian regimes." UNESCO responded that RSF's event "did not follow the arrangements agreed upon." UNESCO said the event included information "concerning a number of UNESCO's Member States, which UNESCO had not been informed of and could not endorse. Furthermore, UNESCO's logo was placed in such a way as to indicate the Organization's support of the information presented."

Al Jazeera logoThe Israeli government is boycotting the Arabic television network Al Jazeera, according to a statement by Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Magali Whabe. "We have sent a letter to the Authorities in Qatar and also to Al Jazeera regarding this matter. We do not want to deal with a channel that is not realistic and does not give a real picture to its viewers. If there is no change in the way they deal with us there, will be a reaction for us and we can take action." The boycott stems from what Israel sees as biased coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict, most recently the blockade of and attacks on Gaza by the Israeli Defense Forces. Al Jazeera counters that it is "being shunned for accurate reporting." The channels Palestine bureau chief Walid al-Umari said, "I dare any Israeli official to bring up what they call incitement or lies reported by Al Jazeera. What we reported were real facts on the ground." al-Umari is also reported as saying that this latest development is part of an ongoing attack on the channel by Israeli officials. "A state that respects the freedom of expression or claims that it is democratic should not limit the movement of press teams."

In the brave new world of seemingly everyone having a MySpace page, publicity over alleged prostitution gave rise to a new online star at MySpace. The overnight political implosion of New York Democratic governor Eliot Spitzer, aka Client 9, led to an explosion of attention for previously unknown singer Ashley Alexandra Dupré, the current name of the 22 year old identified as Kristen, The Emperors Club VIP call girl implicated in Spitzer's downfall. After the New York Times revealed its existence, Dupre's MySpace page drew what quickly became more than five million visitors who listened to her song, saw the pictures she posted, read her postings and in many cases posted comments and messages with links to their own sites. A dozen hours after the New York Times article, the original site on MySpace was intermittently accessible or sometimes seeeming to be 'hacked', other times replaced with a message that read "this user has either cancelled their membership or their account has been deleted." Prosecutors have given Dupré immunity, while focusing attention on Spitzer's staff such as fundraiser Kristian Stiles.

Politico notes that U.S. public support for the war in Iraq "has reached a high point unseen since the summer of 2006. ... According to late February polling conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 53 percent of Americans -- a slim majority -- now believe 'the U.S. will ultimately succeed in achieving its goals' in Iraq. That figure is up from 42 percent in September 2007. The percentage of those who believe the war in Iraq is going 'very well' or 'fairly well' is also up, from 30 percent in February 2007 to 48 percent today. ... Half of self-identified independents polled now believe the United States should 'keep troops in Iraq until the situation has stabilized.' ... The uptick in public support is a promising sign for Republican candidates who have been bludgeoned over the Bush administration’s war policies. But no candidate stands to gain more than John McCain."

John Rendon

Steve Runge, an instructor at Northeastern University in Boston, is raising a red flag about a controversial lecturer. "John Rendon of the Rendon Group will be addressing the College of Business Administration Thursday afternoon. I hope business students will take this opportunity before his address to learn a little about the Rendon Group's role in the Iraq War. Rendon, as documented in an award-winning article by James Bamford in Rolling Stone magazine, and Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber's books Weapons of Mass Deception and The Best War Ever, helped promote Ahmad Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress (INC) as spokesperson for the Iraqi people to the Bush administration. Chalabi and the INC were directly responsible for much of the misinformation about weapons of mass destruction spread before the war, and also for the administration's rosy visions of welcomed liberators. ... Business students, I urge you to learn about Rendon on your own and recommend you attend his talk (his public talks are rare). Decide for yourselves whether his career is one you would choose to emulate."