David Axelrod Profits From Obamacare Ad Campaign...shocker

Bloomberg is now reporting that Obama's senior advisor David Axelrod was the president and sole shareholder of AKPD, a Chicago based advertising firm, from 1985 until December 2008 which has directly profited from the one's push for office and now health care reform. The White House is arguing that he "sold his ownership stake in the firm before the administration began." The only problem with that is his SON is still an employee-I wonder where all of the money goes from there? As I have said repeatedly, follow the money and you can usually find the solution to any given question-this is more effective than birth control in DC.

Two firms that received $343.3 million to handle advertising for Barack Obama’s White House run last year have profited from his top priority as president by taking on his push for health-care overhaul.

One is AKPD Message and Media, the Chicago-based firm headed by David Axelrod until he left last Dec. 31 to serve as a senior adviser to the president. Axelrod was Obama’s top campaign strategist and is now helping sell the health-care plan. The other firm is Washington-based GMMB Campaign Group, where partner Jim Margolis was also an Obama strategist.

This year, AKPD and GMMB received $12 million in advertising business from Healthy Economy Now, a coalition that includes the Washington-based Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America, known as PhRMA, that is seeking to build support for a health-care overhaul, said the coalition’s spokesman, Jeremy Van Ess.

Now that is a substantial amount of money coming from the people accusing the opposition of astroturfing. Maybe I missed Gibb's White House propaganda session where they changed the official stance on pharmaceutical companies? My memory must be slipping, because last I checked weren't they supposed to be evil profit mongers? It seems as though people in the White House believe in the free market only when it can be manipulated to their advantage.

Last year, the Obama campaign paid $2.77 million in consulting fees to AKPD and $340.53 million to GMMB to produce and place ads, Federal Election Commission records show. Firms such as GMMB typically receive a low-to-mid single-digit percentage of ad spending as their fee for an account of that size, said Glenn Totten, a Democratic political consultant.

I'm sure to be writing about the corruption that will follow further research into that $340.53 million given to GMMB in the near future. Hope N' Change promised transparency over and over and over again throughout the election, but as time marches on (1,249 days left on the one's term at date of post) all that is truly transperant are the lies and corruption.