Metro Transit Uses Public Money to Propagandize in Favor of Prop A Tax Hike

Metro Transit Uses Public Money to Propagandize in Favor of Prop A Tax Hike
Guest Post by John Burns

Missouri State Statute 115.646 says:

115.646. No contribution or expenditure of public funds shall be made directly by any officer, employee or agent of any political subdivision to advocate, support, or oppose any ballot measure or candidate for public office. This section shall not be construed to prohibit any public official of a political subdivision from making public appearances or from issuing press releases concerning any such ballot measure.

I guess Metro Transit didn’t get that memo. Metro operates a blog called www.nextstopstl.org which is a propaganda piece for Proposition A, the massive, 14% sales tax increase proposed for St. Louis County (the tax would trigger a STL City tax as well).

So, St. Louis tax payer dollars are going to pay Metro employees to spend time on “company time,” directly and indirectly advocating Prop A and singing the praises of Metro. This is not only self serving on the part of Metro, it’s against the law.

When Metro’s paid propagandists aren’t singing the praises of Metro on the nextstopstl blog, they’re spending their time stalking the internet for articles about Metro. Once they find a Metro article, they harangue the public on the article’s comment board, spewing more pro-Metro propaganda and trying to win over the public on the comment board.

Meet Courtney.

Courtney is a paid Metro (publicly funded) employee, paid Metro blogger, and paid Metro article stalker.

Here are a few examples of Courtney’s Metro cyber article stalking:

It seems no article is safe. This is a news article from Washington University’s Student Life newspaper. Here’s a screenshot of Courtney inserting her paid blogger two cents (note the time stamp…she’s on the clock):

And here’s Courtney in hot pursuit of an article about Metro published by the Belleville News Democrat:

As you can see, Courtney can be very tenacious. Then again, it’s her job to propagandize for Metro. Again, notice the time stamps.

This is patently unethical…indefensibly so.

So, is THIS the new and improved Metro Transit we’ve heard about? Is THIS what we can expect from Bob Baer? Meet the new boss…same as the old boss.

Vote NO on Prop A….April 6th in St. Louis County.

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Jim Hoft is the founder and editor of The Gateway Pundit, one of the top conservative news outlets in America. Jim was awarded the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award in 2013 and is the proud recipient of the Breitbart Award for Excellence in Online Journalism from the Americans for Prosperity Foundation in May 2016. In 2023, The Gateway Pundit received the Most Trusted Print Media Award at the American Liberty Awards.

You can email Jim Hoft here, and read more of Jim Hoft's articles here.

 

Thanks for sharing!