http://www.graypanthers.org/

and of course as great as ever

from Wampum:

Even potentially more damaging, however, is Federici’s long-standing personal and professional relationship with Grover Norquist. Norquist was one of CREA’s initial founders back in 1997, and helped moved Federici to Washington. CREAs official office was for some time located within Norquist’s own ATF offices, and Federici used Norquist’s home address as her own in contributions reported to the FEC. It was Federici’s friendship with Norquist which got her hooked up with Abramoff in 2001. With all the indications that Norquist actively participated in Abramoff’s influence and access-peddling schemes, he has much to worry should Federici sing. Frankly, I’m surprised he’s not personally footing her attorney bills, forcing her instead to turn to the Public Defender’s Office.

(As an aside, with Federici now being named at a target by DoJ for tax purposes, co-Abramoff-money-launderer Amy Ridenour should be sweating bullets.)

:)

Ann in AZ @ 56

On Hardball, they’re talking about how the Prez mocked Democrats for “going on vacation” instead of staying home and working on a bill to fund his war. Would it be too much to ask for some Dem to stand up and say, “This from a President who vacationed for a week while the rest of the country watched New Orleans drown.” Why the fuck don’t they throw the mud back!

They don’t need to. They know that they’re going to pass their bill and Bush is going to veto it. They know that Bush is going to look awful doing it, because there’s no way that he can spin the vetoing of an Iraq funding bill. Pelosi and Reid are going to be able to come back from vacation, pass the bill, and say, “The President wanted a bill to fund his Iraq war, and were proud to say we’ve given it to him.” Then Bush is going to veto it. Then we’ll review other bills that Bush vetoed (stem cells, for one, and…well, he hasn’t vetoed anything else, has he?). Bush is going to throw a bunch of petulant tantrums, which the people are going to ignore. Why would anyone take time out of their vacation to mess with this storyline?

Because if they’d throw some of this crap back at him once in a while, maybe he’d shut his damned mouth! Several times a day, it seems I hear the Prez lobbing mud at Dems for things that either he or his cohorts have done themselves. That’s everything from criticizing the “pork” attached to the Iraq funding bill, when he never said a word about the $50M bridge to nowhere in the Transportation bill, to criticizing Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Syria (when he was asked by the press) but never saying that he’s aware of several Republican representatives also visiting Syria. You can let him get by with it on your theory, or you can throw it back at him and let him know your not going to take his BS anymore. Your choice!

because if they did, they wouldn’t be able to charge the Fed $140 for a $3 pill.

Wasn’t Frist behind that whole bucket of BS, getting the deal slipped through back when he was a somebody? Publicly presenting a ‘Compassionate Conservative’ program for seniors while quietly transmutating it into a Pharma handout for his homeboys? I also seem to remember it all happening just about when some Bush scandal was heating up (which one, it’s impossible to recall).

NPR’s neocons are thick with the gay bashers and homophobic think tanks because – well -the neocons seem to be the most repressed group of closet cases on the planet. SO the gay-bashing quotes are low-hanging fruit – hardest part is deciding which evil quote to tie around a given commenter’s neck.

One manager – while I was on the phone – called the owner’s partner at home. “Girl, we’ve got a problem with the NPR gaybashers.”

No more KQED money from them – until the “fag-bashers are off the air”

LA and SF both have small NPR stations (KPCC in LA; KALW in SF) that carry the National News. The usual threat (No donation = no NPR) doesn’t work in LA or SF.

NPR stations pay to broadcast NPR National News program according to membership – so the “flagship” stations in the big markets provide disproportionate funding of NPR National News.

Here in SF, KQED foolishly pushed listener/subscribers to abandon their oversight of KQED.

So sorry, KQED/NPR – let us know when the camapaign targeting your flagship stations’ local business underwriters begins to hurt.

Or confront NPR National News and force the neo-cons out of the commenter’s role at NPR.

Your choice.

Until then -

who else on the Lake lives in progressive areas with multiple NPR stations broadcasting NPR National News?

Business underwriters HATE controversy.

(and if anyone has the tech skills to send this to Mr. Kline at NPR, please feel free.)

[ps - This is not about conveying information. This is about who tells the audience what the information signifies. So long as NPR National News chooses to refract raw information through the neo-cons, I’ll be working to hurt their flagship stations’ funding base.]

Hugh @ 64

Speaking of shills who never go away, NPR (I think it was on the World) had on Dan Goure of the Lexington Institute warning “both” sides about the dangers of not funding the troops. Goure who once worked for Scooter Libby and delivered a paean to his former boss the day he was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice can hardly be considered impartial. Yet NPR does not identify him as a neocon, his ties to PNAC, nor his connection to Libby.

I wish either that NPR would ditch these so-called impartial partisans or at a minimum tell us who they are. It’s called transparency, NPR.

I’ve never quite understood the Medicare-can’t-negotiate-drug-prices argument. They’re allowed to negotiate with doctors and hospitals (quite aggressively, I might add). Why can’t they negotiate with drug companies?

Just in case anyone missed the 60 Minutes piece on CBS, it’s available here.

Hugh @ 75– it is a scam and Tom Scully and Tommy Thompson were at the helm! This from 2004.

Where are they now? One is running for the Repug nomination and the other escaped seemingly unscathed.

Scully is under investigation for threatening to fire Medicare’s top actuary if the actuary revealed internal cost projections on the massive Medicare reform bill that were higher than the $400 billion that the Bush administration suggested the bill would cost. Critics also charge that at the same time Scully was negotiating with Congress over the details of the reform legislation, he was talking about a job with law and lobbying firms, some of whose health care clients stood to benefit from the bill. And Scully has been embarrassed by the publication of a series of intemperate e-mails he fired off to his critics when he was at the Medicare agency.

Yet none of this appears to have hampered Scully’s ability to attract deep-pocketed clients. When he left the Health and Human Services Department, Scully inked deals with the law and lobbying firm Alston & Bird and the private equity-investment firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe. In the past three months, according to sources, he has signed up such big-name clients as Abbott Laboratories, Caremark, US Oncology, the Alliance for Quality Nursing Home Care, and the American Association for Homecare.

http://govexec.com/dailyfed/0404/040904nj1.htm

somebody needs to re-open the investigation.

Not enough! Any lobbying firm that hires this turd should be banned from the hill! Now that the Dems are in control if the Dems don’t start choking turds who lie to Congress to push bushie lies then people will keep walking all over them!

Cafferty just read my email on air, but mispelled my first name.

1) which one was yours?

2) do you get a free coffee mug?