Free Republic

In a letter to the FCC, Ralph Nader, the world's most visible consumer advocate, has requested an investigation into the advertising practices of General Motors with regard to several radio personalities. The letter from Nader was prompted by an Automotive News article entitled, "Puff Piece. Rush Limbaugh is one of the radio personalities GM is working with to talk up its vehicles" (sub. req.). The article goes on to detail how the General has supplied DJs, broadcasters and Limbaugh with test vehicles, private meetings and VIP tours of GM facilities. Nader contests that this type of promotion may be against...

Rush Limbaugh WASHINGTON – He's been the target of Fairness Doctrine advocates. He's been the target of aggressive prosecutors. He's been targeted by Customs officials. And now Rush Limbaugh, the king of radio talk-show hosts, is being targeted by activist Ralph Nader who is asking the Federal Communications Commission to investigate claims General Motors "payola" is influencing him to say nice things about the U.S. automaker.

DAILY KOS CO-AUTHOR FINED $30K FOR UNETHICAL STOCK TOUT Wed Aug 08 2007 19:12:23 ET Prominent liberal blogger Jerome Armstrong has agreed to pay nearly $30,000 in fines in a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission over allegations that Armstrong touted the stock of a software company, without disclosing that he was being paid to do so, the NY TIMES reports. Armstrong is the co-author of _Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics,_ with Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos. He is also the founder of the Democratic activist site MyDD.com. Under the agreement, Armstrong neither...

A database company that has showered money on Bill and Hillary Clinton – and is alleged to have aided scam artists – now appears to have close links to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's family as well. The firm InfoUSA, headed by major Clinton backer Vinod Gupta, has placed Pelosi's son, Paul Pelosi Jr., on its payroll – even though he has no experience in the company's main business activities, NewsMax has learned. [...] The company is also under fire in a shareholder lawsuit which alleges that Gupta is appropriating company funds for personal use and his political pet projects. Shareholder...

OAKLAND Managers of Yoshi's, one of the Bay Area's best-known jazz venues, said they will pull the club's first-ever CD off the market after community leaders complained the recording featured no black musicians. Club managers apologized Friday for what they called "a huge mistake" and "a major oversight." They said they plan to create a new recording that better reflects the musicians who play the 340-seat venue at Oakland's Jack London Square. "We really messed up on the CD," said Yoshi's owner Kaz Kajimura. "We apologize to anyone who feels slighted by this omission, as that was never our intention."...

In broadcasting, it’s called “payola” when a radio station accepts gifts from companies that stand to benefit financially from the station’s influence. In medicine, its common practice, according to a new study. The survey, conducted by researchers at the Harvard Medical School, found that nine out of ten doctors in the U.S. admitted to accepting gifts from pharmaceutical companies, ranging from meals and drug samples to cash and travel. Lead researcher Eric Campbell said there is no apparent benefit to patients in this “special” relationship between doctor and drug company.

Speaking for the second time this month in front of a predominantly gay audience, Hillary Clinton assured the crowd at a Gay Men’s Health Crisis dinner at Chelsea Piers that help was on the way. She guaranteed her support of their issues “when I’m President,” and pointedly referred to a special AIDS grant she pushed through Congress for the first time “since the end of the last Clinton administration.” The crowd laughed appreciatively at what was at once a well-worn bit about the Clinton restoration, and an acknowledgement of the influence of the gay fund-raisers and activists who may put...

Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign reached a deal to pay a key South Carolina black leader's consulting firm more than $200,000 just days before he agreed to endorse her run for president.....The arrangement involves South Carolina state Sen. Darrell Jackson, a well-connected African-American leader and pastor whose support is coveted by national campaigns. Jackson confirmed that his public-relations firm struck a deal with Clinton's campaign just days ago for a contract worth up to $10,000 a month through the 2008 elections. Jackson had also been in talks with Sen. Barack Obama's campaign about endorsing him and a consulting contract for more...

House Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi's endorsement of Rep. John P. Murtha's bid for House majority leader set off a furor yesterday on Capitol Hill, with critics charging that she is undercutting her pledge to clean up corruption by backing a veteran lawmaker who they say has repeatedly skirted ethical boundaries. Pelosi (D-Calif.) directly intervened in the heated contest between Murtha (D-Pa.) and House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) on Sunday by circulating a letter to Democratic lawmakers. The letter voiced her support for Murtha and put her prestige on the line in a closely fought leadership battle. Some Democratic lawmakers...

I can foresee his response to this..."I was misquoted"

The documents seized in the FBI raid on the offices of Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) remain unread by Justice Department investigators, pending a federal Appeals Court ruling scheduled for August 27. [snip] But we already know a bit about the charges and some of the alleged partners of Congressman Jefferson. Two people have pleaded guilty to bribing him.

Take a look at the photo of Congressperson Cynthia McKinney above. Obviously the source of that picture must be some vicious hate-filled right-wing website that dislikes the "progressive" policies of Ms Mckinney, right? Wrong. The source for that picture is none other than the Daily Kos. You read that correctly. This picture is part of an ad by McKinney's primary opponent, Hank Johnson, that is figured PROMINENTLY at the top of the list of Daily Kos advertisers. I should have had a hint of this latest Kos Blogola scandal yesterday when I did a search on the Daily Kos...

CARACAS, Venezuela The government of Venezuelan has donated 100-thousand dollars to a Santa Cruz-based non-profit organization dedicated to preventing violence among youths. Deputy Justice Minister Yuri Pimentel made the announcement during a meeting in Venezuela's capital with American singer and activist Harry Belafonte, who accepted the donation on behalf of the California Coalition of Barrios Unidos. The California Coalition of Barrios Unidos began as a community based peace movement in the violent streets of urban California in 1977.

CELEBRATED LIB STRATEGIST HAS SHADY MARKET PAST Jerome Armstrong, the political strategist who followed a famous Internet fundraising effort for Howard Dean in 2004 with a book on "people-powered politics," has a sordid past as a shill for a worthless dot-com stock. Armstrong, 42, touted a dubious Chinese software company, BluePoint, beginning in 1999, without disclosing that he accepted "below-market" shares in exchange for the glowing reports he posted on a site called Raging Bull, according to a 2003 civil suit that named him as a defendant. "Armstrong posted over 80 times on the BluePoint message board located on the...

Uh oh. The rumblings about "Kosola" (i.e. Kos's and his friend and collaborator Jerome Armstrong's financial relationships with certain politicians) have migrated from various blog comments sections to Salon to, now, The New York Times, where the Opinionator formerly known as Chris Suellentrop lays them all out (behind the TimesSelect wall, alas). Most significantly, Suellentrop links the work Kos and Armstrong have done hyping Howard Dean, Sherrod Brown, and now Mark Warner (while one or both were on said pol's payroll) to an episode from Armstrong's past. Sullentrop notes that: some people . . . compare the blog boomlet they...

The New York state attorney general has levied a $12 million fine against Universal Music Group for payola. This is the largest fine so far in the war between Eliot Spitzer and the music industry, surpassing the $10 million that Sony had to pay and the $5 million for Warner Music Group. But Universal — home of many overnight stars including several rappers who’ve come and gone — would be the place for this. The company has had enormous success, but at the same time encountered lawsuits from middle-men distributors claiming inflated sales numbers — double dipping at the cash...

Clear Channel, CBS, Citadel and Entercom Will Be Investigated in First Federal Payola Investigation in More Than a Quarter Century April 20, 2006 The FCC has launched formal investigations into pay-for-play practices at Clear Channel Communications, CBS Radio, Entercom Communications and Citadel Broadcasting. The story was broken by Charles Duhigg in an L.A. Times Page One story. As Duhigg notes, this is the biggest federal payola inquiry since the congressional payola hearings of 1960. The story cites two FCC officials as revealing that the FCC had requested “letters of inquiry” from the four radio powers in search of evidence that...

Chris Matthews is talking to Joe Scarborough. Tom DeLay called Matthews tonight and told him he is dropping out of the race for his congressional seat......

One music industry source said some subpoenas may have been issued already in connection with the probe, while other labels had been tipped off that subpoenas would likely be coming in the next few days. It appeared that Sony BMG had already received a subpoena, the second industry source said. The major record labels are Warner Music Group, EMI Group Plc, Vivendi Universal's Universal Music Group and Sony BMG, a joint venture of Sony Corp. and Bertelsmann Ag. Executives from the labels were not available or declined to comment. A spokeswoman for the DOJ was not immediately available for comment....

The activity du jour for Business Week’s Capitol Hill correspondent Eamon Javers seems to be systematically “outing� conservative columnists as corporate shills. On January 13, BusinessWeek’s web edition ran an article by Javers deceptively titled, “A Columnist Backed By Monsanto.� The article begins, “Michael Fumento's failure to disclose payments to him in 1999 from the agribusiness giant has now caused Scripps Howard to sever its ties to him.� What Javers is talking about is that the Hudson Institute, the conservative organization that employs Fumento as a senior fellow, received a book grant of $60,000 from Monsanto in 1999. The “payment�...

Stealth sponsorship of talking heads and op-ed columnists is surprisingly common In the opinion industry, pundits who present themselves as independent voices sometimes turn out to be quietly financed by powerful interests. The latest example BusinessWeek has unearthed: The Hill, a Washington newspaper read closely in Congress, published an opinion piece last June extolling "payday loans." Readers weren't told that the author, Tom Lehman, a professor at Indiana Wesleyan University, had taken money from the industry that pushes these controversial high-interest loans. In other instances, BusinessWeek Online has recently identified Douglas Bandow and Michael Fumento, two prolific authors of newspaper...

With no real issues to promote, Democrats are putting all their eggs into the basket of corruption to restore their political fortunes. They and their friends in the mainstream media are working overtime to connect everyone and everything on the right side of the political spectrum to disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who has pleaded guilty to multiple felonies. One channel that Democrats and liberals are working is tying conservative think tanks to the Abramoff scandal. They know that these think tanks have been one of the most effective forces in Washington over the last 30 years in advancing a...

Krugman is paid to play his baseless leftist games. Who was it that said that the measure of a man is what he worries about? President Bush is a big man who worries about big things like protecting America from global terrorism. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman — Bush’s most vicious media opponent and America’s looniest liberal pundit — is a little man who worries about little things, such as whether conservative pundits are being paid too much by lobbyists, and whether retail workers are being paid too little by Wal-Mart. In his column Monday [subscription link via New...

The White House on Thursday expressed concern about the U.S. military secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish pro-American articles, but the military said it was important to spread the truth while insurgents were "lying to the Iraqi people

BACK-SCRATCHING BIZ: Lil' Kim, one of many artists whose popularity was rigged. WireImage Eliot Spitzer.......unveiled a deal to halt bribery of DJs and rigging of ratings — schemes designed largely to hype mediocre acts, but also bigger names, in order to score higher returns. Four months ago, he extracted a $10M settlement from industry leader Sony BMG to break up its payola ring involving DJs, radio station executives and crooked middlemen. He's still probing the industry's two remaining mega-firms — EMI and Universal Music. In his crackdown on Warner music — the industry's No. 3 label — Spitzer accused...

It’s Hard to Believe, But… Tokyo: An indignant Japanese woman summoned the police after a man she met online cheated her out of 1 million Yen. The man was “supposed to” track down and murder the wife of a man, with whom the woman was having an affair. The hitman had promised to chase the victim down on a motorcycle,pull alongside her in a tunnel, and spray her with a lethal bio-agent…but then he realized it was a lot simpler to cheat the woman who had hired him. (It’s so hard to find reliable help these days !) New Jersey:...

A manager of a program designed to speed approval of complex construction projects at the San Francisco’s troubled Department of Building Inspection was arrested today on charges he solicited and took bribes over a 12-year period. Augustine Fallay, 47, was being held on $500,000 bond on 10 counts of bribery, three felony counts of perjury and two counts of filing false economic disclosure statements with the city. Fallay, according to prosecutors, accepted a $50,000 loan, cash and free work on his home in exchange for his assistance in gaining permits. Property records show that Fallay owns real estate in Oakland...

--SNIP-- A Sony Music promo exec unknowingly sparked Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's major payola investigation when he started hitting on a woman at a poolside bar at a Miami hotel last year. The exec bragged about some of the excesses in his line of business, according to chatter in music industry circles. The executive must have felt pretty good, as the attentive woman probably hung on his every word. He must have thought he was spinning a Gold Record. It turns out the woman who was the object of his affection worked in Spitzer's office. Nearly a year — and...

Sony BMG admits to bribing radio stations to play its artists. IN 1980, according to a book about the music industry by Fredric Dannen called “Hit Men”, CBS Records decided to run an experiment with a band, Pink Floyd. Their concert dates were sold out in Los Angeles, and radio stations everywhere were playing “Another Brick in the Wall (Part Two)”. Dick Asher, the deputy president of CBS Records, wanted to find out whether the band's popularity meant he could refuse to pay the usual bribes, or illegal “payola”, to the four big Top-40 radio stations in Los Angeles. Like...

New York,NY (AHN)-Once upon a time in the 1950s and early 1960s a scandal named "payola" became known in the radio industry.It refers to record companies paying radio disc jockey's and station owners money on the side to play their artists more often than those not paying under the table. Sony-BMG Music,the world's 2nd largest record label was fined $10 million dollars Monday for violating terms of the 1960 Payola Act. The "pay for play" practice has been under investigation since the mid part of 2004 and the probe found "air time is often determined by undisclosed payoffs," New York...

I always say when people ask me that the so-called vipers of the movie business would not last a day in the record business. Now Eliot Spitzer's office has decided to prove the point. "Please be advised that in this week's Jennifer Lopez Top 40 Spin Increase of 236 we bought 63 spins at a cost of $3,600." "Please be advised that in this week's Good Charlotte Top 40 Spin Increase of 61 we bought approximately 250 spins at a cost of $17K …" Ironically, it didn't help, as the memo notes that the company actually lost spins — or...

Sony BMG Music Entertainment, the nation's second-largest music company, is expected as early as Monday to agree to a settlement with New York Atty. Gen. Eliot Spitzer in an ongoing payola investigation, said sources familiar with the talks. Representatives of Sony BMG and Spitzer declined to detail ongoing discussions, but sources said the terms of the settlement might include promises that Sony BMG would not engage in certain practices and fines that might exceed $10 million. The sources requested anonymity because of the confidentiality of the discussions. Sony BMG is one of at least four record companies Spitzer subpoenaed last...

On January 6, 2005, the U.S.-funded Arabic satellite network Al Hurra broadcast an explosive exposé detailing the financial links between Saddam Hussein's regime and the Arab press. Al Hurra's documentary--so far overlooked in the West--aired previously unseen video footage, recorded by Saddam Hussein's regime during its murderous heyday, of Saddam's son Uday meeting with several Arab media figures and referring to the bribes they had received.Recipients of this Baathist largesse appeared to include a former managing director of the influential Qatar-based government-subsidized satellite network Al Jazeera, Mohammed Jassem al-Ali. The videotaped meeting between Uday and al-Ali occurred on March 13,...

Speculation mounted yesterday that ``American Idol'' judge Paula Abdul may be voted off the hit reality show after ABC airs a damning investigation tomorrow night. Abdul, who has been under fire for erratic on-air behavior, may voluntarily vacate the judge's podium after ``Primetime Live'' airs answering-machine messages she left for a 24-year-old contestant. The Drudge Report says Abdul personally coached the contestant and then tried to cover it up. Speculation surrounds Corey Clark, who was run off the show last season after it was revealed he assaulted his teenage sister. Clark is peddling a tell-all biography in which he claims...

Blogger Alek Boyd keeps a close eye on Venezuela's pro-Chavez propaganda groups actively operating in the U.S. He asks questions about their many claims and does his research. Today he's got a scoop on one of them, the loathesome Eva Golinger group called 'Venezuela Solidarity Committee' which, along with her 'VenezuelaFOIA' cooks up information about the CIA just doing its job into hysterical claims about its omnipotence. Naturally, the Associated Press and New York Times buy into this tabloid-quality tripe, but most responsible news organizations, including even Reuters, steer clear of this crew. Alek has learned that Eva Golinger's Venezuela...

Caracas 05.03.05 | Eva Golinger the "...attorney leading the investigation of the CIA and the US Government involvement in the coup and in the ongoing destabilization campaign in Venezuela..." [1] appears as the registrar of a legal entity (DOMESTIC NOT-FOR-PROFIT CORPORATION ) called "Venezuela Solidarity Committee" [2]. Golinger's findings about the aforesaid investigation have been posted in a website registered, according to WHOIS, by journalist Jeremy Bigwood called Venezuelafoia.info. On 07 May 2004 Golinger sent an email with the following remarks: I do have a non-profit organization, established legally under the laws of New York State, but it has never...

NEW YORK (AP) - With flowing fabric the color of a sunrise, "The Gates" - a massive public art installation - was unfurled Saturday for the start of a 16-day stay transforming miles of footpaths in Central Park. The project opened with Mayor Michael Bloomberg dropping the first piece of saffron-colored fabric to the cheers of a huge crowd. He was joined by exhibit creators Christo and Jeanne-Claude. The crowd counted down the seconds before Bloomberg, a longtime backer of the project, opened the exhibition at 8:30 a.m. The weather was windy and cold as the first fabric dropped from...

The Washington Post thinks it caught another conservative with her hand in the cookie jar. On Wednesday, Howard Kurtz reported that marriage expert and opinion columnist Maggie Gallagher received $21,000 from the Department of Health and Human Services ...snip .... Where are the stories on individuals and organizations who promote the agendas of government agencies from which they also receive substantial sums? ... snip ... In October 2003, for example, World Wildlife Fund (WWF) chairman William K. Reilly wrote an op-ed, "The EPA's Cost Underruns," celebrating the cost-effectiveness of federal environmental regulation. Reilly claimed Environmental Protection Agency programs have produced...

New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) has long been rumored as desperately seeking the democratic nomination for president in 2008. And while many political observers fully expect the power hungry former First Lady to hit the campaign trail within only a few months of being re-elected as a US Senator in 2006, US News & World report claims to have a confirmation of sorts. From USNews.Com's Washington Whispers: Hillary's in… You don't have to take it from us about Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton 's desire to run for president. Her brothers, Hugh and Tony Rodham, say it's true. Friends...

State Senate leaders condemned the Schwarzenegger administration's decision to halt work on a suspension-span foundation for the new Bay Bridge, saying Wednesday the move could drive up the price for a bridge that is already on a collision course with the $6 billion mark. The stop-work order issued this month could add more than $100 million in penalties to a foundation contract that was supposed to cost $177 million, although administration officials contend the additional penalties would be closer to $30 million. The contract is one facet of a construction project that has been mired in political delays, miscalculated price...

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations is adopting new steps in its global tsunami-relief campaign to guard against improprieties like those alleged in the oil-for-food program for Iraq, U.N. officials said Monday

SACRAMENTO - Secretary of State Kevin Shelley bent rules, missed deadlines and failed to do proper paperwork as he spent millions of dollars in federal election money, state Auditor Elaine Howle told a legislative committee conducting its first hearing Monday to investigate the embattled state elections official. Howle meticulously told the Joint Legislative Audit Committee that Shelley's management failures, which also included the questionable use of federal money, added up to "disregard for proper controls and poor oversight" of money given California to modernize its voting systems. But a representative of Shelley's office testified under oath that much of the...

I only have access to a few English language television stations while I am visiting Israel: BBC News and CNN International. Every quarter hour they recap the top stories. Today’s big story (after the non-stop images of a tidal wave taking out resorts frequented by Europeans and few Americans) is the comment of U.N. Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland who said that western nations, particularly the United States, were being stingy with their aid packages offered for victims of the disaster. Without putting into context the fact that the United States provides more funding to the UN than any...

UNITED NATIONS -- Secretary-General Kofi Annan won a standing ovation from the U.N. General Assembly, a rare public display of support in response to recent calls for his resignation from several U.S. lawmakers. U.S. deputy ambassador Patrick Kennedy joined fellow diplomats as they rose to their feet Wednesday, despite President Bush's refusal to support the U.N. chief pending the results of an investigation into alleged corruption in the U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq.[snip]"In 15 years I've spent at the United Nations, this is the second time that the General Assembly had a standing ovation for a leader," he said. The...

The recent indictment of New Orleans business executive Gilbert Jackson on charges of federal tax evasion is intertwined with a much larger federal probe based in Cleveland that authorities say has produced evidence of public corruption in a handful of cities, New Orleans among them. [snip] "In one instance, a series of recordings are recounted indicating that a bribe has been requested, paid and succeeded in securing access for a contractor," the brief says. "In another recorded conversation, the very words used by the interceptees demonstrate that the corrupt official in question wants to be part of 'a long-term thing.'...

Access Hollywood didn't report Clark's condition or where he had the stroke. Last April, Clark announced he had type 2 diabetes, formerly called adult-onset diabetes, since 1994, but kept it a secret from everyone except close friends and family. Clark is now a spokesman for the American Association of Diabetes Educators and the pharmaceutical maker Merck & Co. Clark, 75, was a Philadelphia radio disc jockey in the early 1950s, when he took over a local show, American Bandstand, on WFIL-TV. Clark's show was later syndicated nationally and he moved to Los Angeles as his entertainment empire expanded. In 1973,...

WASHINGTON — The son of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan used his father's worldwide connections to wheel and deal with heads of state — at U.N. gatherings — on behalf of a controversial Swiss company that won a lucrative oil-for-food program contract, The Post has learned. The intense lobbying by Annan's 29-year old son, Kojo, was disclosed in a raft of internal company documents — including Kojo Annan's expense reports — that the company recently turned over to congressional committees under a subpoena. The memos provide the most revealing look to date at the business conflicts that are now at...

BOSTON (AP) - The division of Harvard Medical School that studies pathological gambling is under fire from some antigambling activists who point out that virtually all its funding comes from the gambling industry. The Institute for Research on Pathological Gambling and Related Disorders, founded four years ago, has received nearly $5 million in industry money. Gambling opponents say the institute's research has been used by gambling industry lobbyists trying to persuade state lawmakers to approve new gambling venues and to counter charges that gambling is widely addictive and causes other social problems. "They point to the Harvard research all the...

For two days in October, the John Kerry campaign came to a brief stop at a hotel and conference center on the high-plains sprawl of suburban Denver, where the candidate holed up with his staff and prepared for his second debate with George Bush. While the traveling press idled over endless buffets in one of the hotel dining rooms, Kerry and his closest advisers sequestered themselves behind closed doors, getting ready for the next night's crucial events. The morning's calm was broken when Kerry's press advisers began circulating word that the candidate would soon be making a statement about the...

LONDON, Ky., Aug. 26 - It was not so long ago, historians say, that some voting places in eastern Kentucky were virtual vote-buying bazaars. Brokers bartered half pints of whiskey and $10 bills for votes just outside polling station doors. The cheap ones could be bought for beer. The smart voters always sold twice. Those brazen days are gone. But, prosecutors and political experts say, the mountain tradition of vote-selling is not. And in a wide-ranging conspiracy trial that opened here this week, federal prosecutors are contending that influential people still try to buy elections in eastern Kentucky, just in...