The Associated Press just put a story on the wire about American Airlines, Verizon and Nissan pledging to stop financing Tom DeLay’s legal defense fund in response to the Drop the Hammer campaign. It features a nice response by Tom DeLay himself:

You really think a lobbyist group like that is going to have an effect on me and what I am trying to accomplish here?

A “lobbyist group” like us? Of course not. We know DeLay changes his behavior only for a very different kind of “lobbyist group.”

By the year 2050, scientists fear that “deaths from cervical cancer could jump fourfold to a million a year … mainly in developing countries.” The good news is that this outbreak and thousands of preventable deaths “could be prevented by soon-to-be-approved vaccines against [human papilloma virus which] causes most cases of cervical cancer.” The problem is that HPV is sexually transmitted and “opposition to the vaccines might lead to many preventable deaths.”

In the United States, “religious groups are gearing up to oppose vaccination, despite a survey showing 80 percent of parents favor vaccinating their daughters.” Staunchly conservative religious groups like the Family Research Council oppose the vaccine on the shaky claim that “Giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful because they may see it as a license to engage in premarital sex.”

However, this is the same Family Research Council that opposes condoms and the notion of “safe sex” because HPV, one of the most common STDs, can be spread by skin contact and so “condoms are not as effective against HPV as they are against other viruses such as HIV.” Family Research Council has spent so much time harping on the chance that HPV will be passed in ways other than bodily fluid transmission during sexual intercourse, yet is still opposed to this vaccine. Unfortunately, its past rhetoric is now coming back to haunt it.

In honor of Cover the Uninsured Week:

Number of currently uninsured Americans: 45 million

Number of working Americans with no health insurance: 20 million

Percent of uninsured Americans unable to see a doctor when they needed to in 12 month period: 41

Average cost of visit to hospital for Americans with no health insurance: $1,000

Amount the U.S. loses per year on “uncompensated” care for people with no insurance: $41 billion

Cuts in Medicaid passed by Congress last week, over five years: $10 billion

Percent of uninsured Americans who would benefit from President Bush’s proposed Health Savings Accounts: 0.3

Percent of U.S. adults who cite lowering health care costs and health insurance as a top priority for the president and Congress: 63

Percent of Americans who say health care is the “single most important issue” for Congress to address in 2005: 10

Percent who say Social Security is the “single most important issue”: 2

Speeches President Bush and Vice President Cheney have given on health care this week: 0

Speeches they’ve given on Social Security: 4

Number of times the words “health care” or “uninsured” appear in transcripts of White House press gaggles this week: 0

Days since President Bush spoke about the issue of health care: 96

American Airlines, Verizon and Nissan Pledge to Stop Financing Tom DeLay’s Legal Defense Fund

Move Comes In Response to American Progress Action Fund’s “Drop the Hammer” Campaign

Under pressure from nearly 20,000 citizen activists, American Airlines, Verizon and Nissan North America have formally pledged to stop contributing to Rep. Tom DeLay’s legal defense fund. For four weeks, individuals have sent nearly 150,000 e-mails to the three companies demanding action through DropTheHammer.org, a website created by the American Progress Action Fund. John Podesta, President of the American Progress Action Fund, said, “We congratulate these companies for responding to the public’s concern and taking a positive step towards restoring confidence in an ethical government.”

American Airlines issued the following statement to the American Progress Action Fund on May 3 :

Subject: DeLay campaign

American Airlines does not intend to make any future contributions to Representative DeLay’s legal defense fund. The $5000 contribution, made three years ago, was done by an individual who is no longer part of American Airlines.

Roger Frizzell
Vice President, Corporate Communications and Advertising American Airlines

Verizon Communications issued this statement to the American Progress Action Fund on May 4:

Subject: “Drop the Hammer” campaign

It is Verizon’s corporate policy not to contribute to legal defense funds. This policy has been in effect for several years. The contribution cited by your organization was made almost four years ago, before that policy went into effect.

David Fish
Exec. Director, Media Relations
Verizon Communications, Inc.

Nissan North America issued this statement to the American Progress Action Fund on May 4:

In July 2001, Nissan North America made a $5,000 donation to the Tom DeLay Legal Expense Trust. We have not made any subsequent donation to this trust, we will not make any donations to the trust in the future and we do not plan to seek a refund.

Fred Standish
Director, Corporate Communications

Background on DropTheHammer.org

The American Progress Action Fund launched the DropTheHammer.org campaign on April 6. The campaign asked concerned citizens to contact five corporations that had donated to DeLay’s defense fund and ask that the corporations pledge to make no further donations to DeLay’s defense fund. Collectively, these five corporations have received over 200,000 e-mails. A corporation-by-corporation breakdown is noted below. Bacardi USA and RJ Reynolds remain targets of the DropTheHammer.org campaign. Later this week, DropTheHammer.org is launching a national radio advertising campaign.

American Airlines: 64,772 e-mails

Verizon: 33,246 e-mails

Bacardi USA: 15,753 e-mails

RJR Nabisco: 46,809 e-mails

Nissan USA: 47,388 e-mails

With House Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s political future looking dicier by the minute, thought it would be interesting to check in with former House Majority Leader Dick Armey.

We’ve seen the future. It’s not pretty.

According to the Capital Hill newspaper Roll Call, Armey has been taping radio ads. The ads, which have been running in 15 different states, urge listeners to contact their lawmakers in Washington and tell them to quash a new bill which would create a federal trust fund for asbestos-related disease victims. What Armey forgot to mention in his ads: He is currently being paid big bucks by a British insurance group which has “lobbied to thwart asbestos trust fund legislation.”

In his spare time, he sits on the board of Rent-A-Center, a company which preys on the poor and “has been the target of several recent lawsuits accusing it of preying upon cash- and credit-strapped customers with sales practices that inflate and mask the true costs of their merchandise.” Armey has been working to help the company roll back consumer protection laws.

Turns out leaving Washington doesn’t guarantee a return to ethical behavior.

The right-wing American Enterprise Institute has decided to observe National Cover The Uninsured Week its own, special way.

They’re hosting a panel this afternoon titled: “How Not To Cover The Uninsured.”

Ah, those compassionate conservatives…

President Bush might want to keep his eye on the First Lady.

Laura Bush already ruffled some feathers with her joke the other night about President Bush “milking” male farm animals:

“I’m proud of George. He’s learned a lot about ranching since that first year when he tried to milk the horse. What’s worse, it was a male horse.”

And today, well, she’s really gone and done it.

[Today,] First Lady Laura Bush tours the exhibit, “Berthe Morisot: An Impressionist and Her Circle,” at the National Museum of Women in the Arts with Marie-Cecile Jonas, wife of the French Ambassador to the United States.

From soft-spoken Texas librarian to foul-mouthed Francophile — will the president’s base ever forgive her?

A major problem with Bush’s “progressive price indexing” plan is that it would slash Social Security benefits for anyone making over $20,000 a year. A subtler, but more politically significant, problem is that the arguments Bush has used to justify his Social Security plan undermine his rationale for extending tax cuts to the wealthy.

Here is what Bush is saying now about Social Security:

I believe a reformed system should protect those who depend on Social Security the most. So in the future, benefits for low-income workers should grow faster than benefits for people who are better off…This reform would solve most of the funding challenges facing Social Security.

In other words, in the name of fiscal responsibility, higher income people should be expected to sacrifice. Contrast that statement to Bush’s justification in January 2003 for why much of his tax cuts should go to the very wealthy:

You hear a lot of rhetoric about tax relief in Washington, D.C., the old rhetoric of class warfare. My attitude is…the government ought not to try to pick and choose.

Of course, now that it suits his political purposes, Bush is picking and choosing. The problem is many of his tax cuts for the wealthy are set to expire soon. Bush will need to marshal his old anti-class warfare arguments to push for their extension. But his recent tact on Social Security will significantly complicate that effort.