Fundraiser party
for Kucinich was held in the beautiful home of
America's Most Wanted writer/producer Kenneth Carlson
and his wife, singer/songwriter Katrina Carlson.
Shirley MacLaine
gave a warm, funny, uplifting
introduction of Congressman Kucinich.
Dennis Kucinich
charmed and inspired the crowd of about
75 movers and shakers. The party was hosted by Warren Beatty
and Annette Benning as well as Marianne Williamson,
Stanley Sheinbaum and Marilyn and Alan Bergman.
Arianna Huffington
listened as LA Times columnist Robert Scheer
described Kucinich's decision when he was mayor of Cleveland
to refuse to sell the public ultility, the Cleveland the municipal
utility (Muni-light), though it was not losing money.
It's sale was required by the bank to avoid a "paper bankruptcy"
-- and many of the bank's board of directors were also on the private
utilities
board of directors -- and Muni-light kept rates low and served
as the only competition in the area. Local banks forced the city
into a paper bankruptcy for Kucinich's refusal to sell the electric
utility.
The episode
cost Dennis his reelection, but a few years later the
Cleveland Plains ran a headline: "Dennis Was Right" because
Cleveland
was one of the few cities in American that had not fallen under
the gouging grip of power companies (like Enron), but was
able to continue providing cheap electricity to its citizens.
Arianna Huffington
told a story of how she wrote an article some
years back about how she had it on authority from someone in the Eli
Lilly
pharmaceutical company that Lilly was developing a prozac for kids
and planned
to develop a market for putting kids on prozac. Lilly denied it and
blasted
Arianna all over the place in response. Arianna wanted to get access
to Lilly
records filed with the FDA, but regular citizens aren't allowed access.
Members of Congress do have such access, however.
Arianna said
she went to several of her then-Republican friends (she was
a big GOP-er at the time) and asked for their help. She quoted and
named
several republican congressmen who told her, "I'd love to help
you, Arianna,
but Eli Lilly is an enormous contributor and I just can't get involved
here."
Arianna said
she went to Kucinich last (because he was a democrat while she
was a conservative columnist at the time) -- and Kucinich was the
only
member of Congress who agreed to look into it. He was able to
obtain documents from the FDA which Lilly had filed that showed
Lilly was indeed developing and testing prozac for kids,
and Kucinich was able to provide her copies of documenst
which exonerated Arianna and proved her article was
right. Plus Kucinich continued to keep a careful eye on the
Lilly product development of prozac for kids.
Dennis,
Arianna and Robert shared a laugh.
Also
see: Dennis Kucinich speech: Prayer
for America
