Lawrence Lessig notes the HuffPo story that reveals that:
[E]mployees with at least two bailout recipients participated in a call aimed at drumming up opposition to the union-backed Employee Free Choice Act.
The call, which took place on October 17, was hosted by Bank of America Corp, three days after the bank received $25 billion in federal bailout funds. Participants on the call were urged to persuade their clients to donate to groups and politicians who opposed the labor legislation, which makes it easier for employees to organize into unions.
I have to say, this reminds me an awful lot of the debate over the old "Istook amendment" from the 1990s. At the time, just after the "Gingrich Revolution" in the House, the Istook amendment was the hottest scheme going for "defunding the left." The idea was that since money was fungible, federal grantees (i.e., mostly non-profits and other "left-leaning" organizations) ought to be prohibited from lobbying, since they could be using federal funds (or substituting federal funds for their own advocacy dollars) to do that lobbying, which would only lead to exploding deficits, since they would no doubt be lobbying for... more grants.
rest http://www.congressmatters.com/storyonly/2009/1/29/13643/3829
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