Comcast newsgroups and Thunderbird

[robertlaferla at comcast.net (Robert La Ferla)]

Anyone using Thunderbird to access newsgroups.comcast.net?  The NNTP 
server keeps asking me to supply a username and password.  It works for 
a while and then asks to re-authenticate.  I did specify for Thunderbird 
to remember the settings but the problem persists.  I know that Comcast 
dropped support for Usenet and went with giganews but then re-instated 
access via newsgroups.comcast.net.  Any ideas on how to fix this quite 
annoying problem?