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Right Wing Rock

First there was Ted Nugent. Then Foghat. (Okay, that was just an ugly rumor.) Now there’s a new right-wing band to vying for the hearts and minds of America ’s youth: Junkyard Prophet.

But, instead of trying to beg its way onto MTV to build its audience, this band is performing directly inside of America’s high schools.

Oh, and the federal government is footing the bill.
That’s right. Over the last few years, a band called Junkyard Prophet (through its youth outreach organization, You Can Run But You Cannot Hide) has been touring across Middle America, spewing its ultra-conservative message at hundreds of school assemblies along the way. And it’s received hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars for its efforts.

Worth reading the whole story - propaganda being jammed down the throats of our young, who are being prepared for programming by NCLB.

NOVEMBER 30th Podcast Online!!

http://joneaston.podomatic.com/

CONNECTICUT: State passes some of the nation's toughest campaign finance laws, "placing strict limits on contributions and creating a publicly funded election system for all statewide races."

CALIFORNIA: State Supreme Court judge throws out two lawsuits that have held up funding for California's $3-billion stem cell agency.

ALASKA: State House Speaker John Harris (R) fined for illegally using $7,000 in campaign funds.

ILLINOIS: Four Walgreen pharmacists suspended for refusing to fill emergency contraception prescriptions

from C4AP

There's a little kerfuffle inside the Democratic Senate caucus over John Kerry's insistance in being part of the official party response to Bush's hilarious "plan" in Iraq. Reid originally had designated Sen. Jack Reed to provide the official response. Reed did the "prebuttal" yesterday and had a press conference set up for today.

However, John Kerry stomped over Reed by deciding he was going to hold a press conference this morning as well in a naked bid to steal the limelight. Eventually, Reid was forced to combine the two press conferences to try and maintain a unified Senate Democrat response, but Kerry's antics have generated some ill will.

Much ado about nothing? Perhaps. But several DC Democrats I've spoken to today were not happy with Kerry's antics. And given 1) Kerry's continued inability to clearly articulate a coherent position on the war (as Feldman notes), and 2) the fact that Kerry voted for it (while Reed did not), it's not hard to see why.

from daily kos

It took President Bush 27 seconds to reference September 11 in this morning’s Iraq speech.

from thinkprogress

“Rep. Randy ‘Duke’ Cunningham (R-Calif.) will soon relinquish many of his properties and his freedom after pleading guilty to charges of fraud and conspiracy, but he will keep his government pension and could retain the privileges enjoyed by other former members of Congress,” the Hill reports.

from thinkprogress

Another important thing to note is that this guy who is SO corrupt that he is pleading guily, admitting everything, [and crying about it]... is that the House of Representatives has filed a single ethics complaint against the Dukester.

At least in the House of Representatives there is Honor Among Theives.

In an interview yesterday with Fox News’s Neil Cavuto, Bill O’Reilly claimed that his reporting intimidated oil company CEOs into lowering gasoline prices:

O’REILLY: I have guys inside the five major oil companies - my father used to work for one of those oil companies by the way - who have told me that in those meetings they look for every way to jack up oil prices after Katrina, every way, when they didn’t have to. They got scared because of my reporting and reporting of some others. They said, “Uh ho.”

CAVUTO: So wait a minute, you’re not, you’re taking credit for gas prices being down from where they are?

O’REILLY: I said my reporting and some reporting of others. They got scared.

from thinkprogress

Agents and lawmakers are concerned because the uniforms for agents charged with combating illegal immigration are were made in Mexico. Congressman, John Carter of Round Rock, Texas says he thinks the uniforms could easily be used by terrorists to enter the country. Customs officials say strict security measures are in place, including on-site inspections at the Mexican plant. Read more from News 8 Austin.

from Air America Radio Homepage

Miami police announced Monday they will stage random shows of force at hotels, banks and other public places to keep terrorists guessing and remind people to be vigilant.

Deputy Police Chief Frank Fernandez said officers might, for example, surround a bank building, check the IDs of everyone going in and out and hand out leaflets about terror threats.

Police Chief John Timoney said there was no specific, credible threat of an imminent terror attack in Miami. But he said the city has repeatedly been mentioned in intelligence reports as a potential target.

Both uniformed and plainclothes police will ride buses and trains, while others will conduct longer-term surveillance operations.

"People are definitely going to notice it," Fernandez said. "We want that shock. We want that awe. But at the same time, we don't want people to feel their rights are being threatened. We need them to be our eyes and ears."

from Associated Press via Air America Homepage

Ruy Teixeira's Donkey Rising site . . . posted a summary of the current standing of the two parties on major issues. It's mostly good news--in some cases spectacular news--for us Donkeys, but with a few exceptions that deserve attention, especially in terms of our credibility in fighting terror and the clarity of our overall message.

On this last point, Ruy concludes:

In short, voters are still much surer of what they don't like (Republican policies and Bush's job as president) than of what they might like (Democratic policies and leadership). It's up to Democrats to clarify that situation, starting with, finally, convincing the American public they know what they stand for.

That's true, but we all have to remember one very important thing about "message clarity": the only thing worse than leaving voters unsure about "what you stand for" is to resolve their doubts by "standing" for positions and/or values they don't like.

. . . You could make a good case that the current GOP meltdown is partly the result of an "our team" mentality that until recently has thwarted any real intra-party Republican debate, or any honest Republican discussion with the rest of the country. I'm perfectly happy to sacrifice a few points in polls on "message clarity" in order to keep my party from following this authoritarian pattern.

fukll article @ New Donkey via Daily Kos

Piece of Supreme Court facade falls off.

On the fifth anniversary of the day the Supreme Court agreed to hear Bush v. Gore.

from Dependable Renegade

Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham to plead guilty to tax code violations, says the AP. The local paper, the Union-Tribune, says that he'll plead guilty to "criminal charges." "It's over. I can't fight anymore," Cunningham tells supporters.

from talking points memo

NO shoot outs with police for these cowardly republican criminals. As soon as they are caught they fold like superman on laundry day.

In an era when unions typically face frustration and failure in attracting workers in the private sector, the Service Employees International Union is bringing in 5,000 janitors from several companies at once. With work force experts saying that unions face a slow death unless they can figure out how to organize private-sector workers in big bunches, labor leaders are looking to the Houston campaign as a model.

The service employees, which led a breakaway of four unions from the A.F.L.-C.I.O. last summer, has used several unusual tactics in Houston, among them lining up the support of religious leaders, pension funds and the city's mayor, Bill White, a Democrat. Making the effort even more unusual has been the union's success in a state that has long been hostile to labor.

"It's the largest unionization campaign in the South in years," said Julius Getman, a labor law professor at the University of Texas. "Other unions will say, 'Yes, it can be done here.' "

Mr. Getman predicted that the Houston effort would embolden other unions to take their chances with ambitious drives in the South, although success could prove difficult because many companies will continue to fight unionization efforts, and many workers still shy away from unions.

full article @ NYTimes

SEI told the AFL-CIO that they needed to stop pissing away so much of the union dues on lobbying in Washington and put it in to recruiting and expanding union members. The business-as-usual [failure-as-usual] old guard AFL-CIO leadership did not want to hear that. So SEI LEFT and lead other more forward thinking unions out the door with them. This was widely sighted as a horrible development. That unions were "eating themselves".

Perhaps we are now seeing a clearer picture of what was going on within the unions. Should SEIU have placidly allowed AFL-CIO to continue their conventional but FAILED approach to organizing? Should SEIU have remained under the leadership that had presided of the collapse of the union movement?

Now we see that perhaps it was the AFL-CIO leadership that should have adopted and accepted the new ideas of the SEIU. Imagine how much more could have been accomplished if the entire AFL-CIO had abandoned the failure policy of their old guard and adopted something like the SEIU's approach.

It is important to note that SEIU was VERY successful at organizing new members when they were apart of the AFL-CIO. THEY had a record of success which the AFL-CIO chose to ignore.

Never underestimate the stubbornness of entrenched leadership to cling to their outmoded and ineffective ideas to the bitter end.

Oh, that's just great. Just great. From the Sunday Telegraph (UK):

A "trophy" video appearing to show security guards in Baghdad randomly shooting Iraqi civilians has sparked two investigations after it was posted on the internet, the Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

The video has sparked concern that private security companies, which are not subject to any form of regulation either in Britain or in Iraq, could be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of innocent Iraqis.

According to the Telegraph reporter, the video is even set to music: "Mystery Train", by Elvis Presley.

full article @ daily kos