Tim Canova Barenaked Ladies "Million Dollar" Award Plaque Starts Today

Today is Day One of a week long contest on behalf of the Tim Canova congressional campaign in South Florida (FL-23 which starts up at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood Airport and works it way south and west through Hollywood to Surfside in the south and Weston in the west). It's Debbie Wasserman Schultz's safe gerrymandered district. We've contributed a beautiful gold, RIAA-certified award plaque for the Barenaked Ladies' first U.S. album, Gordon, the album that includes, "Brian Wilson," "Be My Yoko Ono," "Hello City" and the band's smash hit, "If I Had $1,000,000." The album award, which has never been taken out of it's plastic wrapping, was originally awarded to Reprise Records president Howie Klein (Yep... me), now the treasurer of Blue America.

Tim is running on a full-bore Bernie type platform-- issues he has been working on his entire adult life, from campaign finance reform, protecting the environment and ending the war on drugs to reversing income inequality, immigration reform and Medicare-for-All.

As of December 31, the last FEC reporting deadline, Tim had raised $161,996. He's going to need a lot more to defeat a corrupt incumbent who has taken massive amounts of money from payday lenders, private prisons and Wall Street. Please consider helping him reach his first quarter goal by tapping on the Act Blue Barenaked Ladies thermometer on the right.

Tim told us he finds the Barenaked Ladies music "to be playful, offbeat and thought-provoking at the same time. On this album, 'If I Had a Million Dollars' is a strange kind of love song for a material world. The message is: 'If I had a million dollars, I’d buy you a house, furniture, a car, I’d buy your love.' Money certainly helps up to a point, but we know that money alone cannot really buy love or happiness. As I listened to this song this morning, I thought what would I do if I had a million dollars? And I realized I would spend it on exactly what I’ve been investing my limited personal savings in: our campaign to defeat Debbie Wasserman Schultz and our lawsuit to inspect the ballots from our last race. That lawsuit is what prompted local election officials to destroy our ballots in violation of state and federal law. I am not letting this election scandal be swept under the rug, because I know the best way to ensure a fair vote count in our upcoming election is to demand a real investigation and accountability for the fraud and illegal ballot destruction in the last election. With your help, we will raise another million dollars and we will use those resources to keep building our grassroots campaign. This remains the top priority in my life: to defeat a cynical and corrupt political insider who has done so much damage to our country. If I had a million dollars, I would still be fighting to restore democracy."



Primaries against incumbents of your own party are the toughest thing there is in American politics. It's a thankless task, with your own party fighting you every step of the way and moving in to protect their colleague, no matter how corrupt she is. But in this D+11 district there is no other way to hold Wasserman Schultz accountable besides a primary. A New Dem from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, she hasn't earned a lifetime job, not by a longshot. Please help us replace her with Tim Canova, a strong and dedicated progressive.

Contest Coming-- Help Tim Canova Pick The Prize

One of the ways Blue America helps the candidates we endorse is by donating rock'n'roll memorabilia from my old days as a music business executive. We're going to do one with Tim Canova next. He's running for the Broward/Miami-Dade seat that Debbie Wasserman Schultz appears to have stolen last cycle. So gave him the choice of a bunch of platinum awards rear were given to me personally. Here's the e-mail Tim sent his supporters yesterday:

I am excited to report that Blue America-- a fearless progressive grassroots group and the first to endorse us against Debbie Wasserman Schultz-- will give away an original platinum album to help support our campaign.

The only problem is that we have not yet decided which album to raffle off to our supporters!  The choices are hit albums by Erasure, Chris Isaak, and Barenaked Ladies. But we’re leaving that decision up to all of you!

Please let us know by sometime this Friday, January 26th which is your choice of album to be raffled off:

• Barenaked Ladies - GORDON (1992)
        Debut studio album with such classic hits, "If I Had $1,000,000,"
          "Be My Yoko Ono" and "Brian Wilson"

 • Chris Issak - FOREVER BLUE (1995)
        Nominated for a Best Rock Album Grammy in 1996
        Hit songs: "Somebody's Crying" and "Baby Did a Bad, Bad Thing"

 • Erasure - THE INNOCENTS (1988)
        Hit songs: "A Little Respect," "Chains of Love" and "Ship of Fools"

We will follow up soon after your votes are in with another email that announces which album is selected by all of you, and allows you to enter the raffle contest by making a contribution of any size to our campaign.

If you want to vote, just click here. And whichever album gets the most votes, that's the one we'll use as the prize in the Tim Canova contest. I always loved this one... Andy and Vince are such great guys. Last time I looked, Barenaked Ladies were out ahead.

Did Rahm Emanuel Fail Chicago?

FIRST A LITTLE BREAKING NEWS

The local Chicago SEIUs just endorsed Chuy Garcia over Emanuel this afternoon. This is a huge big deal and the necessary step towards getting the international SEIU to get on board.

There have been quite a few times over the years that Blue America has run newspaper and broadcast ads in Spanish. There was only one time, however, that Blue America ran a series of ads in community newspapers in Korean, Polish, Urdu (as well as Spanish and English). It was 2007 and the occasion was an accountability moment for anti-immigrant knave Rahm Emanuel.

A few weeks before, Democratic Party insiders under the aegis of the DCCC held a training session in Chicago for a couple dozen of their favored candidates. Afterwards several of the participants, disgusted, let Blue America know that Rahm Emanuel delivered an ominous message demanding that they "move to the right" on immigration. Some of the Democratic candidates, like Emanuel puppets Bill Foster (IL) and Joan Fitz-Gerald (CO), had already started sounding very Republican on the issue, breaking Democratic solidarity and threatening unity by seeking short term advantage based on demagoguery against a vulnerable part of our coalition.

In effect, Emanuel had teamed up with xenophobic bigot Tom Tancredo through his North Carolina tool Heath Shuler. And yet Emanuel's North Side Chicago district was one of the nation's most immigrant-friendly districts. It always has been. And Emanuel never tired of telling the immigrant communities that he was their best friend. Many knew better than to believe him because his actions-- and his inactions-- spoke far louder than his words. Nearly 25% of Emanuel's former congressional district were of Hispanic descent and there are almost as many Polish-Americans in the district. Plenty of South Asians and Koreans had also made the district home.

Blue America teamed up with Illinois' largest immigrants' rights coalition, the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, to help bring a little accountability into his life. The series of ads in the languages of the district were customized for the various communities. In the end, this didn't stop Emanuel from getting the House Democratic Caucus to throw immigration reform under the bus, preventing Congress from considering broad immigration legislation. At the time, Emanuel's office was the invisible hand behind Heath Shuler's anti-Hispanic HR 4088 which was all about more border guards, more high tech surveillance, mandatory verification for employees and and more enhanced law-enforcement capabilities for cracking down on illegal immigrants who are already in the country. After reading it, Chicago Congressman Luis Gutiérrez said, "We might as well put the Republicans in charge."

Last month Gutiérrez, a progressive on policy but a pathetic machine hack politically, endorsed Emanuel for mayor against Jesus "Chuy" Garcia. Disgracefully, Gutiérrez is a co-chair of Emanuel's Fat Cat reelection campaign. Hopefully, you read Chicago-based historian Rick Perlstein's post Friday about the epic battle between Mayor One Percent and the forces for a progressive Chicago. Perlstein's concern that the privatization, austerity, and authoritarian governance that have marked Emanuel's first term and have threatened the face of Chicago itself, is on the ballot in the April 7 runoff. 55% of voters-- in a very low turnout-- cast ballots against Emanuel. His $30 million war-chest didn't buy him reelection. Chuy's 34% came as a shock to the papers, the pundits, the pollsters, all of whom had been predicting Emanuel would figure above the 50% mark.

Now Blue America is trying to help Chuy and his team raise the contributions they need to compete against Emanuel's Big Money Machine. Perlstein has donated 20 autographed books-- a choice of Nixonland or his most recent The Invisible Bridge-- which will go to 20 random contributors-- regardless of amount-- on this page. Blue America is also giving away a rare, collectible RIAA-certified quadruple platinum award for the Barenaked Ladies breakthrough album, STUNT, which, to a great extent, crossed over from Canada to Chicago and then broke across the U.S., especially Chicago radio smashes One Week and Call And Answer. Winners for the books and the plaque will be randomly chosen tomorrow (Monday). Please contribute to Chuy's campaign... whatever you can, here on our 2015 Blue America page.

An OpEd in yesterday's Chicago Sun Times calls the runoff a "horse race" and outlines 3 voter groups the two candidates need to win over:

TEST #1:  THE BLACK VOTE

African-Americans carried Emanuel to victory four years ago on the conviction that he was “somebody that somebody sent.” That Somebody was the first black president of the United States.

This time around, pre-election bro-hugs notwithstanding, the ground has shifted under both Barack Obama and his former chief of staff, Emanuel.

The mayor got significantly fewer black votes this time around, though he still came in first ahead of Willie Wilson, followed by Garcia in black wards.

What will be Garcia’s counterclaim?

He’ll point to his early alliance with Chicago’s first black mayor, Harold Washington. And the fact that while in the Illinois state Senate in the 1990s, he and Senate colleague Miguel del Valle were the first two Hispanics to join the Black Caucus.

Endorsements will be interesting.

What will Willie Wilson, the African-American millionaire who came in 2nd in black wards, do? Whom will County Board President Toni Preckwinkle back? Their voices will be more important in April than President Obama’s was in February.

TEST #2: THE WHITE ETHNIC VOTE

The bungalow belt along Chicago’s Northwest and Southwest Sides is a complicated vote. The Emanuel forces believe citizens here worry more about their property tax bills, which the mayor has not raised, than income inequality arguments advanced by Garcia.

Whatever the focus, the wards in these parts of the city hold a high percentage of union members and government workers.

Pensions-- and whatever solution is deemed constitutional to solve their insolvency-- is a flame that burns brightly here.

The announcement on Friday of Moody’s downgrade of the city’s bonds is another piece of dreadful news. Garcia claims it is further evidence of the fiscal cliff the mayor has failed to pull us back from. But Emanuel points to a variety of ratings agencies that have said positive things about his efforts to rein in debt.

Neither Garcia nor Emanuel has been specific about painful revenue remedies that will, in the view of voters, squeeze blood from a turnip.

TEST #3: THE HISPANIC VOTE

This is Garcia’s base but it has not been a homogeneous vote. When Garcia was in the Legislature, it was the Hispanic Democratic Organization (HDO) in concert with Mayor Daley that set out to kill his re-election because he was not playing ball with the regulars.

Elected officials like city clerk Susana Mendoza and U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez were campaign co-chairs for the mayor in the February election. And remain supporters now. And Cook County Democratic Chairman Joe Berrios, who is also the assessor of Cook County, is no friend of Garcia’s but waged his own battles for control in aldermanic races. But their coattails are in serious doubt.

Will Hispanic voters turn out for Garcia as African-Americans did for Washington in 1983?

You’d have to think so.

This election is a horse race.

A fascinating story.

But the candidates both have a lot of evangelizing left to do.

This morning, writing for Salon, former White House advisor Bill Curry explored how Chuy forced Rahm, an anti-liberal union-hater, into a runoff. "What a week ago seemed a liberal fantasy, Rahm’s imminent demise," he wrote, "is suddenly a very real possibility."

A Garcia victory would be a historic watershed not just for Chicago or for Democrats but for all progressives. It wouldn’t just frighten the Wall Street Dems who now reign over their national party. It would alter the terms of debate even beyond the party and prove, to cynics and to ourselves, that the power of ideas is still greater than the power of money and that grass-roots politics is not dead.

It’s a race progressives know how to win. It’s a general election, but with an overwhelmingly Democratic electorate and likely low turnout it will function more like a primary. If progressives grasp its significance they’ll invest the energy and resources it takes to win. Many are already doing just that. But to those who need convincing, allow me to make the case. It comes down to just two points. The first is all about who Rahm Emanuel is, and who and what he represents.

Even in elective office Rahm strikes people less as a political leader than what he is: a lifelong political operative. He was once executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. For a while he specialized in “opposition research,” meaning campaigns hired him to dig up dirt on their opponents. But his forte was raising money, in large amounts, from people who had plenty of it.

By the time he was 30 he’d taken up permanent residence in the world of political high rollers he inhabits to this day. As Bill Clinton’s 1992 finance director he ran the biggest fundraising machine the Democratic Party had ever seen. While doing that job he was also on the Goldman Sachs payroll, a seeming violation of “black letter” campaign finance law that was never looked into.

...In Congress he hewed right on economic and fiscal policy and was a hawk on defense. As Obama’s chief of staff he purged Clinton-era liberals, which resulted in a team of economic advisers more conservative than that of any Democratic president since Grover Cleveland. Whether following their advice or his own instincts, Obama ditched ethics reform, aid to homeowners with bad mortgages, a minimum wage hike and the public option; a disastrous set of choices from which he never fully recovered.

Through it all Rahm cultivated his image as a ruthless operative. By the time he got to be mayor of Chicago he was the Keyser Soze of the Democratic Party, shrouded in legend, a guy who if you crossed him would slit your throat as you slept. It was a reputation he relished.

Rahm’s corporatist worldview, bruising personal style and stunted ethics made the city a testing ground for two major conservative agendas: corporate education reform and “privatization.” His education agenda led to a bitter teachers’ strike and the closing of 50 public schools, many serving the city’s poorest residents.

Those closings are often cited as flash points of the current revolt but there were others. During last July 4 weekend, 82 shootings resulting in 14 deaths focused national attention on the murder rate among Chicago’s young black men. The crisis cried out for creative, sustained civic dialogue but Rahm hadn’t the patience, empathy or eloquence to provide that kind of leadership.

The X factor is a deepening discontent over Rahm’s privatization schemes, recently laid out in a superb article by Rick Perlstein in In These Times. Here’s but one example plucked from a long, infuriating list:

In 2012 the transit authority commissioned a private contractor to issue transit cards that residents without bank accounts could use as prepaid debit cards. Buried in a 1,000-page agreement was an ugly array of hidden fees: $1.50 for ATM withdrawals; $2.95 to deposit money with a credit card; $2 to call a service rep; $10 for “research”; $6 to close an account. For designing a system to bilk the poor on such a grand scale, the company was paid $454 million.

Emanuel turned Chicago into a playland for people who, like him, mastered the art of spinning political influence into gold. If Garcia wins, it will reflect voters’ disaffection with a mayor who’s all bully and no pulpit, but also their revulsion to see such blatant profiteering at taxpayer expense. In an interview, United Working Families executive director Kristen Crowell said she was “astounded at voters’ rejection of corporate politics as a way of doing the city’s business.”

It is what Justice Kennedy in his willfully naive Citizens United opinion called “soft corruption”: not simple bribery but the subtler corruption of modern pay-for-play politics. Citing no proof-- there isn’t any-- Kennedy wrote that soft corruption does little harm to the state and is of no interest to voters. In fact it is a cancer devouring our democracy and voters care deeply about it.

Rahm isn’t just a poster boy for soft corruption; he holds a patent on it. On the Democratic side of the aisle he stands with Tony Coehlo, Chuck Schumer, maybe Terry McAuliffe and, sad to say, both Presidents Clinton and Obama. It’s why his election means so much to the nation and it’s why he may lose.

Believing you can dial every day for Wall Street dollars and still stand up for the middle class is like believing you can smoke crack every day and still be a good parent. Left unaddressed, the contradiction between what Democrats do to get elected and what they promise to do in office will destroy them. We need a whole new model, which brings us to who Jésus “Chuy” Garcia is and who and what he represents.

Like Rahm, Chuy has spent much of his life in politics. There the similarity ends. Rahm is a longtime ally of Chicago’s fabled Daley political machine, Chuy is a member of the party’s reform wing and was a protégé of the late Mayor Harold Washington, who ran against and beat future Mayor Richard M. Daley. In a real sense, this is but the latest battle in a 30 years’ war between the city’s reform and machine factions.

From the first, Garcia was a leader, not an operative. At 28 he got elected to the city council, where he served seven years before moving on to the state Senate. He served six years there before losing a primary to a Daley-backed opponent. When he left politics he turned not to high finance but to the nonprofit sector, becoming director of a community development corporation. Four years ago he reentered politics by winning election to the Cook County Board of Commissioners. In his staunch progressive record and subdued personal style he’s the anti-Rahm; a guy who proves he’s tough just by taking principled stands and then sticking to them.

Last Tuesday should never have happened. Rahm had a huge war chest, a vaunted machine, Wall Street and Hollywood connections and an endorsement from Chicago’s own Barack Obama. Rahm outspent Chuy 12-to-1. So what did he do wrong? Nothing really-- except, of course, for how he governed. The answer lies rather in who Garcia represents and in what they did right.

A month ago I wrote that progressives need a Tea Party of our own; not an Astro-turfed array of angry extremists but a grass-roots movement fueled by volunteerism and funded by small donors. Like the Tea Party, it would be independent, backing major party candidates who stay true to its values, and ousting ones who don’t. I said then the group closest to figuring it out was the Working Families Party. I wish I could say now I sensed how soon they’d do it.

The coalition taking Rahm to the mat works off the same model as the Working Families Party and even shares some of its DNA. It includes a dozen unions and community organizations, including the Chicago Teachers Union. Its basic tools are knocking on doors-- it hit 153,000 in round one-- and calling people up on the phone. Its members are rooted in their community and its message is rooted in its values. It may be about to topple one of the most powerful and least progressive Democrats in the nation. It is exactly seven months old.

The race confuses Washington. It’s a colorless town and for years Rahm was its most colorful figure, a source not just of news but of dark comic relief. Reporters imbibe the views of politicians who think the rules of the game immutable. This week even the astute E.J. Dionne compared Rahm to Bill de Blasio, “a hero to progressives,” calling it “mildly ironic” that “left of center voters” would give Rahm such a hard time.

Many progressives don’t get it either. If you put them all on Sodium Pentothal and asked if grass-roots politics can still beat big money, my hunch is they’d say no. Many pray the party will reform itself. Obama’s late awakening fans that flame. But if you want to know how likely that is, peruse the numbingly vacant report the DNC issued last week allegedly laying out its vision. Frederick Douglass said it best. Power concedes nothing without a demand.

On April 7 pay-to-play politics goes on trial in Chicago. The voters will be the judges. Crowell says holding Rahm accountable was a victory in itself, but she knows now it’s a fight they can win. For sure it’s an uphill climb, but then just last week it was impossible.

You can contribute to Chuy's campaign here. There's no such thing as a contribution that is too small.

UPDATE: First Poll: Dead Heat!

Chu is just getting started but the first poll is already showing a dead heat between himself and Mayor 1%.

A Chicago polling firm is calling the city’s runoff campaign between Mayor Rahm Emanuel and challenger Jesus “Chuy” Garcia a “dead heat.”

New numbers from Ogden & Fry show Garcia, a member of the Cook County board of commissioners, within reach of the one-term Emanuel. And the firm warned that the Hispanic population under-polls, meaning that population is underrepresented in the data.

“They’re likely dead even,” pollster Tom Swiss said Sunday night... In the Saturday poll of 979 likely voters, Emanuel had 42.9 percent support to Garcia’s 38.5 percent.

Hard To Compete With The Koch Brothers' Billions But We Have Guitars And Other Collectible Swag For Social Justice

The other day, after reading about our Filter guitar giveaway on behalf of Ken Aden's Run 2 End Hunger II, a correspondent asked me if I have a lot of guitars and if I play them. I once had a lot of guitars; I never played any of them. Before I was a blogger I ran a record label-- or three, a small indie label in San Francisco, 415 Records, then Sire here in Los Angeles, where I was general manager, and finally Reprise, where I was president. It was a nice run and I wound up with closets filled with memorabilia. Actually, rooms filled with memorabilia... like the guitars. I'm not a musician. They were souvenirs for me-- signed guitars by the artists I worked with. Years ago I decided I needed to find a way to give them away to people who would get some pleasure out of them. I started donating them to auctions for worthy causes-- the guitars and some of the dozens of gold and platinum award discs that used to thrill me so much when I was a kid.

In two hours, we're going to randomly pick a name from among the 400 people who have expressed an interest in "winning" a beautiful Fender Stratocaster guitar signed by all them members-- yes, Steven Page included-- of the Barenaked Ladies. It was one of those guitars in an upstairs closet. The band endorsed my idea of using it to help advance the cause of democracy. So "expressing an interest" meant contributing to our If I Had A Million Dollars ActBlue page or even just sending us a note without any money involved. One person was entered who said she has no money to spare but that she is praying for victories for Norman Solomon and David Gill. She wasn't even a fan of "If I Have A Million Dollars" but another Barenaked ladies song, "One Week," was played at her daughter's wedding party and she fell in love with the song. Anyway, whether someone contributed $5 to be split between Norman and David or $500-- or just let us know they were sending their prayers-- all the names are in a box and at noon (PT) one name will be randomly selected and that person will get the guitar. We'll announce it in an Update on the bottom of this post.

We gave our friends at the Courage Campaign a beautiful, customized TLC platinum and gold award for the 1992 debut album, Ooooooohhh... On The TLC Tip, which sold 4 million copies and included the big hit Aint 2 Proud 2 Beg. They're using the award plaque to fight homophobia in North Carolina this week by funding a grassroots effort filled with TLC to defeat Amendment One. Please consider helping that at that last link-- whether you want the award or not... you can always donate it back if you win it or give it to another charity of your choice (and even get a tax deduction!).

Meanwhile, we're just ramping up another guitar giveaway, this one, which will go to support Ken Aden's efforts to end hunger in Arkansas. This one is a Squier Telecaster and it was signed-- back in 2002-- by all the members of Filter, riding high on their smash hit, Hey Man, Nice Shot. Before becoming a candidate for Congress, Ken, an Iraq and Afghanistan War vet was immersed in running a non-profit community-based self-help group in Arkansas, Residents 4 Arkansas, Inc. Last month he was honored by the White House for his community service and met with President Obama and members of his cabinet to talk about the role of volunteerism in America. Ken has been awarded the Military Outstanding Volunteer Service Medal, the Army Commendation Medal, the Achievement Medal, the Joint Meritorious Unit Award, the National Defense Service Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, the Commissioned Officer Professional Development Ribbon, the Army Service Ribbon, the Overseas Service Ribbon, the Multinational Force and Observers Medal, the Combat Infantryman Badge, and the Parachutist Badge. Right now he's in the middle of a 253 mile, 7 day run across his district (ending May 5) to raise awareness and to raise cans of food for families who are hungry in Arkansas. When he ends his run, Blue America will thank one of the supporters of Ken's candidacy with the Filter guitar. Supporters can contribute here or send a check-- or even just a note-- to PO Box 27201, Los Angeles, CA 90027. Everyone will have an equal chance to "win" the guitar, regardless of how much you contribute-- or even if you just let us know you're praying for Ken or rooting for him.

Some may see Ken as a "do-gooder" but he's a tough as nails progressive running in the reddest district in Arkansas. Rather than shrink away from a fight as others in his state have done, this Army Combat Veteran is taking it to the streets and standing up for equal rights for all. As you've probably guessed by now, the main part of his campaign focus is on community service work-- as well as renewable energy technology, veterans rights, and the protection of Social Security and Medicare. In a recent quote he said that "if you even think of cutting Medicare and Social Security you ARE a criminal! The time for corporate prostitution has come to an end!"

As we mentioned on the Act Blue page, we were chatting with Ken last week and he told us about a woman he met while out campaigning the weekend before. She considered herself an independent, and was a supporter of Ken's very right-wing opponent-- Wal-Mart's personal Congressman, Steve Womack-- back in 2010.

"I wish I would have met you back then, because I never would have voted for him," is just what she told Ken on Saturday.

We liked that, because it is the opening lyric of Filter's "Hey Man, Nice Shot," we figured that would be the perfect guitar for Ken's campaign. (Not to mention that Ken is a huge fan of Filter's music himself.) What Ken's doing is so important that we wanted to encourage all of our friends to help. But, since we know we can't ask you to send canned food through the mail even though we are 100 percent in support of our brothers and sisters at the APWU, we thought we'd ask you to pledge to donate $25.30 to Ken's race-- that's one dime for every mile that he'll be running across the district. Of course if you can't donate that amount any help would be greatly appreciated. And if you want to contribute more... please don't hesitate.

And, for every person who makes a contribution through this page for Ken's campaign, you will be entered in a random drawing to win a guitar signed by every member of Filter as a "thank you" from Blue America. Everyone has the same shot, whether you contribute one dollar or 1,000 dollars-- or even if you just send us a note to PO Box 27201, Los Angeles, CA 90027.

So don't delay-- please make your contribution to Ken's campaign today, and by doing so, you'll have a direct hand in ending the plight of impoverished families today. GO KEN GO!!

Here's another Filter song-- this one a cover of an old hit by Harry Nilsson, "One [Is the Loneliest Number]," a song I always thought summed up the right-wing world view summed up by Ayn Rand. Three Dog Night, Al Kooper, Aimee Mann, Dokken, Mastodon and the Chainsaw Kittens all did versions of the song as well. Filter's version was on the soundtrack of The X-Files: Fight The Future, an apt GOP slogan that Ken Aden is battling against.

Hey Man, Nice Shot-- Blue America Goes To Bat For Ken Aden (D-AR)

Our Barenaked Ladies guitar fun for Norman Solomon and David Gill has been working out so well that we decided to launch another one. This time we have a sleek, black Squier Telecaster autographed-- in 2002-- by all the members of Filter. And we're going to send it out as a thank you present to one supporter of our efforts on behalf of Ken Aden. The page is here.

We've introduced you to Ken before. He's a tough as nails progressive running in the reddest district in Arkansas. Rather than shrink away from a fight as others in his state have done, this Army Combat Veteran is taking it to the streets and standing up for equal rights for all. A main part of his campaign focus is on community service work, renewable energy technology, veterans rights, and the protection of Social Security and Medicare. In a recent quote he said that "if you even think of cutting Medicare and Social Security you ARE a criminal! The time for corporate prostitution has come to an end!"

As we mentioned on the Act Blue page, we were chatting with Ken this week and he told us about a woman he met while out campaigning over the weekend. She considered herself an independent, and was a supporter of Ken's opponent-- Wal-Mart's personal Congressman, Steve Womack-- back in 2010.

"I wish I would have met you back then, because I never would have voted for him," is just what she told Ken on Saturday.

We liked that, because it is the opening lyric of, "Hey Man, Nice Shot," by the legendary rock band Filter, and Filter is part of the special surprise we have planned to help Ken, which we wanted to share with our supporters.

You may have heard that Ken's campaign in Arkansas' Third District is highlighting food insecurity and hunger in the impoverished district by holding the Run 2 End Hunger II, whereby Special Forces veteran Ken Aden will run across the entire district-- a run of 253 miles in 7 days. This race is slated to begin on the 28th of April and will continue through the 5th of May. He's collecting pledges for canned food for every mile, and the food which is collected will be donated to three struggling non profit organizations within the state.

What Ken's doing is so important that we wanted to encourage all of our friends to help. But, since we know we can't ask you to send canned food through the mail even though we are 100 percent in support of our brothers and sisters at the APWU, we thought we'd ask you to pledge to donate $25.30 to Ken's race-- that's one dime for every mile that he'll be running across the district. Of course if you can't donate that amount any help would be greatly appreciated. And if you want to contribute more... please don't hesitate.

And, for every person who makes a contribution through this page for Ken's campaign, you will be entered in a random drawing to win a guitar signed by every member of Filter as a "thank you" from Blue America. Everyone has the same shot, whether you contribute one dollar or 1,000 dollars-- or even if you just send us a note to PO Box 27201, Los Angeles, CA 90027.

So don't delay-- please make your contribution to Ken's campaign today, and by doing so, you'll have a direct hand in ending the plight of impoverished families today. GO KEN GO!!!

Again, here's where you can get in on the fun and get a chance to walk away with this unique, collectible Filter guitar-- and help a fighting progressive get into office and start shaking things up. The guys in Filter gave me the guitar when I decided to retire from Reprise. They were one of my favorite bands on the label and their smash hit, "Hey Man Nice Shot," was a song I loved even before it was ever released. Some people were appalled because they thought the song was about Kurt Cobain's "suicide." But it never was. They wrote the song about the suicide of Pennsylvania's Republican state Treasurer, Budd Dwyer. Dwyer was an innocent man unjustly accused of taking a bribe and he shot himself during a press conference with a .357 Magnum. The corruption in this case is that the prosecutors bribed the witness to testify under oath that Dwyer was guilty in return for a lighter sentence for himself. He later recanted that testimony. Just sayin'...



So do you want to try for a Telecaster or a Stratocaster? Barenaked Ladies or Filter? Norman Solomon and David Gill or Ken Aden? Up to you.

Blue America Is Giving Away An Autographed Barenaked Ladies Guitar

I first met the Barenaked Ladies even before someone shot the funky video above. "If I Had $1,000,000" was on their first album, Gordon but American media showed no interest in the song, the album or the band. The band, undaunted by their lack of success, kept playing shows and building a grassroots following across America. I remember, several years-- and several albums-- later bringing a program director from a radio station in Columbus, Ohio to a concert. It was in the city's biggest indoor concert venue, the Celeste Center, and the 10,200 tickets had all sold out in advance. The program director was stunned. "How could this be happening in my city without us even knowing about it?" he wondered aloud. His station helped "break" the band-- at least to the mainstream. But it was the grassroots and the hard work that really broke the Barenaked Ladies even before the 1998 platinum smash hit "One Week" from Stunt.

Dr. David Gill and author and activist Norman Solomon have been working the grassroots angle for a very long time. They are Movement Progressives rather than politicians per se. And both are on the verge of national prominence. When I asked Ed Robertson if it would be OK for me to give away the beautiful Fender Strat all the members of the band has signed and given to me when I retired from Warner Bros, he replied immediately, "Happy to help out the ailing American political system wherever we can!"

So... I gave Blue America and Progressive Democrats of America the guitar and Blue America and PDA are going to give it away to a randomly-selected donor on a new Act Blue page, If I Had A Million Dollars. This is the letter we sent out to all the Blue America members last night:


A few years ago the Barenaked Ladies sang in one of their breakthrough hits about what they'd do with a million dollars:

If I had a million dollars
If I had a million dollars
I'd buy you a fur coat
But not a real fur coat-- that's cruel

If I had a million dollars
If I had a million dollars
I'd buy you an exotic pet
Like a llama or an emu

To each his own. Blue America and Progressive Democrats of America have something different in mind for a million dollars-- helping elect two of the most outstanding progressive candidates running for office anywhere this cycle, Norman Solomon in California and Dr. David Gill in Illinois. But both organizations are grassroots groups and neither one of us-- nor even both of us together-- has a million dollars. Instead we have a beautiful Fender stratocaster guitar that has been autographed by each member of the Barenaked Ladies. Would you like that... instead of an emu?

We need to raise some money to help Norman and David win their tough races. David has already won a difficult primary against a conservative, Machine-backed Democrat, who finally conceded Friday. Now he'll face whomever the GOP Machine forces down Republicans' throats. Norman still has a primary ahead of him-- and if he comes out in the top two, as is expected, he'll face off against a more Establishment character for a seat in Congress.

David is in an open Democratic-leaning district, so as long as he can get his message out, he's likely to win in November. And Norman's district is one of the most Democratic and progressive districts anywhere in America. Both candidates have been endorsed by both PDA and Blue America. This is the first time our two groups have ever gotten together for a fundraising effort. If you contribute any amount to these two candidates on this ActBlue page you could be the lucky winner of the Barenaked Ladies guitar.

It doesn't matter if you donate $10 or $1,000. Everyone has an equal chance to win the guitar. Just go to this page any time this week and donate to both the candidates. At the end of this week we'll pick one person at random and send him or her the very special Barenaked Ladies thank you gift-- the beautiful Fender Stratocaster guitar autographed by each member of the Barenaked Ladies (shown in photo, above).

So Which Budget-- Or, More To The Point, Which Vision Of Governance-- Is Best For Ordinary Americans?

Ryan's Wall Street-hatched plot to turn back the clock is nothing short of catastrophic and, even as a jumping off point, Simpson-Bowles is just barely tangentially better, while still being awful. Yesterday President Obama presented a less dysfunctional, more than a little fairer vision of a brighter path forward. But it was still based on Republican talking points and fallacies. If we were stuck with these three choices, Obama's would be livable... barely. But considering his record of negotiating, if this is the starting point, we are screwed. UNLESS, the starting point for negotiations, if not the end point, is the People's Budget that the Congressional Progressive Caucus proposed.

The Economic Policy Institute did a thorough analysis and then endorsed it. They conclude that the working family-oriented People's Budget "would reduce primary spending by $868.9 billion, increase general revenue by $2.8 trillion, and increase payroll tax receipts by $1.2 trillion over a decade relative to the adjusted CBO baseline. Responsibly ending the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and recalibrating Department of Defense priorities would save $2.3 trillion. Roughly $1.7 trillion would simultaneously be invested for general public investment and a surface transportation reauthorization bill, including an I-Bank. Health care savings would decrease deficits by $308.1 billion from 2012 to 2021, more than offsetting the 10-year cost of maintaining the current rate of Medicare physician reimbursements, adjusted for inflation. Based on all of these policy adjustments, net interest payments are projected to fall by $856.3 billion over 2012-21.53 In total, the People’s Budget would reduce deficits by $5.6 trillion over 2012-21 relative to the adjusted CBO baseline."
Alternatively, just forget anything reasonable ever coming out of the Beltway. It's just too damn tied up with special interests money. In next week's Rolling Stone Matt Taibbi asks the pertinent questions about the budget, starting with "Why isn't Wall Street in jail?" And if you follow Taibbi's writing-- you're crazy if you don't-- you know he's got the answers as well.

Most Americans know about that budget. What they don't know is that there is another budget of roughly equal heft, traditionally maintained in complete secrecy. After the financial crash of 2008, it grew to monstrous dimensions, as the government attempted to unfreeze the credit markets by handing out trillions to banks and hedge funds. And thanks to a whole galaxy of obscure, acronym-laden bailout programs, it eventually rivaled the "official" budget in size-- a huge roaring river of cash flowing out of the Federal Reserve to destinations neither chosen by the president nor reviewed by Congress, but instead handed out by fiat by unelected Fed officials using a seemingly nonsensical and apparently unknowable methodology.

Now, following an act of Congress that has forced the Fed to open its books from the bailout era, this unofficial budget is for the first time becoming at least partially a matter of public record. Staffers in the Senate and the House, whose queries about Fed spending have been rebuffed for nearly a century, are now poring over 21,000 transactions and discovering a host of outrages and lunacies in the "other" budget. It is as though someone sat down and made a list of every individual on earth who actually did not need emergency financial assistance from the United States government, and then handed them the keys to the public treasure. The Fed sent billions in bailout aid to banks in places like Mexico, Bahrain and Bavaria, billions more to a spate of Japanese car companies, more than $2 trillion in loans each to Citigroup and Morgan Stanley, and billions more to a string of lesser millionaires and billionaires with Cayman Islands addresses. "Our jaws are literally dropping as we're reading this," says Warren Gunnels, an aide to Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. "Every one of these transactions is outrageous."

...And then there are the bailout deals that make no sense at all. Republicans go mad over spending on health care and school for Mexican illegals. So why aren't they flipping out over the $9.6 billion in loans the Fed made to the Central Bank of Mexico? How do we explain the $2.2 billion in loans that went to the Korea Development Bank, the biggest state bank of South Korea, whose sole purpose is to promote development in South Korea? And at a time when America is borrowing from the Middle East at interest rates of three percent, why did the Fed extend $35 billion in loans to the Arab Banking Corporation of Bahrain at interest rates as low as one quarter of one point?

Even more disturbing, the major stakeholder in the Bahrain bank is none other than the Central Bank of Libya, which owns 59 percent of the operation. In fact, the Bahrain bank just received a special exemption from the U.S. Treasury to prevent its assets from being frozen in accord with economic sanctions. That's right: Muammar Qaddafi received more than 70 loans from the Federal Reserve, along with the Real Housewives of Wall Street.

Perhaps the most irritating facet of all of these transactions is the fact that hundreds of millions of Fed dollars were given out to hedge funds and other investors with addresses in the Cayman Islands. Many of those addresses belong to companies with American affiliations-- including prominent Wall Street names like Pimco, Blackstone... It's one thing for the federal government to look the other way when Wall Street hotshots evade U.S. taxes by registering their investment companies in the Cayman Islands. But subsidizing tax evasion? Giving it a federal bailout? What the fuck?

As America girds itself for another round of lunatic political infighting over which barely-respirating social program or urgently necessary federal agency must have their budgets permanently sacrificed to the cause of billionaires being able to keep their third boats in the water, it's important to point out just how scarce money isn't in certain corners of the public-spending universe. In the coming months, when you watch Republican congressional stooges play out the desperate comedy of solving America's deficit problems by making fewer photocopies of proposed bills, or by taking an ax to budgetary shrubberies like NPR or the SEC, remember Christy Mack and her fancy new carriage house. There is no belt-tightening on the other side of the tracks. Just a free lunch that never ends.

Oh, I almost forget to mention, corporate Democrats led by Chris Van Hollen, the ranking ineffectual Democrat on Ryan's Budget Committee, proposed some silly little of this/little of that nonsense as well. It's 100% based on Ryan's table settings and, it's not any more worth looking at than Ryan's is. It will be defeated today as a Motion to Recommit just before Ryan's budget passes.

Ryan's budget... I was thinking about it today in terms of the sociopaths in the corporate headquarters when I used to be president of Reprise Records. The most important thing I could do for shareholder value was to help build artists for the future. I saw that as one of my primary jobs. Our A&R staff would identify talented artists and work to develop that talents, sometimes over years and years. It took Depeche Mode 6 albums before they broke through. It took Barenaked Ladies 6 as well. The whole time we were being pressured from the corporate guys to drop the bands. I recall one time, when I was a junior VP, the chairman of the company signaled me to come into his office and listen silently to a conversation he was having. It was with a high ranking corporate finance guy who was demanding-- threateningly-- that we drop Eric Clapton. 24 Nights had sold poorly, as had Behind the Sun, August and Journeyman, but none of them were poor quality-wise and the company, at least on the creative side, was still firmly behind Eric. But the corporate guys wanted him off the roster. The chairman showed m how to be both polite and firm in telling them to go screw off. The next record Eric delivered was Unplugged, which sold over 10,000,000 albums, in the U.S. and far more overseas and basically kept the company running for a year. I'm sure the corporate executive congratulated himself for not forcing us to drop him. That was millions of dollars in shareholder value. These corporate guys only think about the quarterly bottom lines-- and their bonuses (based on that) or, the real far-thinking ones, actually have a whole year time horizon. The Republicans are like that. Their perspective is corporate and disastrous. It doesn't take the future into account. Had we dropped Depeche Mode and the Barenaked Ladies before they were fully developed, tens of millions of dollars would never have been realized for the shareholders. It was a never-ending battle. It's worse with the Republicans, especially because they have Fox and the right-wing echo chamber blaring their short-sighted foolishness day in and day out. I wish Obama had what it takes to stand up to them... the way the chairman of Warner Bros Records did.

Jindal Won't Do Much For The GOP But His Shockingly Inept Speech Has Made A Star Out Of Kenneth The Page

Do you see a president hiding here?

Yesterday our Ken, who, unlike me, watches TV and knows about popular shows like 30 Rock and has opinions on characters like Kenneth the Page, was mortified that people were comparing the page to Jindal. (I'm friends with Stephen Page of Barenaked Ladies-- but I had never heard of Kenneth the Page until Gov. Jindal did his dumbed down impersonation of him after Obama's speech Tuesday night.) This morning I was reading both the NY Times' critique of Jindal's Mr. Rogersish speech and the L.A. Times' report on how mortified the Republican Party was over Jindal's atrocious performance:

The reviews were swift and scathing: Off-putting. Amateurish. Disastrous.

And those were fellow Republicans reacting to Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who delivered the nationally broadcast follow-up to President Obama's speech to Congress on Tuesday night. (Not surprisingly, Democrats echoed the criticism.)

...Fellow conservatives criticized Jindal's mannerisms, his sing-song delivery, the backdrop for his 10-minute speech (a spiral staircase in the governor's mansion in Baton Rouge).

"You can't go on TV and counter Obama with that," said radio host Laura Ingraham.

Philip Klein of the American Spectator said Jindal seemed more like a high school student delivering his valedictory speech than a prospective new GOP leader.

Aside from Tom DeLay (still not in prison), Rush Limbaugh, who is apparently back to mainlining Oxycontin, was Jindal's one defender. Threatening other wingnuts who criticized the GOP's one hope to make sure Sarah Palin isn't their party's future, Limbaugh babbled incoherently on Wednesday morning on his Hate Talk Radio program, "I love Bobby Jindal, and that did not change after last night... Because if you think — people on our side I’m talking to you — those of you who think Jindal was horrible, you think — in fact, I don’t ever want to hear from you ever again. … I’ve spoken to him numerous times, he’s brilliant. He’s the real deal." Other wingers, including South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford and Republican Party spokesperson Amanda Carpenter, are questioning Limbaugh's sanity. Now does anyone care about any of this or what any of these people have to say? Well... viewers of Late Night With Jimmy Fallon-- another TV thing I had never heard about until today-- were treated to Kenneth the Page, or at least Jack McBrayer, the actor who plays him. Take a look at how he responded to Jindal's unauthorized impersonation and career suicide:

JAMES INHOFE WOULD NEVER MAKE IT AS ONE OF THE BARENAKED LADIES

All the great political art from Oklahoma is by PhotoTune

When I was general manager of Sire I worked for a madman, Seymour Stein. I remember this one time he called me and demanded I pack my bags and meet him in London... immediately. He had signed some Canadian band and he wanted me to meet them and they were playing in London, not far from where he lived. Convenient for him; I lived in L.A. But he was the boss and... well, he wasn't asking me to meet him in Minsk or Lagos. When I got to the club, the crowd was spilled out onto the streets, hundreds of people. How did all these people in London know about some just-signed band with a demo tape and a weird name? The band was Barenaked Ladies and the demo, The Yellow Tape actually went on to become the first-- and only-- indie tape to ever go platinum in Canada. I still couldn't understand why the were this big in England.

I started asking people. No one was from London or Liverpool or Manchester. Everyone was from Toronto, Ottawa and Vancouver. Later, as we started breaking Barenaked Ladies in the U.S.-- and it was a long hard process that went on for years and years-- I always noticed that wherever there were Canadians, the band did well. Basically we broke them out of American cities with lots of Canadians.

Today I went to meet Andrew Rice and his wife and two sons when they were visiting his wife's relatives in Venice. They had invited a few dozen people and Andrew explained why he was running for the U.S. Senate back in Oklahoma. I met a lot of really nice people and when I asked where they were from I wasn't hearing a lot of people saying Venice or Santa Monica or West L.A. or Beverly Hills. It was mostly Tulsa, Boise City, Ada, Norman and Lawton-- and, of course, Andrew's hometown of Oklahoma City.

Someone I met from Tulsa told me a very interesting story about Oklahoma Secretary of State Susan Savage. Well, actually the story is about Oklahoma's crazy U.S. Senator, James Inhofe. And it isn't another "crazy Inhofe" story. This one is a "nasty Inhofe" story. I mean everyone I've ever met from Oklahoma has been polite and courteous; so this one kind of surprised me.

While Susan was mayor of Tulsa her daughter Emily's 8th grade class went on a school trip to Washington, DC. The school had arranged for the kids to meet a member of the Oklahoma congressional delegation. It turned out to be Senator Inhofe. When he came forward to address them he asked if Emily Savage could raise her hand. Nervously, she did.

"Emily's mother is the mayor of Tulsa," the senator told her classmates. "I try to work with her and do what's right for the people of Tulsa but Emily's mother believes in killing babies."

When Emily got home and told her parents what happened they thought she must have misunderstood Inhofe. Susan called the teacher who had chaperoned the trip and was aghast to learn that Emily didn't misunderstand anything. She called Inhofe and told him that if he ever came near her daughter again or said anything to her she would seek a restraining order in court. Which is exactly what the long-suffering folks in Oklahoma should do in November.

I signed off on the budget for this BNL video so I'll take it on myself to dedicate it to Senator James Inhofe in the hopes that he'll learned some manners and common decency and comes to understand that child abuse is not something we expect from our elected representatives:

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Guitar photos