Howie Klein has been doing a weekly segment on my show for more than a dozen years now. He and I first met some 30+ years ago on Los Angeles where I was doing (really great) music radio and he was President of Reprise Records.
When Howie exited the music biz, he turned his energies toward getting real progressives elected to office. He began blogging at DownWithTyranny.com.
In 2006, Howie joined forces with Heather “Digby” Parton of Digby’s Hullabaloo and John Amato of Crooks and Liars.
They created the Blue America PAC, enlisting the help of Jacquie Propps (@Jacqrat) to help with the organizational aspects of running a PAC. Jaquie wrote “Fighting The Right Wing Since 2006” for the Blue America blog to reacquaint the blogosphere with Blue America, now in its 18th year.
We agreed that with the most consequential election season of our lives underway, this would be a good time to get some of the players together to recognize the work they do and shine a spotlight on this year’s group of Blue America endorsed candidates.
So, joining Howie and me today — Digby, of course. And Tom Maxwell. Huh? Tom Maxwell is a musician, best known as guitarist and singer of Squirrel Nut Zippers.
In 2006, Tom contributed a song, “Have You Had Enough?” –sung by Rickie Lee Jones – to one of the first Blue America campaigns, that one to oust the predatory Republican Speaker of the House Denny Hastert.
It was a success and the campaign was a hit. And the rest, as they say, is history! They’ll all join in at around the 30 minute mark.
But we’ll start with some news and memories spurred by the news that OJ Simpson has died. Open the floodgates….
