Stephen King's Maine radio station will "burn some feet"

Outstanding news:

BANGOR, Maine — Horror novelist and Bangor radio station owner Stephen King announced on Tuesday a new talk radio show featuring a former vice presidential candidate and a former Maine secretary of state’s communications director.

“We wanted to shake things up a little bit in the market,” King said.

King, the owner of Zone Radio Corp, said WZON 103.1 FM and 620 AM will launch “The Pulse Morning Show” on Sept. 12. The show will air 6-10 a.m. on weekdays and online at www.zoneradio.com. The station also is expanding its news department.

King said he was thrilled his station could grow at a time when others have had to cut staff and decrease the amount of programming and production.

Former journalist, Bangor Daily News columnist, and gubernatorial candidate Pat LaMarche will be joined on the show by Don Cookson, a former reporter and communications director under Secretary of State Matt Dunlap.

LaMarche was also the Green Party's vice-presidential candidate, with Ralph Nader at the top, in 2004.

LaMarche ... said the show would target politicians and public officials in Augusta and Washington, D.C., who push around Maine residents, especially those struggling with the welfare system.

“Nothing is more fun than standing up to a bully,” LaMarche said. “There’s an awful lot of bullying going on out there right now.”

What's great about this news -- besides King being a "job creator", that is -- is that the progressive media infrastructure continues to flourish, even at the local level.

Keith Olbermann and the new head of Current TV will be fleshing out the news division and filling the network with additional programming over the next year. Cenk Uygur left MSNBC and went back to his one-million-views-a-day online TV show "The Young Turks", and was replaced by the provocative Al Sharpton there permanently this week. Chris Hayes of The Nation has also picked up a weekend gig at MSNBC. The progressive blogosphere, which has always had the upper hand nationally and in Texas -- and even here in Houston -- is blossoming.

“We’d like to burn some feet once in a while — make some people a little bit angry,” King said. “There are some people who deserve to be taken to the woodshed from time to time.”

Yes, liberals who fight back simply enrage the Right even more. Judging solely from the responses I get here -- most of which, sadly, are so obnoxious that they never get published -- the pushback we perform has the same result.

Heh.

Dick's Signs

This Dick is going to get what he wants; a lot of free publicity. First, Greg:

Houston City Council candidate Eric Dick gets busted for his illegally-placed signs. Gotta love the “overzealous volunteer” excuse. If you ever see an overzealous volunteer of his, let me know. And if you see any more of his 20-foot high yard signs, feel free to submit them to the Empty Lot Primary. Here’s the collection of 30 Eric Dick signs posted around town posted there already, some illegally placed on utility poles and some merely posted on empty lots reflecting not one bit of human endorsement (save for the gaggle of six signs placed on a relative’s property). 

And Doug Miller, one of the best in the business:



Not cool, indeed. After I saw several of these in my neighborhood, I called Centerpoint Energy to ask about their policy. Here that is.

Let's review: an attorney who claims full knowledge of the city ordinance regarding campaign signs refuses to take responsibility for "overzealous volunteers" who have placed hundreds of his campaign signs so high off the ground that it will require a bucket truck to remove them.

Let's send a message: don't vote for this guy. Don't we have enough dicks on city council as it is?

Funeral held for Good Jobs outside Culberson's Houston office

Via Marie Diamond at Think Progress:

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Staffers at the Houston office of GOP Rep. John Culberson (R) must have gotten quite a surprise on Thursday when they looked outside to see more than 100 constituents gathered for a funeral. But this wasn’t a typical funeral — these Texans were gathered to mourn the loss of good, high-wage jobs in their state.

Mourners circled around a mock casket for “Good Jobs,” and Taps played in the background while Rev. Louis Dorsey eulogized. “I used to be middle class!” One woman cried out during the ceremony. Constituents also chanted “Hey, hey, what do you say? How many jobs have you killed today?”

DORSEY: My brothers and my sisters, we are assembled here today to mourn the passing of Good Jobs in Texas. Jobs died because of a steady influx of minimum wage jobs, tax breaks for corporations and the super-rich, and the policies of politicians like Rep. John Culberson.

Watch it:



Dorsey continued: “Good Jobs were much loved and appreciated by all here today. This loss is tragic because it is the result of reckless greed on Wall Street and in Congress. While the grief we endure for the loss of Good Jobs is great, we must not let this tragedy continue to happen.” A longer version of the video is available here.

The rally was organized by Good Jobs = Great Houston, and was intended to illustrate “how politicians like Culberson are deliberately pursuing policies that are killing jobs across Texas.” The constituents at Culberson’s office included unemployed workers who want the congressman to start prioritizing their needs over corporate balance sheets.

According to the organization, they seek to hold Culberson accountable “for voting for legislation that could kill 1.8 million jobs nationwide and over 200,000 in Texas.” Texas is currently tied with Mississippi for the highest percentage of minimum wage jobs in the nation, while “the median hourly earnings for all Texas workers was $11.20 per hour in 2010, compared to the national median of $12.50 per hour.”

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John Cumbersome is such a malodorous sack of excrement that, should he have noticed this protest at all, probably reacted first with the usual contempt he displays for his constituents and then with surprise that he had any black ones in his district. The one good thing I can say about the man is that at least he's not barnstorming Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina bragging about all the minimum wage jobs he's created.

I met the candidate last night that plans to challenge Culberson next year, and she is a real firecracker. Thank goodness he won't get another free pass.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance reminds you that the Texas Democratic Women of Harris County are sponsoring a Blogger's Panel, featuring several Houston members tonight, as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff has one piece of advice for President Obama regarding Rick Perry's presidential ambitions.

The already-existing field of Republican presidential candidates -- along with former Bush administration officials and even the current occupants of the White House -- reacted to Rick Perry's entry into the race, and Letters from Texas reacted to their reaction. The conclusion: they're all screwing this up.

Bay Area Houston says that fact-checking Rick Perry is not for the ignorant.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is amazed that the always-crazy Congressman Peter King wants Rick Perry to tone it down. No doubt that today's republican is looking to nominate the mayor of crazy town.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson posts on the horror that often is the Williamson County justice and DA John Bradley. A man has spent 24 years in jail for a crime he did not commit -- truly a tragic story.

From Iowa corn dog porn, to "gaps" in the theory of evolution, to passive-aggressive assaults on Ben Bernanke and from Karl Rove, Rick Perry had a no good, very bad first week on the national stage. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs documents the governor's gaffes, faux pas and self-administered gunshots to both cowboy-booted feet.

This week on Left of College Station Teddy continues the "Rick Perry's Texas" series by looking at innocent executions, college denied, child poverty, and even a chart showing that, despite the governor's belief in the 'free market', Keynes has come to Texas.

Neil at Texas Liberal said this week that while circumstance matters, it is best not to let others construct your reality.