Oakland Focus News | Oakland News Online Blog

Once upon a time in America, young people, workers, and fighters for social justice coined a phrase, “speak truth to power”. Most of us have settled for the media’s insistence that we now “speak only power to truth” or no truth at all. From the so-called energy crisis which was a Dick Cheney-Enron-induced cataclysm from which California has yet to recover, to the so-called mortgage meltdown, we have accepted lies and bullshit in place of research and another 60’s throwback, telling it like it is. Since those tumultuous days (lots of young people look back nostalgically to that time. Fear not, they are returning but with facebook, vimeo and all the repression, violence and STDs of that period) right wing think tanks have spent lots of their largess redefining the terms of our society and dictating them to the 90% of us who don’t control the wealth of our corporatocracy. These think tanks have developed the terms which define and then limit the debate to fighting a rear-actio...

Today, it was announced that Rush Limbaugh signed a %400 million contract with Clear Channel. In this video , I explain that Rush's success came at a price. Michelle Sixta is a friend of mine and at one point lived on Madison, across Lake Merritt from me in Oakland, Ca. Michelle was a lot of fun. She and I would go on something called the "Back Yard Bird Watch" and generally had a good time, then lost touch after a few years. She was also -- prior to our meeting -- married to Rush as his second wife. She didn't talk about him much at all, but when she did, she explained that at first their marriage was fine, but as the years went on, Rush was more into himself than into her. He'd rather read a book than have sex. I hope she's going to get part of that $400 Million. Meanwhile, Rush has taken aim at Senator Barack Obama's run for president by employing his call screener James Gould as "Bo Snerdley" the official Obama criticizer. In my view, pick...