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The Right Hook, a weekly segment which covers the machinations of the right wing, from the Republican Party to the Tea Party Patriots, and beyond. By Chris Bennett

The Fukushima Nuclear Reactor in Japan is in the midst of a partial meltdown. Traces of radioactivity have even reached as far as the Northeastern U.S. American right-wing media have responded by attacking the energy industry. Not the nuclear energy industry, but the renewable energy industry. Fox & Friends correspondent William LaJeunesse recently said “You know, what’s important about nuclear, like coal, it provides . . . base-load power. It’s reliable, it’s constant, it’s immediate and it cannot be replaced by wind and solar, which are subject to the weather.” Well that’s a strange thing to say …

“A community is democratic only when the humblest and weakest person can enjoy the highest civil, economic, and social rights that the biggest and most powerful possess.”– A. Philip Randolph

By Henry Chu, Los Angeles Times

Reporting from London— With the U.S. handing off responsibility for military action in Libya, scores of diplomats and international officials gathered in London to start plotting the country’s future and declared their resolve to maintain pressure on Moammar Kadafi until he stops attacking his own people.

But there were no Libyans included in the blue-ribbon guest list Tuesday. Nor was there a consensus among NATO countries taking command of the military action on its ultimate goal, or whether it would be enough for Kadafi to flee to another country rather than face prosecution.

A few representatives of the rebels fighting Kadafi hovered on the fringes of the high-level talks. However, their absence from the meetings was a reflection of just how politically delicate the crisis in Libya remains, and how much its outcome could depend on outside factors.

The conference was an attempt to forge greater unity of …

We’ll get an update on European politics with author Steven Hill, just days after Londoners organized an historic march against budget cuts, Germany’s Green Party made big gains due to strong anti-nuclear sentiment, and France’s right wing party surged in popularity. And, locally, the Bus Riders Union will dissect MTA’s cuts in services. Plus, Walmart could be faced with the largest class-action lawsuit in U.S. history on sex discrimination against women employees. And this week’s edition of the Right Hook.

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The path to the June 7th special election in California proposed by Governor Jerry Brown has become less clear following a list of 53 Republican policy demands delivered to the Democratic controlled State Legislature. Included in the Republican demands were limiting teacher tenure and reconfiguring the current public employee pension system in order to place more of the financial risk on the recipients through a traditional 401(k) system. Gov. Brown was hoping for Republican support for his plan to allow Californians to vote on a $9.3 billion tax referendum in the form of extensions to sales, income, and vehicle-tax increases set to expire at the end of June. The five-year extension is an essential aspect to the governor’s plan for closing the $15 billion budget gap; without the extension he has …

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A bill introduced into the Ohio legislature earlier this month by Republican Representative Bob Mecklenborg would be the most extreme voter ID law in the country. Mecklenborg introduced the “Ohio Fair and Secure Elections Act” saying it was meant to “secure the integrity of the electoral process.” As the bill is currently written, on election day, Ohio voters will be required to present either a valid drivers’ license from Ohio, an Ohio state ID card, a military ID card, or a U.S. passport. The basis of this law, and other previous efforts around the nation, is the risk of voter fraud. However, instances of voter fraud are so negligible that one state-wide survey cites a rate of 4 fraudulent votes cast out of over 9 million in 2002 and 2004 – a …

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The Arab world has been under a spotlight. Popular uprisings have swept the region and captivated international attention since early February. In the U.S. earlier this month Congressman Peter King held controversial congressional hearings to investigate the “radicalization” of American Muslims. Today Illinois Senator Dick Durbin will counter with a congressional hearing on Anti-Muslim bigotry. In the midst of this historic period marked by bloody struggle, hard-won victories abroad, and raucous, sometimes violent debate in the U.S. about a people and a religion, three Arabs are issuing a call – for laughter. Dean Obeidallah, Maysoon Zayid, and Aron Kader are currently on a national tour with their comedy show, Arabs Gone Wild. In each city the trio is joined by local talent. They are comedians who happen to be …

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The Activist Beat with Rose Aguilar, host of Your Call on KALW in San Francisco is a weekly roundup of progressive activism that the mainstream media ignores, undercovers, or misrepresents.

Citizens across the country are taking to the streets to speak out against massive budget cuts affecting everything from health care centers for seniors to education.

On Saturday, an estimated 20,000 nurses, truckers, teachers, and other union members marched through downtown Los Angeles to support workers in Wisconsin and other states where they are under attack. Mahlon Mitchell, president of the Professional Fire Fighters of Wisconsin, told the crowd that “we need to reclaim our moral outrage because we are in the battle of a lifetime.” According to the AFL-CIO, it was the largest action by Los Angeles workers in recent history.

Over …

In the midst of this historic period in the Arab world marked by bloody struggle, hard-won victories abroad, and raucous, sometimes violent debate in the U.S. about a people and a religion, three Arabs are issuing a call – for laughter. Dean Obeidallah, Maysoon Zayid, and Aron Kader are currently on a national tour with their comedy show, Arabs Gone Wild. In each city the trio is joined by local talent. They are comedians who happen to be Arab, and Arabs who happen to be very funny on topics ranging from politics to pop culture, to dating-while-Arab. Our listeners in San Diego can catch Arabs Gone Wild at the Comedy Store on Thursday, March 31st, and then the tour makes a stop at the Los Angeles Comedy Store, on Friday April 1st.

Dean Obeidallah, in addition to being a stand-up comic, is the co-creator …

“Comedy, we may say, is society protecting itself – with a smile.” — J. B. Priestley