Saturday, May 31, 2003

Mojowire for 5/31
ED NOTE:
MUSIC WILL BE -Intro/Hendrix, Star Spangled Banner
S9/ Eat Static, Crash and Burn
Exeunt/WildChild, Renegade Master



J. Good morning, and welcome to The Mojowire... I’m Mojo...

S. And I’m Sean, it’s Saturday, May 31, and here’s the news for the week gone-by...

J. Brought to you by Mojohaus-fine journalism, afflicting the comfortable since 1988 — Now headlines, from Mojohaus:

S. First this morning, from the We-Hate-Being Right-All-The-Time Department, the Coalition of the Willingly Bought seems to continue having trouble finding the dreaded Weapons of Mass Destruction, leading some in military circles to ask “Dude, where’s my WMD?”

J. Next, from the We-Told-You-So desk, it would appear that with the outbreak of rampant freedom and liberty in Iraq, the untidiness is just all too much for our vaunted fighting forces to deal with. The solution? An even bigger troop buildup in Iraq. That’s sure to have the locals singing our praises; foreshadowing Iranian adventurism, perhaps?

S. This week, Dr. Strychnine brings us further approbations of doom regarding his previous warnings on the behavior of some of our brave American warriors, who have - as they say - gone off the reservation. Massacres, tortures and the like are being reported, and the good Doctor lays down the groove of what happens when the responsible parties are not held to account.

J. Then this from the Hey-This-Sounds-Familiar bureau: with the dust settling from the tax cut cluster-fraggle, it would appear that the Emperor’s budget priorities have played out like the Dickensonian nightmare we thought they would -- tax cuts for corporate owned SUVs, no tax cuts for working poor with children.

S. Finally this morning, we give our weekly update on the Presidential Primary season. This week: The Federal Election Commission and John Ashcroft start shilling for the Bush reelection machine by going after North Carolina Sen. John Edwards -- Democrats threaten wholesale layoffs of African-American staffers in order to resemble GOP -- and finally Dennis Kucinich courts the freak vote with promises of legalized medical pot.

So stand by to stand by, while we get ready to kick this pig...




J.It’s been about two weeks since the department of repetitive repetition here at the Mojowire brought you the news that not a scrap of nerve gas, not an ounce of fissile material, not a single weaponized warrior bacteria is being found in the Iraqi desert. The only thing the soldiers have found are some old mobile homes they claim might have been once used for biowar research, but don’t look like they could have even housed a San Bernardino meth lab.

And now this wretched hangover of truth is sinking into the ranks of generals and other professional fighting men who are now questioning why all their prewar doctrine from the oracles of the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency were warning them they would be swimming to Bagdad through a poisonous soup of VX gas and anthrax, while dodging tactical nuk-u-lear weapons falling in sheets as thick as lead.

This has apparently caused a “come to Jesus” moment for the leader of the First Marine Expeditionary Force, Lt. Gen. James Conway who complained bitterly Thursday about his guys schlepping all that protective gear across the hot desert, living in constant fear of WMD attack only to waltz right into the Red Zone with nary an unconventional shot being fired.

From the Washington Post: Speaking in a teleconference call from Baghdad to reporters in Washington, Conway said he "truly thought," based on intelligence he had been given before the war, that chemical weapons had been distributed to Iraqi Republican Guard units whose commanders had authority to fire them. "It was a surprise to me then, it remains a surprise to me now, that we have not uncovered weapons..." he said.

S. It wouldn’t be nearly as egregious as it is, were it not for some senior administration officials like Vice President “Dick,” May I call you “Dick” Mr. Vice President, Cheney, and their minions in the neocon opinion pages to start whining that Weapons of Mass Destruction really were not the war’s raison d’etre after all... It was almost surreal watching the Veep say with a straight face that “I can’t recall anyone in this administration saying that we would find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.”

That was a lie that could only be told by someone with no sense of reckoning or a belief in the physicial reality of god or judgment in the hereafter. The fact that his nose didn’t rocket out of the end of his grill like a 12 year old boy getting his first peak at a Penthouse, has dire theological implications.

But word around the campfire inside CIA is that the agency’s ombudsman has received three complaints of external pressure to politicize the final work product of the agency and to spin it in favor of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction

The complaints specifically state that administration policy wags were applying pressure as late as early 2002 for analysts to come to the polically correct conclusions about Iraqi weapons. This has spurred CIA Director George Tenet to make a rare public comment, saying that the “integrity of our process was maintained throughout...we call it like we see it.”

He seemed to be implying that he had no control over what happened to intel assessments once they left the vaunted halls of Langley, and were swallowed up by the consensus manufacturing appartchik of both the right wing punditocracy and the and the NSC’s gang of vicious thugs bunkered down in Deep 13 at the White House.

It remains to be seen, now that the war has been revealed for the bald-faced lie that it was, whether this Administration will be held accountable, or if they will take responsibility for the young American and Iraqi lives needlessly wasted. Or will they instread run and hide like the punks and sissies we believe them to be...


J. And while we’re on the subject of Things-We-Already-Knew, it would appear that yet again, the masterful military mind of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has been shown to be nothing more than a rehashed Tom Clancy Novel, and not even a cool Jack Ryan novel, but one of those surreal “Rainbow 6” Unconventional Forces manly-man novels.

It would appear that Rummy’s intial plan to use a super secret team of crack operative superheroes, who would fly down in their secret space plane, shoot lasers out of their eyes, and use their super-strong-hong-kong-kung-fu-karate-chop action to mete out justice to the dreaded Dr. Hussein and his gang, was alas, formulated without reckoning on how our masked men would administrate the country afterwards.

Okay...so much for the dispassionate sarcasm, truth time-- Rummy’s gang has been proven wrong on nearly every prewar assumption, especially the number of forces it would take on the ground to deal with what many saw as a guaranteed guerilla campaign against American occupation the moment we declared victory over the devil-worshipping Ba’athists.

Which leaves you with disquieting observation: this foreign policy has no windows and no doors, which leaves you this problem, to find a way out...of course there’s always Nixon’s way out...BWWWAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA....

And while daily protests are growing in anger and size against further American presence in Iraq, we must now start to engage in a massive force buildup just to maintain our position there, and perhaps make good on our sworn oath to the Iraqi people to help them rebuild their country.

Yeah...the locals should just love this, the site of massive C-5 and C-141 cargo planes in a non-stop parade into L. Paul Bremmer International Airport, ferrying a non-stop convoy of American troops and gear into the country. Yeah, they should love that, because you know, we’re already so well liked there, especially among the Shiite population who, by the way, have never believed a single word the Bush Administration has ever uttered on war in Iraq.

S. We suggest you start your office pools now to guess when the President’s flying monkies at the Pentagon are forced to admit that a large force of American troops will be required to keep order and, to engage in the kind of nation building they cracked all over during their campaign, and have reneged on in Afghanistan.

Of course, from our special Conspiracy editors, there are those saying that disorder may be either exaggerated or encouraged by a smaller-than-needed-force. Either way it would grant a nominal justification for a massive troop increase, just in time to strike eastward across the border and into ...wait for it...Iran. For those keeping score at home, it would appear that Iran may be the next host of the Rummy World Tour 2003.

This is becoming more plausible, especially since we are now officially pimping Iran’s own home grown terrorist organization, the People’s Muhajadeen, once a U.S. blacklisted terror organization, now a group of brave freedom fighters, ready to go to bat for their new paymasters.

As a special aside, we here at the Mojowire would like to give a shoutout to those smug punks at Fox News who have been reporting and deciding that every lie spat out by DICK Cheney and Rummy is the word of the Firey Wrathful Space God of the Old Testement. Just say the words guys, one at time, WE WERE WRONG!!!!

And now the music is telling me that we have an incoming transmission from the redoubtable Dr. S9…

J. That’s right. It is time once again for our regular contributor Dr. Strychnine, reporting from his super-secret, ultra-dope, mega-cool, extra-jiggy, Mojohaus spy satellite of love high in geosynchronous orbit above Bagdad by the Bay…take it away S9…


S9 All hands brace for impact! The flight crew has initiated emergency protocols, and the following message may *not* be appropriate for all audiences. Listeners are advised to take psychological defensive measures. This will not be a fuzzy-bunnies-and-rainbows message.

A couple weeks ago, a human rights lawyer in Belgium named Jan Fermon filed a lawsuit in that country against a collection of high-profile Americans, including the head of the U.S. Army Central Command, Gen. Tommy Franks, alleging war crimes in Iraq. It was one of those ha-ha only serious moments in world events-- nobody was seriously expecting General Franks to show up in a Belgian court ready to deny everything and demand proof, but until the Belgians threw the case over the wall to the American D.O.J. a few days later, the General was a wanted man.

While the case against Tommy Franks is pretty thin-- it relies on the idea that ordering the use of cluster munitions in Iraq was a violation of the Geneva accords-- there are a lot of reasons for patriotic Americans to think about placing some conditions on the morality of our national Support Our Troops doctrine.

Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell and George Bush aren't going to be brought before military tribunals anytime soon, but there are some other ongoing investigations into the actions of players further down in the ranks that Americans ought to care about.

Consider, for example, the story of Marine Gunnery Sergeant Gus Covarrubias, who is under investigation for allegedly executing Iraqi prisoners after a battle in Baghdad on April 8. Apparently, the sergeant bragged about his two cold-blooded murders to a reporter from his hometown newspaper in Las Vegas, NV, and now the Navy is investigating whether he was telling the truth. Of course, if Gunny Covarrubias isn't charged or he beats the rap, then he hopes to join the Las Vegas PD, where he will no doubt continue building his career in the penal sciences begun in Baghdad.

And there are other stories of similar heroism coming out of Iraq. Embedded journalists report witnessing U.S. troops opening fire on unarmed protest marchers in Fallouja on more than one occasion, and there are multiple stories about atrocities committed at military checkpoints in the ongoing siege of Baghdad.

British troops in southern Iraq are on record saying that they find the heavy-handed response of the Americans toward Iraqi civilians to be shocking to the conscience. That ought to be a red flag right there... when the Royal Irish Guard, the guys who cut their teeth pacifying the Irish in Belfast and Derry, are telling you to ease down on the aboes, it might be time to switch to decaf.

And it isn't just Iraq where Americans have been figuring prominently in tales of anti-heroism. The story of the Shebergan massacre in Northern Afghanistan continues to make the rounds. A new documentary film by Jamie Doran is repeating the often heard story of U.S. special forces facilitating the organized massacre of prisoners who surrendered to Gen. Rashid Dostum at the siege of Konduz. Witnesses say that Americans directed thousands of the survivors of the brutal
containerization process in the transit to Shebergan away into the desert and watched impassively as Dostum's forces shot them and buried the bodies. At least-- that's what the witnesses are saying while they yet live. Two of them have died since the film started making the rounds of Europe and Asia.

But the most alarming development continues to be the homicides at the CIA interrogation center for enemy combatants at the Bagram air base in southern Afghanistan. Two men were apparently killed during their interrogation, and a criminal investigation has been underway for six months.

Now let's get one thing straight. I am not running heinous smack against the U.S. military to disparage the honor of our glorious fighting men and women, our veterans or the institutions of our armed forces. I am simply trying to point out some inconvenient reports that should remind us all that idolizing our military can be dangerous.

While it would be nice to believe that none of these stories have even a shred of truth to them, the fact is they are completely consistent with stories of American misconduct in previous wars going back two centuries. If we willfully pretend that nobody in the military today could possibly be guilty of crimes like these, then we are effectively providing a safe environment for the worst kinds of monsters to live free from accountability for their atrocities. And that's just un-American.

If they aren't held up to a reasonable standard of justice for their conduct on the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan, then how can we expect them to be held to a reasonable standard of justice for their conduct when they leave the military and go to work as counter-terrorism experts at the Department of Homeland Security? At what point does it no longer matter how shocking to the conscience the reported behavior may be, there are just some people-- by the virtue of who they are-- that are above all reproach under the law?

Put simply: do we really honor those who serve our country in the military by letting the occasional monster in the ranks get away unpunished for committing atrocious crimes? If the answer 'Hell No!' doesn't immediately spring to mind, then don't be surprised when I call you out as the Nazi you are. Strychnine *out*


J. And at the risk of inciting a riot on the Mojowire Copydesk, we are trotting out yet another reset: The Tax Cut. In a move that would have shocked a Charles Dickens villain, the adminsitration’s pimps in the House and Senate have passed a tax bill that could have been written by the master of the Dystopian Urban Nightmare himself.

Let’s start with the basics...If you own a company and feel you just don’t cut it with the country club gang in their Jaguar XJs and BMW Z3s, well, go ahead and buy that Cadillac Escalade Land Dominator. You can now write off your Corporate owned SUV on your taxes. But are your coporate and personal taxes a still too high. That’s okay, just take your phat stacks off shore to any Post Office Etc. PO Box in Bermuda and never have to pay an American soldier’s salary ever again.

However, if you’re a family making between $10,500 to $26,600 per year or need Medicare in a rural setting, then back into the salt mines with ye. You have a nation to support. You got no tax breaks in this package. Remember, this was not about payroll taxes, you know that hefty amount taken out of your bi-weekly check for FICA and Social Security. This was an income tax break, which is mostly what the top five percent of the richest people in America pay.

Those hosed by this tax beatdown were the Wall Street Journal’s Lucky Duckies, the working poor, who according to the drug addled cabal at the Journal’s editorial board, don’t shoulder near enough of the nation’s tax burden. And remember, this is the same tax bracket of the majority of our fighting men and women in uniform. They can catch bullets for this gang of dyspeptic vultures, but they can’t get a little tax cut love? How sick is that! Just what color ribbon do we need to be tying around old oak trees to show our solidarity with servicemembers who could qualify for food stamps for Crissakes...

S. And without the gimmicks and fakey “sunset provisions,” this thing actually buys us an $800 billion tax cut with a $350 billion paint job. This is the tax cut you get when Jar Jar Binks is you Senator. You can almost see the Emperor’s lips moving when he speaks.

Remember this every time the GOP starts busting on the precious few Democrats who bring this stuff up, for engaging in Class Warfare, by trying to stir up the natives against their rightful masters. But this bill is nothing but a war on the working poor in this country.

A war on every person who puts on a hardhat, or an apron or a janitor’s uniform. An unremitting financial war of contempt on every person who works for regular wages and tries to make ends meet at the end of each month.

The Bush people were nominally elected by first telling these people that the Clinton Adminsitration had done them wrong, and that he was there to save them from the economic depridations of high national productivity and low unemployment.

But as far as the Bush people are concerned, the working poor and middle class of this country are nothing more than cattle to herded into the food UFOs and trucked to Beta Reticuli to be ground into Soylent Green Alien Chow Burgers, served at the White House as Long Pork to foreign dignitaries who will swear that it tastes just like chicken except for the indisguisable stench of despair.

No, no... that’s just the secret ingredient...


J. First this week in our Presidential Round Up, the American Conservative Union has filed suit with the Federal Election Commission over questionable contributions made to North Carolina Sen. John Edwards by an Arkansas law firm. And now John Ascroft and the Untouchables are on the case... The only problem is that the story died a quick death in the media after the Edwards camp immediately returned the contribution after it was pointed out that it might be in violation of federal law.

But the ACU and their fearless warriors of the Republic, have decided that the evildoer must still be brought to justice. And we, gentle listners, are supposed to believe that this *not* being driven by Karl Rove and the Bush reelection machine, blasmphemously chugging away in a Northern Virginia basement somewhere, waiting to be unleashed like a Stephen King plot device designed to make us all examine our own inherent evil.

No no, this is simply a group of dedicated freedom fighters who will never rest until the nation is safe from Democracy. Memo to RNC operatives... when getting others to do your bidding, it’s better if they didn’t have the glaze-eyed prophets of the carribean look. We start looking for the strings.

S. Next, in an attempt to make the Democratic party look more like the GOP and cause further self-destruction of the belt-way gang at the party’s helm, word leaked out that there were going to be wholsale layoffs of African-American staffers.

This caused many party faithful, including the always incindiary Donna Brazile, to spin out publicly. “I'm just outraged," Brazile had told the Associated Press on Wednesday. "They started reading me the names and I said, 'Oh, oh -- they're all black.' I went through the roof."

From the Washington Post, DNC communications strategist Jim Mulhall said yesterday that no decisions on who might be dismissed and when. He called the number of staffers cited in the reports "inaccurate," but declined to estimate how many might lose their jobs or when the party might make its decisions. "It's a work in progress," he said.

The party has steadily cut its staffing since last year, both in reaction to the new rules on "soft money" and in preparation for next year's election. The party expects to be vastly outspent by the Republicans. Memo to the DNC...the reason you are being outspent by Republicans is *not* because you don’t act enough like them.

J. Next, Pot smokers everywhere, cast a bleary eye and all 2.5 seconds of their short-term memory and attention spans at Ohio Sen. Dennis Kucinich who promised that one of his first acts as President would be to legalize medical marijuana.

So...the freak vote is back. I think this calls for a national movement to bring Hunter Thompson out of political retirement. The time is right that he and the posse ride down from the Eastern Slope of the rockies to dispense a little indiscriminate justice on the straights...

But Kucinich? This was somewhat unsuspected. We had generally tagged him as yet another soft-headed establishment guy, certainly not the Pot-Vote, freak constituent guy. But there it is...peace, love and medicinal ganja for all in the Kucinich-nation.

Now if he can only get the stoners to detach from the Nixon-head bongs long enough to stumble down to the polls to vote...

J. So our patriotic thought for the day: Complaining about the rich-poor gap in American means the Terrorists win... or as John Ashcroft says... “It ain’t terror if it’s made in the USA”



S. And that’s all for this week, tune in again soon for another exciting installment, unless, of course, we are declared enemies of the state.

J. This has been the Mojowire, brought to you by Mojohaus...Mojohaus-fine journalism, afflicting the comfortable since 1988, and produced by our super funky fly producer Mike Payne and the Darkling Eclectica, here on KUCI, 88.9...

Saturday, May 17, 2003

Mojowire for 5/17
ED NOTE:
MUSIC WILL BE -Intro/Hendrix, Star Spangled Banner
S9/ Eat Static, Crash and Burn
Exeunt/WildChild, Renegade Master



J. Good morning, and welcome to The Mojowire... I’m Mojo...

S. And I’m Sean, it’s Saturday, May 17, and here’s the news for the week gone-by...

J. Brought to you by Mojohaus-fine journalism, afflicting the comfortable since 1988 — Now headlines, from Mojohaus:

S. First this week, now that terror of Saddam Hussein is gone, U.S. military officials have been able to talk to Iraqi scientists about nuclear, chemical and bio weapons without fear of repraisal. And the result? The fraud of the Bush Administration’s claims of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction is starting to come into focus.

J. Pardon us for asking an impolitic question -- but while Al Qaeda was blowing up westerners in Saudi Arabia, the Republican Party was busy using the Homeland Security and anti-terror machinery of government to chase down recalcitrant Democrats in Texas, so remind us... Homeland Security was designed to protect who from what again?.

S. And on the subject of Texas Democrats, how funny was that; Democrats sneaking out of the state on a midnight bus, thwarting the small-minded power grab of Tom Delay, they get major props. And while it will be tough, the Mojowire will attempt to refrain from making the obvious comparisons of Delay to Bela Lugosi in the Phantom Creep serials.

S9. This week, Dr. Strychnine will bring us the bad news about the new wave of media consolidation about to take place, under the asupices of the FCC. Or as the Doc likes to say, 57 channels and nothing on...except for government scrubbed and approved FoxNews...

J. Next, we look at how badly the United States is blowing the job of reconstruction and how more soldiers and Marines may be coming home in boxes if the Bush adminsitration doesn’t get its act together on putting Iraq back into one piece. So far the tentative half-steps and missteps have not been encouraging, and even the war’s supporters are starting to notice.

S. Finally this morning, we give our weekly update on the Presidential Primary season. This week: Dubya files for reelection, Dean, Gephardt and Kerry come out with health plans and a secret cabal within the Democratic Party claims that adequate health care, commitment to peace and international rule of law are not core Demorcratic values.

So Stay tuned, while we get ready to light this candle...




J. In the roughly three weeks since combat operatons ceased in Iraq, it has become apparent even to the most brain addled, flag waving, Ditto head that the claims by the President, about WMD’s is starting to look a bit thin.

His claim that Iraq was filled to bursting with vats of bio-toxins, reservoirs of VX coctails, and enough Weapons Grade nuclear material to glass the continental Untied States is starting to look like the greatest swindle since Enron pimped Broadband in every pot.

Not even a drop of VX Gas or Anthrax has been recovered from Iraq since U.S. forces have taken control there, and even us optimists at the Mojowire are wondering about the lack. of outrage that the Administration has perpettrated an enormous fraud.

While it is certianly nothing new in the annals of Beltway Politics to creatively intepret the threats posed by foreing powers, it’s something quite new to assert that you possess secret knowledge of the threat posed by a foreign nation, and then immediately pretend like these claims never passed your lips.

And one of the more unsavory elements of this little episode were the repeated assertions of United Nations weapons inspectors with TeamBlix that the CIA’s boys down in craft services were losing their touch when it came to fabricating evidence. Dr. Mohammed ElBaradei proclaimed the Powell evidence of an Iraqi Nuclear Program as a rank forgery. And while we were being shown this “the-dog-ate-my-homework” of an excuse for evidence, the response to TeamBlix’s jaundiced skepticism was “well, just you wait till we get there, we’ll show you...”

S.Well, were there, but apparently there was no pot of radioactive or toxic gold at the end of the Ba’ath Party rainbow...

One of the Executive Branch’s most serious responosiblites is to take the intelligence provided by the national secuiryt apparatus and then make honest decisions regarding the nations safety. It seems quite apparent that this Administration has disgraced that responsiblity by distoring what they knew about Iraq’s WMD capabilities to advance their own private agenda, and then are trying to jedi mind trick the American Public that this threat that pounded so hysterically is nothing to concern themselves about.

If nothing is found in Iraq that proves the Administrations claims, we can only hope the American public can remember this when they cast thier ballots in 04.


J. While, we haven’t stopped Al Qaeda from bombing and killing Americans. So what was all this Homeland Security apparatus for then? Well, according to Texas Rep. Tom Delay, it’s for tracking his political enemies.

The House Majority Leader called in assets of the Homeland Security Department last week when a group of Democrats spiked Republican gerrymandering plans in Texas, by escaping to Oklahoma in the middle of the night on chartered buses, denying the state legislature a legal quorum.

So let me get this straight, we are not any safer from terrorist attack, but the Republicans in power are using anti-terror infrastructure to harrass and track political enemies.

Yeah...we’re going to say it. WE TOLD YOU SO!

But the question remains, was the Patriot Act ever designed to answer the actual threat posed by terror organizations?

It's one thing to ask for temporary Emergency powers to meet a threat, it's quite another to submit an immense and fundamental change in Federal Law enforcement and Intelligence practices where most Legislators never read the bill and there is virtually no public debate about the many changes.

The Act has given the Executive Branch something the Framers feared the most, The authority to arrest and hold incommunicado indefinitely without any judicial review. The Act empowers the DOJ to decide for themselves when someone is accorded due process or not in some cases.

S. It challenges a fundamental aspect of American values, that the power of the state to deprive you of your liberty cannot be conducted in secret or decide which rights to respect. Restraints on these powers date back to the FREAKIN' MAGNA CARTA IN 1215!!.

Bad news GunHeads, the 2nd amendment will not protect you if the Federales decide one sunny day the NRA is a gang of terrorists. Simply naming them as such gives them the ability to turn your life into one long series of unforutnate misunderstandings with civil authority, ending with them prying your hunting rifle out of your cold dead fingers.

There are changes in the Patriot Act that made sense, the change in wiretap process is a good one. But feel free to enlighten us how the 9/11 hijackers utilized Habeas Corpus to elude detection?

How would the DOJ's authority to secretly obtain their history of library withdrawals have assisted the FBI in capturing them? None of them had a library card to my knowledge, they constructed no bomb or Goldfinger like device. They stole a big gas tank and rammed into a building.

The threat to air travel was documented by the Hart/Rudman report. They wore a groove on the steps to the capital running up there banging on Congress to improve Airport Security and create a Homeland Defense Department (much smaller than the monster we have today).

Their suggestions if implemented could have caught the hijackers in the airport, without creating militant librarians or allowing Felons,..errr, Felons who got off on a technicality like Poindexter to spy on your, uhhh, I mean someone else's Porn habits on the Internet.

What we are trying to suggest to you here, is that George Bush could be a paragon of virtue, and exercise self restraint in the use of these powers. Good for him if he does. But if these powers are made permanent, then you have bargained away your protection from being in the despised political minority in the future.

J. And while we admire the GOP’s faith in everlasting victory, American history is chock full of pendulum swinging. That’s right Mr. and Mrs. Republican Orange County...do you really want to hand over these powers to an administration suspected of whacking Vince Foster and selling Nuke secrets to the Red Menace?

Those charges are complete bollocks, but some swear they are gospel truth. What if some Senator from New York who learned the art of political payback in Arkansas becomes President? Think about it...

Last but not least, you can officially kiss my shiny white Irish Butt with this "If only you liberal woosies knew" rap. Instead of an Academic ruling elite, you want me to defer to a National Security elite, a gang of National Security geeks who possess the secret knowledge to defend me from the insidious Al Queda threat.

Feel free to speak in terms of actual threats and specific measures to meet them, we are willing to listen and support them if you reason with us. It's nice you have the counter insurgency decoder ring, but I don't need that to recognize complete nonsense when I see it, or to asses threats to the Nation and how to meet them.


S. This week, we would like to give props to the Democrats in the state legislature in Texas for one of the most amusing pieces of political theater in many long years...

I mean, how cool is it that when faced with the choice of rolling over and taking a radical redistricting plan that would disenfranchise the poor and minorities as the first step on a extremist reactionary legislative agenda or taking drastic action...they fled the state in the middle of the night on chartered buses.

We have visions of the fall of Saigon, with Democrat National Committee helicopters taking legislators off the roof of the statehouse while Ho Chi Delay surrounds Austin with his forces...

It’s almost mythological sounding...the hunt for the lost Democrats, the last flight of the old Ds... there’s got to be a song in there...

There are vivid pictures of these guys just chillin’ by the pool at the Ardmore, OK Holiday Inn, eating continental breakfast, hainging out with the long haul truckers and hookers in the hot tub and around the pool, relaxing in the lounge with cheap martinis and cocktail snacks listening to -- and perhaps singing -- bad karakoe...

J.But this wouldn’t be nearly as funny if the Speaker of the Legislature, Republican Bill Craddock then decided to get the Texas Rangers to search high and low for these guys, mounting up in their Lone Wolf McQuaid, sqinty eyed Chuck Norris posse to bring em back alive... Even stationing two of these Rangers at a hospital where one of the D’s newborn twins were in intensive care, just in case he showed up there.

And then it became a mission for the Air Force and the Marines, to track them down thanks to Delay, who is the low-rent Machiavelli behind the current Texas state GOP plan. In an outrageous and somewhat frightening abuse of federal law enforcement power, the U.S. House of Represenatives Majority Leader called upon the formidable Homeland Security apparatus to round these guys up.

S. But as far as the people in their districts are concerned, then it’s a damn good thing they did what they did. Texas already leads the nation in several catetgories of degredation of social services. The agenda put forth by the Texas GOP is not promising to improve living conditions.

This is exactly what they pay these guys to do, to defend their districts and constituents at all costs from any attack. This should be the wake up call for Democrats all over the country... the time for action is now, these screwheaded reactionary, crypto-facist thugs can be stopped, but now is the time.

And now the music is telling me that we have an incoming transmission from the redoubtable Dr. S9…

J. That’s right. It is time once again for our regular contributor Dr. Strychnine, reporting from his super-secret, ultra-dope, mega-cool, extra-jiggy, Mojohaus spy satellite of love high in geosynchronous orbit above Bagdad by the Bay…take it away S9…

<52 CHANNELS, NOTHING’S ON>
S9 Greetings, fellow space travelers. On behalf of the ship's crew, I'd like to thank you for remaining calm and staying in your seats as we pass through this little bit of political turbulence. The captain is assuring us that it will only last until the next federal election; after that, it will be a completely smooth ride until we reach our final destination: the United Soviet States of America.

In the meantime, the crew is working hard to stabilize the political atmosphere in the main passenger cabin. In just a little over two weeks, we should have new rules established by the Federal
Communications Commission-- the government body that licenses this radio station to broadcast its programming in Irvine, CA at 88.9 FM, that's what the letters KUCI actually mean: they're the license number-- and those new FCC rules will do a lot to cut down on all that annoying democracy that might be making your trip uncomfortable.

On June 2, two weeks from Monday, the five commissioners of the FCC, three of which were appointed by President Bush-- the chairman is Michael Powell, the son of the current Secretary of State who is famous for having the Powell Doctrine named after him-- the FCC will hold a vote to scrap the old rules that limit the number and type of businesses that can own and/or operate television, newspaper, cable, wireless and Internet services in any given local market. They are
widely expected to vote to adopt new rules-- that have, so far, not been shown to the public-- but everyone expects Michael Powell to give Rupert Murdoch and Michael Eisner everything they could possibly want. (And both those guys have long wish lists.)

Earth space traffic control has reported lobbying efforts on behalf of all five of the major media companies that control 90% of the content we read, watch or hear on radio, cable, television and elsewhere. The flight crew is predicting that the outcome of the rule change will be a wave of corporate consolidations in the media industry, as more and more of the infrastructure of political discourse is integrated into the big media networks. If it goes well, it will be like what happened
in the last four years to commercial radio, only it will happen to television, cable, and Internet as well. If it doesn't go well, it will be like John Carpenter's movie _They_Live!_, without the magic
sunglasses that can allow you to see who are really the alien space monsters, and who are just the poor suckers duped into serving them.

Some of our older passengers may remember growing up in the United States of thirty years ago, when we still had the Fairness Doctrine, and the ownership regulations were even more restrictive than they are now. In those days, there were only three national television networks, and they were all pretty much interchangeable-- even if they *were* technically independent of one another.

Today, you probably have access to hundreds of channels on cable, and you can choose from any of several direct broadcast television services that carry hundreds of channels. But the media today seem even less capable of presenting a broad spectrum of views within the mainstream and maintaining their impartiality in the political process than they were thirty years ago.

There are two reasons that the media were more functional in those days: 1) we had divided government, and the Fairness Doctrine assured us that despite the political leanings of ownership, other viewpoints would be presented in the public arena 2) cross-ownership with newspapers, radio, cable and telephone was strictly forbidden by law, and as a result, television networks were completely independent companies in a marketplace regulated almost like that of public utilities.

It was, however, a rather bumpy ride. Every two years, there would be elections for Congress, and every four years there would be elections for President, and there would be real uncertainty about which of the two main parties might come out ahead in the next election. After June 2, when the FCC votes to allow the media corporations to own every last outlet for television, radio and the Internet available in Potterville, those uncomfortable moments of uncertainty in the election results will never disturb your flight again.

On behalf of the crew and the owner, we hope you will overlook these last few days of political turbulence before the end of the two-party system in the United States. Please don't call or write your congressperson to express your views on this issue before the FCC votes-- that will only prolong the discomfort for everyone. You wouldn't want to make everyone else on the ship uncomfortable-- would you?

We hope you enjoy your journey to the United Soviet States of America. Have a pleasant day, and don't forget to enjoy the spectacle of fake satanic cult ritual murder stories drowning out news about
unprecedented media consolidation rule changes at the FCC. Be seeing you, space cowboys.


J. Paul Bremer's first few days trying to pick up the pieces of the failed Iraqi reconstruction effort do not bode well, according to the Hawks of the U.S. news media supporting the war on Iraq, namely the good people at the New York Post and Times.

The technical failures, however, pale in comparison to his failure to communicate. Apparently, he learned his rhetoric at the same place most Republicans learn it -- the school of say something long enough it magically comes true.

Unfortuantely for him the lie was immediately recognizeable as such, when he made the otherwise laughably stoopid statement that “More Iraqis have access to electricity than ever before.” What was left of America’s credibility with these people is evaporating into the hot deset sky with every day that passes without order or basic services.

And now comes the late breaking word this morning that Bremer Incorporated has decided, after consulting the holding company’s home office in Washington, that home rule and Iraqi sovreignty aren’t all that important and that we are just going to have military administration “indefinitely.”

This place is going to soon resemble a cliche Roman outpost with a string of incompetent governors, sent there as punishment for some political misstep, an unmanageable population and strategic situation that the home office would rather just ignore.

And apparently Bremer and his gang at the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Aid are about as popular with American servicemen on the street in Bagdad as they are with the Iraqi civilians just trying to get by.

S. With good reason, too. Under the auspices of ORHA, an intifada-style uprising is almost guaranteed, and the soldiers and marines know they will be the ones who will pay in blood because the Bush Administration had no clue on what happened the day after the war ended.

From the New York Post: "We ain't helping these people" says Sgt. Johnny Perdue of the 4/64 Scouts. It's just so frustrating. ORHA says they're doing it. Well, they're not doing it in the places we go."

"I'm no bleeding heart" says Sgt. Leon "Pete" Peters (who had more than his share of kills during the fighting south of the city). "I'll pull the trigger quick as anyone. But this place is going to go crazy if we don't find a way to help these people . . . I've been here for more than 30 days and I've yet to see a single yellow humanitarian food package."

But the next best thing that Bremer can offer is an order, actually a recapitulation of a standing order, to shoot looters on site. So while there may not be lights at night, at least the citizens can relax knowing they can be killed with impunity by any American soldier.

In the meantime, Leon asks why American companies aren't being brought over to fix the electricity here. "You could get a message out to real Americans like the company I used to work for, and they'd come over here and get the power back on in a week."

Well, sorry about that Sarge... apparently your old corporate masters were not A-list at the White House or they would already have that contract. Regardless whether they are up to the job or not, the companies chosen for this scam, are going to make obscene fortunes for completely ruining the military victory in Iraq.

But there is a more sinister aspect to this, as well. Remember out core belief that a complete victory with a happily-ever-after for Iraqis does not fit into the overall strategic aim of the Bush Administration.

Think about it -- just at the moment when European leaders seem to be getting their head around a U.S. run Iraq, the UN willing to discuss lifting sanctions, then the U.S. military authority does the one thing that is guaranteed to send everyone into complete fits, and set back any chance of a peaceful resolution of the Iraqi situation, either with our allies or with others in the region who -- if they didn’t before, certainly do now -- that the U.S. is engaged in a war for regional hegemony and that at this stage the last thing the Bush gang are interested in is regional stability.



J. First in this week’s election wrap this week will focus on the official unveiling of the 2004 model of the Bush Juggernaut. A kindler-gentler jackhammer, indeed. Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Marc Raciot, Ken Mehlman, all your favorites from Porkys Takes over the White House will be return for another 18 months of hijinks, while continuting their war against constitutional rule and representative democracy.

The Prez and his cabal of dark wizards filed the papers this week that allow him to set up an office, hire people to the campaign and start raising money. All this will be run out of a humble, cinder-block based trailer out in the woods of Northern Virginia.

More than one million fund raising letters are to be sent over the next few weeks, according to campaign insiders speaking to the New York Times. Campaigners though are downplaying recent reports of Bush insiders dancing naked around hilltop bonfires in the middle of the night exacting promises of their dark gods to help raise more than $200 million for the cause. Instead they say will now only raise about $100 million. That’s okay though, with deflation, $100 million will really be worth something once again...

S. Which brings us to the Democrats’ report and the standard disclaimer...Mojohaus has given the early endorsement to Howard Dean. We like him and what he stands for. Or for that fact, that he is standing for anything at all, other than just collecting votes. He can at least follow two simple rules: in the immortal words of sports radio legend Jim Rome, have a take do not suck or you will get run.

This week, Dean, Gephardt and Kerry unleashed their health plans on the populace. In reportage on the issue, it would appear that the Dean plan is probably the best of the three, depending on a combination of tax incentives for small business to subsidize health insurance, and expanding current government programs to cover more people.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Emory University professor Kenneth E. Thorpe, a former Clinton administration official who has analyzed the plans, concluded that Gephardt's approach would reach roughly 30.4 million of the 41.2 million Americans lacking health insurance.
Thorpe found that Dean's plan would also reach about 30 million of the uninsured (a study conducted for Dean's campaign put the number at almost 31 million), and that Kerry's would cover 26.7 million.

In an analysis conducted for Gephardt's campaign, Thorpe found the congressman's proposal would cost $2.5 trillion over the next decade — and $371 billion annually by 2013. Thorpe projects that Kerry's plan over the next decade would cost about $895 billion, and Dean's tab would reach about $932 billion over the same period.

While everyone has some species of health plan, it might be important to remember, however, that only Dean, of the current crop of contenders, has actually formulated and enacted a plan. His health program in Vermont provides a basic level of care for almost every man, woman and child in the state, and he *still* balanced the state’s budget.

J. Perhaps it is this kind of record that has the Democratic Leadership Council all on it’s ear at the moment. They are the latest to feel the Wrath of Dean. Last week, hive brain at the DLC, the gang of party hacks driving the Democrats to the right, cranked out an amusing piece of agitprop proclaiming that peace, international cooperation and stability, health care for the uninsured and protection of civil rights, were not core values of the Democratic Party but rather the “abberant” ideology of a “activist elite” posing as Democrats and threatening to destroy the party.

Their so-called “5 myths about the Democratic Party” claim quite explicitly that the Democrats can’t beat Bush with a Dean candidacy offering the real choices between ideas.

This was aimed particularly at Howard Dean, who’s rhetorical line about seizing the Democratic party from the Republicans who took it over is starting to register deep within the DLC.

The Doctor’s prescription for this? The cleansing fire of righteousness, delivered by Joe Trippi, Dean’s campaign manager and chief fixer: “According to the DLC, Democrats have to sound like Republicans in order to win in 2004. The DLC would argue that offering such a clear choice to Americans would be a losing strategy, or that those who want such a choice between candidates are "elitists."
"The DLC's five myths are ripped right out of Karl Rove's playbook," said Joe Trippi, Dean for America campaign manager. "If they continue these tactics, the DLC risks becoming known as the Divisive Leadership Council. "Howard Dean believes that Americans, when given a choice between the hard right and doing what is right, will choose the candidate who will do what is right," Trippi continued.
"Howard Dean is working to unite the Democratic Party, and to unite Americans," said Trippi, "because only together will we begin to undue the tremendous damage done to our nation by the reckless policies of the Bush Administration."

J. So our patriotic thought for the day: Home rule for a sovreign Iraq means the terrorists win... or as John Ashcroft says... “We sell everything you need, and you need everything we sell!”



S9. And that’s all for this week, tune in again soon for another exciting installment, unless, of course, we are declared enemies of the state.

J. This has been the Mojowire, brought to you by Mojohaus...Mojohaus-fine journalism, afflicting the comfortable since 1988, and produced by our super funky fly producer Mike Payne and the Darkling Eclectica, here on KUCI, 88.9...