Saturday, February 26, 2005

Mojowire for 02.26 -- PART I

Mojowire for 02.26; vol. 3, no. 5

MUSIC: Intro/Hendrix, Star Spangled Banner
s9/ Prodigy, We Have Explosive
Exeunt/WildChild, Renegade Master



J. Good Morning, and welcome to The Mojowire, Vol. 3, No. 5... I'm Mojo...

S. And I'm Sean, it's Saturday, Feb. 26, 2005, Day 1,412 of the Neocon Captivity, 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, we will reflect on the sad and terrible passing of an American Giant. Journalist Hunter S. Thompson, godhead of the wire, took his own life last week, and we will not see his like again. We will start our show this morning by ruminating on our loss.

J. You are absolutely not going to believe who's back in town these days with a brand new bag: Swift Boat Liars for Bush, and this time it is the gay-loving, anti-veteran AARP -- yes, the American Association for Retired Persons -- in their sights as they prepare to do battle in the name of the President's scheme to destroy Social Security.

S. Then our special correspondent from low earth orbit, Dr. Strychnine, bring us the strange and terrible saga of Jeff Gannon, nee Guckert, White House Correspondent and male gigilo and the portends of doom represented by this whole sordid affair.

J. Finally we have a special report regarding our treacherous, steroid poisoned governor who is yet again making headlines for political ineptitude and a virtual inability to play well with anyone in Sacramento, including members of his own party. Wait till you hear what the Gropenator is up to now...

…So stand by to stand by while we get ready to pull the pin on this thing...



NOTES ON THE PASSING OF AN AMERICAN GIANT
J. It was just about a quarter after 10 on a stormy night here on the Pacific Coast when I learned about the apparent suicide of Hunter S. Thompson. It was like a kick to the groin as the words burned across the top of the CNN website. I felt sick, I felt like I wanted to wake up...

So it is with a deep sense of sadness and regret that we here at the Wire must join with others in announcing the passing of an American Giant. It is hard to accurately put into words the personal sense of loss we are feeling at this moment. Since high school, Thompson's writings have been part inspiration, part sacred wisdom, part taboo cultural meme, part call to arms against the forces of evil and dumbness.

But to do the Doctor any real justice I would have to start by quoting Voltaire, as Hunter himself did when he penned his whipsong elegy of Richard Nixon: "To the living one owes respect, to the dead, one owes only truth."

With that in mind, I must say that it had occurred to me recently that Thompson might not have long left. Between his nearing 70 years old, his nearly obsessive self-destructive streak, and his penchant for making enemies in high places, I was starting to worry that this news might be coming at some point.

There is a need for the Human mind to ascribe a reason to an act like this. Many scenarios crowded my head immediately. My inner conspiracy theorist immediately jumped to several versions of the "assissinated" scenario, others that quickly suggested themselves were terminal/chronic illness diagnosis, drug induced psychosis, untreated manic depression...

According to reports, it was last Sunday evening when Thompson, on the phone to his wife about his next ESPN column, abruptly put the phone down, and Antia Thompon could hear the hammer cocking on the gun, then heard the muffled gunshot... But this was not a sudden act of desperation or madness according to family and friends. Hunter had been talking recently about ending his life due to his health problems, and had spent recent weeks bonding with his family and leaving detailed instructions on the dispostion of his writings and personal papers.

It is not easy to take in any context, but I am sad that he apparently took his own life. But in the end, he died as he lived; completely on his own terms with no apology or explanation, because friends don't need it and enemies won't believe it.

The truth is that we may never know exactly why Hunter decided to take his own life at that time, and if that's how he wanted, I am compelled by a strong sense of respect to leave it at that... "res ipsa loquitor" as the Doctor might have said; "the thing, it speaks for itself."

Whatever the reason, I want to believe that Hunter is in a better place. If I am saddend, it is more for those of us now left behind to fill the shoes of a genuine American giant.

Who will fill this void? Hunter Thompson was a colossus who cast his long baleful shadow across a generation of American news reporters, who at once were inspired by him and simultaneously feared what he represented.

Thompson was a Titan who trod on a road of bones, absolutely fearless of anything -- editors, sources, political enemies. If there was a truth out there that needed to be said, or even if he just thought it needed to be said, Hunter said it. Many American news reporters admired that, but at the same time felt a sense of dread and shame when they heard it.

S. His style of journalism, although professionally eschewed in mainstream newsrooms, was envied by most journalists as a the righteous unleashing of a lethal writing machine fueled by an audacious combination of guts, brains and compassion in a relentless, ruthless pursuit of the truth about the Ameircan condition; an unflinching chronicler of our times ... the truth, no matter what.

In spite of whatever drug or neuro-disease fueled mania drove some of Thompson's wilder ramblings and made him seem less a reporter than a self-obsessed drug addict constantly bemused and amazed at his own survival, the truth was that he was doing what many of us in the news media instinctively felt we should be doing; not just paying attention to the man behind the curtain, but chasing that shiny little green-clad freak around with a wolverine and a can of mace until he relented and told us where Bebe Rebozo hid the last Nixon tapes. But we lacked the testicular fortitude to lace 'em up on a daily basis and get after it like Thompson did.

We never got to meet Thompson, or see him in a public appearance, but he has had a profound spiritual influence over our work, like an ancient Peyote munching shaman reading the currents on the wind and brandishing uncomfortable truths like blunt instruments. Not that we tried to be Thompson clones, there are far too many of those; but his writing talent and his ruthless ability to pierce the veils of the venal, stoopid and cruel and strip them down naked so that they might be seen for what they are... those are traits to be emulated.

Because you always knew if you fell short of the true religion, there would be Thompson casting his judgements upon you from his highly fortified compound, heaping his contempt upon those fakes, rubes and fools who were not pure enough to join in a noble pursuit, now corrupted by whores, pimps and simpletons unworthy of the name "journalist."

Thompson once wrote about the dynamics of a biker funeral. He said that their funerary rites were an affirmation among the tribe that their numbers were now lessened by one and that for those who keep score, like journalists and bikers, that their their circle was now smaller and the forces arrayed against them pushed in a little closer today than yesterday...Our world is a little darker today than yesterday, and we are poorer for it.

Reading through his ersatz obit of Oscar Acosta, I often wondered if the same kind of left hand whipsong might not be made of Thompson's passing. As he said of Acosta, Hunter was a preacher, and it was that basic instinct that ruined him for anything else. Cranking himself so full of acid that he could properly walk with the King, coming closer to finer, higher truths, which he could then bring back, to exchange for more acid, indeed the full circle...

Thompson crammed more humanity, madness and grace into one person than most of us will meet in any three Human size packages in our entire lifetimes. He was a high powered mutant, one of God's own prototypes, never even considered for mass production. It can, and will be said truthfully and with great respect that he stomped upon the terra.

And when you think about it, was it likely to end any other way? No "prolonged illness" bed ridden in a hospital for Hunter Thompson, no cheesy dope-influenced car crash, or sleazy homicidal love triangle... Those would have been too easy, too cheap. This way, it was a kind of poetry, however dark and grim...

He bought the ticket and took the ride...

And in many corners he will be missed, especially in Woody Creek, where it is said that every light in town dimmed when we heard that Hunter had cashed his check.

Mahalo, Hunter ...

SWIFT BOAT SOCIOPATHS FOR PHASING OUT SOCIAL SECURITY
J. Hey Red State, have you ever wondered why you're walking funny these days, or why there's a strange pain in your butt? Has it ever occured to you to wonder how your opinions are formed, who forms them and how they are transmitted to you, and how you in turn vote to screw yourselves blue at the ballot box?

Wonder no more, because Maximum Leader and his gang at the helm of the Mighty Wurlitzer are providing us with a rare glimpse into the GOP corporate echo chamber that gently prods the rubes like you into the sheering pens.

So we pray your patience Red State and you faithful wireheads, while we unravel the weirdness that is the current battle over the Social Security phase out as a terrible object lesson in political science and the brutal realities of the Bush Administration.

A brief firestorm broke across the blogosphere last week, when the American Spectator, Freeperville and a few other selected web sites carried a paid ad from an organization called United Seniors Association -- or USA Next-- which depicted a picture of a soldier with a big red 'X' over him, next to a picture of a newlywed gay couple, which bore a green checkmark. The point, according to the caption is that this was the AARP's true agenda, to promote gay marriage at the cost of our brave young fighting men in Iraq and Afghanistan.

After enduring nearly 18 months of Ken Mehlman drunkenly driving the Mighty Wurlitzer across the land, careening into gardens, over fences, thourgh banks of mailboxes, over curbs, we thought we had become hardned to the depths of debasement this administration would go to get their way.

Then they have to pull out something like this, so damaged, so deranged, so self-parodying that you have to wonder if it isn't all some sort of giant joke. Even people like the Whitehouse.org parody site don't do stuff this weird.

But apparently this group, USA Next has been around for a couple of years, beating up on the AARP on behalf of the President and generally making a big nuisance of themselves and guess who they're recruiting to help with the Social Security Phase Out effort. We get this bit in introduction from last Wednesday's New York Times (And big ups to Times Staff Writer and former Mojowire associate Glen Justice for this story... you rock Glen.):

"USA Next, a conservative group planning a campaign attacking AARP over its stance on Social Security and other issues, ran an Internet advertisement on Monday linking the group to support for same-sex marriage...USA Next plans to attack AARP with television commercials in coming weeks intended to discredit it on Social Security. USA Next has hired consultants who worked for Swift Vets and P.O.W.'s for Truth, which made headlines last year for its attacks on Senator John Kerry's record in the Vietnam War ."

Word around the campfire is that the group has hired Chris LaCivita, an alleged former Marine who advised the Swifties for Bush, on its media campaign and helped spin their hideous lies. He raked serious bank for that few months, too; more than $30,000 for his work, campaign finance filings show.

Officials said the group was also seeking to hire Rick Reed, a partner at Stevens Reed Curcio & Potholm, a firm hired by the Swift Liars and paid more than $276,000 to do media production, records show.

So given the big-time nature of the reality distortion field cranking up here, we decided (along with the majority of greater blogovia) to take a quick look-see at exactly who and what are USA Next, and what's the deal with their boss, one Charlie Jarvis?

Well, one of the first things you do in a case like this is get the address of the organization and gun it through your favorite search engine. Hey, journalism and law students, wake the hell up and take some notes, we're givin' away valuable tips here... This trick immediately turns up some interesting tid bits. There have been more than a few Republican outfits using this Jermantown Road address in Fairfax, but the most notable one that most stumbled on to was O'Neill Marketing. The O'Neill people wasted no time in putting up a note on their website disclaiming any current connection with Jarvis or the USA group, noting that they only did some work for them in the past, but are now no longer connected with them.

I keep thinking of that moment from the movie JFK where Jim Garrison is explaining the signifcance of a French Quarter building with two address and two separate entrances going to the same office...

Then there was this courtesy of a reader of Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo: "I work near O'Neill marketing, so I took my lunch hour to go check them out. ... 3900 Germantown Rd is a little four story building near Fairfax City. In the lobby, on the orientation board, O'Neill is listed as occupying suite 300, as are about 25 other organizations. The building didn't look that big from the outside, so I trooped upstairs to check out suite 300. Turns out 300 is an incubator. You know the type: start-ups go there, lease some space, share the cost of paying a receptionist, share the copier, share the coffee machine... A nice person in the elevator told me that 300 is a kind of "mish-mash" of things; people come and go all the time. USA is indeed listed in 450, but, how can I put this? They aren't welcoming visitors."

Fine, but when one considers the company O'Neill keeps now, and were keeping at the time they had USA as a client it makes one wonder. There were radical right wing religious groups such as the Christian Action Network and Heartbeat International, which are devoted soley to socially facist agendas dressed up in clerical vestments. Other current fundraising and advocacy clients include the Reagan Ranch klavern of the Young Americans for Freedom, The Republican Governor's Association, the Republican National Congressional Commitee and the RNC. But Charlie Jarvis was too hot to touch as a client?

S. Well, let's take a little closer look at USA Next itself. Apparently, many of us found this bit upon even a cursory search. At the behest of Public Citizen, an administrative law judge for the Social Security Administration brought the heat on Jarvis and crew, as reported on Talking Points Memo:

"On August 8, a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Appeals Board Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) issued a ruling upholding the imposition of a $554,196 civil monetary penalty against the United Seniors Association, Inc. (USA Inc.). The ALJ found that USA Inc. violated Section 1140 of the Social Security Act, which protects Social Security program words and symbols from being used in a misleading manner."

These are complaints about this group that date as far back 1997, when Northern California Rep. Pete Stark was officially asking the USPS Postmaster General to initiate mail fraud investigations into USA Next for their blatant lies and misappropriation of government and quasi-government symbols to bilk people out of millions of dollars.

Moreover, it has been known for sometime that one of USA's big behind the scenes supporters has been the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), which appears to have quietly channeled as much as $41 million to four PACs in 2002 to help elect a Congress willing to do the drug industry's bidding, no questions asked, according to a Public Citizen report from last September.

United Seniors was one of the four PACs PhRMA used to pimp their hand picked monkeys in selected races, and United Seniors ran election ads for these guys with PhRMA money, according to Public Citizen: "In 2002, USA received $20.1 million from a single source, according to its IRS filing – 79 percent of its total revenue that year. PhRMA acknowledged providing an “unrestricted educational grant” to USA in 2002. USA also received $1.5 million from PhRMA in 2001, according to its IRS filing. Public Citizen estimates that USA spent at least $13.6 million on political ads in 25 races in 2002."

This is kind of money we are playing for here. These are big stakes, so that brings us directly to the man sitting at the table looking at the cards, the inestimable Charlie Jarvis himself. Jarvis has been something of a intermediate size player behind the scenes for many years, working on a number of campaigns and causes, and when one takes a close look at this guy, the whole "AARP wants to sell your children to the sodomites" thing comes into focus.

From a 1999 campaign report from Tribune Media tagging him as a treacherous little thug: "If Steve Forbes had character, I think he would fire some people," [then Presidential candidate Gary] Bauer said Monday. "(My wife) Carol and I had to go through a miserable couple of weeks." Bauer, who said he'd never speak of it again, is, of course, speaking about last month's allegations of sexual impropriety levied by former aide Charlie Jarvis, who accused Bauer of spending "hours and hours and hours behind closed doors with a young single woman." Bauer has repeatedly denied all and said the woman is a campaign manager. Jarvis is now an unpaid adviser to Forbes..."

Jarvis himself likes to brag about being a businessman who served as some sort of flying monkey minion in the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations, apparently also as undersecretary of the Interior. But it is his post-government work that really brings this kook into sharp relief, I mean, how does a guy go from the Number Three post at Interior to being a punk knee-breaker for a low rent delusional snake oil salesman like Gary Bauer.

Well, it turns out he was also the Executive Vice President of Dr. James Dobson's Focus on the Family, which is nothing more than a right wing agit prop hate machine designed to keep the flock herd bound and submissive, lest ramapaging leather boys break into your house and start busting up your Pat Boone records and make you listen to trashy Euro-dance music and force your women to have abortions and get jobs and weaken your bodily fluids with flouridation, hair products and seasonally coordinated coture...

And... you know... that would suck for Red State...

Further, it would appear that fleecing seniors out of their church tithe and drug money is not only interest of Grand Wizard Jarvis who has also used USA Next to get seniors behind oil drilling in ANWR after an Anchorage-based big oil lobbying concern called "Arctic Power" cut his crew a check for $181,000, according to a report from the AARP.

So, that's how it works Red State, you are being had, and you may now thank us for this lengthy peek behind the curtain at how you are being fleeced by the very people you put in power. See you on the breadlines comrades.

cue JAMES music
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 Baghdad by the Bay…take it away S9…

Mojowire for 02.26.95 -- PART II

THE STRANGE AND TERRIBLE TALE OF JEFF GUCKERT
S9. Salutations comrades! We have good news to report! Okay, well-- there is also some ancillary qualifying information-- but there is good news! Good news from the independent cyberspace enclave of Blogovia-- the area of cyberspace where all the left-liberal bloggers live (which is not to be confused with the much larger autonomous tribal region of Blogistan, where all the right-wing lunatic monsters live-- nor with any of the other regions of the blogosphere, i.e. the libertarian Blogodonia, the green Blogotopia, the neo-confederate New Blogshire, etc.)

The good news is that Blogovia has successfully exposed a fake journalist with a fake name working for a fake news organization asking fake questions after almost two years of hiding in plain sight among the White House press corps. Using the alias "Jeff Gannon" and working for a cutout of a Texas Republican political activist outfit called "Talon News" that has no paying advertisers or subscribers, James D. "Bulldog" Guckert-- as he is otherwise known professionally-- finally lost his long-running battle to keep his secret identity as a male prostitute for hire on several free Internet sites from being exposed to... well, people who read free Internet sites. His fake career as a fake journalist is over. That's the good news. The information is that he was just a soldier, and there are plenty more where he came from.

The lads up here on S9 Station are mostly laughing up our sleeves at the side show of all the prurient aspects to the Jeff Gannon story, with which we assume our listeners are already familiar. We won't dwell on them. The real news you can use is that Gannon was a first-class media whore, with no experience in journalism, who could not qualify for a "hard pass" to cover the White House. So instead, the White House Press Office issued their pet bulldog temporary day passes-- in his fake name-- on a regular daily basis, with which he systematically and deliberately worked to undermine the reliability of independent sources of public information by helping the Administration make a mockery out of the White House press corps. (Not to mention, we're still wondering how he managed to get access to classified information that earned him a subpoena from the Plame investigation, but that's a mystery for another day.)

"Gee whiz, S9," I can hear you shouting. "Aren't you being a little harsh? You don't really think the Bush Administration is trying to kick the supports out from under the fundamental notion of an
independent press being necessary to the proper function of our basically democratic system of government, do you?"

I do. My first clue that the Bush Administration regarded the White House press corps with an unprecedented level of contempt came when I noticed that they were using the pejorative term "gaggle" in official documents to describe press briefings. It said quite clearly that they view their encounters with the press not as an opportunity to engage the public but as an exercise in feeding the geese.

Jay Rosen, a professor of journalism at New York University, says he first noticed what he calls the "Bush Media Thesis" when he noticed John Ashcroft using secret service agents (and others in the employ of the Justice Department) to bar newspaper reporters-- all of them, not just freelancers and reporters from little small-town dailies-- from press opportunities as he traveled to promote the USA Patriot Act in 2003. Ashcroft only granted short interviews to local TV stations, which was-- in the words of a DOJ spokesman-- a way of "explaining key facts directly to the American people and not having as much of a filter from people who are already invested in having a different view
of it."

But why believe me, or a cranky liberal NYU professor? Why not take down the words of President Bush himself, speaking frankly in his characteristically blunt manner on the subject. April 2004, the President is at a barbeque gearing up for his reëlection campaign. A reporter asks him if it's really true: that he doesn't read the newspapers, doesn't even watch the news. Bush says: it's really true; he doesn't. Reporter asks: Well then, how do you know what the public is thinking? Bush quickly responds: "You're making a powerful assumption, young man. You're assuming that you represent the public. I don't accept that."

The President is right about one thing: that's a mighty powerful assumption. It's so powerful that it's the reason the press is known as The Fourth Estate. (By the way, today's extra credit homework
assignment is to read up on what were the first three estates and how the press makes a fourth.) When the President challenges that assumption, he is saying he doesn't recognize any obligation to answer questions of the press or deal with them in any way but however he feels like dealing with them.

Consider the words of Andrew Card, the White House Chief of Staff, who said of the press, "They don't represent the public any more than other people do. In our democracy, the people who represent the public stood for election. I don't believe you have a check and balance function."

Indeed. We had an "accountability moment" in November, and that's all the check and balance that's required. Once you recognize that the Bush Administration views the institution of an independent press as an obstacle to communication with the public, rather than a facilitator,
all those reports about conservative commentators getting undisclosed payments to pimp Administration policies in their columns are easily shown to be part of the pattern. Not to mention, the whole Gannon story makes all the sense in the world.

Offline, our dear Mojo has told me he thinks the White House didn't know about James "Bulldog" Guckert's black market sex trade business, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if they did and viewed it as an added bonus to his résumé. After the partisans in Blogovia are done getting Gannon ousted from the White House press corps and dancing mirthfully about the joys of catching out yet another shining example of sexual hypocrisy among the anti-gay policy elite, what will they
have accomplished? Nothing but the further cementing of the Bush media thesis into the public consciousness.

Loyal wireheads: listen to me. You must not let your friends and neighbors forget that democracy is impossible without the existence of a diverse array of truly independent news organizations. Every effort to undermine the role of an independent press in representing the public interest is stab with a long knife at the heart of our freedom and the foundation of our democratic system.

Cue James music for exit
If they succeed in destroying the credibility of the independent press, there will never be another "accountability moment" again.

TERMINATOR 4: ATTACK OF THE GIRLIE MEN
J. And now back to our feature presentation, Terminator 4, Attack of the girlie men, already in progress:

A few weeks back, we told you about the Governator's budget proposal for the next fiscal year, which was supposed to wipe away California's budget woes, improve education, lure more business to California, and restore freedom to the galaxy. All of these promises were made with the explicit promise by Herr Governator that taxes would not be raised.

In fact, our Cyborg Governor convinced his fans, errr, constituents, to pass a bond measure that was supposed to deal with the budget deficit issues. So when Skynet, I mean governor Swastinator, busted out with his scheme to fix the new budget gap by stealing from Worker Pension funds, Schools, and the ultimate Political Prison Bitch of them all, California cities, we popped several blood vessels on the air bringing the wretched thing to you.

Oh, and lest we forget that the Gropenator is just as much of a GOP stooge as the rest of them, he proposed getting rid of many of the Boards that regulate professional groups and business because it made some of the Jabba's at the California Chamber of Commerce uncomfortable while drinking the blood of virgins from mugs made from the skulls of their child workers, who were horribly deformed at birth from the presence of Rocket Fuel Perchlorates and Chromium Six in the drinking water which we can thank Uncle Newt for.....

Did I say that out loud?

Sorry. I meant to say that the business lobby represented by the Chamber of Commerce felt that many of the regulatory boards were a deterrent to luring new business to our fair state.

Well, the Thuginator backed off from dissolving those boards and now swears it was all just in the service of eliminating bureaucracy and darn it, can you believe those special interests. Those terrible special interests that he ran against in the recall and bashes every time his CPU runs the Political rhetoric program, and whom he is currently raising a projected $150 million at $1000/plate fund raisers. Apparently Skynet failed to include the desperate hypocrisy application in this model's suite of political software. But we digress...

The Scuminator is pushing full steam ahead with his proposal to steal from the pension funds of schoolteachers and other public employees. Oh, and the education governor still plans to welch on the promise he made to California Schools and Universities to fully fund them that he made when they agreed to budget cuts in the last cycle. So the stage is set for the mother of all budget battles with those pesky California Dems, who think that education and protecting peoples property in retirement funds is more important than protecting wealthy billionaires from tax hikes.

So without further adieu, we bring you the official word from Elizabeth Hill, the legislative analyst whom both parties look to for accurate and non-partisan assessments of government proposals. The analyst laid out her opinion on the Dumbinators budget proposal. Prognosis: Wretched stupidity with a near terminal case of sublime evil. Or as the LA Times put it:

"Offering withering appraisals of key parts of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's schools agenda, the nonpartisan legislative analyst warned Thursday that the governor's plan to change teacher pensions was probably illegal and recommended that lawmakers repeal his first foray into politics, the 2002 initiative expanding after-school programs.

Elizabeth G. Hill, whom lawmakers of both parties look to for advice on budget matters, said legal problems with the governor's plan to stop $469 million of teacher retirement payments - leaving schools or teachers to pick up the tab - made it unlikely that the state would save any money. "

Doh! So not only is the Governors proposal blatantly illegal, it won't do a damn thing for the Budget Deficit. Nice work Gomer Pyle. Is that all Ms Hill? No?...Please continue:

She also urged the Legislature to repeal Proposition 49, Schwarzenegger's attempt to bolster after-school programs, warning that it creates exactly what the governor says he opposes: "autopilot" spending that leaves the state on the hook for programs it can't afford. "It would require a $428-million general fund augmentation at a time when the state is still facing a significant budget problem," Hill said. Her report calls the measure "autopilot spending badly timed."

Nice, the governors signature proposal has turned out to be a worthless boondoggle. Umm, can Skynet send us a better robot to be our governor? That liquid metal guy seemed pretty spiffy. Or that blonde chick, with all the cool attachments. Maybe they could do a better job...

Do you have anything else to add Ms Hill?

The analyst's office also disputed Schwarzenegger's contention that even with the proposal, schools would still receive enough money in his budget to pay for enrollment growth and cost-of-living adjustments. Hill said the governor's budget would leave schools about $500 million short. She suggested that the governor's proposed spending on schools would be close to adequate if he abandoned the plan to stop making teacher retirement payments

S. Pardon us, that last bit is causing the staff to foam at the mouth and spontaneously combust. Cut school funding by Half a Billion? That's billion with a B suckers! Look this is pretty simple. The state cannot stop paying the required retirement contributions and expect school districts, already desperate just to keep the lights on at band practice, to make up 500 Million by holding a freakin bake sale.

Let's be clear on what the Darthinator is proposing here. He wants the local school districts to make up the difference by trying to raise local taxes to pay for it. He knows that a tax hike is in some fashion is inevitable, he just doesn't want to be on the hook for it. So why not just move the fight to local school board and PTA meetings?

Obviously, the budget process in Sacremento is a dreadful sham. It's been a sham long before the freakinator showed up. California, before Prop 13, was a state that had the best, literally and beyond dispute, the best K-12 education in the country. It had a world reknowed higher education system, supported by a free and highly regarding community college system that lured the best and the brightest students from all over the world to study and eventually live and work here.

Yes, we had high income and property taxes. And during the seventies, property taxes did get out of hand, and needed a fix. But what we got was a horrible tax reform that moved the tax burden from business and homeowners to just homeowners who recently bought their homes after the mid 1970's. Property taxes formed the basis fro the revenue we built our great schools with, and our cities and counties used to provide the great roads and public infrastructure the fueled the Post War California Boom.

Prop 13, because it enables commercial property owners who own their property in perpetuity to avoid paying their fair share, has driven to the state into it's awful spiral of failing public schools, chronic state deficits, cities so desperate for revenue they beg for the Walmarts and Big box retailers to bankrupt all of the local businesses in order to reap a a few more quatloos' in sales tax.

Prop 13 isn't the only culprit here. The Proposition system has been hijacked by wealthy interest groups who hire professional signature gatherers to acquire enough signatures to meet the states preposterously low requirement and then lock dedicated spending in stone forever. So now the scraps that are left after this mess aren't' enough to cover the bills.

The point is, Arnold knows this, as does everyone not wearing a tinfoil hat in Sacramento knows. Remember when his own finance guru, Warren Buffett, actually had the temerity to point out the utter stupidity of the Prop 13 system. He pointed out that wealthy property owners had been able to protect themselves at the expense of the middle class property owners that 13 was supposed to protect.

But the Undeadinator has promised the moon and the stars to so many people, primarily the Talk Radio Tax and guns crowd that determine who gets the GOP nomination for Governor, he can't do what people thought he was actually supposed to be running as, an independent moderate who could make the tough decisions that everyone else was afraid to make. And that is to fix Prop 13.

Yes, I know all of you are so well versed in California tax policy that you jumping up from the jaggermeister stupor you were wallowing in and shouting: The whole California tax code needs a fix, why not tax our uberwealthy a few percentage points more? We agree, wireheads. But 13 is so egregiously bad for the state, and ultimately so terrible for the working people of this state, that we need to cut out the heart of the Jarvis infection.

The Governors budget is so devoid of any serious intention to fix the problem, it almost elevates him to the level of sick venal behavior the Bush White House exhibits whenever it begins the sham of it's budget submissions. And that's a level of subversive evil that would make the devil queasy.

It's more than just he's a GOP monkey. He's not a gay bashing thug like the freaks in the West Wing, for example. But he is no brave crusader. He is exactly what he called his opponents, A girlie man. A girlie man who knows the right thing to do for California, but cannot summon the courage to do it. Be a man Governor, save the state. Send the Howard Jarvis Kool Aid freaks back to the apocalyptic future they belong to.

Stop trying to destroy our schools and the great state we built over the last 50 years so you can run for President, or dog catcher, or whatever it is you think you are doing. California needs more than a cyborg, it needs a leader. Are you that leader Governor?

J. It's 622 days until the midterm election and our patriotic thought for the week is: a legitimate White House Press Corps means the terrorists win (an' preznit don't giv mee turkee), or as John Ashcroft used to say... “Al Qaeda will use Social Security to fund the Gay agenda and weaken our will to fight the war on terror...you are getting sleepy...veeerrrry sleeeeepy...”



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

And remember, you can now email the Mojowire at Mojohaus@hotmail.com, that’s M-O-J-O-H-A-U-S@hotmail.com. Email, us hippies!

J. And now you can check out the Mojowire online at Mojowire.Blogspot.com; you can read the entire archive along with our general ramblings...

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...

Thursday, February 24, 2005

Looks Like A Market Opportunity To Me...

Via billmon, it comes to my attention today that the U.S. Supreme Court has chosen to let stand an Alabama law banning the sale of dildos and devices intended for similar purposes. It's a "state's rights" thing, you see. If the government of the people of Alabama wants to make a local black market in the trade of sex-toys, then it's not the place of the Federal government to interfere with its plans.

Georgia and Texas also have laws against the commercial trade in sex-toys. All three are Southern states, which may just be coincidence, but it provokes in me a genuine curiosity about whether there is something peculiar about Southern culture— about which, I confess I know very little— that makes people there prone to fight imaginary social problems by passing laws that make black markets out of perfectly functional and legitimate ones.

Never mind that, though— here is the line from the Reuters story that caught my eye:

The appeals court said it agreed with Alabama that the law exercised time-honored use of state police power to restrict the sale of sex.


We here on S9 station are keen to note that Alabama is very quick to ban vibrators, but continues to allow its citizens to purchase Viagra and Cialis. Indeed. Say it with me: the time-honored use of state police power to restrict the sale of sex to women.

So now the fine entrepreneurs at Good Vibrations will probably have to stop taking orders for shipments to Alabama, Georgia and Texas if they want to stay a legitimate business. Sucks for them, but those are the breaks. Anybody have any guesses about the margin to be made in exchange for taking the risks associated with smuggling?

Tuesday, February 22, 2005

A Contrary Opinion On Computer Etiquette

I am vastly amused by this little kerfuffle going on elsewhere in the borderland between Blogovia and Blogistan.

After an odd episode earlier this morning, it seems Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund returned to Bloggers' Corner later this afternoon, this time knowing full well that the unoccupied computers left on the tables were private property, belonging to the bloggers. He hopped on another open laptop, again without asking permission from its owner, and took about a half hour to file a story, even as the blogger whose computer he'd commandeered stood waiting.


It seems to me that journalists who walk away from their computers in public, without even locking out access to them, are implicitly offering the use of their computers to anyone in the room. And if they aren't locking them to the table, then the offer is even more stupid.

This is the reason why the people who design these devices go to all the extra trouble of putting lockpoints on mobile computer cases and they write all this extra code for locking the keyboard, screen and mouse so that you have to enter a password to get access to the computer after leaving it unattended.

If you don't want John Fund to use your computer to file his stories, then don't leave your computer unattended and unlocked around him. How fscking difficult is this concept for you to learn?

Update: Oh good grief— it just keeps getting sillier. Fund now claims he was the victim of a practical joke.

And for the record, yes— I do recognize that unattended personal computers are still private property even when they are left open to access by anyone in public. Still, I continue to boggle my poor little mind: what the fsck are these people thinking? I would NEVER in a million years think it would be safe to leave my personal mobile computer open and unlocked for anyone to use while I wandered around any kind of convention. But, ye Ghods— the Conservative Political Action Conference? At a venue like that, I'd carry the damned thing into the toilet stalls with me. (You never know what kind of software pathogens your system is likely to pick up being groped and fondled by the people who go to those things.)

Sunday, February 20, 2005

Notes on the Passing of an American Giant

It is with great sadness...
It is just about a quarter after 10 on a stormy night here on the Pacific Coast. I have only known about the apparent suicide of Hunter S. Thompson for about 15 minutes.

It is with a deep sense of sadness and regret that we here at the Wire must join with others in announcing the passing of an American Giant. It is hard to accurately put into words the personal sense of loss I am feeling at this moment. Since high school, Thompson's writings have been part inspiration, part sacred wisdom, part taboo cultural meme, part call to arms against the forces of evil and dumbness.

But to do the Doctor any real justice I would have to start by quoting Voltaire, as Hunter did when he penned his obit of Richard Nixon: "To the living one owes respect, to the dead, one owes only truth."

With that in mind, I must say that it had occurred to me recently that Thompson might not have long left. Between his nearing 70 years old, his nearly obsessive self-destructive streak, and his penchant for making enemies in high places, I was starting to worry that this news might be coming at some point.

It is not easy to take in any context, but I am sad that he apparently took his own life. There were obviously other circumstances that pushed him to this extreme. But in the end, he died as he lived; completely on his own terms with no apology or explanation, because friends don't need it and enemies won't believe it.

There is a need for the Human mind to ascribe a reason to a senseless act like this. Many scenarios crowded my head immediately. My inner conspiracy theorist immediately jumped to several versions of the "assissinated" scenario, others that quickly suggested themselves were terminal/chronic illness diagnosis, drug induced psychosis, untreated manic depression...

The truth is that we may never know why Hunter took his own life, and if that's how he wanted, I am compelled by a strong sense of respect to leave it at that... "res ipsa loquitor" as the Doctor might have said; "the thing, it speaks for itself."

Whatever the reason, I want -- no, need -- to believe that Hunter is in a better place. If I am saddend, it is more for those of us now left behind.

An American Giant
Who will fill this void? Hunter Thompson was a giant who cast his shadow long across a generation of American news reporters, who at once were inspired by him and simultaneously feared what he represented.

Thompson was a Titan who trod on a road of bones, absolutely fearless of anything -- editors, sources, political enemies. If there was a truth out there that needed to be said, or even if he just thought it needed to be said, Hunter said it. Many American news reporters admired that, but at the same time felt a sense of dread and shame when they heard it.

His style of journalism, although professionally eschewed in mainstream newsrooms, was envied by most journalists as a the righteous unleashing of a lethal writing machine fueled by an audacious combination of guts, brains and compassion in a relentless, ruthless pursuit of the truth about the Ameircan condition; an unflinching chronicler of our times ... the truth, no matter what.

In spite of whatever drug or neuro-disease fueled mania drove some of Thompson's wilder ramblings and made him seem less a reporter than a self-obsessed drug addict constantly bemused and amazed at his own survival, the truth was that he was doing what many of us instinctively felt we should be doing, but lacked the testicular fortitude to lace 'em up on a daily basis and get after it like Thompson did.

I never got to meet Thompson, or see him in a public appearance, but his influence over my work, my choice of career, my personal politics, are a constant subtext to who I am. Not that I tried to be a Thompson clone, there are far too many of those; but his writing talent and his relentless pursuit of a story were talents to be emulated.

Because you always knew if you fell short of the true religion, there would be Thompson casting his judgements upon you from his highly fortified compound, heaping his contempt upon those fakes, rubes and fools who were not pure enough to join in a noble pursuit, now corrupted by whores, pimps and simpletons unworthy of the name "journalist."

Mahalo
Thompson once wrote about the dynamics of a biker funeral. He said that their funerary rites were an affirmation among the tribe that their numbers were now lessened by one and that for those who keep score, like journalists and bikers, that their their circle was now smaller and the forces arrayed against them pushed in a little closer today than yesterday...Our world is a little darker today than yesterday, and we are poorer for it.

Reading through his ersatz obit of Oscar Acosta, I often wondered if the same kind of left hand whipsong might not be made of Thompson's passing. As he said of Acosta, Hunter was a preacher, and it was that basic instinct that ruined him for anything else. Cranking himself so full of acid that he could properly walk with the King, coming closer to finer, higher truths, which he could then bring back, to exchange for more acid, indeed the full circle...

He was a high powered mutant, one of God's own prototypes, never even considered for mass production. It can, and will be said truthfully and with great respect that he stomped upon the terra.

And when you think about it, was it likely to end any other way? No, no "prolonged illness" bed ridden in a hospital for Hunter Thompson, no cheesy dope-influenced car crash, or sleazy homicidal love triangle... Those would have been too easy, too cheap. This way, it wa poetry, however dark and sad...

He bought the ticket and took the ride...

And in many corners he will be missed, especially in Woody Creek, where it is said that every light in town dimmed when we heard that Hunter had cashed his check.

Mahalo, Hunter ...

Saturday, February 12, 2005

J: Over the past few months, we have been tracking and writing about the Presidents scheme to detonate Social Security. One of the problems with writing about one of the Administrations policy objectives is that they rarely release details of any of their plans without their paid monkeys in the media floating trial balloons through talk radio and the pundit shows. That way, if something proves unpopular, it can be jettisoned or slightly tweeaked so they can name it something else, and proclaim the critic liars and delusional. So it was with great anticipation the Administration provided some details of their plan, such as it is.

Well wireheads, shock and awe, it is actually more temple throbbing insane than even we, the jaded oracles and seers at the mojowire allowed ourselves to suspect. Lets lay out some of the key components. Here is Peter Orzag from the Brooking Institution testifying before congress about the plan:

“Under the Administration’s plan, payroll taxes deposited into an individual account are essentially a loan from the government to the worker. The Administration’s proposal is the equivalent of a loan that mortgages future Social Security benefits: Workers opting to divert payroll taxes into an account today would pay back those funds, plus interest, through reductions in Social Security benefits at retirement. In other words, just as with a loan, the worker receives cash up front and then owes money back, with interest, later. Someone who borrows money to make an investment benefits if the assets purchased with the borrowed funds grow faster than the debt; the person is worse off if the debt grows faster than the investment. Similarly, under the Administration’s plan, workers wind up with higher retirement income if the income from their accounts exceeds the benefit reductions that pay off the loan, and vice versa. “

So, instead of the current system, where you divert some of your paycheck into the trust fund, which is used to purchase the most secure investment instrument on earth, a U.S. Bond, which earns a respectable 3.5 percent or so per year, under the bush plan, the government will stake you so you can invest in more risky investments. They will deduct their stake when you begin collecting benefits. If you made a few bad choices and were unable to make enough to cover the initial stake, too bad for you commie. How can anyone who lived through the stock market devaluation at the end of the dot.com boom want to risk their retirement on this scheme? How much GOP Kool-Aid do you have to imbibe from watching Fox News does it take before this scheme starts making sense?

It gets even better. More Mr. Orzag:

“The accounts not only fail to reduce the Social Security deficit, but will likely increase it. Even an Administration official has acknowledged that the accounts proposed by the President would have a “net neutral effect” on Social Security’s financial condition over the long term. The reality is likely to be even worse, however: The accounts will likely harm Social Security’s long-term deficit. The reason is that not all the “loans” from diverted revenue will be repaid in full; in several situations, which I will describe below, subsequent benefit reductions will be insufficient to offset the cost of the diverted revenue plus interest. As a result, even over the “infinite horizon” that the Administration favors, the accounts not only fail to reduce the deficit in Social Security; they make it worse. Over the traditional 75-year horizon used to evaluate Social Security solvency, this conclusion is only strengthened. “

Let me get this straight. At best, their plan does nothing to address the alleged solvency problem. At worst, it will make the fund less solvent. Wow, fella’s that’s quite a scheme you’ve got there. You go to the effort to conjure up a fake crisis by rigging the numbers and having your worthless mouthpieces pimp it, then, when your grand scheme finally sees the light of the day, it doesn’t even address the crisis you went to so much trouble to manufacture. Essentially, your fake solution doesn’t even address their fake crisis. Can you people possibly get more pathetic? ...

S : Wait..what’s that Mr. Orzag, the can get more pathetic...tell us:

“The accounts by themselves entail a significant and sustained increase in public debt. By themselves, the individual accounts would increase public debt by more than $1 trillion during the first decade they were in effect and by more than $3.5 trillion during their second decade. The increase in public debt, moreover, would be permanent: Even if each individual “loan” were eventually repaid in full, public debt would remain higher than in the absence of the accounts over the long term. The reason is that even if each loan were eventually repaid, some loans will always be outstanding. As a result, the government will never, at any point in time, yet have been paid back for all the revenue diverted into accounts – and therefore public debt will always be higher than without the accounts. The bottom line is that the Administration’s account proposal would raise public debt by more than 30 percent of GDP over the very long term. And even if the account proposal were combined with other measures that (unlike the accounts) would reduce the deficit in Social Security, public debt would remain higher than in the absence of the plan for several decades. Such higher levels of public debt are problematic because they increase the exposure of the government to a collapse in financial market confidence. “

JEEBUS! So the President wants to make his awful debt crisis even worse, by borrowing over 3 and a half Trillion, That’s Trillion with a T suckers, and that debt ,even with the supposed payback when people retire, will not be paid in full and will make the finances of the Federal government more exposed in case of an economic crisis. The question you need to ask yourself is why? Why make up a fake crisis, an even worse solution, and put the Governments finances in even worse shape than.

Now that’s the 64,000 dollar question. Part of the answer is ideology. The New Deal, yes the New Deal from the 30’s so sticks in the craw of the Right wing Nutjobs that have hijacked the Government that they would literally blow the economic future of the country up in smoke than allow Social Security to continue succesfully, and thus affirm the policies and ideas that underlay the New Deal. That really takes idealogical warfare to a whole other level. Does even Facist really cover it? Is there a word that can sum up a the right combination of Hubris, arrogance and the downright hatred of humanity it takes to come up with a scheme like this? Suggestions welcome Wireheads...

Think we’re done...Nope..Mr. Orzag delivers the punchline of the plan:

The Administration’s ultimate plan will have to rely on severe benefit reductions to eliminate the Social Security deficit. Since by the Administration’s own admission the accounts do not reduce Social Security’s deficit, and since the Administration is opposed to dedicating additional payroll taxes to the program, the Administration’s plan to eliminate the long-term deficit in Social Security must involve severe reductions in benefits (or introduce some new revenue source for the program). In particular, any plan that closes the deficit, includes the accounts the Administration has already proposed, and fails to dedicate additional revenue to Social Security must involve substantial cuts in traditional benefits beyond those required to pay back the loans to workers opting for individual accounts. The combined effect would be a stunning decline in the defined benefit component of Social Security over time. For example, if one prominent type of benefit reduction (often referred to as “price indexation”) were combined with the loan repayments necessary under the Administration’s accounts, traditional benefits for a young average earner today could decline drastically – instead of replacing more than a third of the worker’s previous wages, Social Security’s defined benefits would replace well under a tenth.

Ahhh...there’s the rub. Nothing in this plan will improve the solvency of the program, it will only make them worse. Ultimately, if the Adminitrations dire predictions of doom for SS were to come to pass, this plan would make this so bad that benefits to workers would be drastically cut.

You know, this was all really complicated, but at it’s heart, the Administations plan for SS is basically like all their other economic schemes. Workers get screwed. Corporations and the GOP’s wealthy contributors get even wealthier. That is the end result of every Bush plan. Once Again Red State voter, you have really outdone yourself. Outstanding work on this one. Thank you for electing the monkey who is trying to destroy not only my Social Security benefit, but countries economy and finances as well. But hey, it’s all about the freedom and the liberty right?



Insert quotation here.


Insert the vengeful, apocalyptic wrath of the space-God Jehovah-1 here.