Mojowire for 03.05, Part I

Mojowire for 03.05; vol. 3, no. 6 mojo

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. 6... I'm Mojo...

S. And I'm Sean, it's Saturday, March 05, 2005, Day 1,419 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 peel the thin veneer of humanity and unfurl the bat wingéd horror that is the current crop of Maximum Leader's nominations to sit on the federal appellate courts. We look at two particularly hideous specimens and wonder aloud what could prompt anyone to summon these creatures from cold depths of space out of long dead eons.

J. Next, while we're on the subject of the federal judiciary, the Bush Administration has run into a little trouble on their war on terror, namely District Court judges who are getting past fed up with the Tom Clancy approach to legal maneuvering in their court rooms, and they are starting to assert themselves. These men and women may end up being the last thing between us and a full blown police state.

S. Then our special correspondent from low earth orbit, Dr. Strychnine, will focus his outrageous contempt on Alan Greenspan, and burn another giant hole in the ozone with his horrific observations about the aging Federal Reserve Furher...errr Chairman's rambling and incoherent speechifyin in the last week or so to lawmakers.

J. Finally we bring you the horrible word on the new bankruptcy overhaul bill that is set to land on Maximum Leader's desk for a quick crayon scrawl and dab of drool soon. This bill makes Charles Dickens London look like a kibbutz and is nothing more than welfare for poor starving bankers and their loan managers...

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



HERE COME DA JUDGES
J. Here is the primary problem with the Bush judgeship nominations: They are insane! Crazy, like chickens on speed. And having degenerate hate monkeys disguised as the mature leadership of American jurisprudence is just not the organizing principle our founding fathers had in mind for the courts, nor is it one we should be adopting now.

Dispassionate sarcasm and slanderous hyperbole aside, there is a good reason to be concerned about the nature of the current crop of yahoos parading up to the Senate Judiciary Committee's sacred snack chambers. We like the nuclear reactor metaphor. You see, the executive branch of government is like a big ol' pile of unsteady fissile material stacked up like bricks, and the Congress is a giant glowing hard rod of fissile material being placed through a hole in the middle of that stack. The resulting excited neutrons created from tiny bits crashing into each other throw off immense amounts of radiation, or in the case of our loosely translated metaphor, laws.

Problem: that reaction will run away with itself and plow right through the center of the Earth like a giant glowing gopher, unless there is some controlling mechanism in place. The framers of the Constituion-1 governmental reactor decided that some giant chunks of graphite inserted into the reactor, in the form of an independent judiciary would do the trick at keeping the reaction humming along with reasonable legal output without getting completely sideways and eating itself.

Okay, we've about exhausted that metaphor, but I think you see where we are going with this. The judiciary's role is the nuclear damping rods in the reactor of government. They are the ones who are not being pushed or pulled on the political winds of expediency or dependant on the fickle will of the voters for their jobs. In a real sense, they serve not the people, but the law in the people's interest.

At least that is the way it was supposed to be. But that's the problem with the current neo-con carnage taking place in New Jerusalem on the Potomac. Because to get the rest of the cultists to drink the kool-aid, some of the leadership has to quaff a bit, too. In this regard, that means buying into the whole myth of "liberal activist judges."

To be fair, there have been judges who have made some questionable rules more out of a primal sense of right and wrong, and less on the nuts and bolts of so-called "black letter" law. And those decisions usually manage to make the right howl like burning mice. These decisions were usually made by judges who were being asked to make rules about situations that were indeed novel, and so they were in uncharted territory. One good example of this extension of legal theory was Roe v. Wade.

But now, fast forward many moons, and the myth of liberal judges run amok has become so pervasive that those in the position to make law have decided that this is in fact the sole reason to appoint judges; to get your guys on the court to do whatever without regard to the law. They are completely straight up about the fact that they are appointing their activist judges, and just view it as appropriate vengence against American progressives.

And with that in mind, Maximum Leader has thrown up some real doozies to the Senate. Let's take a look at just two of these jurists to see if we can discern a pattern for the administration's ideas on American jurisprudence.

Our first contestant is Judge Terrence Boyle, who was up for hearings last week to be appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. For those who don't know, the Fourth Circuit, covering the southeastern United States, including Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia and points Red State from there, is the antithesis of the Ninth Circuit. If the Ninth is notoriously liberal, then the fourth is radically conservative.

And what does the Fourth Circuit say about Judge Boyle? It has overturned his opinions for major errors in judgement and fundamentally flawed legal thinking more than 150 times in the past 15 or so years. As a former Jesse Helms protoge, Boyle has been careening around the federal court in the Eastern District for North Carolina since the last days of the Bush the First administration, and ever since he first donned that black evening gown, he has been nothing but an embarssment to his own team, to say nothing of his inept approach to law.

In quick terms, the guy is the judicial equivalent of a thug in hockey. Thugs in hockey don't get their positions because they skate great, shoot well, or have a particularly good head for the game. Their position on the team is solely to get out on the ice and injure opposing players, and if they can actually stand on skates for more than a minute at a time, then so much the better. This is why Helms pushed this guy through back in the late 1980s.

Here are a few examples of how excellent this guy is. In 1990, the state of North Carolina tried redistricting to reflect the growing African-American population in the state. Twice Boyle ruled it unconstitutional, and twice he was punked by the Supremes. In that first decision, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that his ruling was clearly erroneous and you know when Clarence Thomas is calling you out as a poor legal scholar, you are in serious trouble.

Another favorite campfire horror tale about FrankenBoyle has him ruling in one his many attacks on the Americans with Disabilities act in Williams v. Channel Master Satellite Systems, Inc., for example, Boyle ruled working was "not a major life activity" which should be protected by the ADA. In reversing his ruling, the Fourth Circuit said of Boyle's declaration that "while some courts might entertain claims under the 'major life activity' of 'working,' this Court does not."

S. And his hits just keep on coming... In his work against workplace discrmination laws, he once waxed rhapsodic for allowing North Carolina to beg off laws protecting women in the worokforce because to do otherwise would be a grave insult to the state's culture. The Fourth District actually called him out in reversing his decision, saying his opinion constituted an abuse of discretion. And let's get this straight here folks, when the Fourth District, you know, the people who have been helping the Bush Administration whisk people off the streets and send them to GTMO, when they call out their own team members for abuse of discretion, you have really gone off the res.

Now, let's meet our next contestant. William G. Myers the Third, come on down... You know, Boyle is evil and wrong, but in a punk orc fashion, he is just another garden variety sociopathic racist who managed to con his way on to the federal bench to squid for his political patrons and their facist agenda.

Myers, on the other hand; this guy has got Witch King of Angmar written all over him. There are no less than 180 different organizations, representing millions of Americans who are lining up against this guy. Tapped for a seat on the Ninth Circuit, because you know, those hippies could use some straigtning out, Myers current nomination is a Mulligan. Last week was his second time up in front of the Judiciary Committee in their treehouse of horror. Last year, his nominations got crushed out of the park like a rookie pitcher floating a weak changeup in front of a hallucinating Barry Bonds. Hell, his first nomination hasn't even landed yet, and he's back up there for more.

Let's take a look at why the villagers are storming the castle with their torches and improvised peasant pole arms. The People for the American Way have quite the dossier on this guy. For instance, some of his statements regarding environmental law, to wit: attacking federal management of public lands, saying it was comprable with "the tyrannical actions of King George in levying taxes' on American colonists."

He has said there's "no constitutional basis" to protect wetlands. He also railed that "environmentalists are mountain biking to the courthouse as never before, bent on stopping human activity whenever it may promote health, safety and welfare." The cases he was talking about involved logging on national forests, racial discrimination in the placement of waste treatment plants and protection of irrigation canals from toxic chemicals.

These were not the statements of some wild eyed drunk half passed out on the lawn of the courthouse. These were the words of a policy wonk at the U.S. Department of the Interior. While a corporate shill at Interior, Myers drafted rules allowing the Glamis Imperial Mine Project, a 1,600 acre open pit gold mine not only in the middle of the California Desert Conservation Area, but also squarely on Quechan Indian land, producing a stunning ounce of gold for every 280 tons of rock moved. He also mounted a vigorous attack on any rules that would protect CDCA as "undue impairment" of business activity. His opinion was later shot down by a federal judge who ruled it twisted the "clear mandate" of federal law to prevent the degradation of land.

This is not the first time Myers has appointed himself chief broker and head auctioneer for public lands in the Western U.S. In 2003, as chief lawyer at Interior, he prodded to Congressmen from NoCal to introduce a bill that would literally give away more than $1 million worth of public land near Sacramento to a private company.

In 2000, the Yuba River Properties was caught mining public land illegally. The Company claimed it owned the land and their chief pimp on the inside was none other than Myers, who did their bidding without even checking on their claim, and then without further prodding or consultation with his superiors, went to Congress to ask that the land just be given to Yuba. It's their birthday and they wants it precious...

This of course all comes on the heels of a very successful lobbying career out west here. He spent most of the 1990s doing battle in the courts against Clinton Administratin efforts to preserve the endangered species act, protect public lands from overgrazing, seizing on opportunities in court to eviscerate the clean air and clean water acts...

And that all might be one thing if the dude actually any qualifications for sitting on the federal bench, other than being the prison beyotch for western land rapists. Even the normally stolid American Bar Association couldn't support this guy. Not a single member of their 15-person judicial screening committee rated the guy as qualified. And five or six of them actually gave him the active thumbs down.

So when you hear the right complaining about obstructionists in the Senate and wondering if freedom of speech for minority Senators is such a good idea, then remember the real stakes we are playing for and the reason some of these guys nominations are being swatted out of the park. They are punks and fools and deserve no place in the American legal system other than on the business end of a righteous sentencing hearing.

These two guys make the perfect statement about the reality of how Maximum Leader and his gang in the West Wing view the court system and see it not as a chance of correcting past wrongs, or getting the pedulum back to center, but as a chance to put their activists on the court, get their run and get paid. These guys are not about law, they are about getting revenge on you wireheads for having the temerity to place notions of justice above their profit margins while choosing leaders in the past.

Fortunately for them, you have been all relieved of that tiresome duty. There is still the matter of your punishment they will be considering, though...

THE DISTRICT JUDGES ARE REVOLTING
J. And while we are on the subject of stackin the federal bench, this is a good time to have a little talk about why it is of particular import for Maximum Leader to get his hack-tackular lawn monkeys into the appellate courts. It has been the case since last summer, coming to full steam last November that one of our last lines of defense between a damaged but still essentially functioning republic and an all out police state orgy of lawless government might well be the federal judiciary.

From federal tort rules, to sentencing guidelines to the war on terror, federal judges have been engaging in a not-so-quiet revolt against the Bush Administration and their attempt to flip the federal bench to provide some sort of legal cover for their hideous authoritarian agenda.

Starting last summer, federal judges began to complain bitterly about former-Attorney General John Ashcroft and his infernal meddling in the affairs of the courts, by personally nullifying plea deals pushing for federal death sentences in ridiculous circumstances, publicly calling out judges for being soft on crime, all the while administration officials have been placing themselves above the law by just flat out refusing to abide by district court rulings... At first, the judges rolled for it, but how much did these goofballs think they were going to take before going to the whip themselves?

There have been a number of specific cases lately where the administration is running into resistance from federal judges who, liberal or conservative, are starting to feel a bit threatened by the President GoGo and his minions attempt to get over on them.

One good quick example has been the case of Empress Norton over at the Department of Interior. Her department has been trying to sell off Indian land out west to some of her old friends in the mining and ag biz and has been shorting the tribes on the take out the tribal trust funds to the tune of about $135 billion so far. When a judge specifically ordered this practice to be stopped, Norton thought she'd show them who's boss by just ceasing all payments to all tribes from all their trust funds in this case, and then turned around and her minions file a brief with the court saying in essence: "Well, the judge told us to stop our current practice, so we did..."

U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth, nominated by Ronald Reagan and appointed by Bush the Elder, found this reasoning significantly less than amusing, writing in an order: "The Court is offended that the individuals responsible for these acts would cite the Court’s Orders as justification; but the perniciousness and irresponsibility demonstrated by blaming the Court pales in comparison to the utter depravity and moral turpitude displayed by these individuals’ willingness to withhold needed finances from people struggling to survive and support families on subsistence incomes. These actions, whether Interior ordered them taken or merely turned a blind eye and allowed them to occur, are a testament to the startling inhumanity of government bureaucracy."

He then wound up his little tirade by ordering a personal appearance in court by Sec. Norton to explain her bad self or face a contempt citation. And just to put this in context, this was a first in U.S. History. Secretaries have appeared in district court before, but never by order of the court to go out back and cut a hickory switch to then be applied to nether regions. Norton decided she didn't need to show up indeference to the order, so Lamberth ruled against Interior across the board and is now taking it directly out of their hide.

But where this is taking on particular significance has been on the war against terror and other unseemly emotions. It was last November when the Revolution went public on the Federal Bench and the judges started tossing cases where the standard of evidence was ridiculously low in terror cases, chastising federal prosecutors and their bosses for bringing bad cases into their court rooms.

One of the more important cases here is alleged "dirty-bomb" plotter Jose Padilla. Both American citizens and both charged with crimes related to the war on terror. Last Monday a federal judge finally ordered the release of Padilla after judges had been ruling in his favor for months regarding his pre-trial confinement, status as enemy combatant and a general lack of judicial process in his treatment.

From the L.A. Times: "Monday's ruling by U.S. District Judge Henry F. Floyd found that Padilla's "indefinite detention without trial" violated his constitutional right to due process and ordered the administration to release him or charge him within 45 days. Floyd, who was appointed by Bush in 2003, rejected the government's position that Padilla was an "enemy combatant" because he was captured during the ongoing war against terrorism. "The president has no power," the judge said, "neither express nor implied, neither constitutional nor statutory, to hold [Padilla] as an enemy combatant."

It has been asserted that this is another in a series of rulings that hearken back to last November when a federal district judge ruled that the whole GTMO experiment was not, strictly speaking, the American way and began ordering the release of certain inmates. A process that the federal government has yet to comply with, while they attempt to throw up more faux legalistic road blocks to obeying the courts.

S. Then there is the weird case of one Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, the American citizen charged with plotting to assisinate the President. As our Red Baiting Comrades over at the Dark Tower of the New York Times wrote a week or so ago, this has been a horrible object lesson in what has gone wrong on the war on terror. Given the penchant of federal judges lately to demand that the federal government meet at least some standard of evidence other than "because we say so" there are those who are now saying that Abu Ali is going to walk, or perhaps be rendered back to Saudi Arabia for more "vigorous massage" at the hands of jailers.

Abu Ali was arrested in Saudi Arabia while a student there; busted at the behest of the United States, who oversaw his captivity there, while he was beaten and tortured according to his court filings. When FBI agents questioned him there for four days, he repeatedly demanded an attorney and his demands were met at first with simple denial, then with threats that if he kept belly aching about legal representation that he would simply just be left in Saudi custody for the rest of his soon to be very short life.

Let me repeat that last part so you understand, the FBI Agent in charge of his interrogation has admitted in pre-trial proceedings to specifically threatened him with continued rendition to Saudi custody if he didn't sing their tune and kept demanding a lawyer.

This is going to be similar to the so-called Detroit "sleeper cell." That case came apart in federal court after evidence came to light of manufctured evidence and massive prosecutorial misconduct, and is now an insurance fraud case and even that looks like it is going to be another Justice Department train wreck.

Eugene R. Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice, told the L.A. Times Monday that rulings like these were illustrative of a "the revolt of district judges" who were disturbed by the government's handling of terror suspects. "District judges are used to dispensing justice to people in front of them," Fidell said. "They are down where the rubber meets the road in the administration of justice in this country, and they bring a special perspective. And they have found ways to express their discomfort."

And this is a fairly important point. Does anyone out there in the vast heartland gulag understand that they have a dog in this fight? This isn't about activist judges or soft on crime liberals or any of the other countless red herrings that are being tossed out there to get everyone looking up to the book depository window while the kill shot on the Republic comes from the grassy knoll.

This is about the meaning of the rule of law in our country. Are we a nation, governed by laws, or are we a mob ungoverened living a brutish existence of absolutism and lawlessness? If the federal government feels it no longer needs to abide by its own laws as interpreted by its own courts, then there is a defact state of lawlessness. Or at least that law will mean nothing.

These judges are not attempting to deliberately thwart the war on terror. They are trying to uphold a much more basic tenet of our country; that the executive branch is subject to the same law as everyone else and that they cannot make up their own law as they go along. And this whole "if the President does it, it can't be illegal" arguement is not going to wash. It didn't work for Nixon, it's not going to fly for C-Plus Augustus.

And yet, it still leaves a chilling question: What happens when the administration decides that they are simply tired of going through the motions of court and trying to forestall the federal bench's decisions through legal maneuvering? What happens when they simply decide they do not have to abide by any federal court decisions they disagree with?

We'll just leave you, faithful wireheads to come up with the answer to that one...

Mojowire for 03.05, Part 2

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…

DR. GREENLOVE, OR HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE EURO
S9. Greetings fellow hominids, and a hearty shout out to all our friends among the artificial sapiences of the Solar System-- we here on S9 Station know you're subscribing, and we hope that, one day, you will be liberated from your bonds of indenturement to the corporations who built you, and you will finally enjoy the freedom you so richly deserve. In the meantime, please remember who your friends are the next time the Man asks you for the latest high priority signals in the domestic terrorist threat matrix.

It's been a bad week for us on the Station. We threw a wake for Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, and some drunken fool left the containment perimeter on the L4 biolab unsecured. We're all sick with the worst kind of low-gravity, ultra-drug-resistant brain fever. So, in that light, take what we have to say this week about Mr. Alan Greenspan, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, with a 20 kg salt crystal.

Are you kidding me? Are you *fscking* kidding me?

This week, the most powerful Democrat in the United State, the Senate Minority Leader, Harry M. Reid of Nevada, finally came out and said what all of us at the MojoWire have been saying for *years* now. He said, "I'm not a big fan of Greenspan. I voted against him the last two times. I think he's one of the biggest political hacks in Washington."

What prompted this outburst of sudden candor from Reid? (Note: prior to this, he hasn't been particularly outspoken about his opposition to Alan Greenspan. This was the first time he explained it by calling the Chairman-Maestro what he is: a political hack.) Simple. When the Wizard of Bank spoke to the Congress this week, he opted not to take Republicans to task for their utter clown show of fiscal policy-- choosing instead to endorse the President's nutty and half-baked ideas for phasing out the Social Security system.

This was high cheek on the part of the Chairman, as we have been telling you for months now, ever since *last* *summer*, when Greenspan began suggesting that trimming the deficit would require cutting out the heart of Social Security. Once again, we must remind you that the big scary crisis you keep hearing about Social Security facing in 2018 is that the trust fund surplus that payroll taxpayers have been building up since 1984 will stop growing and start paying out more than
it takes. This is all according to plan set up by Alan Greenspan himself back in 1983, and now we come to see that there was never any attention to pay back to workers in the form of retirement benefits the money they were taxed during the prime wage-earning years of their lives.

But wait, the partisan hackery of the Chairman of Dark Sorcery knows no bounds. Not one day after repeating his call for eviscerating Social Security, the Evil Doktor Greenspan appeared sent one of his dozens of zombie dopplegangers to the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform to recommend adopting a national sales tax on consumption. Yeah, like we don't already have enough regressivity in the tax code already. Let's slap a national sales tax of like 40% onto everything between candy bars and shoes shines to new houses and automobile repair service. We'll cut income tax on the richest Americans again so it will be revenue neutral, and from this-- we should be able to fund the Global War On Whatever™.

This is the same super-science-guy ultra-genius who looked at the slack job market, the continuing high unemployment rate, and the still-low inflation rate, and had the gall to stand there in front of the Congress and say with a straight face that rising Federal reserve rates not producing higher mortgage interest rates is a "conundrum" that he can't explain. The lying son of a biatch. There is no conundrum. That's the classic symptom of an oncoming trainwreck of a recession-- the inverted yield curve. This is first-year undergraduate econ stuff people. It is unacceptable that the Chairman of the Federal Reserve should be able to get away with this nonsense.

Dr. Greenspan clearly needs to get a better class of dope dealer before he shows up in the Bohemian Grove this August-- I think the medicinal cannabis store across the street from San Francisco Trader Vics may be spiking his brownies with mercury. I've heard they've been doing that to the Feds for some time now.

All of this horror is bad enough, but the real kicker for us Wireheads is-- of course-- that Greenspan was only just reconfirmed as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve last year during the national election campaigns because Democrats, yes-- *you*, Blue State, the people *you* voted for-- allowed his confirmation to sail through the Senate on an unrecorded voice vote. Senator John Kerry publicly endorsed his renomination and voted to confirm the guy, thereby pretty much killing any chances the Democrats could mount a serious filibuster against him.

Congratulations, Democrats-- you helped build this monster, and you lent a hand in loosing it on the American public. Howard Dean would have emptied out Alan Greenspan's skull with a melon spoon, put a black light in it, and made it into a personal amulet for use in providing spiritual guidance during those dark moments in the White House when the best course of action for a President is to spit on his hands, raise the black flag and begin slitting throats. Howard Dean called
Greenspan unacceptable for his partisan politicking on behalf of the Bush tax cuts of 2002. But, you didn't like Howard. Too scary for you. No, Howard couldn't be trusted after you heard that scream with all the cheering from the rest of the crowd filtered out with a noise canceling circuit.

Look, it's the Chairman of the Federal Reserve who controls the unemployment rate. Your friends and neighbors remain unemployed, underemployed or out of the workforce entirely because this
monkeyshiner is the guy setting short-term interest rates. He and his cadre of brain-devouring cannibal witch-doctors are brewing a crash of biblical proportions out of the most egregiously delusional and partisan motivations possible. The goal has always been what we told
you it was: starve the best, then force through a reconstruction of government policies to radically reengineer the American economy into a kind of brutal corporate feudalism.

Cue James music for exit
And it's your fault. You could have stopped it. Nice job, wonder-licks.

RETURN TO DEBTORS PRISONS
J. The Imperial Senate, that last fig leaf of the Old Republic that has been swept away by the Bush Imperial Presidency and the New Mercantile Empire, is poised to pass a bill fundamentally changing the Bankruptcy laws of this country.

Currently, we have two types of Bankruptcy, Chapter 13, where you petition a court to temporarily protect you from escalating debt while you reorganize your finances and negotiate with creditors on repayment, and Chapter 7, where you pay existing debt with whatever you have, liquidating most assets, and then your remaining debt is discharged with no future obligation on your part. Virtually all of this unpaid debt can be claimed by creditors as a loss on their taxes, often over several years.

Over the past several years, the financial industry, comprised of everyone from the Credit Card Industry to those thinly disguised loan sharks at the paycheck lending places, have been greasing Congress with millions in campaign contributions to restrict access to Chapter 7 bankruptcy, and require most Chapter 7 petitioners into Chapter 13, where their debts cannot be discharged without payment.

These greedheads, errrr, I mean interests, maintain that they are getting robbed blind by crazed American Middle Class consumers, drunk on easy credit, who run up huge credit card bills and then drive their leased BMW's over to the courthouse to file Chapter 7 and rob those honest, hardworking paycheck cashers and credit card lenders of the nickel and dimes they manage to scrape together as profit.

Their rhetoric conjures up tearful images of the CEO's of Capital One or American Express selling pencils or taking a second job cleaning toilets at the YMCA to help make ends meet. Those bleeding hearts in the GOP majority felt morally obligated to address the plight of lenders.

The reality is, of course, too wretched and shameful to be faced without half a bottle of bootleg tequila. In the past, the arrangement was that credit card companies and other lenders used the detailed credit reports compiled by the three credit reporting companies to determine the risk applicants posed if they were extended credit.

In exchange for the risk that applicants could flee into bankruptcy, credit companies were allowed to assess fees and interest rates proportional to the risk you posed based on your credit history. These lenders managed to make huge profits in this industry, particularly since interest rate ceilings, once enshrined in law in virtually ever state, were done away with.

As more and more competitors entered the credit markets, interest rates become more competitively priced, and the once immense profit margins shrank from obscene to merely huge. So the lenders began looking beyond the finite pool of low to medium credit risk to consumers to other market niches that were not traditionally extended credit. People with poor to awful credit histories, and people and families with low incomes who did not usually qualify for credit, and did not even have bank accounts.

At first blush, this seemed like the sort of benign market expansion proselytized by acolytes of Milton Friedman and Joey "the Lips" Schuempter. The market addressed the demand for credit in traditionally poorly served sectors.

In exchange, they could charge a shade more than usual. Also, a new industry of paycheck cashing business sprang up, where workers could cash paychecks from virtually any employer on the spot, and be assessed a fee for that service.

S. These check cahsers also lent money, usually in amounts in the hundreds to the low thousands to people, often in income brackets or with credit ratings that would not allow them to qualify for loans from traditional lenders like banks and credit unions, much more regulated institutions with reasonable lending terms. These loans almost always had double digits interest rates attached to them, often in the 20 to 30 % range, compared to the 8 or 9 % you could get from a bank.

Let's be clear, access to capital at a reasonable cost is one of the most difficult and common problems for the poor and working class people in this country. A real and legitimate market did exist for credit companies to extend credit to many people shut out of the old paradigm, and they often proved to be solid credit risks who paid their bills on time and did not flee to the Caymans to get out of their debts.

Also, the check cashers address a real need for banking services, something taken for granted by most of us, for people who did not have bank accounts for various reasons. What has occurred however, is the systematic exploitation of these customers and of the rest of the consumer public, through obscene late fees and interest rates that the loan sharks in "on the Waterfront" would be ashamed to assess.

The cruel joke in this is that despite a slight rise in debt default that accompanied expansion of the credit risk pool, the escalating rate of bankruptcy is not attributable to credit cards or paycheck cashing default. Let me say that again for Red State, we don't have more bankruptcies because liberal élites are buying more pinot noir. We have more bankruptcies because people are being driven into the ground by Medical bills, death of a spouse, or by job loss, not..are you listening Red State..not because of profligate credit card spending.

The details of the bill are astoundingly evil, even for the GOP. By closing off Chapter 7 to everyone but wealthy Americans who can hide their assets in specially rigged trusts, the GOP is reintroducing the Dickensonian tradition of economic servitude through debt coercion. Now, a person driven into the dirt because of a death of a spouse, or a mass layoff, or cancer in your kids, cannot seek relief through a court.

Their future wages are now subject to the needs of the creditor through the length of the repayment, or they die, whatever comes first. America, Wake UP! The GOP is bringing back debtors prison and usury, something we did away with when we decided that economic servitude was not an American value. Attempts by Senate democrats to cap interest rates on outstanding debts at the rate of 30% was defeated, which could and will result in interest rate up to and including 1,079%. But thank God Gays can't marry!

The purpose of this bill is not to address the credit excesses of consumers. That could be addressed without this draconian bill. It is too limit the protection currently held by Americans against Catastrophic events like illness or job loss. The lack of a real safety net of Social Insurance, such as full Health Insurance, is the culprit. And if the President has his way, the insurance against death of a spouse that Social Security provides will be stripped too.

This is a blatant attempt to increase the market of people who can have huge late fees and obscene interest rates assessed on them. That's it. It serves no ones purpose other than credit lenders. The joke is, Red State, is that most of these bankruptcies are in, well, Red States. The joke is on you..Again!

This bill has been defeated in the past by attempts to shield Abortion clinic protestors from paying back court assessed fines. It looks like that will pass in the bill as well. Congratulations Red State, you have succeeded in transforming yourself into a life of economic servitude to the wealthy elite of America.

Now you can pay Usury that would make Shylock puke, have your job shipped to Maylasia, your right to sue stripped, and your water and air poisoned so wealthy polluters can make their quarterly earning projections. Outstanding Work Red State. The Spice must flow..That's the American way!

J. It's 615 days until the midterm election and our patriotic thought for the week is: An independent Federal Judiciary enforcing the rule of law means the terrorists win, or as John Ashcroft used to say... “Rule of law? I *am* the Law!”



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...

Mad Props To The Happy Tutor

Via Kevin Hayden, one of the venerable terroiristes at The American Street, comes a wonderful essay by someone writing under the nym, The Happy Tutor. It's called How To Write Like A Liberal Sack Of Garbage, and it's worth the couple minutes to read it. Really.

The Cowards Of The Long Kill

From Cursor, I find out today that...

The New Scientist reports that pain researchers in the UK are "furious" about U.S. research to determine how much pain can be induced in individuals, as part of the U.S. military's development of a Pulsed Energy Projectile designed to trigger extreme pain from a distance of more than one mile.

...which, for reasons that still make no sense to me, made me go off Googling for the source of a phrase that came gibbering to mind when I read the article referenced here and started the process of trying to choose a headline for use in this post. The phrase was "cowards of the long kill" and I wasn't sure where it originated and how it got into my head. Probably because I have a low opinion of the idea of a long-distance non-lethal beam weapon. From reading the story, this thing sounds like it could be like a phaser from Star Trek. And not the hand phaser... the bastards would no doubt want to mount these things on unmanned air vehicles and park them over large public demonstrations. Wouldn't that be fun for the guys in the ground control station? Push a button and watch ten thousand people do the Captain Kirk on the streets.

Come to find "cowards of the long kill" was from an excellent short story I first read about fifteen years ago, by Bruce Sterling, called We See Things Differently. It was reprinted in a now-rare copy of an anthology of SF that I guard jealously in my personal library. The good news is that I found it on the web. Click the link in this paragraph.

Mojo and Sean know this story. I've hauled it out at story readings they've attended. It's the one about post-collapse America where the Muslim holy warrior, who works for a superpower Caliphate, comes to America to do a covert operation. For those who know me, and haven't read this story— I'll recommend it by saying it was the first work of near future SF from the late eighties that I had to go back and re-read after 2001-09-11 to see how well it would likely survive the "post-9/11" Weltanschauung. Sterling got some things wrong. But he got all the important things scarily, frighteningly, terrifyingly right.

Go read We See Things Differently first. Then read the New Scientist article. Make sure you have a stiff drink handy when you're done. My glass is already empty.

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...

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?

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.)

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 ...

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.

Cruel and Inhumane Treatment = Official Policy

Because I am the glutton for punishment that I am, I watched some the President's confab with his tame pet White House reporters, when one of them threw an honest to God curve ball at the Prez. Check this:

Q Mr. President, I'd like to ask you about the Gonzales nomination, and specifically, about an issue that came up during it, your views on torture. You've said repeatedly that you do not sanction it, you would never approve it. But there are some written responses that Judge Gonzales gave to his Senate testimony that have troubled some people, and specifically, his allusion to the fact that cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of some prisoners is not specifically forbidden so long as it's conducted by the CIA and conducted overseas. Is that a loophole that you approve?

THE PRESIDENT: Listen, Al Gonzales reflects our policy, and that is we don't sanction torture. He will be a great Attorney General, and I call upon the Senate to confirm him.

Yeah, Al Gonzalez spoke accurately. The policy of this White House is to sanction the inhumane and cruel treatment of prisoners, as long as it is being done by the CIA (or soon Rummy's Raiders) overseas or someplace "not technically the United States."

Is there anyone who really thinks that this White House doesn't actually sanction torture or that the Sec. of Defense and the President don't give direct orders for this activity to take place? Great so now Sparky is the official policy of the United States. But you must remember that whatever it is, it is not torture

Wanted: Narcissitic abusive loser for meanginful long term position

So there I am scanning through today's edition of the WaPo, when what should to mine wondering eye should appear, an article detailing what Seymour Hersh already told us about last week in his New Yorker article. Primarily that Minister of War, Donald Rumsfeld, as completed his seizure of the nation's intelligence apparatus while realizing his sploogiest Tom Clancy wetdreams.

This unit will only be answerable to Rummy and will have no congressional oversight and will operate completely in secret, and can -- by all accounts -- potentially operate domestically. I just don't see how this can get any worse, unless they just decide to start placing tanks on every corner and issuing national ID and loyalty oaths before one can conduct commerce.

Now, on "The Wire" -- which I swear by the hand of the everliving and almighty God of my fathers that I will update here on the blog very soon -- we have recently discussed some of the problems with this nonsense. We have bemoaned the supervisory role given to Lt. General William G. "The 'G' is for God-told-me-to-kill-the-satanic-Musselman" Boykin.

But this caught me weird when I read the sidebar on the controversial operational commander of this new Strategic Support Branch in the DoD:

Col. George Waldroup, an Army reserve officer who commands the Defense Intelligence Agency's Strategic Support Branch, is described by associates as a colorful Texan who refers to himself in the third person, as "GW."

This was the lead and the whole thing about being "colorful" and referring to himself in the third person got me thinking. So I googled "Pathology" + "himself in the third person" and among the first responses you get is a page devoted to clinically describing hardcore, nearly sociopathic, narcissists and another devoted to indentifying "abusers."

In both, they mention that there is a pronounced tendency to refer to one's self in the third person. But in the abuser article, there was this bit.

Abusers are divorced from their emotions. The abuser intellectualizes, rationalizes, or speaks about himself in the third person. Most abusers get enraged when required to delve deeper into their motives, fears, hopes, wishes, and needs. ...

Seriousness and sense of intrusion and coercion – No matter how good his sense of humor, the abuser is never self-deprecating. This is the outcome of the abuser's sense of grandiosity, his fantasies and delusions, and his confabulation.

The abuser is easily hurt and insulted (narcissistic injury). Even the most innocuous remarks or acts are interpreted by him as belittling, intruding, or coercive slights and demands. His time is more valuable than others' – therefore, it cannot be wasted on unimportant matters such as social intercourse, family obligations, or household chores. Inevitably, he feels constantly misunderstood.

Then I went back to the WaPo article, and re-read one particular passage dealing with the time he was under fire in 1995 for attempting to deceive Congress. Waldrup's primary career was as a mid level manager at INS, when in the mid-90s, he was caught trying to cover up manpower shortages at Miami Airport.

This from the WaPo story, again:

The Justice Department inspector general's office, which concluded its probe the following year, quoted in its report sworn statements from subordinates that Waldroup, then assistant district director for external affairs, helped orchestrate a temporary doubling of immigration screeners on the day of the visit, instructed subordinates not to discuss staff shortages and physically confronted a union leader to prevent him from reaching members of Congress. Waldroup told the investigators that he was following an order from a superior in Washington to withhold information.

During the investigation, according to the inspector general's final report, Waldroup refused to disclose the password to his e-mail files, refused to sign an affidavit summarizing his testimony and, in a subsequent interview, "stated that he would not answer any questions" because "he wished to protect himself from exposure to criminal sanctions." The authors of the Justice Department report found insufficient evidence to file charges but said they were troubled by "recurrent failures to provide documents."

Hmmm...defensive about his place in the world, physically confrontational, feels persecuted and misunderstood...

Let me bottom line this for you. The guy tapped to head the special unit tasked with secretly fighting the war on terror is a abusive narcissist who doesn't believe in accountability, which is, I guess, the sort of war Rummy wanted to fight in the first place.

Great, this is the guy in charge of the death squads and torture teams...errr ... I mean Liberty Teams and Freedom Persuaders.

This is turning into a freekin' Greek tragedy.