licentious radio

Wednesday, August 20, 2003
[7:31:03 PM]

Republican would-be comics crack that California's deficit is Davis' fault and he should be recalled because of it. They even pop howlers like that Davis raised taxes, and that's why California has a deficit.

Propaganda lies! Or they've been smoking too much crack.

If California's deficits were an indication of failed leadership, what would you say about the $700 billion deficit of the United States? Failed leadership? NO. Bush *wants* those deficits. He wants to destroy the economy to enrich his cronies, while using "war on terror" propaganda lies to scare voters enough that they'll ignore Bush's obvious lies, high crimes, and war on America.

California's deficits are mostly caused by Bush's destruction of the United States economy. Where did the trillions of dollars go? Bush wrecked the economy.

It's also true that the $45 billion stolen from California by Bush-Cheney cronies is almost exactly the size of the state's deficit.

It's also true that Alan Greenspan assassinated the internet economy that was the force driving California's huge growth in the 90s, and that after September 11, huge amounts of federal funds were withheld from California companies that held contracts for research and development.

We say almost all of California's problems are the result of Republican attacks, and these Republican comic-propagandists should be run out of town, starting with Schwarzenegger.

What, by the way, is Schwarzenegger's economic plan? He's going to end the defict. How? He doesn't know, and won't say. It's a pathetically empty attempt to hogwash Californians.

It's true that Davis hasn't protected California from the ravages of the Bush-Cheney cronies. But that's no reason to elect another punk Bush crony like Schwarzenegger. Californians should give Davis a hand, and give him a resounding victory and mandate.

[7:06:29 PM]
Rumsfeld is such a clown. He claims military commanders in Iraq say "the size of the force in Iraq is appropriate today."

What happened to the last military officers who said we didn't send enough troops to Iraq? Their asses were fired, and their pensions were cut.

Rumsfeld should be fired and investigated. American soldiers did some terrible things in Iraq because Rumsfeld's plan didn't allow us to minimize civilian casualties. We should hold Rumsfeld accountable for that.

[5:58:43 PM]
A Republican Congressman from California was waving his electric bill on Crossfire, as if it were evidence of Gray Davis "failed leadership".

California electric rates are sky-high because a bunch of Bush-Cheney cronies illegally conspired to extort billions of dollars from California by causing rolling blackouts throughout the state. Davis used every legal authority of his office, but more Bush-Cheney cronies at FERC refused to put a stop to the banditry of Kenny Boy Lay, Thomas White, and other members of Bush's inner circle.

In a protection racket worthy of fellow gangster Al Capone, Bush-Cheney cronies used the threat of continuing blackouts to force Davis to sign long-term power contracts at outrageous rates. Only *then* did the cronies at FERC cap spot-market prices, which is all it took to make the so-called "crisis" go away. Note the timing of FERC's action -- wait until California capitulated to the racketeering operation, *then* shut down the short-term market-gaming conspiracies of their Republican buddies.

Dick Cheney was doing his best to keep the market manipulation going -- his buddies at Enron stole half a billion dollars in one day. Kenny Boy Lay, meanwhile, was also trying to prevent California from solving the "crisis" -- Kenny Boy brought in none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger, hoping to get some positive PR.

Davis mostly kept the lights on, while Bush and Cheney's friends were out to wreck California. Anyone who complains about electric prices in California should chase the Republican conspirators out of the country, starting with Cheney, Bush, White, Lay, Schwarzenegger, and a bunch of Schwarzenegger advisors, including Wilson, the former governor, and Wilson the Reliant Energy propagandist who sought to cover up Reliant's role in the theft, extortion, and racketeering.

Davis may not be someone everybody wants to spend the weekend with, but he is a freaking *hero* for fighting back against Bush and Cheney and their cronies.

[3:26:55 PM]
'...the "liberal" sins she [Anne Coulter] caricatures--atheism, cosmopolitanism, sexual license, moral relativism, communism, physical and intellectual cowardice, disloyalty and lack of patriotism--are identical to the crimes of the Jews as the Nazis depicted them.' --Gene Lyons

[1:33:04 PM]
The right-wing propaganda on Crossfire is quite stunning.

Incessantly, we hear that Saddam was not nice, and so it doesn't matter whether he was an imminent threat to the United States.

Carlson constantly focuses on whether we wish Saddam were still in power. Sheesh.

We wish the United States had never *put* him in power. We wish the United States hadn't helped Saddam in the war on Iran in which *far* too many people died.

We wish Poppy Bush had told Saddam clearly: "Don't invade Kuwait." Chances are, that would have been enough. We wish Poppy hadn't convinced the Shiites to rebel against Saddam, and we wish Poppy had supported the Shiite rebellion after he made the people of the United States responsible for Saddam's near genocide of the rebels.

We wish Bush Junior had waited a few more weeks for conclusive evidence that Iraq's so-called weapons of mass destruction had been destroyed, so that our soldiers could have taken their chemical/biological suits off sooner -- which surely would have saved casualties.

We wish the rules of engagement on the first day had been written to put American lives above the oil infrastructure, because we wish the first American killed hadn't been the guy who was trying to secure a pumping station without damaging it.

We wish Rumsfeld had let the army take enough resources to Iraq so they could have built a bridge to bypass Nassiriya, where a dozen Americans died in one day. We wish we had built that bridge, rather than fight through the city, killing at least 1,000 civilians. Heck, we wish we had avoided killing the uncountable number of Iraqi combatants -- they had mothers, fathers, wives, and children, too.

We wish that Bush Junior had made a clean case for invasion -- if such a case could be made -- and put together a coalition that would have demonstrated that the people of the world believed Saddam had to be removed, and so the coalition could have committed sufficient resources to make Iraq safe and peaceful after the conquest.

We wish Bush had been smart enough to realize that it will take something like 500,000 soldiers, five or more years to put Iraq back together.

We wish it didn't look to all the world like the conquest of Iraq was about empire and oil. We almost wish Al Qaeda and Saddam *had* been in cahoots, because we are citizens of this country that went to war, justified by a total fabrication, spread through propaganda lies and misleadership at the very highest levels of government.

We wish the Supreme Court hadn't stopped the legally mandated vote counts in Florida, so that Al Gore would have been president, and continued the fight against Al Qaeda at the same level as the Clinton administration. At least, we wish the Bush administration hadn't gone to sleep on terrorism, because with just a little more help, FBI agents would have prevented the infamous September 11th attacks.

And now we wish that Bush would come clean on Iraq, give up the political control of Iraq, and the juicy, no-bid contracts to Bush/Cheney cronies, let the UN take the political/economic lead, let the willing nations of the world contribute sufficient soldiers to make Iraq safe and secure, devote enough resources in a crash program to turn on the lights and water and get the people of Iraq back to work.

We wish Bush had done the right thing from the start, because it's a hundred or a thousand times harder to fix something that is broken.

We wish Bush hadn't wrecked the economy, that he hadn't wrecked the peace, that he hadn't opened to doors to even vaster pollution and environmental degredation.

We wish Bush didn't represent the people of the United States with a steady stream of stupid off-the-cuff remarks mixed with a steady stream of vile propaganda lies. We wish for even *one* time when Bush would take responsibility, admit error, and fix the mess he made, rather than *saying* he takes responsibility and making the mess worse. What a pathetic example he sets for the children of the United States, and what a sad thing to have the people of the world think Bush represents the United States.

Are the people of Iraq better off today than they were under Saddam?

No!

Absolutely not.

Women can't go outside for fear of rape. Kidnapping is rampant. Organized crime is widespread. People are afraid. Is Iraq more "democratic"? No. Democracy starts with a Bill of Rights and public accountability of members of government. When an American soldier shoots an Iraqi family dead, there is no accountability. When Bremer hands hundred million dollar no-bid contracts to Cheney's Halliburton-cronies, there is no accountability to the people of Iraq. There's no warrant when American soldiers burst into a home. War zones and democracies are different things.

Saddam was not nice.

How many Iraqis would he have killed in April? Not as many as we did. How many women would he have raped? Not as many as have been raped since we occupied Iraq. How many people would have been robbed at gunpoint? Not as many. How many people would have had their houses searched without a warrant? Not as many. How many families would have been shot dead as they drove along the street? None. How many hospitals would have been robbed? None.

We broke Iraq. We have the responsibility to fix it. The way to fix it is to put in enough resources to repair it, and enough soldiers to keep everyone safe. The most important thing is that Iraqis should believe that they are going to get their country back as soon as possible. Bush has no credibility in that regard. *We* have no credibility in that regard. Give the UN the lead in civil administration. Put 400,000 non-US soldiers into Iraq, so that American soldiers are not the face of the security force. Turn the freaking lights and water on, and make the streets safe for women and children to walk on.

Put Iraqis in charge of as much as possible, as fast as possible. The average Iraqis surely want peace and prosperity and safety and freedom. They will be our allies in the fight against rogue Baathists and terrorists, as soon as it's clear we aren't an occupation army.

[8:19:11 AM]
Independent: "Why did they attack the UN?" one Iraqi asked angrily. "The real target is in front of their eyes." He gestured angrily towards the American soldiers trying to hold back the crowds.