SMASH THE STATE A weekly television series of political satire and commentary Saturday, April 6, 1996 * The Monologue * The Bottom Ten List: "The Bottom Ten Ways Bob Dole Can Be More like Ronald Reagan" * The Official Report * Question Authority * Viewer E-Mail _________________________________________________________________ THE MONOLOGUE By Gary Johnson, Smash the State, April 6, 1996 (Live from Austin -- home of Sematech -- it's Saturday night. And now for something completely dissident, here's Gary!) Thank you. This is Smash the State. Welcome to our show. (1) Steve Forbes, the former Republican candidate for President, has agreed to host Saturday Night Live. A losing politician hosting a live, Saturday night comedy show on television? What a ridiculous idea! (2) Newt Gingrich said this week that he will ask Ross Perot not to run for President and to endorse Bob Dole instead. And if that works, Gingrich will ask Bill Clinton not to run too. (3) Taco Bell announced this week that it had purchased the Liberty Bell and renamed it the Taco Liberty Bell. Unfortunately, it was just an April Fools joke. (4) Now that a suspect in the Unabomber case has been captured, I guess President Clinton will be making speeches comdemning Earth First! and left-wing environmentalists the same way he condemned the National Rifle Association and right-wing militia members after the Oklahoma City bombing. Right? _________________________________________________________________ THE BOTTOM TEN LIST "The Bottom Ten Ways Bob Dole Can Be More like Ronald Reagan" By Gary Johnson, Smash the State, April 6, 1996 Ladies and gentlemen, I hold in my hand this week's Bottom Ten List. From the state headquarters on Cesar Chavez Street, the category is the Bottom Ten Ways Bob Dole Can Be More like Ronald Reagan. Senator Bob Dole has won enough delegates in the primaries for the Republican nomination for President. Dole once told an audience that he would be anything they wanted him to be; he could be Ronald Reagan -- if that's what they wanted. So, how can he win one for the Gipper? Here are the Bottom Ten Ways Bob Dole Can Be More like Ronald Reagan. Minus 10, Run up a huge federal deficit. (Dole is already doing that.) Minus 9, Smile. Minus 8, Tell jokes about being old. Minus 7, Star in a movie with a chimp. Minus 6, Profess a faith in religion but never attend church. Minus 5, Promise to abolish the Department of Energy and the Department of Education. Minus 4, Blame everything on Jimmy Carter. Minus 3, Hire Pat Buchanan as a speech writer. Minus 2, Pick George Bush for Vice President. And the Minus 1 way Bob Dole can be more like Ronald Reagan, Consult an astrologer. We have a great show for you. There is more to come. If this be treason, make the most of it. _________________________________________________________________ "No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent." -- Abraham Lincoln _________________________________________________________________ THE OFFICIAL REPORT By Gary Johnson, Smash the State, April 6, 1996 This is the Official Report. The stories you are about to hear are true. THE STATE OF THE WORLD (1) The former President of Poland, Lech Walesa, has returned to his old job in Gdnask as a $250-a-month electrician. The former Solidarity union leader arrived at the shipyard in his official Mercedes with a bodyguard who will make twice as much as he does. (2) President Clinton was loudly booed by the crowd in Baltimore when he threw out the ceremonial first pitch of the baseball season. The White House said that booing the President when he threw the first pitch was "a tradition." (3) A school gymnasium in Dunblane, Scotland, will be torn down because it is where a man shot and killed 16 children and a teacher. There is nothing wrong with the building but British Prime Minister John Major said, "We must pull this down," and relatives of the victims agreed. The local council, which says money is available for a replacement gym, has asked the news media not to cover the demolition. THE NEW WORLD ORDER (4) The Prime Minister of Japan, Ryutaro Hashimoto, signed the documents to renew the lease to maintain the U.S. military bases on the island of Okinawa. The Prime Minister was forced to sign the leases after the governor of the island adamantly refused to do so. TO PROTECT AND SERVE (5) The state of Mississippi disclosed this week that a secret commission set up in the 1950's, the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, resisted desegregation by spying on and keeping files on 87,000 people during the civil rights era. (6) U.S. District Judge Harold Baer reversed a ruling that cocaine and heroin seized in a drug case could not be used as evidence because New York City police did not have probable cause to search the trunk of a car. The judge had said that, considering the history of police brutality, it was not unusual for people in the neighborhood to run away when they saw the police. President Clinton, Senator Bob Dole, and Mayor Rudolph Guiliani had criticized the original decision. But the judge did not mention the pressure on him and said his turnabout was based on "new evidence" presented by the government. (7) Reason magazine reported that Joni Lynn Yorks, a special agent for the IRS investigating tax-evasion schemes, was arrested for filing tax returns listing fictitious dependents. YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK (8) Last week, for the first time in history, the national debt exceeded $5 trillion. (9) In the portrait on the newly-designed $100 bills, Ben Franklin has darker hair and looks less tired than on the old bills. (10) Barry Som pleaded guilty to welfare fraud after allegedly bilking the state of Washington of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Authorities promptly fired him from his job with the state Department of Social and Health Services, which is in charge of welfare programs. READ MY LIPS (11) President Clinton has nominated Charles Stack to be a federal judge on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Stack also happens to have raised $7 million for the President's 1992 campaign. During his Senate confirmation hearings, he admitted that he had not heard of a Adarand decision on affirmative action. When Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona explained the Adarand case and asked Stack if he agreed with it, Stack replied, "(If) I were familiar with the Adarand decision, I would be greatly enhanceed in my ability to give you an intelligent answer." (12) Radio personality Don Imus was criticized for telling jokes about President Clinton and Newt Gingrich as the keynote speaker for a banquet in Washington, D.C., for the Radio and Television Correspondents Association and attended by Clinton and Gingrich. The White House Press Secretary even asked C-SPAN not to rerun the program. C-SPAN refused, and probably drew a bigger audience than if the White House had not complained. In reaction to the controversy, Dom Imus said, "It doesn't get any better than this." (13) Finally, the quotation of the week. The punk rock group the Sex Pistols are returning for a reunion tour, offering to hold a benefit concert for Princess Di. Famous for its album, Anarchy in the UK, the Sex Pistols said they would have no new songs and would not even rehearse. Lead singer Johnny Rotten explained why the group was getting back together, "We have a common interest: your money." And that's the Official Report, where you hear it's farce. _________________________________________________________________ QUESTION AUTHORITY By Gary Johnson, Smash the State, April 6, 1996 (1) Dear Mr. Authority: It seems like everyone has a beeper these days. But what about the homeless who cannot afford one? -- Signed, Clueless. Dear Clueless: The Federal Communications Commission has a proposal to provide beepers to the homeless. Top FCC officials testified at a U.S. House hearing that the plan has been circulated in draft form at the agency. The beeper proposal would implement a provision of the telecommunications law intended to ensure that everyone in the U.S. who wants phone service receives it. The service would be funded by charges levied on phone users. If you want to know what to do, question authority. _________________________________________________________________ You can be part of our studio audience. Smash the State is seen every Saturday night at 8:30 on Austin Cablevision, channel 10. On most Saturday nights, our program is produced live at Austin Community Television in the Main Studio at 1143 Northwestern Avenue, south of Rosewood Avenue. Our next live show is two weeks from tonight on April 20th. Limited seating is available. _________________________________________________________________ VIEWER E-MAIL Smash the State, April 6, 1996 Smash the State is on the Internet on the World Wide Web. Visit our web site at http://members.aol.com/sedition . Smash the State welcomes electronic mail from viewers. Our e-mail address is sedition@aol.com . Here is some actual e-mail from actual e-viewers. Letter number 1. (Name withheld by request) "Gary, "I wrote the following for you to consider for use in your monolouge for STS. You don't have to mention my name. "The Federal Election Committee just ruled that candidates for the presidency who turn down federal matching funds do not qualify for federal matching funds. "Since qualifying for matching funds is often one of the criteria to be on primary ballots or to participate in presidential debates, this means that only candidates who accept taxpayer-supplied 'welfare for candidates' will be allowed to fully participate in presidential campaigns. "If you don't take the bribe, you aren't qualified. "Now if federal matching campaign funds were outlawed by the supreme court or a constitutional amendment -- then we wouldn't have to be subjected to these ridiculous primaries and debates every 4 years!" Thank you for your letter, Name Withheld By Request. This letter refers to an Advisory Opinion by the FEC for the Harry Browne for President Campaign in answer to the question, May a Presidential campaign receive public funding certification but refuse matching funds? Harry Browne is a presidential candidate who qualifes for federal campaign matching funds but he refuses to take them. Although Browne qualified for matching funds last November, the Federal Election Commission ruled on March 28 that it will not certify his qualification unless he agrees to take the money. Based on this ruling, if his campaign does not accept the taxpayer subsidy from the federal Treasury, he will be shut out of many aspects of the electoral process. For example, Browne was kept off the Delaware primary ballot because the state listed only candidates certified by the FEC as qualifying for federal matching funds. And Browne may be kept out of the presidential debates this fall because qualifying for matching funds is one of the criteria to determine which candidates will be allowed to participate. In effect, the FEC ruled that Harry Browne must accept a subsidy to fully participate in the election. But Browne calls the matching funds program "welfare for politicians." He says: "I want to end all federal welfare for individuals, corporations, and politicians, so how can I accept this subsidy? So far, primary candidates will receive more than $40 million in matching funds, and the Democratic and Republican nominees will each get a gift of $60 million from the Treasury to finance their general election campaigns." Harry Browne said he will finance his campaign "the old-fashioned way -- by earning the trust and support of donors." Again, thank you for your letter, Name Withheld by Request. And thank you for giving us a lame excuse to finally mention the name of Presidential candidate Harry Browne here on Smash the State. Send us your electronic mail. We may read it on the air. Again, that e-mail address is sedition@aol.com . _________________________________________________________________ That concludes this episode of Smash the State for Saturday, April 6, 1996, a date which will live in infamy. Good-bye, everybody. Thank you for joining us. The revolution will be televised.