bulletproof indictment

Liberal radio program Air America host Randi Rhodes opened her Monday afternoon radio show with an announcer blasting the president for his Social Security plan: "A spoiled child [Bush] is telling us our Social Security isn't safe anymore, so he's gonna fix it for us. Well, here's your answer, you ungrateful whelp: [sound of three shotgun blasts]. The AAARP - the American Association of Armed Retired People [sound of rifle being cocked]. Just try it, you little bastard."

Informed of the bit at a White House press briefing, spokesman Scott McClellan said: "It sounds very inappropriate and over the line." During Dan Quayle's vice-presidency, ex-WABC lefty Lynn Samuels was investigated by the Secret Service for saying "Too bad it can't happen here" while discussing a vice-presidential candidate getting beaten up in South America. Yesterday, on her Sirius Satellite Radio show, Samuels drew the line at shooting: "There are very few things that you absolutely, positively cannot do on the radio," she said, "and pretending to shoot the president is right up there at the top." "It was a bit. It was bad. I apologize a thousand times," Rhodes told listeners yesterday, adding: "I'm not in charge of the bits."

There are ways around these kinds of things and NYC's Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra figured it out last summer on their fantastic third full-length, Who Is This America? Antibalas is a truly multicultural ensemble that has been blazing across the land since around the turn of the millenium, even gaining the attention of beatjunkies like Ninja Tune, who released their first two albums. This band is no Fela Kuti-lite and they prove it in spades. Instead of gun shots just put the setting in court so it is a gavel hammering down. You can't argue with the courts and the law of the land, right?

Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra - Indictment