A slick promise of
a meal of nutritive fruit
for hair, hanging dead.

Way back in 2005, I set myself a goal of compiling a list of 2,008 reasons to elect a progressive President in 2008. I set as stakes for the challenge a nasty punishment: If I failed to compile a list of 2,008 reasons by January 1, 2008, I would write a check for $2008.00 dollars to every Republican presidential candidate.

The high stakes worked as a motivation, especially this last month, and as of this afternoon, we have 2,008 reasons compiled. A few need to be edited, sourced, or sorted, and some revisions may need to be made as we now doublecheck the list to get it up to date but all the material is there - and just in the nick of time.

What a relief. I’m now ready to sleep my way into the new year. Auld Lang Nap, everyone.

Today, on New Year’s Eve, the newspapers were full of articles telling us that 2007 was a record breaking year in terms of the theft of private information. The really sad thing is the newspapers didn’t even count the millions of items of private information about American citizens stolen by the government itself through infiltration of peaceful activist organizations, eavesdropping on our telephone calls, reading of our emails and postal mail, and data mining of information gathered on us from commercial sources, regardless of privacy agreements.

It may be a record year for private identity thieves, but compared to the government, the hackers are small time. (Source: Associated Press, December 31, 2007)

At the end of this year, as America considers the difference between presidential candidates who supported the rush to invade Iraq and those who opposed that rush, let’s remember of the words of U.S. General and Senator Carl Shurz, who said in 1898, “The man who in times of popular excitement boldly and unflinchingly resists hot-tempered clamor for an unnecessary war, and thus exposes himself to the opprobrious imputation of a lack of patriotism or of courage, to the end of saving his country from a great calamity, is, as to ‘loving and faithfully serving his country,’ at least as good a patriot as the hero of the most daring feat of arms, and a far better one than those who, with an ostentatious pretense of superior patriotism, cry for war before it is needed, especially if then they let others do the fighting.”

Surprise, surprise.

The day after Michael Bloomberg summoned 15 wealthy powerbrokers with multiple corporate connections to a meeting at which they will issue an policy platform ultimatum to the presidential candidates and then declare their own presidential bid, Unity08 posted a breathless comment of support for the group, linking in for evidence of independent approval to another breathless post by The Hotline.

Guess who founded both The Hotline and Unity08? Why, Douglas L. Bailey. Of course, neither The Hotline nor Unity08 disclosed this in their posts.

Look for further connections between Unity08 (a group of corporate public relations and mass mailing consultants and lobbyists without a candidate) and the January 7, 2008 Bloomberg meeting (a group of 16 wealthy powerbrokers sitting at the nexus of the corporate world and politics) to emerge. The whole situation just screams, in big thirty-foot-tall letters, “SHENANIGAN!”

Mother Davis listens to Mitt Romney blather on about the terrorist threat and proposes,

Ever since the attacks of September 11, 2001, the Republican Party has been pushing Americans to wallow in the memory of that day’s suffering. Helen Keller had better advice: “Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything good in the world.” It is time for America to stop moaning and feeling sorry for itself, and get back to the work of doing good in the world.

Straightening her spine,
Mother Davis

Republican presidential candidates John McCain and Mike Huckabee are competing for the support of right wing preacher John Hagee, praising his leadership and commitment in pushing extremist religion into the the public sphere. It’s well worth noting, therefore, the way that Hagee proposes we all look at the identity of the American nation.

Conventional history has it that the United Sates was created as a sovereign nation in 1776 through the American Revolution, and subsequently through the Articles of Confederation, which were succeeded by the American Constitution, which is now the supreme law of the United States of America, defining the parameters of what the USA is.

That’s not how John Hagee sees things, though. According to John Hagee, the United States was born in the year 1607. Hagee took part in the Consecration Conference at Assembly 2007, which declared, “In April of 1607, the Jamestown colony landed in Virginia Beach and planted a cross, birthing a new nation dedicated to God.”

Progressives believe that the United States was born through the American Revolution and the establishment of the Constitution. Right wingers like John Hagee believe that all it took to create the United States was a prayer and a cross planted in the sand.

If you vote for John McCain and Mike Huckabee in 2008, you’re voting for the cross-in-the-sand vision of the birth of America.

(Source: People for the American Way, March 22, 2007)

We have focused on the dangers of the link between Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and right wing extremist religious leader John Hagee. Really, though, this focus has not been completely fair. After all, Mike Huckabee is not the only Republican presidential candidate to associate himself with the violent, lunatic ideology promoted by Hagee. John McCain, it turns out, has linked himself to John Hagee as well.

In early 2007, John McCain and John Hagee had an “extended breakfast” meeting at which they discussed American foreign policy in the Middle East, including Hagee’s idea that Iran needs to be bombed so that the wars of Armageddon can begin and Jesus can return to Earth. Hagee has been working on all the practical items necessary to bring about prophecies of the end of the world, even including a breeding project in Texas to create a “perfect red heifer” to sacrifice to Jesus.

Then came summer, and the McCain for President campaign began openly courting the support of John Hagee and his cadre of right wing supporters. McCain announced that he would make a surprise speech before Hagee’s pro-Armageddon organization, Christians United for Israel.

John Hagee introduced John McCain himself, proudly saying, “I have had the privilege to meet and talk with Senator McCain on several occasions.” The two men then hugged, in a display of mutual political affection.

McCain, for his part, slathered praise on John Hagee’s organization, saying “God bless you, God bless you for your commitment,” and appreciating the groups vision of the United States as a “Judeo-Christian principled nation”.

As he embraces a political partnership with John Hagee, John McCain embraces Hagee’s outlandish religious political beliefs, which include:

- The idea that the European Union is involved in a conspiracy to place Satan at the head of a united world government
- Plans to create a theocratic regime that rules over the United States
- Use of the U.S. military to conduct religious warfare
- Claims that God himself planned the Nazi holocaust
- Belief in groups of terrorists organized by God and ready to attack the United States if Christian religious law is broken

If you don’t want a President who leads according to these kinds of beliefs, then you don’t want to see John McCain elected in 2008.

(Sources: John McCain speech at Christians United For Israel, 2007; AlterNet, January 30, 2007; People for the American Way; July 16, 2007)

Conservatism is not the only enemy of progressive politics. The creep of moneyed corporatism is just as important to watch out for, and it often travels under guise.

David Broder of the Washington Post uses the word “Bipartisan” to refer to a group of rich power players who have announced their intention to meet on January 7, 2008 at the University of Oklahoma. You can read the article for yourself, but I advise you not to read it literally. Instead, it should be read as part of the long-term project of David Broder Broder to broker the creation by various members of the DC Beltway dinner club circuit of a unity presidential ticket of one Republican and one Democrat in 2008. Broder seems to have concluded that the faux-populist Unity08 is incapable of accomplishing his goal, and so now he has thrown his journalistic approval to the manufacture of an openly-unpopulist independent presidential run by a group of insider power brokers.

As one of the little people in flyover country, I know it’s not my place, but I’m going to be arrogant and uppity anyway and rewrite Broder’s article with information from the ever-helpful SourceWatch:

Billionaire media mogul Michael R. Bloomberg, ranked at #34 on the Forbes list of the world’s wealthiest individuals, has scheduled a meeting next week with a dozen leading powerbrokers representing the connection between corporate and political power. These powerbrokers will join him in challenging the major-party contenders to spell out their plans for forming a “government of national unity” to stop engaging in policy debates and instead unite behind their platform. If they will not do so, the corporate politicians are set to declare, they will be prepared to use their own wealth and the funds of their corporate backers to nominate a presidential candidate from their own ranks who will agree to follow their policy agenda.

Conveners of the meeting include:

* Sam Nunn. Former Democratic U.S. Senator. Senior partner in the corporate law firm of King and Spaulding, member of the board of directors of ChevronTexaco, Coca Cola, Dell Computer, General Electric, Internet Security Systems and Scientific-Atlanta. Vice Chair of the Concord Coalition.

* Charles Robb. Former Democratic U.S. Senator. Member and Vice Chairman of the board of directors of MITRE Corporation. Member of the board of directors of lobbying firm Strategic Partners LLC. Vice Chair of the Concord Coalition.

* David L. Boren. Former Democratic U.S. Senator, Member of the board of directors of Conoco Phillips, AMR Corporation, Texas Instruments, Torchmark Corporation. Member, National Coalition for Peace through Strength. President of the University of Oklahoma.

* Gary Hart. Former Democratic U.S. Senator. Member of Council on Foreign Relations.

* Chuck Hagel. Republican U.S. Senator.

* Bill Brock. Former Republican U.S. Senator. Former Chair of the Republican Party. Member of the board of directors of the Bretton Woods Committee (a group to promote the interests of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization), ResCare, Chairman of the Brock Group lobbying firm, Chairman of Intellectual Development Systems, Inc.

* John C. Danforth. Former Republican U.S. Senator. Defense attorney for corporations at Bryan Cave LLP. Bought as much as $200,000 in Bell Atlantic stock during Senate deliberations regarding a Bell Atlantic corporate merger. Member of the board of directors of Cerner Corporation, Dow Chemical Company, General American Life Insurance Company, Time Warner and MetLife, Inc.

* Christine Todd Whitman. Former Republican Governor of New Jersey. Founder and head of Whitman Strategy Group, a lobbyist organization, and lobbyist for energy industry firm TCAP and Citgo Petroleum. Co-Chair of Clean and Safe Energy, lobbying and public relations firm for nuclear power industry. Held ownership of oil wells in Texas and Colorado. Member of the board of directors of S.C. Johnson and Son, Inc., Texas Instruments, United Technologies and Council on Foreign Relations.

* William Cohen. Former Republican U.S. Senator. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of lobbyist firm The Cohen Group, which has clients including Alcoa, Baker Hughes Inc., Bechtel, General Dynamics, Iridium Satellite, Lockheed Martin, Oracle and Rolls Royce. Member of the board of directors of MIC Industries, AIG, CBS and Viacom.

* Alan Dixon. Former Democratic U.S. Senator. Partner at corporate law firm of Bryan Cave, specializing in appellate work. Advisory trustee for Bear Stearns Funds. Member of the board of directors of the National Futures Association.

* Bob Graham. Former Democratic U.S. Senator.

* Jim Leach. Former Republican Congressman.

* Susan Eisenhower. Chief of Eisenhower Group, corporate consulting group to Russian and aerospace firms on political and investment activities. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s granddaughter is part of the military-industrial complex he warned us about.

* David Abshire. Republican member of Council on Foreign Relations. Former member of the board of Proctor and Gamble and the Ogden corporation. Member of the advisory board of BP.

* Edward J. Perkins. Former U.S. Ambassador to Liberia, South Africa, and the United Nations. Senior Vice Provost of International Programs at the University of Oklahoma, where David Boren is president.

All but two of the group are men. All but one of the group are white. Each has a connection to either corporate leadership and advocacy or political leadership. Most have both. Only one is a currently elected politician. This small group of the powerful and connected seeks to choose the next president.

That’s not how David Broder worded it, but it’s all true.

Don’t just watch out for conservatives. Watch out for any group of powerful people that tells you it is time for national unity. What they really mean is that you should sit down, shut up, turn off your brain and follow in line like a good little sheep.

(Source: Washington Post December 30 2007)

In her time as Interior Deputy Assistant Secretary at the Department of the Interior, Republican appointee Julie MacDonald was caught illegally interfering in government decisions about protection for endangered species and habitat protection for political reasons, and in one case for her own personal financial benefit. She was forced to resign in disgrace.

In spite of what is already known to the public, official government investigations into Julie MacDonald’s misconduct and illegal activities has been slow. Some aspects of MacDonald’s activities behind the scenes at the Department of the Interior are known, but others remain government secrets.

As a result, the Center for Biological Diversity has been forced to file a lawsuit seeking to compel the government to open its records about Julie MacDonald’s record at the Department of the Interior. Thanks go out to the Center for Biological Diversity for its work on behalf of environmental integrity and open government. Only shame goes to the government for its continuing efforts to hide its mistakes from public view.

(Source: Center for Biological Diversity, December 28, 2007)

Mike Huckabee is running for President of the United States on the basis of his status as a Christian leader. He’s come right out and said as much in his television advertisements in Iowa. So, it makes a lot of sense to scrutinize what kind of Christian leadership Huckabee values, and how he would apply that kind of leadership as President of the United States.

Huckabee has said that he thinks that right wing extremist John Hagee is “one of the great Christian leaders of our nation.” Hagee, in turn, has spoken quite freely about how Christian beliefs should be applied by the U.S. federal government.

On the subject of international affairs, for example, Hagee says that the U.S. government ought to let terrorists organized by God dictate American foreign policy. No kidding. Read Hagee’s words for yourself.

“I want those of you in the State Department and in government in Washington to hear this: If America does not stop pressuring Israel to give up land, I believe that God will bring this nation into judgment, because I believe what this book says. And if God brings this nation into judgment, He will very likely release the terrorists that you’ve already let get here through the ridiculous immigration policy you refuse to stop, and this nation is going to go through a bloodbath that you have permitted because of what you have done. You have disobeyed the law of God, and now, we as a nation are going to pay a price for that.”

The meaning of this kind of statement is pretty clear. According to Hagee, God has a bunch of terrorists that he is ready to release to attack the United States any time the American government breaks Christian religious law. What’s more, Hagee suggests that the American government ought to listen to God’s terrorist threats, and shape our foreign policy accordingly.

Mike Huckabee thinks that this kind of idea is an example of great leadership. That’s just one more reason American voters must never allow someone like Huckabee to become the President of the United States.

(Source: People For The American Way, December 21, 2007; New York Post, December 24, 2007)

Post script: John McCain has since sought the endorsement of John Hagee, and received it, giving John Hagee a great big hug.

A quick update on the status of Unity08, the corporation headed by lobbyists, public relations executives, mass mailing millionaires and campaign consultants that wants to pick its very own presidential and vice presidential candidate in June 2008:

1. After originally setting a goal of 25 million participating delegates for its June 2008 nominating convention, Unity08 made a more modest goal for itself: 1 million members by the end of 2007 and 10 million members by Election Day 2008. The end of 2007 will be tomorrow, and Unity08 has only 122,647 individuals who have signed up as members on its website. Some of these memberships are duplicates, and most of them are of people who have failed to participate further on the Unity08 website itself. With one day left, Unity08 has 877,353 new members to go to reach its goal for 2007. Unity08 has achieved only 1.2% of its membership goal for the 2008 elections.

2. The Unity08 Trailblazer website, through which hundreds of thousands of new members of Unity08 were to be signed up by a deadline in the middle of November 2007 in a pyramid recruiting effort, has been defunct and non-functional since October 31, 2007.

3. The College Unity08 website, on which an army of dedicated college students was to coordinate a wave of youth support for Unity08, has a total of 17 forum posts, most of them by the handful of students picked by Unity08 to start the whole ball on its inevitable course smashing through young folks’ apathy like a meteor of righteousness. The last of the seventeen forum posts was posted three months ago, and the web site has been dormant since.

4. Even on the main Unity08 web site, there hasn’t been a blog post by staffers for two weeks.

A populist uprising this ain’t.

When former Pakistani leaders Benazir Bhutto was assassinated, Mike Huckabee’s first impulse was to change the administration of U.S. law to discriminate against Pakistanis. Huckabee, who governed a state that has no international borders, says that the U.S. Customs Service needs to be on the watch for Pakistanis and “single them out” for special scrutiny.

Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich stood up and called Huckabee to task for his ill-informed discriminatory reflex. Kucinich said, “Implying that Pakistani immigrants, visitors, and even Pakistani Americans should be singled out as potential terrorists is the kind of unwarranted, unconscionable ethnic profiling and ethnic baiting that is the hallmark of Republican thinking - in foreign policy, in immigration policy, and in so-called homeland security policy. No racial, ethnic, or religious group is safe from their audacious affronts to human decency and their continued assaults on Constitutional liberties and protections.”

Dennis Kucinich is right. Mike Huckabee’s plans to transform the American borders into a tool of ethnic and cultural purification are based on ignorant and mean-spirited assumptions. Mike Huckabee has demonstrated once again that he has no business becoming President of the United States.

(Source: PRNewswire, December 28, 2007)

There are just four days left until the process to nominate presidential candidates for the election of 2008 commences with the Iowa caucuses of January 3, 2008. Coronation, my foot: there’s been a real horse race between contenders for the presidency among Democrats, and there are some real choices for Democratic primary and caucus voters to make. Since the Election Day debacle of 2004, we’ve kept track of committed support for various presidential contenders, indicated by sales of Election 2008 bumper stickers, magnets, campaign buttons, t-shirts and lawn signs. While polls measure fickle opinions, our measure tracks the stronger commitment marked by the laying down of cash to promote a candidate in public. The more strongly committed are more likely to caucus and to vote. The following is the percent share of sales of our Election 2008 gear in the past week of December 22 to December 29, 2007:

Barack Obama: 26.8%
Hillary Clinton: 20.1%
Dennis Kucinich: 20.1%
Joseph Biden: 9.8%
Bill Richardson: 9.1%
John Edwards: 8.5%
Al Gore: 2.4%
Chris Dodd: less than 1 percent
Mike Gravel: less than 1 percent

It’s still a race here, with committed support for Barack Obama garnering the highest share of sales but with Hillary Clinton and Dennis Kucinich tied not too far behind. Hillary Clinton and Dennis Kucinich, tied in committed support? “What’s up with that?,” you may ask. “Isn’t John Edwards supposed to be the third-place candidate?” Well, yes, he is … in Iowa, the one state out of fifty where he has been campaigning since 2005. John Edwards’ strategy is to do phenomenally well in that one state and use it as a springboard to success in other states. But he has not been catching on as a candidate elsewhere, at least not yet. As the trend chart below for Biden, Clinton, Edwards, Kucinich and Obama shows, John Edwards has not garnered a significant share of our sales nationally during the year.

Dennis Kucinich, on the other hand, has been gaining in committed support, especially since the candidacy of Mike Gravel fizzled itself out and it became clear that Al Gore would not be running for president (Senators Dodd and Gravel, it’s a problem when your level of support is lower than that received by someone clearly not running at all). In 2004, you may remember that Dennis Kucinich stuck it out in the presidential primary race for a long time, using his campaign to let voters make a statement about support for a policy of peace. Given the level of support for Kucinich this time, and his ability to run a low-cost race, look for him to keep his campaign going, and look for protest votes (against the establishment candidacies of Obama, Clinton and Edwards) to coalesce further around him after the beginning of the year.

In just four days, the nominating process begins with the Iowa caucuses, a process that may (or may not) upend the pecking order in the Democratic presidential race. Sing Auld Lang Syne and kiss the Baby New Year, bringing with it our hopes for a new government in touch with reality.