Protect America from the Republican Party

1. One of the most obvious reasons to vote for a progressive President in 2008 is that a progressive President is needed to counter the right wing Republican grip on the federal government that has existed throughout most of the presidency of George W. Bush. The Republicans have had no shame and no restraint in using the power of government promote a radical right wing agenda. Only a progressive President in the Oval Office will be able to restore the balance of responsible government throughout the federal government's vast bureaucracy. Having a few progressive members of Congress won't be enough. Progressive idealism needs to be more than a voice of dissent. It needs to be a voice of active reform, and the office of the President of the United States is the most potent platform for serious reform that has ever existed.
   
   
2. On November 8, 2005, an historic vote was held on the floor of the United States Senate - and the Senate's Republicans chose to keep America's eyes clenched shut.
   
   Senator Carl Levin offered a simple amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006 that all America should be able to rally around: To create a commission to investigate the policies and practices in Bush's system of secret prisons. Was abuse taking place in these secret prisons? Was torture occurring? Senator Levin's commission would have investigated these important questions.
   
   Of course, George W. Bush says that no torture has taken place, but what evidence has he produced? None, just his word. We all know how much that's worth. In the meantime, a mountain of evidence has accumulated, all suggesting that a worldwide system of torture prison has been established by the Bush Administration.
   
   We deserve the truth. America needs a commission to uncover the whole truth on what happens in these prisons. Yet, Carl Levin's amendment to create such a commission was voted down by the Senate Republicans. Not a single Republican voted in favor of the commission. No, not even Senator John McCain. (Source: Library of Congress, S.AMDT.2430 to S.1042, November 8, 2005)
   
   
3. Senator John McCain, who plans on running for President in 2008, has made a big deal about saying that he is personally dedicated to opposing torture by the American government. He's made plenty of speeches on the subject. Consider, though, how Senator John McCain has actually voted on the matter.
   
   In November, 2005, the United States Senate passed an amendment from Senator Lindsey Graham to the Defense Authorization Act last week that rescinds the right of habeas corpus and allows Donald Rumsfeld to imprison and torture people without reason and with impunity. The amendment contained the following language:
   
   

   1) IN GENERAL - Section 2241 of title 28, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following new subsection: (e) No court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to consider - (1) an application for a writ of habeas corpus based on policies established by the Secretary of Defense under section 1071(a) of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006 filed on behalf of an alien who is detained by the Secretary of Defense as an enemy combatant; or (2) any other action, challenging any aspect of the detention of an alien who is detained by the Secretary of Defense as an enemy combatant. (2) EFFECTIVE DATE - The amendment made by paragraph (1) shall apply to any application or other action pending on or after the date of the enactment of this Act

   Consider what this legislation would have done, if it were allowed to pass into law:
   
   1. It would have removed the power of the courts to hear a writ of habeas corpus from any non-citizen who is held prisoner by the Secretary of Defense. That means that no court will have the power to determine the identities of people being held prisoner by the Secretary of Defense, where they are being held prisoner, and why they are being held prisoner.
   
   2. It would have removed the power of the courts to make any ruling on any aspect of any prisoner's detention. This includes torture.
   
   3. It would have made the changes retroactive. That means that even if torture was done two years ago, the amendment takes away the power of the courts to do anything about it.
   
   In effect, this legislation would have given the Secretary of Defense the power to commit war crimes without fear of ever having anyone stop him. In effect, this legislation puts the Secretary of Defense beyond the law. By putting the Secretary of Defense beyond the law, it would have given the President of the United States a means to act beyond the reach of the law as well. Luckily, the amendment was itself amended, after being added onto the National Defense Authorization Act.
   
   Thus, through the Graham Amendment, President Bush was almost given the power to, through the Secretary of Defense, act as a dictator. John McCain went along with this scheme, along with almost all the other Republicans in the United States Senate. That action alone proves that Republicans cannot be trusted with the power of government. We need a progressive President in the White House to counter this kind of outrageous abuse. (Source: Library of Congress, S.Amdt. 2516 to S.Amdt. 2515 to S. 1042, November 10, 2005)
   
   
4. As the 109th Congress wound down, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives decided that it would rather not pass 8 out of the 11 appropriations bills required each year in order for the government to enact laws, deliver social services and defend the nation. Indiana Republican Congressman Mike Pence explained the lack of action with two words: "We're tired."
   
   When the Republican-controlled government is too tired out to carry out even the barest bones of government operation, it's time to bring in some fresh leadership, leadership that isn't tired, leadership that has enough energy to do something. Progressives have energy to spare and a belief that government can accomplish something if only we try. Let's try giving the progressives a chance, from the top of the government on down, in 2008. (Source: Washington Post, December 2, 2006)
5. Over the last few years, the Republicans have stretched the phrase "up or down vote" so far that it has deformed political reality into a shape that is beyond all recognition. In George W. Bush's official statement complaining about the resignation of Ambassador John Bolton, for example, Bush said, "I am deeply disappointed that a handful of United States Senators prevented Ambassador Bolton from receiving the up or down vote he deserved in the Senate."
   
   The "handful of United Sates Senators" that George W. Bush refers to as preventing John Bolton from receiving an up or down vote were, in fact, the Senators on the Foreign Relations Committee, who voted not to endorse John Bolton's nomination for the ambassadorship back in 2005. After that vote, the full Senate was prepared to take an up or down vote on John Bolton's nomination to become Ambassador to the United Nations, but it looked as if Bolton would be voted down. So, Bush made a recess appointment of John Bolton to the ambassadorship, evading the normal Senate confirmation process.
   
   It was George W. Bush who circumvented the normal procedure through which a nominee receives an "up or down vote" in the Senate. This occurred because John Bolton's qualifications were called into question even by the Republican majority that controlled the Senate at the time. Progressives won't use this ridiculous kind of "up or down vote" distortion in arguments about judicial nominees. (Source: Jurist, December 4, 2006)
   
   
6. Why vote for a progressive president in 2008? Because the majority leader of Republicans for four years, Doctor and Senator Bill Frist, provided a medical diagnosis of Terri Schiavo after watching her on an edited videotape. That's the sort of distance from which Republicans have been governing the United States of America, and it's gone on for far too long. (Source: Washington Post, March 19, 2005)
   
   
7. The Republicans don't deserve to keep political power because they have a track record of just making stuff up in order to win. Take the case of Terri Schiavo. Republicans said Terri Schiavo could see and responded to visual stimuli. They said she joked with the gang at the nurses' station. They said she could drink and eat for herself if the evil doctors would only let her. And when they got really mad at her husband for not playing along with their bizarre claims, they said he had poisoned her.
   
   All of these claims were shown to be without merit by the coroner's autopsy. The Republicans were caught in another episode of fact-free politicking. (Source: Washington Post, June 16, 2005)
   
   
8. Watch how the Republicans criticize others. The terms they use to denigrate others most accurately characterize themselves.
   
   Here's a perfect illustration of that tendency. Republicans criticize their opponents as "big government" nuts who are "anti-marriage" and "anti-family." But in the case of Terri Schiavo case, the Republican Party has shown that it is willing to use all the powers of big government at its disposal to sieze control over an individual's life. In order to do this, Republican politicians have done everything they can to diminish the significance of the bond they have held is most central in the family: the bond between a husband and wife. When Terri Schiavo was thoroughly incapacitated, they would not let her husband Michael Schiavo make decisions in her interest. They wanted to overrule the marital bond, because the expressed positions of both husband and wife didn't agree with Republican Party ideology. Do you want these sorts of people in office trying to overrule your marriage? (Source: St. Petersburg Times, March 20, 2005)
   
   
9. During the whole conservative fuss-fest about Terri Schiavo, her husband Michael Schiavo correctly pointed out that he was not the only one to lose when conservatives focused all their energies on their factually-inaccurate attempt to interfere with a married couple's medical decision. The country lost valuable time and resources that could have been devoted to solving undeniably real and consequential problems. Said Mr. Schiavo, "Why doesn't Congress worry about people not having health insurance? Or the budget? Let's talk about all the children who don't have homes."
   
   Years later, the conservatives are still unwilling to confront these real problems, problems that progressives are eager to address. But the progressives aren't in charge. The conservatives are in charge, and they're too busy coming up with time-wasting attempts to meddle in our private lives. How pathetic. (Source: St. Petersburg Times. March 20, 2005)
   
   
10. In the case of Elian Gonzalez, conservatives (in both the Republican and Democratic Parties) showed again that they were willing to split up a family, using all the tools of big government at their disposal to separate a child from his only living parent. All because the father lived in a country that didn't agree with conservatives' ideology.
    
    That's big government meddling at the expense of the parenting relationship between a father and a son. Why do the conservatives hate and distrust families so much? (Source: International Herald Tribune, January 25, 2000)
    
    
11. Conservatives got the facts wrong in the case of Terri Schiavo, and they got their priorities wrong too when they tried to interfere with the medical decisions of a married couple. Numerous state and federal judges agreed with that assessment. But the conservatives didn't respond to the resounding defeat of their nutty case with anything approaching serenity. Facts and a marriage be damned: they had political points to make!
    
    And so the conservatives continued flogging the dead body of Terri Schiavo in search of votes. Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, for one, began an attempt to impeach the judges involved in the numerous rulings regarding Terri Schiavo that he didn't agree with.
    
    DeLay promised to use his control over the House of Representatives to bring action against "an arrogant and out-of-control judiciary that thumbs its nose at Congress and the president� - . The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior."
    
    Let's see here - nullifying judges in state courts, DeLay pushed a measure through Congress creating a special new law applying solely to the parents of Terri Schiavo granting them new special rights to file briefs in federal court seeking what would otherwise be extraordinary, extralegal remediation. The judges ordered by DeLay to receive Schiavo's parents and consider their arguments did so, and then dared to issue rulings that DeLay personally disagreed with.
    
    Literally speaking, these judges were indeed out of the control of Tom DeLay. That's what has made him hopping mad. Arrogance is certainly in play here, characterizing the approach of the conservatives in charge at the time, who yet again made clear that government authority is meant to be their toy, all theirs, no sharing.
    
    Let's not pretend that the crazily crooked DeLay was the only one working on this idea. Over in the Senate, Christian Conservative Rick Santorum seconded the notion that judges should be punished for the act of disagreement. And while attending a conference specially devoted to "Confronting the Judicial War on Faith," the Chief of Staff for Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn remarked, "I don't want to impeach judges. I want to impale them."
    
    The conservatives in America have made it clear that they're after power for power's sake. And now we are told we should put another self-interested megalomaniacal navel gazer in the White House? No thanks, I think I'll pass. How about you? (Sources: Washington Post, April 11, 2005; The Nation, April 11, 2005; Associated Press, April 1, 2005)
    
    
12. How out of touch with reality have American conservatives become? In December of 2006, the right-wing news filter website NewsMax.com featured a sincere advertisement featuring this text: "Memory Training Secrets of Top Politicians. Speeches Without Notes. Recall Names!" The accompanying portraits: George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan. I can't recall having seen political endorsements more inappropriately placed. (Source: NewsMax.com, December 10, 2006)
    
    
13. In a darkly elegant irony, Republican Senator John McCain, who once promised to support a package of lobbying reform measures in the Senate, changed his mind after he met with lobbyists who opposed the reforms. John McCain complied with the lobbyists' requests, and decided to obstruct the lobbying reforms. What kinds of lobbyists convinced John McCain to flip flop on lobbying reform? Among those who convinced John McCain to turn tail were lobbyists from Focus on the Family, an ultra-right wing fundamentalist religious group led by James Dobson. Dobson has called lobbying reform "a passion by congressional liberals to consolidate power and operate within a cloak of secrecy."
    
    That's an odd accusation for Dobson to make, given that the lobbying reforms he convinced John McCain to help sink would have actually removed the cloak of secrecy from the activities of Washington D.C. lobbyists and the networks that they use to consolidate their power. The reforms would have required the lobbying groups reveal where they get the money that enables them to lobby members of Congress.
    
    Why is James Dobson so eager to hide where the money that supports Focus on the Family comes from? What doesn't he want us to know about the true backers of Focus on the Family?
    
    The facts are that there are plenty of lobbying organizations that claim to represent groups of American citizens, when in fact they represent corporate interests. They set up fake grassroots operations in which people purport to be citizen activists, but are really just public relations employees. Members of Congress ought to know who lobbyists are really speaking for, and the American people deserve to know as well.
    
    It's a shame that political insiders like James Dobson and John McCain prefer to work in the dark. (Sources: PR Newswire, January 19, 2007; Think Progress, January 18, 2007)
    
    
14. In 2005, the Bush White House and USA Next became furious at AARP, because the AARP was rightfully resisting President Bush's attempt to rip the guts out of the Social Security system and leave it to bleed to death. So, what was the natural Republican response? A shrill accusation that the AARP part of the secret global gay agenda, and hates American soldiers.

    As if that weren't extreme enough, the USA Next web site has run material that actually suggests that AARP is a communist organization. Boy, that's going back in history a bit. Why not go back further, and accuse the AARP of being Nazi sympathizers, or pro-monarchy Tories, or members of the Mongol Golden Horde, poised to destroy Europe at any minute?

    When I heard the Republicans claiming that the AARP is opposing attacks on Social Security because "the REAL AARP agenda" is to force men to kiss each other, put big red Xes on American soldiers, and advance a secret communist plot to take over the world, the first words that come to mind were "conspiracy theory". What other interesting theories will the Republicans and USA Next collaborate on for the 2008 presidential election?

    Here are some possibilities:

    - Prince Charles and Camilla are really getting married because their "REAL agenda" is to replace all the soccer fields in the United Kingdom with jai alai courts.
    - Big Bird sings about the alphabet because the "REAL agenda" of Sesame Street is to teach the children of America's enemies to our read top secret classified documents.
    - American Idol gave its big prize to Clay Aiken in spite of that silly red hair because the "REAL agenda" of American Idol is to put Clay Aiken, who is a priest in the Egyptian cult of Osiris, in contact with all the communist actors and musicians in Hollywood, so that they can build a new temple for idol worship and bring about Armageddon.
    
    
15. The Bush White House has tried to keep Americans as hyped up about the threat of terrorist attack as much as possible. This state of perpetual hypervigilance has been justified by supposed evidence of terrorists lurking everywhere, always on the verge of attack.
    
    Among other things, the right wingers have pointed to the large number of anti-terrorist prosecutions conducted by the Department of Justice. If there are so many anti-terrorist cases being prosecuted, the argument goes, there must be a lot of terrorists.
    
    What if those anti-terrorist cases weren't against terrorists at all? Well, according to the logic used by the right wing, that would mean that there actually are not so many terrorists threatening us. As luck would have it, that's just what an audit has found. According to a new audit of the Department of Justice, many of the cases that the Bush Administration has claimed as anti-terrorist victories actually have nothing to do with terrorism at all.
    
    One of the examples from the audit is the case of a prosecution of a marriage broker who arranged fake marriages between foreigners and American citizens. That's illegal, but it has nothing to do with terrorism. The marriage broker wasn't trying to smuggle terrorists into the USA.
    
    In another case, a Mexican citizen tried to use someone else's name on an application for a passport. That's a crime, but is it terrorism? In the world of the right wing, it is. The rest of us can recognize that it isn't.
    
    Terrorism is a bad thing, to be sure, but it isn't nearly as pervasive as the right wing claims it is. We need a new President who can see terrorist threats as they really are, not as their overworked imaginations would like them to be. (Source: Associated Press, February 20, 2007)
    
    
16. In a letter to supporters of the Republican National Committee, Chairman Mike Duncan accused liberal Democrats of being determined to "turn back every reform you helped helped President Bush achieve over the last six years."
    
    Is it true? Do we liberals really want to turn back every way in which the Bush Republicans have tried to reshape America over the last six years?
    
    Well, one thing we've learned about the Republicans is that they have a downright awful time when things that they believed were true turn out not to be true at all. That's happened to the Republicans a lot lately, and it's hard on them.
    
    So, it's a relatively superficial reason, compared to a lot of those that we've compiled, but I'll add this one to the list of 2008 reasons to elect a progressive President in 2008: Let the Mike Duncan and his Republican followers be right about just one thing. Let them be right when they say that we liberals want to turn back the terrible policies of George W. Bush. Vote progressive for President, and make it true. (Source: Letter from the Republican National Committee, March 2, 2007)
    
    
17. In 2005, Bill O'Reilly, in a rant for Fox News, declared that "the continuing reportage of the torture allegations is putting lives in danger."

    This claim by O'Reilly spins so fast that it's warping the space-time continuum. Just consider this for a second: Bill O'Reilly seriously wants us to believe that when American reporters say anything about the rapidly increasing number of incidents of torture by American soldiers in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere, human lives are somehow, somewhere endangered.

    On the other hand, O'Reilly seems to have completely overlooked the fact that when people are electrocuted, beaten, forced to jump off bridges, shoved headfirst underwater, starved and left without water, deprived of medical treatment, shoved into tiny, airtight metal boxes for hours on end, or are subjected to the many other methods of torture that have been reported as used by agents of the American government in recent years, human lives are very literally put at risk. O'Reilly just can't seem to recall that scores of prisoners have actually died while being tortured by the American government. If that's not "in danger", I don't know what is. (Source: Fox News, February 16, 2005

18. In the 2008 presidential campaign, Rudolph Giuliani is playing a hypocritical game with issues of family life. When it comes to his own family problems, he wants everyone to butt out and mind their own business. "The more privacy I can have for my family, the better we are going to be able to deal with all these difficulties," Giuliani says.
    
    When it comes to other people's families, however, Rudolph Giuliani doesn't seem to think that the right to privacy is so important. On the issue of parental notification about abortion, for example, Giuliani wants the government to come barging in and meddle with family affairs. Giuliani is on the record saying that he thinks its okay for the government to mandate how pregnant teenagers will communicate with their parents about their decisions on abortion.
    
    How come Rudolph Giuliani wants privacy for his family's problems, but wants the problems of other families exposed to government regulation? In 2008, we must not elect another President who believes that there should be one standard for himself, and another standard for everybody else. (Sources: Associated Press, March 7, 2007; New York Times, February 10, 2007)
    
    
19. Our Republican federal government has a delusional self-conception that doesn't meet reality.
    
    First, George W. Bush declared of himself, "I will restore honor and integrity to the White House." -- George W. Bush, October 3, 2000
    
    Then, we read in the newspaper what the government has really been up to in "Libby, 56, who was both chief of staff and national security adviser to Vice President Cheney before resigning in 2005, was convicted of one count of obstruction of justice, one count of false statements to investigators and two counts of perjury before the grand jury." (Source: USA Today, March 6, 2007)
    
    
20. To consider the significance of the criminal conviction of Lewis Libby, top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, it helps to consider the how long it had been since the last time a government official of a high position equivalent to that help by Libby was convicted: 130 years. (Source: Harper's Magazine, January, 2007)
    
    
21. If you're thinking of voting for a "moderate" ticket in 2008 rather than for a progressive ticket, you might want to consider what "moderate" politicians are standing for these days in Washington, DC.
    
    Take, for instance, Senator John McCain, one of the frontrunners in the race to gain the Republican nomination for president in 2008. McCain has built a reputation as a maverick moderate who is willing to break with the Republican Party to reach across the aisle to the Democratic Party for legislative and other purposes.
    
    What does a "moderate" like McCain have to say about the use of condoms to prevent disease? Here is a transcript of a conversation held between McCain and a reporter on his "Straight Talk Express" campaign bus this week:
    
    

    Q: What about grants for sex education in the United States? Should they include instructions about using contraceptives? Or should it be Bush s policy, which is just abstinence?
    
    Mr. McCain: (Long pause) Ahhh. I think I support the president s policy.
    
    Q: So no contraception, no counseling on contraception. Just abstinence. Do you think contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV?
    
    Mr. McCain: (Long pause) You've stumped me.
    
    Q: I mean, I think you'd probably agree it probably does help stop it?
    
    Mr. McCain: (Laughs) Are we on the Straight Talk express? I'm not informed enough on it. Let me find out. You know, I'm sure I've taken a position on it on the past. I have to find out what my position was. Brian, would you find out what my position is on contraception I'm sure I'm opposed to government spending on it, I'm sure I support the president s policies on it.
    
    Q: But you would agree that condoms do stop the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Would you say: No, we re not going to distribute them, knowing that?
    
    Mr. McCain: (Twelve-second pause) Get me Coburn's thing, ask Weaver to get me Coburn's paper that he just gave me in the last couple of days. I've never gotten into these issues before.

    This is a high-profile health policy issue on which empirical studies are quite clear: condoms effectively prevent the spread of diseases such as HPV and , more effectively than abstinence pledges, which do not reduce disease rates and actually may be associated with in increase in high-risk sexual behaviors.
    
    John McCain has been on Capitol Hill for 25 years, so if he really is so ignorant on sexual health policy as to be "stumped" about whether condoms prevent HIV, then he has betrayed such a lack of diligence on the issue that he has no earthly business being president. Do you really think Senator McCain doesn't know that condoms prevent the spread of HIV? The other, more reasonable, possibility is that John McCain knows full well that condoms and condom distribution policies not only prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, but do so better than abstinence promotion policies. In that case, what we see above is a pander by a man who doesn't want to lose anti-empirical right wing voters.
    
    After the Bush years, that's where we are now in politics: "moderates" like McCain are willing to feign an embarrassing ignorance regarding clear-cut policy issues in order to stay in the good graces of right-wing America. McCain has swallowed the Kool-Aid, but you don't have to follow suit. This time around, vote with the people who are willing to state the obvious. Vote progressive. (Sources: The Caucus, New York Times blog, March 16, 2007; Slate, July 3, 2006; San Francisco Chronicle, February 24, 2005; USA Today, March 9, 2004; USA Today, March 18, 2005)
    
    
22. Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo has a habit of doing things that are a little bit odd. So when Tancredo announced that he would run for President in 2008, it was to be expected that he would use unusual campaign tactics. No one anticipated, however, that Tancredo would try to raise money by coddling convicted criminals.
    
    As part of his campaign for President of the United States, Congressman Tancredo is calling for legal amnesty for two convicted criminals who shot a man from behind while he was running away from them. Shooting someone while they're running away is generally recognized as cowardly behavior. That doesn't bother Representative Tancredo, apparently. Tancredo wants to give the criminals convicted of this act to receive a pardon. Tancredo does not deny that these men are guilty of assault with a deadly weapon, but he has written a campaign letter saying that they ought to be released from prison. That same letter asks people for donations - for Tancredo's presidential campaign exploratory committee.
    
    That gives me an idea of for a slogan for the Tom Tancredo for President campaign: Do It For The Criminals: Vote Tancredo for President! (Source: Denver Post, March 16, 2007)
    
    
23. Congressman Tom DeLay, chosen by Republicans to lead them in the House of Representatives, managed to be fairly generous with his political staff before he was brought down on charges of corruption. He managed to pay two of them, for example, over 500, 000 dollars in funds from his political action committee. The two people who got that half a million dollars were Tom DeLay's wife and daughter. (Source: New York Times, April 6, 2005)
    
    
24. The disdainful attitude Republican politicians have toward the American people was shown in its plain ugliness today, when President George W. Bush announced that Karl Rove would be quite willing to testify in front of Congress, as has been demanded by Senator Patrick Leahy. There was one condition that Bush insisted upon, however: Karl Rove would only talk to Congress if he did not have to swear an oath to tell the truth.
    
    Doesn't that nicely sum up what the Republicans in government have been doing to us for years? They'll agree tell us what they're doing with the power of our government behind closed doors, but only on the condition that they're allowed to lie, and no one can hold them accountable when they do. (Source: Associated Press, March 20, 2007)
    
    
25. Robert Scheer was right when he wrote, back in 2001, that "One cannot be both a moderate and remain a Republican senator." So, senators like John McCain have made their choice. As the Republican Party has become a home to right wing extremism, they have chosen to become more extreme. Rather than abandon the increasingly dangerous Republican Party, they have abandoned their moderation. (Source: Los Angeles Times, May 25, 2001)
    
    
26. Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain went to Iraq to try to justify his support for an escalation of the war there. During his visit, McCain walked around in a Baghdad market to try to prove that it is safe for people to live normally in Baghdad.
    
    During that quick walk through the market, McCain was wearing a bulletproof vest and was guarded by over one hundred American soldiers, three Blackhawk helicopters, and two Apache gunships. When John McCain cites such a heavily guarded incursion into a marketplace as evidence of how safe a neighborhood is, he is only proving how out of touch he is with reality. Ordinary Iraqis don't even have one armed guard or one bulletproof vest to protect them. They cannot take a small army with them every time they need to go to market.
    
    While Senator McCain cowered behind his armed escorts and proclaimed Iraq safe, six American soldiers in Iraq who did not have the benefit of the extraordinary protection John McCain enjoyed were killed.
    
    If John McCain really thought that the streets of Baghdad were safe, he would have gone on his walk without any extra protection. McCain knew that Baghdad was unsafe, but that's not what McCain told the American people. McCain would not tell us the truth about conditions in Iraq. How can we trust McCain to be President? (Source: MSNBC, April 1, 2007)
    
    
27. Remember those oval Pro-Bush bumper stickers that that Republican Party distributed for free all over the country during the 2004 presidential election? They had that big W followed by a little American flag - as if George W. Bush came first, and American idealism came second. You'll still see them around today, on the backs of the cars owned by Republicans who just can't get over the glee in knowing that their candidate won with a slim 51% percent of the vote.

    We always knew that the Republican message behind the bumper sticker was a sham, but what we didn't know is that the stickers themselves were the product of fraud as well.

    It turns out that the Republican Party probably stole the idea for those bumper stickers. A Republican businessman came to the Republican Party's suppliers with the idea for the design way back in 2001. They told him "no thanks" but kept a copy of the design. Then, the Republican supplier made huge amounts of money providing the bumper stickers to the Republican Party, and the Republican Party distributed the stickers all over America without giving the actual designer a single red cent.

    That's a pretty telling story about what the Republican Party is really doing to business in America. Big insiders with political connections get to make big profits and get special tax breaks, but small businesses get left out in the cold.

28. Rudolph Giuliani is a powerful political insider with connections deep in the heart of the Republican Party. He knows lots of rich and influential people. Rudolph Giuliani is hoping to ride into the presidency based on those connections, without ever having to get serious with the American people about his terrible track record.
    
    The truth is that Rudolph Giuliani has been part of the years of serious Republican failures that have bankrupted America's economy, corrupted America's traditional values of liberty, equality and justice, and put a stain on America's reputation in the world.
    
    Rudolph Giuliani stood side by side with George W. Bush, mistake after mistake after mistake. After all this time, Giuliani still can't admit that he was wrong. Giuliani still thinks that starting the war in Iraq was a great idea.
    
    Rudolph Giuliani says he "believes in supply-side economics," even though even prominent Republicans call this discredited approach "voodoo economics". What supply side economics really means is that corporations and millionaires get special tax breaks, and the rest of us, the working Americans, have to pick up the bill for their luxurious lifestyle. Giuliani's idea of a campaign appearance is to go ring the bell to open up a stock exchange on Wall Street.
    
    Rudolph Giuliani sides with right wing radicals like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson on social issues. Giuliani supports forcing right wing values on everyone, restricting reproductive choices, eroding support for public education,and outlawing equal marriage rights for all Americans.
    
    On issue after issue, Rudolph Giuliani sides with the intolerant, the bigoted, and the just plain mean.
    
    Where are Rudolph Giuliani's moral values when it comes to torture? Where does Rudolph Giuliani stand on the Military Commissions Act, which ripped away America's most beloved freedoms, including habeas corpus, the presumption of innocence, and the right to a fair and speedy trial?
    
    Giuliani refuses to say. Giuliani won't come clean.
    
    America deserves a straight answer. America needs more than the years of failure that Giuliani's Republican ideology represents. America can do better than Rudolph Giuliani.
    
    
29. In April 2007, in a debate with Senator John Kerry, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich admitted that the he and the Republican Party have failed to lead on the issue of the environment. "I'm not going to stand up here and defend our failure to lead," Gingrich said.
    
    Nonetheless, Gingrich and his Republican allies expect us voters to overlook their grave failures of leadership, and give them the power to lead the Executive Branch of the federal government for four more years anyhow. (Source: Boston Globe, April 11, 2007)
    
    
30. During that same debate, Newt Gingrich also admitted that human responsibility for global warming has been proven by science, saying, "We have now passed the tipping point of that argument." Still, Gingrich refused to support serious action to deal with the problem of human activity heating up the climate of the Earth.
    
    Gingrich proposed giving money to polluters to stop them from spewing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and allowing their pollution to continue unchecked if the polluters don't want to change. That's like paying gangs of thugs to stop beating up shopkeepers. It's a protection racket. Progressives want to hold polluters to account, not coddle them as Gingrich suggests.(Source: Boston Globe, April 11, 2007)
    
    
31. While President Bush is busy undermining the Bill of Rights on a national level, a lot of people don't perceive what is happening at the state level of government. Across America, Republicans in state governments have been pushing through radical new laws that encourage corruption, increase secrecy, strengthen discrimination against cultural minorities, and chew gaping holes in the separation of Church and State. These laws tend to be even more extreme than what Bush is pushing in the national level because, well, the Republicans know that most people just don't pay attention to state government.

    In Texas, for example, the Republicans introduced H.B. 2479. H.B. 2479 would have created a special fund controlled by nobody but the governor. The money in this fund is specifically designated to be given to religious organizations. The governor gets to choose which religious organizations get the money. So, it would not be enough just to be religious in Texas. If you wanted to get on the government dole, your religious group would have to have the personal favor of the governor. Is it any surprise that churches are starting to get directly involved in Republican political campaigns, when bills like H.B. 2479 are being pushed by the Republican Party? The churches smell money.

    There's a good reason that we in America have large legislatures that have the authority to direct spending. In a large legislature, it's difficult for any one person to push through a bill to grant government money to a program or person. For that reason, bribery is more difficult, and less likely to produce results. Honest government depends upon shared responsibility for spending decisions. H.B. 2479 would have removed this pillar of honest government.

    I will give this praise to the Texas Republicans: They have a fine appreciation of symmetry. You see, H.B. 2479 does not just allow the Texas governor to use public money to buy the political allegiance of religious organizations. H. B. 2479 also contains this little, but very powerful, statement: "The governor may accept for deposit into the fund gifts, grants, or donations." There are no restrictions on this line anywhere else in the bill.

    Let me describe plainly what that line does: It enables bribery of the governor of Texas by any person or organization, inside or outside Texas, and even outside the borders of the United States of America.

    What a tidy scheme! Here's how it works: Some organization that wants influence over the governor of Texas places a a nice multi-million dollar gift into the religious slush fund. This money gives the governor the ability to buy the political allegiance of religious organizations. So, then, the governor has the political wherewithal to engage in actions that favor the private interests of the organization that made the gift into the public trust fund.

    The organization that makes the bribe gains power. The governor gains power. Religious organizations that are favored by the governor gain power.

    Who doesn't gain power? Anyone who doesn't have enough money to bribe the governor loses power. Religious groups that the governor doesn't like lose power. Anyone who disagrees with the governor's political agenda loses power. The voters of Texas lose power.

    The proposed law was a recipe for the creation of a corrupt theocracy right here in the United States of America. Republican politicians all across the United States are eager to recreate this dirty little Texas miracle. So, what can you do? The most important thing of all is to pay attention. State government may not seem glamorous. It doesn't get a lot of time on television. But, state government matters - state governments control elections. If progressive Americans don't start paying attention to state government, they'll wake up very soon to find that their beloved democracy has been stripped away, under the cover of boring state government news.

32. Republicans often try to convince the rest of us that Rudolph Giuliani would be an acceptable presidential candidate for all Americans, uniting people of all political backgrounds with a common sense approach to government. The trouble is that Giuliani actually campaigns in coordination with some of the most radical Republicans there are.
    
    In the spring of 2007, for example, Rudy Giuliani was scheduled to go speak at Pat Robertson's evangelical Christian Regent University. Pat Robertson is known for claiming that he is capable of remotely detecting and healing people's serious medical ailments over broadcast television signals using the power of Jesus, and declaring that Hurricane Katrina was a punishment directed by God against New Orleans. Pat Robertson personally introduced Giuliani at Regent University.
    
    Giuliani doesn't look like much of a common sense centrist when we pay attention to the company he keeps. Pat Robertson's agenda is not something that all Americans can unite behind. (Source: Associated Press, April 17, 2006)
    
    
33. One story that the mainstream news media didn't pay much attention to this year is the revelation that, in January 2001, France warned the CIA that Osama Bin Laden's organization planned to hijack American airplanes in an attack against the United States.
    
    It turns out that no extra spying powers were necessary to prevent the attacks of September 11, 2001. George W. Bush just needed to stop celebrating his own inauguration long enough to pay attention to the information that was already available to him. (Source: Independent Online, April 16, 2007)
    
    
34. While doing some reading on another political web site this morning, I glanced at an advertisement for the Conservative Book Club, a business that claims to be "the #1 source for great works by the best conservative thinkers". The best conservative thinkers, huh? Well, that may explain all the problems we've had with conservatives running the government for so long.
    
    The advertisement identifies the "best conservative thinkers" as Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter, Newt Gingrich, and Sean Hannity.
    
    Dear me. If those people are the best that the so-called conservatives have, it's even more important than I realized that we elect a progressive President in 2008.
    
    
35. The next time you hear about the moral values of the Family Research Council, that powerful Christian Republican support organization, remember this: In 1997, the Family Research Council got a big boost into power by purchasing the mailing list of former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke. The Family Research Council paid $82,500 for the list. (Source: The Nation, April 26, 2005)
    
    
36. Mike Huckabee is a Republican candidate for President, which means that he needs to work with campaign finance laws, which restrict campaign contributions... except in the state of Virginia. Even though he lives hundreds of miles outside of Virginia, Mike Huckabee has set up a campaign political action committee in Virginia, so that he can accept unlimited donations from individuals - even if those individuals do not live in Virginia themselves.
    
    So, what does Mike Huckabee's political action committee have to do with Virginia? Nothing at all. It's just that Virginia's campaign finance laws make it a great place for wealthy people to buy themselves a presidential candidate. Oops. Did I say "buy themselves a presidential candidate"? Perhaps I should have said, "buy themselves influence with a presidential candidate".
    
    Mike Huckabee uses the shadowy world of unrestricted campaign donations in Virginia because he doesn't care if rich people purchase influence over his presidential campaign and, if he wins, his presidency. Progressives are against this kind of influence. Progressives have been demanding more open government, accessible to ordinary people regardless of money. Mike Huckabee's big money campaign shows why we need the progressives' more egalitarian vision of government in the White House as a counter to corruption. (Source: Washington Post, May 8, 2007)
    
    
37. In 2005, the Republican Party of Pennnsylvania appeared to be running hard in the competition for the Trophy for Weirdest Bunch of Political Kooks in America. They ran Rick Santorum for re-election in spite of Santorum's consistent support for laws that would result in the nearly constant police investigations of American's private sex lives. They also tried to pass a law that would force children to pledge allegiance whether they want to or not - because in the minds of Pennsylvania Republicans, loyalty means nothing if you can't compel someone to give it.

    And then came word that the Pennsylvania Republican leadership picked Lynn Swann as its best choice for a candidate to run for Governor in 2006, because� well� because Lynn Swann played football really well 25 years ago.

    Lynn Swann truly used to be a joy to watch playing for the Pittsburgh Steelers, but playing football is not the same thing as being Governor of Pennsylvania, obnoxious sports metaphors aside. Lynn Swann has never held elected office. Lynn Swann has absolutely zero public policy experience.

    The Pennsylvania Republicans said that's a good thing. They said that Lynn Swann's complete lack of experience made him an "outsider". That's swell, but my housecat also has no experience with any of the skills required to run the state of Pennsylvania, and yet, I have restrained myself from nominating him for the position of Governor.

    If you think that the Pennsylvania Republicans' pick of Lynn Swann was kind of kooky, you're not alone. The Green Party's former gubernatorial nominee at the time, Michael Morrill, responded to the news of the Republicans' pick for Governor by announcing that he would be trying out for a position playing football for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Morrill asked, "If Lynn Swann can run for governor with absolutely no public policy experience, why shouldn't I be able to try out for the Steelers?"

    Mr. Morrill, for asking the right question at the right time, I thank you.

38. At a Republican presidential debate, candidate Tommy Thompson was asked, "If a private employer finds homosexuality immoral, should he be allowed to fire a gay worker?"
    
    Here's what Thompson said in response: "I think that is left up to the individual business. I really sincerely believe that that is an issue that business people have got to make their own determination as to whether or not they should be."
    
    After Tommy Thompson came under political pressure for that bigoted statement, the former governor of Wisconsin claimed that he advocated firing gay people because he happened to feel the sudden urge to go to the bathroom at the very moment when the question was asked, and he became so distracted that he couldn't give the respectful, tolerant answer he meant to give.
    
    Can we trust a person who will advocate crazy policies whenever he has to use the potty? What might happen if Tommy Thompson drank a lot of coffee just before a military crisis? Launch a nuclear attack? Huh? Oh, sure, whatever. Listen, I have to run!
    
    You will never hear progressive presidential candidates justifying the firings of people because they are gay by saying that they had to go poo. (Source: Associated Press, May 12, 2007)
    
    
39. Last year, Kansas Senator Sam Brownback impeded the mechanisms of justice in Michigan by placing a hold on the nomination of Janet T. Neff to become a federal District Court judge. In his position as a United States Senator, that action is legitimately within Sam Brownback's power.
    
    However, just because a politician has the power to do something does not mean that the politician ought to do it. Wisdom requires the ability to make reasonable decisions about how one's power should be used.
    
    In this case, Senator Brownback's use of power was rather injudicious. Brownback placed the hold on Janet Neff's nomination because of a same-sex union ceremony. Janet Neff was not part of the couple being united in the ceremony. She did not officiate over the ceremony. She did not organize the ceremony.
    
    Janet Neff merely saw the same-sex union ceremony. It was on that basis, and no other basis at all, that Senator Sam Brownback blocked Janet Neff's nomination.
    
    As a right wing Republican, Sam Brownback thinks that same-sex marriage is bad. That's a rather peculiar opinion, for someone who claims to be pro-family. What kind of pro-family politician wants to stop people from getting married?
    
    Even if you agree with Sam Brownback's extremist idea that same-sex marriage is bad, you'd still have to wonder what caused Senator Brownback to block Janet Neff's nomination. The ceremony she saw wasn't a marriage. It was a union ceremony.
    
    If you're willing to follow Senator Brownback this far, and conclude that union ceremonies for same-sex couples, as well as marriages, are bad things, then Senator Brownback's block on Janet Neff's confirmation as a federal District Court judge still does't make any sense. After all, Neff wasn't one of the people being united, and wasn't officiating at the ceremony. She just saw it.
    
    In Senator Brownback's bizarre right wing ideology, it's not good enough for a person to abstain from doing bad things. In order to be considered morally worthy by Sam Brownback, a person has to have not seen other people doing bad things either.
    
    These kind of kooky ideas about morality affect us all when they are enforced by a politician using his power as a United States Sentor, but they're even more important for us to consider now that Sam Brownback is running for President of the United States. Just imagine this kind of see-no-evil morality in force in the Oval Office.
    
    Lucky us, we don't have to support the contorted political morality of Sam Brownback and his right wing allies. We can vote to elect a progressive in 2008 instead. (Source: Associated Press, May 10, 2007)
    
    
40. Earlier this year, I listened to the latest debate of Republican presidential candidates, and I heard this from former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee:
    
    

    I believe life begins at conception. And I believe that we should do everything possible to protect that life .... and that's why we go out for the 12-year-old Boy Scout in North Carolina when he's lost. That's why we look for the 13 miners in Sago, W.Va., when the mine explodes. That's why we go looking for the hikers on Mount Hood: Because we value life.

    Pay attention: Mike Huckabee not only said that life begins at conception, but also said "we should do everything possible to protect that life." Just in case you didn't get it, Huckabee went on, saying that we should mount operations parallel to the search parties for lost Boy Scouts and to the rescue operations for lost miners.
    
    There are three possibilities here:
    
    Possibility One: It's possible Mike Huckabee really means what he says. In that case, if "life begins at conception" and "we should do everything possible to protect that life," then Governor Huckabee should be made aware that, according to testimony before President Bush's own Bioethics Panel, 60 to 80 percent of human conceptions fail to implant or otherwise fail in pregnancy, and 40 to 50 percent of those failed conceptions "did not contain defects or abnormalities, could have been born... and become babies."
    
    There are approximately 4 million births in the United States each year. To be conservative, let's assume that only 60 percent (not the higher 80 percent estimate) of conceptions fail to come to term. Those 4 million births therefore represent 40 percent of conceptions. That in turn means there are 6 million conceptions which fail to come to term each year. Now, to be conservative again, let's assume that only 40 percent (not the higher 50 percent estimate) of those failed conceptions "did not contain defects or abnormalities, could have been born... and become babies." This means that there are approximately 2,400,000 conceptions each year resulting in embryos that "could have been born... and become babies" but did not. 2.4 million needless deaths! 2.4 million little hikers, trapped in the wilderness! 2.4 million human lives which, according to Mike Huckabee, we should do "everything possible to protect."
    
    Current thinking within the Republican mainstream is that interfering with the liberty and bodily autonomy of a woman is acceptable in order to prevent abortions, because a little human life is at stake -- a life that begins at conception, whose liberty takes precedence over the liberty of a woman at conception, too. Surely, women's freedom can be restricted to save a life, the argument goes.
    
    Fine, then. If Mike Huckabee really believes we should do "everything possible to protect" human lives beginning right at conception, and if he is going to make analogies to search parties for Boy Scouts and rescue operations for miners, then surely he must have in mind a program of search and rescue for those 2,400,000 little embryos that could be born and become babies but fail to implant. We don't flinch at shoveling out government resources to find missing 8 year olds lost in the Okeefenokee Swamp, do we? Then we shouldn't flinch at shoveling out government resources to search every sexually-active woman's body to save these little human lives, should we? Well, first we'll need an accurate accounting of every woman's sexual activity so that we know where those little lost embryos might be (the other choice is to search every American woman between the onset of puberty and the onset of menopause). Then, we'll need to have daily blood analysis in the lab to measure changes in gonadotrophins, so that we can tell when a pregnancy begins and when a failure of that pregnancy might be commencing. Then we'll need doctors at the ready to intervene with a thorough search of a woman's body cavity so that the little kiddo can be found and reimplanted. Sure, that's a violation of liberty on a massive scale. Sure, it's a huge big government program that would probably bankrupt the nation. But "we should do everything possible to protect that life!"
    
    Possibility Two: Mike Huckabee doesn't understand the ramifications of what he has said, and feels comfortable making policy prescriptions limiting the liberty of half the population based on half-baked ideas.
    
    Possibility Three: Mike Huckabee doesn't really believe what he has said, and is willing to misrepresent himself and his ideas to the American people in order to win election.
    
    If Possibility One is true, we simply can't afford to support Mike Huckabee's bid for president.
    
    If Possibility Two is true, a vote for Mike Huckabee is a vote for eight more years of half-baked ideas.
    
    If Possibility Three is true, a vote for Mike Huckabee is a vote for eight more years of a liar in the Oval Office.
    
    Mike Huckabee doesn't present any alternative to these possibilities, but there are alternatives beyond Mike Huckabee. For the presidential election of 2008, let's look for someone who is willing to embrace a more nuanced possibility: that while surely some form of human life begins at conception, there are different forms, levels and extents of human life that are more or less worthy of our concern. Let's look for a presidential candidate who is willing to look at the empirical details of pregnancy when formulating policy. Let's look for a presidential candidate who is willing to consider the value of liberty, and not just the value of protection. To avoid the absurdities of Mike Huckabee, we need nuanced philosophy, empiricism, and concern for civil liberty. We need a progressive president. (Sources: President's Council on Bioethics, January 16, 2003; National Center for Health Statistics, December 2006; )
    
    
41. When I was a kid, I used to take cookies out of the cookie jar without asking permission first. It wasn't the worst crime, but I wanted to keep it secret. So, when my mom asked me, "Did you take a cookie from the cookie jar?" I looked my mother straight in the eye and said "No." Once, when I did this, my mother pointed out that I had a smudge of chocolate on the corner of my mouth. "Is that from a cookie?" she asked me. Cornered, I admitted the truth. "Why didn't you tell me that you took the cookie when I asked you before?" she demanded. "I forgot," I told her.

    Did I really forget that I took the cookie, or did I lie about it? I lied of course. I knew all along what I had done.

    Republican politicians are trying the same tactic when they have been caught lying. Supreme Court John Roberts tried it when documents surfaced proving that he was a top leader of the Washington D.C. radical right wing Federalist Society within the last five years. John Roberts, aware of the bad reputation of the Federalist Society, had earlier claimed that he was never a member of that group. So what did he say when he was confronted with this discrepancy? John Roberts said that he had forgotten about it. That's about as believable as a kid saying he doesn't know where the smudge of chocolate on his face came from.

42. Newt Gingrich did his best to grab the support of Jerry Falwell's followers by giving a political speech before them just a few days after Falwell's death, calling those who oppose Falwell's agenda "radicals". That's right - according to Newt Gingrich, the people who oppose racism, hatred of gays and lesbians, and destroying the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights are radical.
    
    Gingrich also said, whipping up the audience's religiously-motivated hatred of Jerry Falwell's opponents, "In hostility to American history, the radical secularists insist that religious belief is inherently divisive and that public debate can only proceed on secular terms."
    
    Isn't it a funny thing how, with that very statement, Newt Gingrich proved that the secularists he's talking about are right? (Source: Seattle Post- Intelligencer, May 19, 2007)
    
    
43. Republican presidential candidate James Gilmore The Third likes to portray himself as a ready guy, seeing the threats on the horizon that America will have to face. The odd thing about Mr. Gilmore, though, is that he is very selective about the kinds of threats he is able to perceive.
    
    James Gilmore thinks that liberalism is a threat to America. He also worries about what would happen if Americans didn't have a lot of guns. He fears the consequences of civil unions for same-sex couples.
    
    But global warming? Mention that threat, and James Gilmore won't know what you're talking about. Go ahead and search the Gilmore for President web site. You won't find the phrases "global warming" or "climate change" there at all. The site doesn't use the word "environment" even once.
    
    When the League of Conservation Voters tried to find a statement by James Gilmore about the threat of global warming for its Heat is On web site, they had to go way back to 2001, when Gilmore denied human responsibility for global warming, saying, "There is not a solid link between greenhouse gases in that warming or at least human conduct and industrial conduct in that warming."
    
    It seems that, when it comes to threats that are not palatable to his political base, James Gilmore is dedicated to denial. Talk about gun control or gays, and Gilmore will gladly give dire warnings of coming disaster. Mention environmental security, however, and Gilmore becomes strangely silent.
    
    I suppose James Gilmore the Third has discovered that he can't speak out when he's got his head buried in the sand. (Sources: HeatIsOn.org, JimGilmore08.com)
    
    
44. Every time Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee opens his mouth, he ends up looking a little more nutty than before. Huckabee's latest wild idea is to replace sex education in public schools with religious instruction. While trying to defend abstinence-only education programs in public school, Huckabee said, "I miss the America I grew up in where the Gideons gave Bibles to fifth graders instead of school nurses giving condoms to eighth graders."
    
    Thanks to Mike Huckabee for illustrating how religious power and sexual repression come together in one kinky little package for right wing activists. Huckabee manages in one breath to promote the transformation of American public schools into Christian madrassas and the continued denial of full and honest sex education for teenagers. Huckabee seems to believe that a Bible is an effective form of contraception. Don't try it at home - the paper cuts can be particularly nasty. (Source: Christian Broadcasting Network News, May 21, 2007)
    
    
45. I always knew that Duncan Hunter was an especially creepy kind of Republican, what with his links to corporations involved in torture, like Titan Corporation. I never realized how kooky he is, too, until I read an article by the right wing Cybercast News Service about a meeting that Duncan Hunter had with a group of people who call themselves Christian Zionists, trying to get their support for his presidential campaign.
    
    Christian Zionists?!? What the heck is a Christian Zionist? Aren't Zionists supposed to be Jewish? Is this some kind of weird turnaround of Jews for Jesus?
    
    Not by a long shot. A Christian Zionist is someone who supports Jews going to Israel to push a militaristic attitude on the part of the Israeli government, so that Greater Israel can be established through war, and then all the Jews (except for those that convert to Christianity) can be killed in the aftermath of the second coming of Jesus. As Uri Avnery, leader of an Israeli peace group, explains, Christian Zionists believe that, in the end, "the Jews must convert to Christianity. Those who don't will perish in a gigantic holocaust in the battle of Armageddon."
    
    It's not really a friendly ideology, is it?
    
    Duncan Hunter thinks these Christian Zionists are just the kind of people who need to be at the center of the selection of the next President of the United States. I'm inclined to disagree. I'm inclined to think that people who advocate war on the basis of weird prophecies invented thousands of years ago are a threat to our survival when they're given special access to the President of the United States. (Sources: Cybercast News Service, May 21, 2007; The Independent, July 9, 2002)
    
    
46. When considering how you'll vote in the 2008 presidential election, keep in mind the the ideological flights of fanaticism indulged in by some of the candidates. As an example, take Fred Thompson.
    
    Sure, Fred Thompson hasn't done much for the American public lately, but once upon a time he was a United States Senator. And what did Senator Thompson do with the power that was granted to him by the people of Tennessee?
    
    Fred Thompson demonstrated his true priorities when, on December 12, 1995, he voted in favor of S. J. Res. 31, which would have established an Amendment to the United States Constitution that would have allowed some forms of political speech to be outlawed. It would have made flag burning a crime.
    
    Fred Thompson would rather burn American freedoms than allow anyone to burn American flags. Progressives see the issue the other way around. We'd rather see people burning flags than burning our freedoms. (Source: Library of Congress, 104th Congress)
    
    
47. In 2007, it became a big thing among progressives to praise Republican Ron Paul. The reason is Representative Paul's stand on one issue: Iraq.
    
    However, a candidate for President must deal with more than one issue. So, progressives ought to be careful before praising Ron Paul to the skies just on the basis of his opposition to the continued occupation of Iraq. If they would only take a closer look at Congressman Paul, progressives would recoil at what they discover.
    
    Consider one issue we don't hear much about with Ron Paul these days: His fear and loathing of African-Americans. The following statements were made by Ron Paul in his newsletter in the 1990s:
    
    "Given the inefficiencies of what D.C. laughingly calls the 'criminal justice system,' I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal."
    
    "If you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be."
    
    "We are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, it is hardly irrational. Black men commit murders, rapes, robberies, muggings and burglaries all out of proportion to their numbers."
    
    "We don't think a child of 13 should be held responsible as a man of 23. That's true for most people, but black males age 13 who have been raised on the streets and who have joined criminal gangs are as big, strong, tough, scary and culpable as any adult and should be treated as such."
    
    That's just a sample of Ron Paul's racist remarks. Do you still think that he's a great candidate for President? (Source: Houston Chronicle, May 22, 1996)
    
    
48. Republican presidential candidate James Gilmore is getting scared. He's tried to be faithful to the core beliefs of the Religious Right: That foreigners and evildoers threaten to kill us and disintegrate American society, that traditional values are threatened by the liberties of the Bill of Rights, and that global warming is nowhere near as serious a threat as a progressive tax system.
    
    Still, James Gilmore (his campaign wants you to call him Jim) has not surged in the polls. It's a confusing circumstance, for a politician who has repeatedly gained power in the past by pandering to right wing zealotry.
    
    So now, James Gilmore has been reduced to pleading. In the Pueblo Chieftan, Gilmore begs for the Religious Right to come to his rescue, warning, "I still believe the faith community could play a role, but . . . they better decide pretty soon, because the three front-runners . . . will become the de facto field unless the conservatives in this country get involved."
    
    On his own campaign web site, Gilmore searches for ideological moorings as he asks for more right wing support. "Are Republican conservatives going to have a candidate to carry our banner in this process? Or, are we going to be sitting on the sidelines while the GOP nominee is chosen? I believe that unless we begin to work together soon to unite behind a consistent conservative candidate who can speak for us on national security, economic security and traditional family issues, we have little chance of having a Republican nominee who shares our values."
    
    James Gilmore has noticed something rather striking in the dynamic of the 2008 presidential election. In spite of a lot of hype about the importance of right wing so-called "values voters", the American public, including most Republican voters, just doesn't seem very interested in hearing all the old right wing ideological babbling that has traditionally been the fuel for Republican politics. America has tried the right wing version of reality for years, and found that it brings division, debt, and destruction.
    
    That shift in American voters' attitudes leaves James Gilmore feeling confused as he flails, ever more vainly, in search of a Christian fundamentalist bandwagon that he can ride into the White House. For us, the disillusionment of American voters with the faith-based nationalist jingoism of the Republican Party only brings additional clarity to the conclusion that 2008 is the year to elect a progressive President. (Sources: Pueblo Chieftan, May 26, 2007; GilmoreForPresident.com)
    
    
49. John Bolton was interviewed as a part of an official investigation about his role in the fraudulent inclusion of false claims about Iraq seeking Nigerian yellowcake uranium used to make nuclear weapons. Later, George W. Bush nominated Bolton to be the next ambassador to the United Nations. Yet, when the United States Senate asked Bolton if he had ever been interviewed in connection to an investigation, Bolton said that he had not.

    During the process of his nomination to the position of U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, the American public learned that John Bolton was, in fact, interviewed as part of an official investigation, what is Bolton's excuse for saying that he had never been interviewed? John Bolton says he forgot.

    Being interviewed in connection with a government investigation is not the sort of thing that most people forget. If John Bolton really did forget his interview, and didn't lie to the Senate, I wonder if he now has forgotten that he was ever kicked out of his position as Ambassador to the United Nations in disgrace.

50. Two and a half years ago, I wrote about James Hart, the Republican candidate for Congress in Tennessee's 8th congressional district. In 2004, James Hart got 78 percent of the vote in the Republican primary for Congress. He earned that support by promoting a program of eugenics in which members "favored races" are promoted over others.
    
    Hart blames the decline of Detroit on the presence of "less favored races" there (rather than the idiotic reliance of Ford, GM and Chrysler executives upon short term promotional activities rather than long-term preparation of hybrid and other energy efficient technology). He created a special graphic in order to compare people of non-European descent to cavemen, australopithecines, and apes.
    
    Guess what? James Hart is running for the Republican nomination to Congress again in 2008.
    
    Right wing presidential candidates try to win by appealing to the same kind of Republican voters who provide support to politicians like James Hart. I think that counts as another reason to counter the right wing agenda in 2008, and vote to elect a progressive President instead. (Source: JamesHartForCongress.com, November 2004 and May 2007)
    
    
51. The Republican candidates for President are running hard to court the fanatical right wing base of the Republican Party, even while they're pretending to present a more reasonable face to the rest of us. The result is a dishonest cover-up of their core right wing agenda. Mitt Romney wants to deny equal rights to same-sex couples, but then protests that he's not an anti-gay bigot. Mike Huckabee says that he doesn't believe in evolution and wants Christian Creationist theology taught in high school science classes, but then insists that he is not trying to replace science with religion in public schools. John McCain supports George W. Bush on the Iraq War all the way, but then tries to get us to believe that he's a maverick who goes his own way.
    
    There is one Republican candidate for President, however, who doesn't mince words. He comes right out and says all the nasty stuff that the other Republicans only hint and gesture at.
    
    Republican presidential candidate Hugh Cort not only makes the blatant claim that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the attacks of September 11, 2001, he's even written a book promoting this discredited conspiracy theory, entitled, Saddam's Attacks on America: 1993; September 11, 2001; and the Anthrax Attacks.
    
    Cort says that being the ideological heir of Ronald Reagan is not good enough. "I believe we need a President who is more conservative than Ronald Reagan and I am that candidate," he says.
    
    Cort doesn't pussy foot around with suggestions of adding just 30,000 or 40,000 soldiers to the war in Iraq. He wants a real escalation: "If we get 100,000-200,000 more boots on the ground, like the wise General Shinseki wanted, we can finally secure Iraq and win the war."
    
    Cort doesn't just follow the Republican example of saying that he's against abortion without ever trying to get a law passed to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision. Cort plans to amend the Constitution to ban abortion nationwide. "Not only will I fight to get Roe v. Wade overturned, I will fight to pass an amendment protecting all human life," he explains. Would that amendment ban war to protect human life, Mr Cort?
    
    Cort doesn't engage in bigotry against gays with pretty phrases designed to cushion the blow. He promises Biblical genocide against America if it refuses to outlaw homosexual relationships, saying, "Gay marriage is wrong. Not even Sodom and Gomorrah had the nerve to call the homosexual relationship �marriage' and look what happened to them."
    
    Cort doesn't make mealy-mouthed statements about the relevance of faith in public life. He believes that he is a prophet directly chosen by God to be the next Republican of the United States. "I believe God has called me to run for the presidency to get America back to God so He can bless us and protect us," he writes.
    
    Hugh Cort is a kook, but he's an honest kook, revealing the concealed political ideology that motivates support for the other Republican candidates. Cort's open kookiness is the heart of the right wing, unmasked. (Source: HughCort2008.com)
    
    
52. Those politicians who urge American voters to reject progressive ideals in favor of right wing ideology don't seem to stand up to much scrutiny. For example, Republican Fred Thompson is asking Americans to elect him President of the United States in 2008. As President, Fred Thompson would be given the task of managing the entire Executive Branch of the Federal Government. What experience does Fred Thompson have that would lead anyone to expect that he would be capable of such a job?
    
    Fred Thompson did serve on the board of directors for an engineering firm called Stone and Webster. However, that board was sued by shareholders outraged at the extreme mismanagement that took place with Fred Thompson's help. Fred Thompson was personally accused of having an unethical conflict of interest.
    
    Fred Thompson's kind of leadership didn't serve Stone and Webster very well. While Thompson was on the Stone and Webster board of directors, the company lost money. Finally, in part because of Fred Thompson's mismanagement, Stone and Webster went bankrupt. People lost jobs. Families paid the price of Fred Thompson's failure to lead.
    
    With his history of failed leadership, Fred Thompson has the gall to suggest that he's a better pick for President than the progressive alternatives. If you want Fred Thompson to do to America what he did to Stone and Webster, then, by all means vote for him. Otherwise, support a progressive candidate for President in 2008. (Source: USA Today, June 6, 2007)
    
    
53. Progressives get involved in politics because of their dedication to their principles. That doesn't seem to be why politics appealed to Fred Thompson. On the contrary, Fred Thompson's professional resume shows that he has used politics mainly for two reasons: To serve the rich and powerful, and to make some money for himself.
    
    Fred Thompson's entry into politics was as a lobbyist. Fred Thompson's career as a lobbyist began way back in the 1970s, but has continued almost right up to his entry into the field of politicians seeking the Republican nomination in 2008.
    
    The influence of Fred Thompson appears to be for hire. He's worked, for instance, as a lobbyist for big energy corporations like General Electric and Westinghouse Electric Corporation. He promoted the dishonest economic schemes of the savings and loan industry as one of its hired hands back in the 1980s, right before the savings and loan institutions were exposed as part of a sham that profited at the expense of ordinary working Americans.
    
    Fred Thompson has spent almost all of his political life as lobbyist, promoting the selfish schemes of the rich and powerful. What makes anyone think he wouldn't continue this aspect of his career if elected President? (Sources: USA Today, June 6, 2007; The Nation, May 2, 2007; Media Matters, June 5, 2007)
    
    
54. Republican Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee thinks that the gulags of Guantanamo Bay are lovely places. "I can tell you, most of our prisoners would love to be in a facility more like Guantanamo and less like the state prisons that people are in in the United States," Huckabee says.
    
    Having read through the government's own investigations of the prisons at Guantanamo Bay, I know at least one prisoner there who would disagree with Mike Huckabee.
    
    The following statements come from document DOJFBI-001773, obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union. That document is a report on a series of interrogations of a prisoner being held by the United States government at Camp Delta in Guantanamo Bay.
    
    

    On [censored] slammed his head against his cell door in an attempt to injure himself. [censored] was unconscious for a short period of time and received stitches on his forehead.
    
    [censored] was asked about a scar on his right arm. he replied that it was the result of a suicide attempt, which he claimed was one of several since his incarceration at Camp Delta. It was explained to [censored] that his conditions at Camp Delta would improve only if he fully cooperated.

    This document makes it clear that the conditions at Camp Delta, which are unspecified in document DOJFBI-001773, are of such a condition that the prisoner has begun to engage in severely self-destructive behavior, indicating severe psychological damage. The interrogators observe the prisoner purposefully hitting his head so hard against a door that he is knocked unconscious and requires stitches, and have reason to believe that the prisoner has attempted suicide several times while at Camp Delta.
    
    Any ordinary person would recognize that interrogation of a prisoner in such a mental state is useless, because a person who is so mentally disturbed as to attempt suicide several times and smash his skull on purpose is not in a state to give reliable information.
    
    Yet, the American interrogators did not seek to place the prisoner in a state of mind that would elicit reliable testimony. Instead, they abused the mental instability of the prisoner. They tried to use the conditions at Camp Delta, conditions that were at the very least contributing to the unhinged suicidal masochistic state of the prisoner, to coerce testimony. The interrogators told the insane prisoner that they would not alter the conditions that were making him insane unless he started telling them what they wanted to hear.
    
    Progressives perceive that the system of interrogation that tries to increase the mental illness of the prisoners it is trying to get information from is as insane as the prisoners it tortures. Yet, American right wingers believe that this system is a model for how the American system of justice ought to work.
    
    The choice between these ideas ought to be easy to make. Forget Mike Huckabee and his sadistic right wing colleagues. Pick the progressive for President in 2008. (Sources: Department of Justice document DOJFBI-001773; ACLU; Associated Press, June 10, 2007)
    
    
55. George W. Bush needs a new White House counselor, someone to tell him what to do. So he's picked (or had picked for him) Ed Gillespie. Gillespie is the past head of the Republican National Committee who informed us that any criticism of Bush's Iraq war policy is "political hate speech". I'd counsel Gillespie not to try that line again.
    
    Ed Gillespie is also a corporate lobbyist with an extensive history of representing big business interests. Senate lobbying disclosure records show the following list of corporations for which Ed Gillespie has carried the torch:
    
    Alliance for Quality Nursing Home Care (nursing home industry)
    The American Trucking Association
    Amgen
    Bank of America
    Bell South
    Bristol Myers Squibb
    Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation
    Catholic Health Association
    CBS
    Coalition for Encryption Reform/Americans for Computer Privacy (corporate shell group)
    College Loan Corporation
    Daimler Chrysler
    Environmental Communications
    Equitas Limited
    Federal Express
    FM Policy Focus (mortgage lender PR front group)
    FM Watch (same)
    Genworth Financial
    International Dairy Foods Association
    Lorillard Tobacco Company
    MassMutual Life Insurance Corporation
    McDermott, Will and Emery Government Development Bank
    National Air Traffic Controllers Association
    Philip Morris Tobacco Corporation
    PriceWaterHouseCoopers LLP
    Recording Industry Association of America
    RJR Nabisco
    Sabre Incorporated
    Safeway
    Southern Co. Services
    State Street Bank and Trust
    Teaming Against Taxes Coalition (manufacturers front group)
    Technology Network
    US Telecom Association
    US Tobacco
    Verizon
    Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz (mergers and acquisitions corporate law firm)
    Williams & Connolly
    
    What interests will Ed Gillespie represent when he has the president's ear? Is this sort of branded counsel what you have in mind for the American presidency?
    
    
56. Why does Republican presidential candidate Tom Tancredo want to outlaw immigration to the United States? It's because he's tired of having to "press 1 for English". I'm not kidding: that's exactly what Tancredo asserted in a Republican presidential debate of June 2007 - and the Republican audience cheered for him. Tancredo's larger point was that he was tired of being inconvenienced by people being different from him. Tancredo's solution to all this difference? "Assimilate them!"
    
    If you're tired of politicians who can't handle a little bit of difference, if you'd like your president to sound more like Jean-Luc Picard and less like a Borg drone, you'll have to look beyond the Republican field this season.
    
    Fight the hive mentality. Resistance is not futile. Make a stand against the American Borg; vote Progressive in 2008. (Source: Republican Presidential Debate Transcript, June 2007)
    
    
57. Back in March, White House spokesperson Dana Perino said that "only a handful" of White House employees had been conducting official White House business on email accounts owned and operated by the Republican National Committee.
    
    It sounds like a small issue until one realizes its implications. The President is required by the Presidential Records Act to "take all such steps as may be necessary to assure that the activities, deliberations, decisions, and policies that reflect the performance of his constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties are adequately documented and maintained as Presidential records." That means that it is against the law for White House officials to conduct business in such a way that purposefully evades the requirement of keeping records of their activities and communications.
    
    Conducting White House business on email accounts owned and operated by the Republican National Committee is a way of purposefully evading the requirements of the Presidential Records Act. It is therefore a grave violation of the law.
    
    When the White House does not follow the Presidential Records Act, the Congress cannot know what the Executive Branch of government is really doing. If Congress does not know what the Executive Branch of government is doing, then it cannot oversee Executive activities, as it its constitutional power and duty.
    
    Keep that in mind when I tell you that Dana Perino lied when she said that only a handful of White House employees were using email accounts from the Republican National Committee to conduct official White House business. Dana Perino later said that 50 White House employees were using Republican Party email accounts, violating the Presidential Records Act. She was lying again. The actual number of White House employees that have been using GOP email accounts to keep their official White House activities undocumented was 88.
    
    That's 88 White House officials who have been caught violating federal law, and more may be uncovered. What's more, the national Republican Party was involved in helping them break the law. This politically-motivated Republican effort to help White House officials break that law brings into doubt any presidential candidate who runs under the label of Republican. (Source: House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, June 18, 2007)
    
    
58. It's bad enough that the Bush White House systematically worked with the Republican National Committee to set up RNC email accounts for at least 88 White House officials to use in order to avoid keeping official records of their activities that could be reviewed by Congress. That's a violation of the Presidential Records Act. White House officials are required by law to use White House email for official business, and to preserve the emails as official records.
    
    What's worse is that the Presidential Records Act was broken yet again when the Republican National Committee deleted all the emails written by 51 out of the 88 known White House officials using Republican National Committee email accounts. Those email accounts have been subpoenaed by Congress in order to investigate the activities of the White House, but the congressional investigation has been stifled by the deleted accounts.
    
    Furthermore, in the Republican Party email accounts that were preserved, there are what the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform calls "major gaps" in which emails over long periods of time have been deleted.
    
    The Republican National Committee says that its deletion of huge numbers of official White House records is all just a big mistake. Well, yes, it is a mistake. It's a mistake akin to the one made by President Richard Nixon when he deleted portions of the White House tapes recordings made in the Oval Office.
    
    The Bush White House's supposed mistake ought to be dealt with in the same way that Richard Nixon's mistaken deletion was dealt with. The trust of the American people is broken when the Bush White House and the Republican Party engage in such a thorough effort to hide and destroy public documents that record the activities of their government. (Source: House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, June 18, 2007)
    
    
59. Think Ron Paul is a progressive kind of Republican just because he's against continuing the Iraq War? Pay attention to the details. For example, there's Ron Paul's opposition to international organizations in a way that is reminiscent of the beliefs of John Birch Society members that United Nations black helicopters are planning to invade the United States.
    
    Ron Paul opposes the International Criminal Court, saying, "organizations like the International Criminal Court are a threat to our independence as a nation. They transfer power from our government to unelected foreign elites. The ICC wants to try our soldiers as war criminals."
    
    Of course, some American soldiers are war criminals, having tortured prisoners of war or engaged in deliberate massacres. Why is Ron Paul defending them?
    
    Ron Paul joins in with the wacky right in claiming that there's a special conspiracy to replace the United States with a new nation "called the North American Union. This spawn of powerful special interests, would create a single nation out of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, with a new unelected bureaucracy and money system. Forget about controlling immigration under this scheme."
    
    Ron Paul teaches us the lesson that what progressive-for-a-Republican really means is not-progressive-at- all. In 2008, we need to elect the real thing, a genuine progressive. (Source: American Independence and Sovereignty, RonPaul2008.com)
    
    
60. Rudolph Giuliani makes a big deal of talking about his leadership as he goes around the country campaigning to become President in 2008. But, when it comes down to the most basic aspect of leadership, Rudy Giuliani has a pattern of failure.
    
    When he is called upon to lead, Giuliani just doesn't show up.
    
    New York Newsday is reporting that Rudolph Giuliani was selected to serve on the Iraq Study Group, but was later forced to quit when he didn't bother to show up for even one meeting.
    
    What was Giuliani doing that was so much more important than working with others to figure out how to solve the mess in Iraq? He was out earning millions of dollars, giving paid political speeches to groups of rich and powerful insiders.
    
    That gives an indication of Giuliani's real moral values. He'll gladly abandon the needs of the soldiers fighting in Iraq in order to make a buck for himself. If Giuliani does get elected President in 2008, will he bother to show up to work? Giuliani could go down in history as the President who wasn't there. (Source: New York Newsday, June 19, 2007)
    
    
61. Back in the autumn of 2002, as Fred Thompson was preparing to cast a vote in favor of starting a war in Iraq, where the American military is still stuck in a deepening quagmire five years later, he gave gushing praise to George W. Bush. Reflecting on the speech that President Bush gave before the United Nations urging the world to unite to wage war in Iraq, Fred Thompson declared, "The President made a magnificent speech."
    
    Oh, it was a good speech all right. It was effective in convincing the American people that starting a war in Iraq was a great idea.
    
    The trouble is that Bush's good speech was an act of rotten leadership. There's a big difference between making a persuasive speech and leading a nation in the right direction. Effective leaders don't just make compelling speeches. They also craft effective policies and plan for the future. Bush didn't do that. He just gave a speech and trusted that everything else would work itself out in the end.
    
    The trouble with Fred Thompson is that he didn't seem to know the difference between good speechmaking and good leadership any more than Bush himself did. Though he was a powerful Senator with close ties to the Bush White House at the time, Fred Thompson did nothing to ensure that the Bush Administration developed sound plans for the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
    
    No, George W. Bush made a magnificent speech, and that was enough for Fred Thompson.
    
    It makes sense, in a way, that Fred Thompson does not understand the difference between putting on a show and providing solid leadership. After all, Thompson has spent much of his life being an actor, pretending to be characters on TV and in the movies in order to entertain people, even though he didn't really have the substance to sustain the substance of those characters. For Fred Thompson's career, holding up a few moments of the appearance of seriousness has been enough. Apparently, Fred Thompson is hoping that kind of show will be enough to keep voters enthralled during the 2008 presidential election.
    
    The international prestige of the United States has been diminished enough by this emphasis of style above substance. In 2008, we need to elect a President who has the substance of well-considered progressive ideals, not just the glitz of show business. (Source: News Release from the Office of Senator Fred Thompson, September 12, 2002)
    
    
62. In a speech praising George W. Bush's push for war in Iraq, Fred Thompson demonstrated a particularly authoritarian streak. When he joins the Republican debates, I doubt you'll hear Fred Thompson even utter George W. Bush's name; Thompson's pollsters have undoubtedly informed him that references to the deeply unpopular Bush are strategically unwise. But when it counted back in 2002, when millions of Americans were beginning to question the wisdom of Bush's leadership and the veracity of his contentions, Fred Thompson used his power as a U.S. Senator to tell Americans that it was our job to sit down, shut up, stop questioning and fall in line behind George W. Bush.
    
    The U.S. Congress is designated by the Constitution to act as a check on a reckless president. Yet Senator Fred Thompson declared that the Congress ought to abandon its responsibility and just fall in line instead. "I urge we maintain the status quo there; that we not take another step to restrict the President," intoned Senator Thompson with his expressive jowls a-waggling. When it came to the question of either questioning authority or obeying authority, Fred Thompson came down firmly on the side of authoritarianism:
    
    

    I believe on these close questions, if indeed my colleagues believe it is a close question, that we ought to give the President the benefit of the doubt. He is now, without boast, the leader of the free world. As we are facing the challenge of terrorism and the challenge that is presented by Saddam Hussein, as evidenced by his speech today, the ears of the entire world were trained upon him. That is not anything to do with him personally. That is the position of the President of the United States.
    
    In times such as these, if you can compare any other time with this - especially in times of war, especially in times of issues of war and peace whoever is President of the United States is the leader of the free world and is the leader in espousing those values that we hold dear, knowing as the entire world does that we are going to be on the front lines of any enforcement action the world deems necessary for the cause of freedom and democracy.
    
    That is not a hokie sentiment. That is not Democrat-Republican. That is just reality.

    We know what happened after the U.S. Senate fell in line as Fred Thompson suggested. Thanks to the likes of Fred Thompson and those who marched under his authoritarian banner, America is stuck in a quagmire and weaker than ever before. The problem is not just that Fred Thompson was substantively dead wrong in his factual assertions when backing up George W. Bush's gung-ho line. The problem is also that Fred Thompson led the charge for Americans to stop asking questions, stop thinking for themselves, and just let the president go ahead with his plans. Thompson's speech was full of the kind of inaccurate scaremongering that poisoned our political atmosphere and drove our country on dangerous errands to toward destructive ends.
    
    And the problem doesn't stop there. After all, Fred Thompson said, it was nothing personal. We should blindly fall in line behind whomever the President of the United States might happen to be. "That is just reality", Thompson declares. Do you want another eight years with a man in office who thinks it is Americans' job to shut up, toe the line, and salute the president? We can't afford another eight years like that. That's why a man like Fred Thompson should never be our president. In place of authoritarianism, we need to return to the energetic questioning of a president, and we need a president who thinks that questions aren't the work of evildoers. (Source: Remarks of Fred Thompson on the Floor of the U.S. Senate, September 12 2002)
    
    
63. The separation between the Bush administration and reality has just gained new breadth. You know it's time for a big change in Washington when the Vice President of the United States declares in all sincerity that his office: "does not consider itself an 'entity within the executive branch that comes into the possession of classified information'."
    
    Dick Cheney makes this assertion in order to claim that he doesn't have to detail or justify his handling of classified information, even though federal law specifically requires him, as part of the "executive branch that comes into the possession of classified information," to do so.
    
    Clearly, the Office of the Vice President of the United States comes into the possession of classified information. After all, Dick Cheney personally authorized his Chief of Staff in the Vice President's Office to release classified information to gain political advantage. You can't release classified information if you don't have it. If that isn't enough for you, there's the White House's own description of Dick Cheney's relationship to classified information. Read this official photograph caption from the White House itself:
    
    "Vice President Dick Cheney participates in a classified briefing Wednesday, May 9, 2007, inside the Green Zone in Baghdad with U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and General David Petraeus, Commader of U.S. forces in Iraq."
    
    Clearly Vice President Dick Cheney "comes into the possession of classified information." That means the part of the clause to which Dick Cheney's denial pertains must be the bit about the Office of the Vice President being an "entity within the executive branch."
    
    Either Dick Cheney's gourd is completely scraped out, or he has seceded from the Union! To what body does the Office of the Vice President now belong - the Canadian Association of Occupational Therapists? (Sources: Letter from Rep. Henry Waxman to Vice President Dick Cheney, June 21, 2007; National Journal February 9, 2006; White House News Release May 9, 2007)
    
    
64. In the Irregular Times Diaries earlier this year, I took a look at the issues that Fred Thompson chose to deal with at the height of his time in the United States Senate, and concluded that Fred Thompson was an unremarkable senator.
    
    It wasn't too long before a Thompson-supporter came along to explain that it's actually a really good thing that Fred Thompson never amounted to much in the United States Senate. This person wrote, "You fail to understand what most Americans understand is that we want Senators and House reps that do less. If they do nothing at all that's fine with most Americans."
    
    I promise that I didn't make this comment up. The argument from the right wing in defense of Fred Thompson's mediocrity is that not achieving anything important is exactly what we need in the next President of the United States.
    
    Well, my next door neighbor has done even less politically than Fred Thompson. Why not pick him as a presidential candidate then, if inaction is really the highest qualification for the Oval Office? For that matter, if having politicians that do nothing is really what Americans want, why not elect a big slab of rock as President?
    
    The only response to that question, from the right wing perspective, would seem to be that rocks are not valid citizens of the United States.
    
    We have to do better than that.
    
    
    
    Campaigning for President in Littleton, New Hampshire, Republican Tom Tancredo told a crowd of people, "I'm running for President to win back our sovereignty, our identity, and our destiny." What Tancredo meant by that comment is not clear to most Americans, though right wing zealots may pick up on some cues that evade the rest of us.
    
    The United States has sovereignty. The Congress and the President together choose which international agreements to enter into, and are free to revoke American participation in those agreements if there's enough political agreement to do so.
    
    I think I might understand what Tom Tancredo means when he talks about winning back the American identity, but I don't understand why he in particular is talking in that way. After all, the right wing movement which Tom Tancredo belongs to has been in control of the American government for years.
    
    Most of all, I don't understand what Tom Tancredo means when he talks about winning back America's destiny. What destiny is Tom Tancredo talking about? Does Tom Tancredo really believe that there is a special destiny for America, and if so, how does he know what that is? Does Tom Tancredo believe that he is a prophet who has been given special powers to see what will happen in the future?
    
    Furthermore, if Tom Tancredo wants to win America's destiny back, who does he want to win it back from? How will that work? How do you go about winning back a destiny?
    
    If Tom Tancredo is winning back America's destiny, then how come he's doing so poorly with his presidential campaign? If it were really the destiny of America to fit Tom Tancredo's vision for what it ought to be, wouldn't he be doing better in his campaign?
    
    The weirdest idea among all of Tancredo's suggestions is that a destiny is something that can be lost and is something that you can win back. The American Heritage Dictionary defines the word destiny as follows:
    
    1. The inevitable or necessary fate to which a particular person or thing is destined; one's lot 2. A predetermined course of events considered as something beyond human power or control 3. The power or agency thought to predetermine events The essence of destiny is that it is neither won nor lost. It just is. The essence of destiny is that the outcome of events has already been decided - and not by human beings. It's a weird, cosmic, supernatural idea akin to fate. If you really believe in destiny, then you've got to believe that there's nothing anyone - not even Tom Tancredo - can do about it.
    
    There are two possible explanations of Tom Tancredo's declaration that he is going to win back America's destiny. The first explanation is that Tom Tancredo believes in the predestination of events, but also believes that he has the supernatural power to shape the cosmos and change destiny itself. The second explanation is that Tom Tancredo doesn't really believe that can win back America's destiny from whomever it has been lost to, but thought that saying that he could sounded good.
    
    In the first case, Tom Tancredo is insane. In the second case, Tom Tancredo is a sloppy thinker who says whatever he thinks sounds good, whether it makes sense or not. In neither case is Tom Tancredo a good choice for President of the United States. (Sources: American Heritage Dictionary, Fourth Edition; New Hampshire Union Leader, June 24, 2007)
    
    
65. Republicans just can't seem to get their minds around the concept of personal responsibility. Take Colorado Republican Tom Tancredo, for example.
    
    At a Republican picnic in Dubuque, Iowa, Congressman Tancredo acknowledged that the Republican Congress had messed things up for America. "We have paid a price as Republicans because we are no longer in control, but it's what we deserved," he said.
    
    I'm glad to see Tom Tancredo acknowledge that he and his Republican colleagues share responsibility for the mess America has gotten into over the last several years. I just wish that he would follow that idea to its logical consequence.
    
    The problem with Tom Tancredo is that, after acknowledging his blame, he promoted his campaign for President in 2008 anyway. Even though Tancredo admits that he and his colleagues don't deserve to be in control of Congress, he asks to be put in charge of the White House.
    
    That's the Republican idea of responsibility for you: Give a little mea culpa, and then act like nothing ever happened. (Source: Des Moines Register, June 25, 2007)
    
    
66. Republican President George W. Bush has been issued congressional subpoenas with the mandatory force of law behind them. These subpoenas legally require Bush to turn over documents regarding Bush's illegal actions in unleashing wiretaps without warrants, which are clearly required by the 4th Amendment to the United States Constitution. It appears that the Bush administration illegally withheld information regarding these illegal warrantless wiretaps from the Congress. And now George W. Bush has declared that he will ignore the congressional subpoenas, asserting that he is above the law. When you have to read a paragraph regarding the president multiple times in order to figure out how many violations of the law are involved, you know something is very wrong. None of the conservatives running for President in 2008 under the Republican Party banner have repudiated George W. Bush for his extralegal behavior. If you want a presidential candidate who respects the rule of law, you'll have to look elsewhere. (Sources: Washington Post June 28, 2007; Washington Post January 1, 2006)
    
    
67. The political character of Ron Paul is defined by suspicion. Sometimes, that suspicion leads Ron Paul into a justified opposition to destructive government policies, like the occupation of Iraq and the Patriot Act.
    
    At other times, however, Ron Paul's propensity for suspicion leads him to perceive grand conspiracies where there is little sign of any significant threat. Usually, Paul's paranoia leads him into an explanation of how the United Nations is out to get us all by depriving the United States of its sovereignty.
    
    So it is that, in October 2005, Ron Paul announced his opposition to the effort to establish a Peacebuilding Commission and a Democracy Fund at the United Nations. Paul called these efforts a "big step toward destroying national sovereignty - a step that could threaten the United States in the future."
    
    How do the Peacebuilding Commission and Democracy Fund at the UN destroy national sovereignty and threaten the United States? Ron Paul wasn't exactly clear in explaining that.
    
    Reading Ron Paul's own criticism of the Peacebuilding Commission, it's clear to see that his fears are based upon some sizeable leaps in speculation. For example, Paul encourages readers to interpret the Peacebuilding Commission's work to integrate the prevention of war, and reconstruction after war into development strategies as evidence of an attempt to create an international military force. "Think of this as the core of a future UN army that will claim the right to intervene in any conflict anywhere," Ron Paul suggests. To think of the Peacebuilding Commission this way, however, requires a great deal of presumption. We might as well think of the Peacebuilding Commission as the core of a future international public broadcasting system as the core of a future UN army.
    
    Ron Paul then leaps to the Democracy Fund, and accuses it of being a false front in the effort to pay for "this UN army" - the army that doesn't exist yet. Paul asks a lot of rhetorical questions that are intended to lead people to share his belief in the threat of the Democracy Fund and its supposed UN army. Paul writes,
    
    "We must ask ourselves whether this "global democracy fund" will be used to undermine or overthrow elected governments that do not meet some UN-created democratic criteria. Will it be used to further the kinds of color-coded revolutions we have seen from Eastern Europe to the Middle East, which far from being genuine expressions of popular will are in fact fomented with outside money and influence? Could it eventually be used against the United States? What if the U.S. is determined lacking when it comes to UN-defined democratic responsibilities such as providing free public housing or universal health care?"
    
    Well, those are some interesting questions, but Ron Paul doesn't provide the answer to any of them. The reason is that he doesn't have any of the answers. Ron Paul can suggest that the Democracy Fund will be used in conjunction with the Peacebuilding Commission to create a UN army that will then invade the United States because we have inadequate health care, but he doesn't have any actual evidence for such a plan.
    
    Progressives understand that there is too much need for positive international cooperation to bother following right wing conspiracy theories about invasions by secret United Nations armies that don't even exist yet. (Source: AntiWar.com, October 4, 2005)
    
    
68. Hillary Clinton has given a much-deserved criticism of a paranoid and ill-informed characterization of Cuban immigrants made by Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson. Last week, while campaigning in South Carolina, Thompson declared that 1,000 Cubans had been picked up entering the United States in 2005.
    
    "I don't imagine they're coming here to bring greetings from Castro. We're living in the era of the suitcase bomb," said Thompson. Catch the message? It seems that Fred Thompson thinks that people trying to come to the United States from Cuba are all a bunch of terrorists, with their suitcase bombs hidden in their rickety boats.
    
    Hillary Clinton said of Thompson's remark, "Apparently he doesn't have a lot of experience in Florida or anywhere else, and doesn't know a lot of Cuban-Americans."
    
    Fred Thompson has tried to justify his remark by saying that he was just talking about spies from Cuba, not Cuban immigrants. Really? Does Fred Thompson really think that a big wave of one thousand spies from Cuba tried to enter the United States in 2005, with suitcase bombs?
    
    That's silly, and so is Thompson's claim that we are "living in the era of the suitcase bomb". When historians look back on this decade, they won't have much reason to call this period in time the Era Of The Suitcase Bomb. There have not been many suitcase bombers, really, in the big scheme of things.
    
    There have been a lot of people speculating that terrorists could use suitcase bombs to wreak havoc within the United States, but their speculation has never come to fruition. Fred Thompson ought to be ashamed of himself for mistaking speculation with actual events.
    
    In 2008, we need a President who doesn't confuse the elaborate leaps in logic in TV show scripts with reality. (Source: Associated Press, July 1, 2007)
    
    
69. New York Times reporters David Barstow and Robin Stein discovered a system of Bush administration propaganda, masquerading as independently-reported "news", that is much more extensive than previously thought. The Bush administration has sent out loads of video clips, narrated by "reporters" who are actually government agents, sometimes not even using their real names � but the video clips don't tell you that. It turns out that local news outfits across the country, strapped for ideas and cutting back reporting staff, have eaten this stuff like candy. The result: news programs directly present the Bush administration line while leading viewers to believe that such propaganda is unvarnished, unbiased local reporting.

    The Government's General Accounting Office ruled that such behavior is illegal. But the Bush administration has sent out a memo to its staffers, telling them to just keep on doing what they've been doing, and not to mind the law. (Source: New York Times, March 13, 2007)

70. Those who have promoted the idea of making Republican Tommy Thompson the next President of the United States would do well to explain Thompson's obsession with America washing its hands.
    
    Back in 2001, Tommy Thompson helped feed the Homeland Security paranoia in reaction to a few isolated incidents using non-weaponized anthrax spores. As Secretary of Health and Human Services, Thompson held a question-and-answer session, and told Americans that they ought to protect themselves from terrorism by washing their hands every time they touched a package that seemed unusual.
    
    As nice as it may have been to have shiny, clean hands across America, all this extra hand washing really wasn't necessary. Only a very tiny number of Americans came in contact with packages that had anthrax spores on them.
    
    There wasn't a widespread anthrax attack. Almost no one in the United States had any reason to be concerned. Yet, Tommy Thompson encouraged everyone to be afraid, to view any package that was unusual in some way as a potential source of death by bioterrorism. Thompson told Americans that they should wash their hands to deal with the fear he had provoked.
    
    In short, Tommy Thompson reacted to an isolated problem by nudging Americans toward obsessive compulsive disorder. America needs to wash its hands of this right wing obsession with an omnipresent state of security. (Source: CNN, October 23, 2001)
    
    
71. Republican James Gilmore is asking for the opportunity to lead the United States as President in 2008. Prime among the qualifications that he cites is his leadership of the Republican Party during much of the presidency of George W. Bush. In fact, Gilmore was chosen as the chair of the Republican National Committee by Bush just after Bush's election in 2000.
    
    The criterion for success as chair of the Republican National Committee was set by Gilmore himself, who said, upon the announcement of his selection by Bush,
    
    "The president-elect has shared with me, over a long period of time now, his desire to see the party broaden, to broaden its base, and to bring additional people in. He has led by example in this regard here in the state of Texas. He's made it clear that this is the goal that he wishes that the party to achieve, to bring more people in from the Hispanic community, the African-American community, all regions of the United States of America, and to make this party broader even than it is now."
    
    Jim Gilmore saw it as his job to increase the number of Hispanic Republicans, African-American Republicans, and Republicans from districts not traditionally known as Republican strongholds. By that criterion, James Gilmore failed in his job as chair of the RNC. The Republican Party did not become more ethnically or regionally diverse during the time that Gilmore became its leader.
    
    By his own standards, James Gilmore is a failed leader. Why would Americans elect him to lead their nation in 2008? (Source: CNN, December 22, 2000)
    
    
72. One way to evaluate the candidates for President is to check how closely their personal perceptions match political reality. A politician who doesn't understand the difference between political reality and his or her own perceptions won't be able to respond to the desires of the American people or to advance his or her own agenda in a way that is relevant to the country as a whole. In this respect, it seems that Fred Thompson has a serious problem. Fred Thompson's perception of political reality is shaped more by the opinions of Washington D.C. elite insiders than by the political impressions of people living outside of the nation's capital.
    
    For example, consider Fred Thompson's opinion of what people think about Dick Cheney. Here's what Thompson has had to say on the matter:
    
    "People like Dick Cheney. So many of the people around here have known him for many years and they just like him personally because he's a guy of superb character."
    
    Fred Thompson made this statement upon the selection of Dick Cheney as the vice presidential running mate for George W. Bush back in 2000. You know, I'm not a Washington D.C. insider like Fred Thompson or Dick Cheney. So, I don't know if Dick Cheney really was popular with the Washington D.C. crowd at that time.
    
    The point is that likability has not actually been one of Dick Cheney's strongest political assets as Vice President. In fact, among the American people as a whole, Dick Cheney is even less well liked than George W. Bush.
    
    Fred Thompson doesn't seem to have been able to pick up on that liability. In fact, Thompson's perceptions have been proven to be directly at odds with those of the American people. It appears that Thompson has spent so many years working the corridors as a lobbyist and politician in Washington D.C. that he became unable, years ago, to tell the difference between the inside-the-beltway buzz and the interests of the American people. (Source: CNN, July 31, 2000)
    
    
73. Republican Senator David Vitter of Louisiana, May 25 2006, speaking in support of a constitutional amendment to keep gays and lesbians from being able to marry, proclaimed,

    "I'm proud to join Matt and the entire Alliance for Marriage in support of the Marriage Protection Amendment and other pro-family, pro-marriage initiatives that we are pursuing in the Congress. Matt, I think your group, including the representatives here today, illustrate what a broad and deep consensus this is in the country that marriage is the union between a man and a woman... Your group recognizes a central truth from throughout human history, that marriage is the most important social institution in human history and is the most significant factor in terms of minimizing all sorts of social ills."

    On Wednesday, March 29 2006, David Vitter sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, asking him to support passage of the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act, which by upping penalties for the saying of naughty words would "be very beneficial to the life and the health of the family in America& "
    
    David Vitter of Louisiana voted YES on the Largent Amendment in the House in 1999, to prohibit gay couples from being able to adopt children in Washington, DC. David Vitter of Louisiana voted YES on the Hyde Amendment in the House in 2001, to prohibit the funding of overseas family planning organizations. Republican Senator David Vitter of Louisiana cosponsored a Senate bill in 2005 to revoke the approval of RU-486, an emergency contraception medicine that also can be used to induce abortions in early pregnancy. As Republican Senator from Louisiana in the 110th Congress, David Vitter has failed to cosponsor S. 21, a bill to expand access to preventative health care for women including distribution of contraception, teen pregnancy prevention programs and rape prevention education to lower the personal, economic and social costs of teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease, and sexual assault. Those are just a sample of statements, cosponsorships and votes from David Vitter, who has a long history of using his position in government to try to ram his vision of sexual moral values down everyone else's throats, while failing to support programs for the provision of sexual health care services. Are you at all surprised to find out that Republican Senator David Vitter had his phone number turn up on the list of a Washington, DC, madam? And are you at all surprised to find out that he hid this information from the public while trying to legislatively force his overtly conservative sexual agenda down the throats of all Americans? You shouldn't be surprised. David Vitter's story joins a long list of stories of ultra-conservatives who publicly push an agenda of sexual moralizing at the expense of civil liberty while secretly engaging in the sexual conduct they have publicly condemned (Newt Gingrich, Mark Foley, Bob Bauman, Ted Haggard, Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart, we hardly knew ye). Perhaps some future journal article will give a name to this pattern, which seems to be some sort of psychopolitical syndrome having to do with overcompensating for feelings of sexual shame and guilt. Perhaps we should have some personal sympathy for people like David Vitter who have twisted themselves into such knots. But why should we continue to vote for them? Let's stop supporting politicians who use the Congress and the White House for purgative sexual therapy. Vote for the progressives instead; however faulted they may or may not be in their personal lives, you can count on them to support policies of sexual liberty for all Americans. (Sources: Senate Press Conference, May 25 2006; Christian Coalition Weekly Review April 1 2006; Bill information for S. 511; Roll Call Vote on Hyde Amendment; Roll Call Vote on Largent Amendment; Washington Post July 10, 2007)
    
    
74. North Carolina Republican U.S. Representative Virginia Foxx has been speaking out against the use of earmarks in congressional legislation for two years now. It might be surprising to her supporters to learn, therefore, that Representative Foxx has maneuvered to get 4.5 million dollars inserted into congressional legislation this year.

    Foxx says that it's all okay, though, because she's going to stop trying to get earmarks to reward her campaign supporters� sometime later� maybe next year.

    Virginia Foxx used to be against earmarks, but then she was for them, though she promises to be against them some time in the future. Typical Republican doubletalk. (Sources: Official Virginia Foxx congressional web site; Earmarks Watch; Wiston-Salem Journal, December 20, 2007)

75. In 2007, Chairman Henry Waxman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform attempted to exercise his constitutionally-established right to exercise oversight of Executive Branch activities, requesting information from the Department of Transportation related to the Department's efforts to lobby against state government efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
    
    The Department of Transportation provided only some of the documents, declaring that it "intends to withhold 53 responsive documents from the Committee." It seems that the Republican-run Department of Transportation does not regard itself as subject to the Constitution of the United States of America. What are those 53 documents, and why are they being concealed from Congress?
    
    We won't know until the leadership of the federal government is changed. In 2008, we need to vote for a candidate who believes in constitutional government, and will get the DOT back under control. (Source: House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, July 2, 2007)
    
    
76. Now that George W. Bush is about as popular as a big mug of hot chocolate during summer in Death Valley, Fred Thompson is afraid of even mentioning President Bush. Back, years ago, when Thompson was a member of the United States Senate, however, he couldn't praise Bush enough.
    
    Even in April, 2001, without enough real experience to make a credible statement about the presidential skills of George W. Bush, Fred Thompson was as eager in celebrating Bush as a puppy dog for table scraps from the master. He wrote, "The President has led with a steady hand without compromising our country's principles. The President has been decisive, measured, and realistic with regard to foreign policy."
    
    George W. Bush leading with a steady hand? George W. Bush not compromising our country's principles? George W. Bush measured and realistic on foreign policy?
    
    Fred Thompson's own words show that he is a remarkably bad judge of character. America cannot afford Thompson's sort of bad judgment in the Oval Office. (Source: Weekly Column, Senator Fred Thompson, April 27, 2001)
    
    
77. Golly, but the old saw that Republican politicians don't care about black people is really irritating. What the heck are they talking about? I mean, OK, so there isn't a single Republican member of the U.S. Senate who is black. And, OK, there isn't a single Republican member of the House of Representatives who is black. And, OK, there isn't a single black Republican governor out there. And, OK, so for the 2000 Republican National Convention they had to paint black faces on the floor and bus in black Gospel singers for entertainment in order to put some color in the crowd. I remember watching the Republicans' paint jobs during the convention and thinking they had mixed in too much red ochre. But, I mean, besides that, geez! OK, and Hurricane Katrina, but that was like te