Mitt Romney is a Republican candidate for the presidency in 2008.  He's a big political hotshot.

William Weld is a former Republican governor.  He wishes he still were a big political hotshot.

Unity08 calls itself a "grassroots" "people's movement," but is staffed by public relations professionals, lobbyists and DC insiders, and funded by The Carlyle Group and other large investment capital firms.  And Unity08 wants to elect its own presidential candidate, by the by.

What are the connections between these three nodes of high political ambition?

They're tighter than you might initially think.  Read on...

Unity08 (on the web at http://www.unity08.com) is a non-profit corporation that says it is "grassroots" and a "people's movement" to nominate its own candidates for president and vice president of the United States of America.  As Unity08 puts it at http://www.unity08.com/...:

"Unity08 intends to fix this broken system by electing a bipartisan "Unity Ticket" to the White House in ‘08 funded solely by small-dollar donations from everyday Americans. As a result the Unity08 President and Vice President will enter office not with favors owed to lobbyists and special interests but with a clear mandate from the American people to cooperate and provide courageous leadership on the most crucial, complex issues facing our country."

Unity 08 is becoming a hot topic as it continues to refuse to answer questions regarding its conduct.  The most central of these questions are listed below...

Today, the corporation that wants to elect its own U.S. President, Unity08, promised to hold an online chat to explain why it (a self-professed "grassroots organization" and "people's movement") is suing for the right to take large contributions without limitation, and to keep from disclosing who is dishing out its loans.

Apparently, Unity08 doesn't know that its java chat software sends out transcripts of its chat to EVERYBODY who is signed up.  Here is an excerpt from their charming practice chat in the hour before they move from the backstage to the public stage.

[Crossposted from Irregular Times]

Unity08 is a registered corporation that intends to manage the election of a president of the United States in 2008.  Its behavior is therefore subject to scrutiny.

Consider, if you will, what Unity08 tells the public on its website.

Beneath these statements are the words of Unity08 in its federal lawsuit against the Federal Elections Commission.

Compare and contrast!

Unity08 (aka Unity 08) is a registered corporation with the goal of arranging the nomination of one Republican and one Democrat to become the next president and vice president of the United States of America.  It declares that next year it will successfully run the first-ever national secure online presidential nomination.

Unity08 has failed to follow the FEC's Final Advisory Opinion that under the law it must register as a PAC.  Instead, it has openly declared its intention to register as a less-regulated 527 organization.

If you are interested in bringing Unity08 into compliance with the law, read on to find out how you can TAKE ACTION today.

[Crossposted from Irregular Times]

I've posted 12 questions on the financial transparency of Unity08, an organization which says it will run a Republican-Democratic ticket for the White House in 2008.

Unity08 won't answer the twelve questions, and is delinquent on other commitments to financial transparency.

Can you help me get the mysteries of Unity08 cleared up?  Here's how...

We all know that Unity08.com is a pseudopopulist public relations creation fronting for insider elitists who want to manipulate the 2008 election.  And now we can expose Unity08 in a way the rest of the country will understand.  

Here's how.

Soon after I began publishing my own comics of Mohammed there ( 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 ), we began receiving threats that "your site will be closed soon by arab hackers..", that you should know that the moslims are in every where and we will not forgive .. and soon you will not be able to see this site any more.. motherfucker ... mohamed is the greatest..., and "we are abig group you cant amagim how much work we do to hack your site ... if you want us not hack your site so delete the pictures about mohamed and do not talk about him ... if you dont ... im not risbonsible after that."

Others told us we'd be dead.

This past Friday...

Bush is going to try to make it look like the nation supports him when, clearly, it doesn't. You can do your part to counter Bush's media machine by coming to a protest this very afternoon in Fayetteville, sponsored by the Quaker House of Fayetteville.  To break it down:

WHAT: Anti-Bush Protest
WHERE: Fayetteville Market House, Fayetteville NC
WHEN: 5 pm Tuesday June 28 (TODAY)

For some time now, bloggers, editorialists and reporters have begun to connect the dots on the Bush administration's policy of "extraordinary rendition." Extraordinary rendition is the practice by which people are nabbed by the U.S. government, often on U.S. soil, and shipped off to foreign countries where they can be interrogated using means that would be against the law on U.S. soil. Let's be blunt: those means are methods of torture.

MZM, Inc.

MZM, Inc.

Where have I read about MZM, Inc. before?

Advance to the present day...

Yesterday, I posted an article documenting that the inflation-adjusted value of minimum wage in the United States has reached a 55-year low as of this spring. Today, I’m going to ask you to take some simple action to pressure members of Congress to remedy this shameful state. Here’s what I have in mind:

As of this spring, the real (that is, inflation-adjusted) value of the United States minimum wage has reached record lows. The following graph shows the minimum wage, in nominal dollars and 2005 dollars, from 1950 through 2005...(read on)

The Capitol Hill Prayer Alert is a religious educational charity meeting the IRS requirements for a 501 (c) 3 status.

As such, it is conveniently tax exempt.  But is the basis for its tax exemption invalid?  Has Capitol Hill Prayer Alert broken the law?  Read on for clear instances of political electioneering that may cross the line...

Over at Irregular Times, we've rolled out a preliminary version of what we hope will be a partial solution: a database of contact information, voting records and bill cosponsorships for all members of the House of Representatives and the Senate.

It works like this...

Not only has H.R. 418 just been passed (roll call vote),

but the Farr amendment which would have struck down Section 102 has been specifically rejected (roll call vote),

and the Nadler amendment which would have struck down Section 101 has been specifically rejected (roll call vote).

It's not over. The Senate still has to approve this bill, and perhaps it won't. The president might veto the bill (ha) if the Senate passes it. There is still fading hope...

Hey, I thought, why not give this Burr fellow a chance? After all, I don't put it beyond the Democratic Party to misrepresent their opponent. Perhaps Richard Burr was not a regressive, backward-thinking hater after all. Perhaps he was a moral, modern, do-right kind of guy.

So I opened his stack of promotional material. What I saw follows: