I am a Barack Obama supporter. Once enthusiastically, now a bit less so. I am willing to let the politics of this play out this week and see where things stand in the Senate before writing Obama off. Aside from waiting though, I want to do something on this issue. I live in Oregon my House member David Wu voted against this legislation and I know my Democratic Senator stands opposed so there is nothing to be done here.

I got to thinking, how can I make a difference? How can I sway Obama to see reason and not support sacrificing any of my RIGHTS and LIBERTIES any furher? I have written emails, letters and made phone calls to all the staff I have access to on the campaign (not many). I want to do more.

It occurred to me that the longest running story of this campaign has been Obama's fundraising prowess online. How can we voice our displeasure, maybe sway his vote on FISA? Give money to Ralph Nader. That will get Obama's attention, heck, maybe even Pelosi would notice:

UPDATE HERE: Somebody actually came up with a better idea than money to Nader:

Support the ACLU

As are most kossaks I am thrilled and excited that we are on to the next phase of the campaign. Obama is providing us with the inspiring leadership we have needed in this nation far to long. As he said on tuesday night 'Now is our time!' to reclaim the American Dream for all.

As he has warned us though, challenging the politics of the past will create resistance, a dogged, hatefilled determination to deny Obama the Whitehouse and our chance to begin to move the nation back in the right direction.

once of the main tools used by the right-wing smear machine is the forwarded email. I know liberals don't find these things useful, they prefer to send links to researched and cited sites and stories. That is fine. Repugs on the other hand have no such qualms. They use the internet to spread lies with alacrity. See samples below the fold.

Nominations are now open for Vice President in our Fantasy Cabinet League.

Mission of the Office
None. That being said, Vice Presidents historically have been chosen for a variety of reasons. Chief among them is the ability of the VP candidate to help the Presidential Candidate Electorally. This could mean geagraphically, sealing up a region for the ticket, idealogically, either supporting Presidential candidates theme or neutralizing the opponents theme/strength, and finally, gap filling, addressing a percieved weakness of the presidential candidate.

Below the fold you will see my nominee with my rationale for this choice.

If you have any questions please review the Fantasy Cabinet Guidelines.

Starting Wednesday, June 4th, the Fantasy Cabinet Torunament will commence. This post will be linked to in all subsequent Tournament entries as the basic rules to the game, so to speak.

The purpose of this tournament is to have some fun debating various candidates for these various posts. It is my hope that we will put forth not only the usual suspects, but put forth some 'outside the box' candidates.

For each post I will make my own nomination and lay out my case in the nominating post. I will do this for two reasons. 1. I want to. 2. I hope it will serve as an example for the type of debate I would like to see, or at least allow this activity to serve as an opportunity for people to learn more about a variety of talent throughout the country.

When making nominations I encourage all submitting nominees to indicate not only the background of the candidate, but also make the political argument for that candidate as well. I will draft up the voting entries with the case for each of the most nominated people for each post, links will be particularly appreciated at this phase. (how much effort I put in here will depend on the quality of the information and my personal time as I do have to earn a living too!)

Below the fold are the guidelines for the process I will follow:

Ok, the race isn't over yet, but I think it would be a great deal of fun to set up a fantasy cabinet tournament for an Obama administration. Here's how it would work:

1. I will post a nominating diary for each position.

   A. I will list my choice in the diary.
   B. I will include the mission statement for the department they will be heading up.

2. All Kossak's can submit the name of their top choice for that postion.

3. It is recommended that at the time of nomination that the best case be laid out for your choice. Include links. Debate others nominees right in that diary, make your case for or against.

Remaining description below the fold:

OK, I will admit up front, this diary is largely a bit of fantasy. It is definitely premature in any event, but this stuff was running thorugh my head all day today. Besides I would love to hear what other KOSers think about this at this early stage. Besides building the national coalition of leaders could involve some upfront dealmaking by Obama along these lines.

Who should fill what leadership posts in an Obama administration and elsewhere.

My thoughts with some reasons below the fold. Please note that I also am trying not to pick off too many sitting office holders, like governors or congress members unless they are in generally safe democratic seats.

Now that Barack Obama has all but sewn up the nomination, real talk of VP choices for Obama is growing.

There seems to be 3 basic themes to these posts:

1. Hillary should get it if she wants it.

2. Not Hillary but a key supporter of hers, maybe a Wes Clark (my choice) or an Evan Bayh.

3. Another new face that is completely consistent with Obama's change theme.

There of course are more, but these 3 categories seem to be predominating. The rest of the diary below the fold will talk about why so many on Kos react very harshly to the Hillary Clinton idea, even if it is likely to be given the politics of the situation.

Remember the day after the 2006 election, that exhilirating feeling that something was going to change...the direction of the war might shift, maybe even end, that the Patriot Act would not be renewed, or at the very least the most egregious violations of our civil rights would be removed.

How about that sensation that the administration would finally be held accountable for their blatant and I mean PUBLICALLY blatant criminal, morally bankrupt and constitution ignoring behaviour.

What has happened since then? ABSOLUTELY nothing. FISA has been held up, anything else?

We are tired of the erosion of basic civil liberties in this country. I just want to revisit one of the more distressing examples with this post.

This first came to my attention here on Kos last year sometime, but has seemed to largely have dropped off the radar. Information about the story that grabbed everyone's attention can be found below the fold organized in my original anger filled attempt at writing something upon first learning about this story. It does appear that some changes have been made since my orginal post.

The gist is that there was a Palestiniain family here on a legal visa for several years. During that time they attempted to file for asylum here in the US among other western nations. When it was apparent they were not going to be granted asylum and the visa was running out they attempted to return to the West Bank. Neither Jordan nor Israel would allow them to cross their borders. They were stuck here. ICE raided their home sent the father to one facility and sent the mother with 3 or 4 of her children to the T Don Hutto Family Prison. An infant, an american citizen, was left with some neighbors.

here is a blog that tracks the goings on at T Don Hutto

'Make love not war' or 'Fight Club'.

Many boomers in that I know are confused at why a solid gen Xer like myself is so anti-Clinton. There are lots and lots of reasons, lots and lots of them. Too many to enumerate in a quick lunchtime blog entry that is for sure.

At a core level it is distrust of you, the Boomer generation.

Earlier today four leading members of the news media announced that they were leaving the Catholic Church.

"I just came to realize that the institution I belong to has for years been responsible for terrible acts of molestation against the young men in their charge," Chris Matthews remarked, adding,"I could no longer support the institution that enabled this kind of terrible treatment of our youth."

Tim Russert added, "4,000 people molested nearly 30,000 children? Just think about that, they could fill nearly two Sabres arenas with all the victims, and the church I am a member of covered this abuse up for DECADES."

Sean Hannity noted, "My staying in that pew would have meant that I myself was a child molester, I had to leave the church, I had no choice."

"Anybody who doesn't follow my lead should burn in hell, to treat children in such a manner," chided Bill O'Reilly, "that's why these kids should all get a copy of "The Factor for Kids'..."

Earlier today, in an event organized by the National Press Club and at the invitation of prominent Barack Obama supporter and club member John Q Public, Gennifer Flowers spoke to reporters in a press conference.  "Ms. Flowers was provided this opportunity to defend herself on the public stage regarding how unfairly the press portrayed her in the 90s during the entire scandal ridden period marked finally by the Impeachment of President Clinton," stated John Q Public.

"My dissappointment only grows as this campaign goes on," remarked Ms. Flowers, "I know Bill cared for me, he just had to do what a politician does in distancing himself from me."

"What really has me concerned now is that Hillary Clinton was aware of Bill Clinton's innaproriate behaviour the entire time, in fact I believe she tacitly approved of this conduct," claimed Ms. Flowers, "Not only that, but I tend to believe that she worked with Bill to intimidate those other women he was mixed up with in order to maintain her own political reputation..."

So this is purely speculative but the early polling data can lay out some broad markers for what to look for as the night unfolds.

The numbers that have been outed as of 5:00 eastern that I have seen are:

White Male - HRC 55 - BHO 45
Blacks - BHO 92 HRC 8

So how the heck can we benchmark off of this data, see below the fold:

There are many reasons why Hillary Clinton's campaign has faltered these last few months ranging from arrogance to, simply put, poor planning. There is one fundamental element that the Clinton campaign fails to grasp that still undermines her chances.

Voters elect Presidents based largely upon leadership qualities not policy positions.

I Have many fond memories from my childhood. Among them are those of watching Saturday Morning cartoons every week. The cartoon's were mostly silly episodes, ranging from the Wonder Twins to The Great Race where all of the Hannah Barbara characters were in a giant car derby every weekend. Grape Ape and Mutley were my favorite characters, hehehehe!

Mixed in with those silly bits of childish fantasies was of course the School House Rock cartoon shorts. They have achieved something of a cult status with Gen Xers like myself, in fact one of the most entertaining theatrical performances I have seen anywhere was Schoolhouse Rock Live in Chicago.

From mathematics and language to history and civics Schoolhouse Rock introduced many great lessons during what would have been a pointless albeit entertaining Saturday morning.

As many Kos'ers have expounded upon Hillary's newest attack. I agree that tactically, as a Democratic partisan, she has crossed the line. Essentially she now needs to either decieve or bully the remaining superdelegates into granting her the nomination so she can win the Presidency.

If not Democrats in congress ought to marginalize her. Of course congressional Democrats are typically spineless, fearful beings so they probably won't. I just ask them to remember that this line of attack on Obama is just the last in a long line of actions detrimental to the Democratic party.

So, given the new Wright attack and Judas branding ( a tactic designed to intimidate superdelegates), what does Obama do in response.

The State Departments explanation is lacking. Here are 5 questions that need to be asked:

There is nothing in politics that surprises me. There are claims made by supporters of one candidate or another that I just don't get. This is the case now.

I don't want this post to rehash the Ferraro dust up per se. A few comments are needed to frame my quest for understanding.

It is clear that the Clinton campaign wants race to be front and center in this contest. The pattern of Clinton's effort to bring race up supports this view. Bill Clinton's comments in South Carolina were designed to create press focusing on the nature of Obama's victory. The timing of the release of Ferraro's opining on this topic came right before Mississipi. This timing is not accidental. Bringing this up before Idaho or Iowa does not reinforce the impression the campaign wants to leave, Obama is only winning because of the black vote.