It is a great thing that we are finally (slowly, in a few areas of the country) starting to recognize that all citizens should have the right to marry if they choose to do so, but we should not think that just granting these rights is the end of the issue. One of the possible outcomes of any marriage is a divorce. Unfortunately, gay citizens can go to CA or MA to get married, there is a real problem when they try to get divorced. The LA Times has an interesting article about divorce for gay citizens. Here is the link.

As the McCain campaign shows more and more why they will be completely unable to win this fall, it seems to the Dog that we should try to get our heads around what we might be able to accomplish in the first year of the Obama Administration (gods, I love typing that!) . The Dog knows that most of us have a laundry list of items that we hope a new Democratic congress and President will enact, but sadly we have to throw some cold water on those hopes.

Okay, the Dog has an idea for a tool for my fellow netroots activists, but before he spends a lot of time and brain damage working it out he would like to test the waters and see if there is any interest. First off, the tool will be free, think of it as the Dogs way of making us more effective in our efforts.

While we are getting excited about Sen. Obama’s world tour and what it means to our chances of repairing relationships with the countries of the world that we have alienated, it is good to remember how we got here. Our unilateral decision to invade Iraq was bad enough, but we did have some allies from the rest of the world with us to give it that patina of respectability.  The major one of these allies in the so called "Coalition of the Willing" is the United Kingdom. Not only did they send a significant number of troops, but they were willing to stay there with us for the first four years of the occupation, with little or no difference in our policies.

The Dog has been a proponent of gun control for most of his life. It is not that this was a family position that he sucked up with his mother’s milk, no that would have been a hell of a lot easier. No the Dog’s father, a dyed in the wool liberal, was a big advocate for gun ownership, just as his mother, was staunchly against. But as the Dog grew up he learned to shoot and hunt, learned the high level of damage that mishandled weapons caused and made up his own mind on the issue. Then 9/11, the "War on Terror" and real wars in Afghanistan and Iraq came along. The Dog is nothing if not a pragmatic political policy guy; it was very clear that talking any kind of gun regulation in those circumstances was a total loser politically.

Things have changed now. The recent decision by the Supreme Court affirming that the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms is one devolves to the individual citizen give us an opportunity to make changes in our gun laws that not only heal the breach in the Democratic party on this issue, but will remake the gun ownership issue one that is a winner for Dems. How do we achieve this miraculous feat, follow the Dog below the fold and he will tell you.

This dairy is only tangentially about politics but what the heck, it seems like everyone is traveling to Austin, except the Dog and you gentle readers, so let’s do something a little different. The Dog started cooking at about 12 years of age when his Grandmother told him that he would be making dinner that night. The immediate complaint was that the Dog did not know how to cook. Being the hard as nails Irish matriarch that Herself is, she pulled a cook book out and said, "if you can read, you can cook!". Ever since then the Dog has been a devotee of the way of the sauce pan.

The Dog took himself on a walk last night, down to the newly opened Denver HQ for the Obama for America campaign. The office is located on the 7th floor of a building in Glendale (an very small city that is nearly completely surrounded by Denver). The Dog has been at a lot of campaign offices in his time, and this one was about what you would expect. It takes up the half of the floor, with a big open area in the center and conference room style offices around the outside.

As we have seen the FISA fight play out and the concurrent disillusionment and disappointment with Sen. Obama’s vote on it the Dog has been thinking about the nature of politics. Now my fellow Kossacks may disagree (FSM help the planet if we all ever get on the same page, we will run this joint!) but to the Dog politics is all about compromise. Just as we, as Dems of all stripes (and some others) can not all agree on the importance of an issue or the methods needed to address it, politicians always are working in a group that has fractious views and responses. In order to achieve anything there has to be some willingness to bend. We could (and have) argue all day and night about the right amount and timing of that compromise, but the basic fact remains the same, to be an effective politician, one has to be willing to settle for less than all of your agenda, in order to get some of it.

The Dog’s signature line is:

If you live in fear, then the worst thing that can happen to you already has. Will YOU live in fear?

It means a lot of different things at different times and there have been times where the Dog has been told he is betraying his sig line (commonly when the Dog argues against impeachment on the grounds that we will fail). Since today will be a dark day in the history of our nation as we watch our 4th Amendment rights voted away by in a Congress that Democrats control, the Dog thought it might be a good time to detail exactly what he means by not living in fear.

This should in no way be taken as any kind of excuse for you to do anything less than your absolute most this election cycle. That said, if you have don’t have a smile on your face about this election cycle, then you must not be a Democrat! The Dog is here to tell you guys, gals and others that we have all the face cards this Nov. What you don’t believe the Dog? Lets go to the tape (or the electrons, anyway) as they say.

Is your heart beating in the back of your throat? Do you spend you days lately reading the blogs and papers with a feeling of dread? Does it seem to you that all your hopes and need for change have been just a cruel primary dream? If so, it is okay, just take a deep breath, hold it, and now let it out. Feel a little better? Good.

Is the "it does not cover criminal prosecutions" meme a smokescreen? The Dog hates to stir this pot some more (there seem to be plenty of Kossacks at the stove on this already) but he has been thinking about Mr. John Dean’s and Keith Olberman’s assertions (which the Dog takes to be correct) that the horrible, terrible, very bad FISA bill immunity for telecoms does in fact not protect them from criminal prosecution. While that is a good thing, how much of a good thing it really is really a subject of debate.

We have a problem as a country and it is not one that is going to go away, nor is it likely to be solved. The Dog knows, you’re out there asking, so why bring it up? That is a good question; the answer is that while we might not be able to solve it, we should at least think about it, so we can try to communicate around it. What is this nemesis the Dog is talking about? It is the inability of humans to hold truly large numbers in our heads.

The Dog tries to never piggyback a front page diary, but Kos’s conservative mind got the old pooch thinking. Is there a difference between fearing something for itself or fearing it because you are ignorant of it? Let the Dog give you an example; when the Dog was younger he was afraid of chainsaws. What is not to fear? A portable machine that spins a sharp chain fast enough to chew through wood like butter, who would not be afraid of that. Then add in an uncle that took him to see Texas Chainsaw Massacre at far too young an age, you get yourself a nice reasonable phobia. However, when the Dog had a chance to handle and use on in a controlled setting, well, hell, it is just another tool you have to take reasonable precautions with. There was really nothing to be scared of about chainsaws but carelessness.  

We (being the left side of the Dems, and the netroots and especially those here on Kos) need to be ready to be unhappy with our nominee for president over the next few months. It was inevitable (finally we get to use that word again!) that this would happen. Everyone who runs for president has two jobs to do; first, they need to lock up their base, which means as a Dem you run to the left, as a Repug (gawd, who would be one by choice?) runs to the right. Then when you have the nomination and your party locked up you run to the middle (or the perceived middle, which is not always the same thing) in order to make sure you scoop up enough so-called independents and maybe peel a few of the more moderate of the other party off.

Is there a political jujitsu move happening in the Obama campaign involving Muslims and the extremely loud whispering campaign that he is a Muslim happening in front of our eyes? We know that the Obama campaign is concerned about this perception as it may give some closet race-biased (if not racist, at least in their own minds) the space to vote against him. While those of us in the liberal community find this a very small fig leaf, if that is not countered it could rob us of some votes that could potentially make the difference in November. We have also seen the recent problem in Detroit where two women in head scarves were asked to move from behind the stage at the Gore endorsement. Sen. Obama did apologize for the actions of his volunteers, as he should, but the Dog is wondering if there is more going on than meets the eye at first glance.

The Dog knows that this is an issue that some of his fellow Kossacks might put in the "after we win" pile, but the Dog has never been one to believe in thinking things through in a rush. While we do need to put a strong focus on putting our nominee in the White House (yes, we fracking can!) it is also important that we hit the ground running and know what to do about all the steaming piles of shit the criminal Bush and his henchmen have left all over our Federal Government.

So, here is the deal, it is your democracy and it is only ever going to be as good as you require it to be. If you don’t care about being spied on, about having your e-mail read or about having all this data go into a giant data base that will be used in ways you will never know forever, do nothing.

If on the other hand you care about these things, if you care that huge companies will never be accountable for the actions they illegally took, if you care that the criminal Bush and his henchmen will never be held accountable for this blatant breaking of the laws of our country, get off your ass and do something about it!