IF Obama gets elected, and IF he succeeds in curbing the power of special interests while simultaneously freeing us from our polarized paralysis, and IF we somehow filter out a great deal of corporate media bullshit so that even the blue-collared worker with nothing but network television can remain authentically informed - then there is hope for the United States of America as it currently exists.

But this, I think, is our last chance.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Undercover Maryland State Police officers conducted surveillance on war protesters and death penalty opponents, including some in Takoma Park, for more than a year while Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. was governor, documents released yesterday show.

Detailed intelligence reports logged by at least two agents in the police department's Homeland Security and Intelligence Division reveal close monitoring of the movements as the Iraq war and capital punishment were heatedly debated in 2005 and 2006.

Organizational meetings, public forums, prison vigils, rallies outside the State House in Annapolis and e-mail group lists were infiltrated by police posing as peace activists and death penalty opponents, the records show. The surveillance continued even though the logs contained no reports of illegal activity and consistently indicated that the activists were not planning violent protests.

Of course we are all aware of recent abuses of government power in the wake of the Bush Administration's radical right-wing culture of fear and the Patriot Act

Conventional wisdom dictates that cabinet positions are selected between the November election and inauguration, while VPs are selected before the convention.  But with Barack Obama's unique challenge to persuade voters that he has sufficient experience to be president on day one (thanks to Hillary) and concerns about his ability to protect America (also thanks to Hillary), perhaps this conventional wisdom should be challenged.

This diary examines this issue and attempts to construct a cabinet of individuals that would put these concerns about Obama to rest, while putting McCain on the defensive.

When George W Bush introduced his plan to use federal funds to back faith-based programs, I was outraged, as were many other firm believers in separation of church and state.

Obama's plan, on the other hand, does what Bush's plan pretended to do.  It strengthens the partnership between church and community, to help faith-based programs combat social ills like poverty.  And most importantly, Obama's plan WILL NOT give federal money to any program that has the intention to proselytize, or will use religion as a basis to hire or not hire someone.

In a press release today (July 2), the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty responded to Obama's speech on faith-based initiatives.

No matter which side of this you are on, you probably think you know what the BJC said. Jump the fold to see if you're right.

If you follow the issue of immigrants' rights at all, then you probably read this front-page New York Times article on the subject of state efforts to crack down on illegal immigrants a couple of days ago.  The upshot of the story is pretty familiar: sick of the Feds' failure to solve the problem of illegal immigrants, state and local officials take matters into their own hands with get-tough enforcement measures that disrupt immigrant communities and send them packing back to where they came from.  

You know: good riddance and don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Sadly, this article is only the most recent example of a national media narrative that reports ad nauseam on anti-immigrant policies but fails to take into account the budding progressive movement to implement more inclusive and economically sensible initiatives.

From time to time here my role is to call attention to an extremely bigoted thread.  Usually, since I am black, I am asking people to TR racism, but this time, I am arguing with libertarians who are claiming that the state (inherently, as an institution, not just when conservatives are running it) is a threat to gay rights.  The truth, of course, is the opposite.  To that effect, I commented,

Maybe government threatens YOUR individual rights
if YOU are straight, white, male, and/or affluent.
Excuse ME for being gay and black, but the government
is MY only PROTECTOR of my rights as a poor person, and one who would be likely to remain so if employers in my area had THEIR druthers and the government were NOT strong enough to beat them down.

The astonishingly ignorant and bigoted reply I got is behind the link and below the fold.

This diary is more of a remembrance - of a high school graduation day 38 years ago, in the borough of Brooklyn, in New York City.  It was a graduation that came in the wake of the killings at Kent State.  The day after Kent State, many students in my school, (sadly, I was not among them), chose to demonstrate outside of our school, Nazareth Regional High School, in Brooklyn's East Flatbush neighborhood.  I remember talking to the teachers in the school in each period, and all we talked about was Vietnam, and how that was our future - not what colleges we might be attending, but when we would be drafted and sent to Vietnam.

Since Nazareth was a Catholic school (at the time, an all boys school - it is now co-ed), we also talked about the morality of war, and how most of our generation seemed to be against war because it seemed to go against the teachings of the church.

This is actually going to be a summary of blog posts that I have over at RIFuture.org dealing with roll call votes in some state legislatures, particularly with my home state of Rhode Island.  Over the past few years, I’ve become increasingly interested in the bills that were being introduced, and watching the history of particular bills, as they worked their way through the process.   My main attention was to how my state legislator voted on certain bills, and also the ones in which they introduced.  Though the Rhode Island General Assembly tracks bills introduced by legislators in an easily searchable form online, it’s not so easy to track legislators’ voting records.  

With all the MSM attention squarely focused on angry pastors and flag pins (you know, the issues that really matter!) it is easy to lose sight of many important state elections.One such election is a recall of California's 12th district Repub Senator Jeff Denham. Denham has continually abused his power as a senator, and needs to be removed as quickly as possible.

"Why didn’t he write a book about the joys of basketball?"

When I first saw these on a search, I thought they were a joke. But, no, they were both published. Obama appeared last year on "This Week." The date of the interview. The subjects. How Gorge proceeded. April 16, 2008 was strongly foreshadowed by this meeting.

This interview provides further proof why ABC should have made Steph recuse himself. Notice again, this is May 2007. And notice the points he brings up which Hillary later indeed did bring up. The interview started with the military, is the country ready for him, and yes, Obama was asked how much of his 'cool style' is because he is black.

(Cross posted at The Dead Guy)

46 contests have come and gone in this Democratic Presidential Preference cycle. Only 8 states and 2 territories remain. And yet, per Politico.com, there are 248 uncommitted superdelegates - that's about 1/3rd of the total possible.

What are they waiting for? Are they leaders or are they cowards?

If your state has already voted in this year's preference contest - look up your state on Politico.com and find out who is still uncommitted and tell them to "Sh*t or get off the pot!"

(cross posted at The Dead Guy)

On tonight's The Colbert Report, Dr. Stephen T Colbert D.F.A. played host to four very strong Democrats - Senator Hillary Clinton, Senator Barack Obama, Former Senator John Edwards and Congressman Patrick Murphy. Below is a blow-by-blow analysis (with video!!!):

This is an update to "The Cult of Popularity" from April 11 about the final ten contests in the Democratic Presidential Preference elections. Since we are just under one week until the Pennsylvania Primary - I thought now would be a good time for us to visit that "popular vote" strategy that Senator Clinton is trying to employ to sway delegates (both superdelegates and elected delegates) to her side.

I will repeat the same response I have whenever someone tries to rewrite the rules. The DNC determines the Democratic Nominee by only one measure: Delegate count in sanctioned, legitimate elections. However, to quell the cries, I've laid out the math of the popular vote scenario. Since the first post, Clinton has made a little headway in the projection (about 11,000 votes) due to a .8% increase in her Real Clear Politics average lead in PA and a new SurveyUSA poll in Kentucky. However, at the same time Obama has tightened the race in Indiana and increased his numbers in Montana and South Dakota while losing a smidgen in North Carolina.

(cross-posted at The Dead Guy)

In "George Bush ... War Criminal" - I lay out one case in which I believe that President Bush and his cronies can be tried by the United States and International Courts.

Last night, over at Philadelphia Daily News, Will Bunch asked Senator Barack Obama a very important question about if he is elected President whether his Justice Department  "would aggressively go after and investigate whether crimes have been committed." Obama's response?

What I would want to do is to have my Justice Department and my Attorney General immediately review the information that's already there and to find out are there inquiries that need to be pursued ...

(more after the jump)

(cross-posted at The Dead Guy)

This is not a new concept. FDR and The New Deal. The late Senator Paul Simon's 1987 book by the same title as this post (Which I have a signed copy of - I had Senator Simon autograph it for me when he was in Iowa campaigning for the 1988 Democratic Presidential Nomination).

With a country that has resources and infrastructure in dire need of help, we need to put America back to work fixing these problems. Where could we start? Well, there are 10 pieces of U.S. infrastructure we must fix now!

chimerical
Main Entry: chi•me•ri•cal
Pronunciation: \k?-?mer-i-k?l, k?-, -?mir-\
Variant(s): also chi•me•ric -ik\
Function: adjective
Etymology: chimera
Date: 1638
1 : existing only as the product of unchecked imagination : fantastically visionary or improbable
2 : given to fantastic schemes

Thanks to a friend, I was able to attend tonight's musical at the Des Moines Civic Center - "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee" (Spelling Bee). It was a fun night, but as I drove home, a bell went off in my head (and no, Spellers, it wasn't Vice-Principal Panch), I recognized that Senator Clinton and her campaign for the Democratic Presidential Nomination can be encapsulated using many of the lyrics from the musical.

(cross-posted at The Dead Guy)

Cross-posted at The Dead Guy

You would think I wouldn't have to say more. That we have all heard the news. That we all knew what was done was against the law - both domestic and international. One day, maybe soon, we all will know. One day, maybe soon - we'll see our 43rd President, along with current and former members of his administration, hauled before an international court for crimes against humanity in time of war.

In today's interview with ABC News, President Bush admits he was aware and approved of his senior advisers were making decisions, on a case by case basis, on what interrogation techniques (including waterboarding and other extreme inhumane activities) would be utilized.