Lovely pictures of the Obama family and their fun July 4th/Birthday celebration.

AND a lovely article from a local Montana paper.

When Obama arrived and stepped out of an enormous bus, he was greeted with a rowdy "O-BAM-A" chant from the crowd, which quickly provided a hearty rendition of "Happy Birthday" for Malia.

I have been defending Obama after he announced that he intends to vote for the FISA bill.  I haven't been defending his vote.  I have been defending his character as some people are saying that Obama is showing by this vote that he is a basically a fake.  Some people say that I'm just closing my eyes to the reality of what the vote means.  I think that I have my eyes wide open and I this is what I see.   This is what I think.

The Republicans can't win the election on the issues, so, their only chance to win is to define Obama as a risk by saying that he's a fake.   When a large portion of his activist base starts saying that Obama is a fake... that is how Obama loses the election.

It's one thing to disagree with Obama and to say so loud and long.  It's another thing to declare him, in so many words, a fake.  If the activist base is defining Obama as a fake... he's going to lose this election.  

Who else but the activist base is going to fight back against the Republicans attempts to define Obama as a fake?  Nobody.  So, even if you don't tell your neighbor that Obama is a fake... nobody is telling them that the Republicans are full of shit calling Obama a fake.  And Obama loses the election.

OR: Today I Remembered Why I Was Hesitant About Getting Into Politics

    Ok so I am relatively (well, VERY) new to the world of politics.  I found a candidate that I was willing to put in my time and money for, and I have been doing just that.  Do I know his position on the issues?  Not to the tee, but enough for my own relevance.  Do I know his voting record?  Yes, but not every single vote he's ever cast.

    Today I was planning on posting one of those diaries that kept popping up during the primaries - here I am signing up voters, here I am knocking on doors, here are some signs, here are some cute babies with Obama balloons, (with pics!), etc.  Instead of going to a picnic today, I went to a "freedom festival" to simply sit at the Democratic Party table and register new voters.  While I was there, I remembered why I was so hesitant to get involved in the first place.

Well, I figured now's as good a time as any to do an updated electoral college outlook.  In my last update, I figured that Barack Obama can count on at least 257 electoral votes to 151 for John McCain.  How much things can change in a matter of weeks.  How bad is it for McCain?  By my rather unscientific analysis, the best he can hope for is a bare majority of electoral votes.

It’s the Fourth of July and while other families are enjoying barbeques and fireworks and family together time, I’m fighting a pity party by making a "movable banner" for my dog and dragging her to a public fireworks celebration to register voters this evening.  

Don’t worry, I promise we’ll be home long before the fireworks start and make her heart pound.

I’m kidless for another fourth and if you sense a little self-pity, yeah, I’m indulging.  It’s not too often but on days like this, I think have every right...  You see, my two boys signed up to serve their country and nothing's been the same since.  

Most people here understand all that hinges on November.

We've suffered terribly for the past eight years, decrying every abuse, petitioning every defunct bill, uncovering scandal after scandal - and now we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. November is almost here.

But it's not. November is some four months away, and in the meantime, our government will continue to function. Laws will be passed, policies set, precedent established, and decisions that'll invariably affect our lives will be considered.

So how can we respond to important legislative issues, all while helping our chances in Novemeber and staying true to our progressive ideals?

Lately there has been lot of talk about guns, gay marriage, the contitution, the death penalty and Us foreign policy regarding Iran.

Now, let's try abortion.

John McCain has clearly tried to pander the right wing "pro life" crowd (you know, no to abortion, yes to executions)

More afte the flip

This diary began as a response to a comment posted to a really great diary; entitled Barack-Iraq-Gate: Anatomy of a Media Smear by The Jed Report.

Let me begin by stating that I am not an attorney. I don't pretend to be an expert on the law. But I am an avid reader with an analytical mind and a detail oriented approach to problem solving.

There are three reasons why I'm posting this diary. The first is that it was simply becoming too long to be considered a comment. The second is that it pertains to a subject that I and many others are very interested in. Lastly, I'm posting it because I believe and hope it will add yet another perspective to the current political dialogue.

For the sake of honoring the right of privacy of the person to whom I was originally responding I will use a fictitious user name when referencing him or her.  

Short diary to thank Malia Obama, 10, for sharing her birthday with so many others in Butte, Mont.

I'm the father of a 10 year old girl myself. I know how important birthdays are.

Here's my birthday wishes for you. I'll be going to my father in law's later today for a cookout. You and he share a birth date with this country. Born on the 4th of July. And I'm going to be talking to him about you and your father. I hope both you and my father in law have wonderful birthdays.

It is difficult to feel good this 4th of July given the mess the Bush/McCain Republicans have led this nation into. This year alone 438,000 people who lost their jobs. We are well into the Bush's SECOND recession (first president ever to preside over two recessions) with almost no recovery between them. We are officially in a bear market. Food prices are rising worldwide. Oil is at record highs suggesting Americans will have a very, very tough winter. The deficit is WAY above where it has ever been before and no end in sight. And I am not even going into the inept, idiotic and completely useless Bush/McCain Iraq war.

I know I am opening myself up for another thrashing here but I am very curious.  Telcom immunity is, as Obama says, a deal-breaker.  It's not about getting a pound of flesh from the telcoms, it's about getting the truth about who the administration has been spying on, whose rights were violated, and putting that into evidence for post January 2009 accountability.  Saying that it's about getting a pound of flesh from the telcoms betrays a complete misunderstanding of the legal strategy behind the ACLU/EFF lawsuits, which is to put the wrongdoing of the administration on the record.  Immunity means no lawsuits.  No lawsuits, no discovery process.  No discovery, no evidence.  Obama is helping get Bush and Cheney's asses out of one of the most legally airtight slings they have managed to get themselves into, pure and simple.

My question: Where does Hillary stand on this, and is there any conceivable legal scenario under party rules in which, at the convention, a nominee can be renounced and the process thrown back to the floor of delegates, for the nomination of someone, for example, Hillary?  Or Kucinich?  I am admitting my extreme ignorance on these processes; are there any precedents in history?  Hillary was never my favorite candidate, but..

(Because I'm a glutton for punishment, I'm crossposting this here from Green Mountain Daily)

I won't belabor the point with a rambling post, but there is a point worth making. Yes, Obama's comments suggesting he is laying the groundwork for re-considering his Iraq withdrawal policy have been overstated and overblown. That's a given.

But the explosion is not simply a media fabrication. Not this time. It's psychological cause and effect in action.

When I think about Barack Obama, the first thing that comes to mind is the staggering number of actions he and his staff will need to begin as soon as they've gotten their coffee and found the West Wing restrooms. The problem is, everything must be done at once, in both senses of that phrase. There's no time to waste if we're to turn the country around.

Imagine it's next January and Barack Obama is in the first week of his presidency.

My kids are going to push me through the streets of our town today in the 4th of July parade.  We will be holding Obama signs and wearing our Obama shirts.  Hopefully, we'll be joined by many other Obama supporters.

I just got a new wheelchair; a 'Quickie Revolution', and it rolls very nicely.  I haven't sat in a wheelchair much in the past 25 years except for airports, but I wouldn't get far w/ my cane and my false ego is a very small thing to sacrifice for a good cause.

It has been a rough few weeks here on DKos reading all the s___-for-brains diaries about how Obama has sold out the Constitution.  All these years, donating money I don't have, working for candidates that mostly lose, to now see a candidate that is as good as any [better than most] be torn down by the people he's trying to help--it's too much to take.

But today I put those feelings aside and roll through town where maybe people will look down on me and say, 'oh that poor guy' under their breaths, and I will be proud instead of ashamed.

achieve victory in November. We don't all have to agree on every policy position. Hopefully we never will - we are individuals from many different backgrounds, each with their own set of values - but united in broad agreement about the best direction for our country.

I originally wrote this as a comment on Steve R's diary, but I thought that I should expand it a bit and post it, because I am very worried about the ease with which we have fallen into bickering among ourselves over Barack Obama's policy positions.

These policy positions are important. I don't question that. I just think that this is a lousy time to be having this debate. And I see it as a huge distraction from the most important task we face. That is getting Senator Obama and every other Democratic candidate elected in November. I don't want us to squable like some dysfunctional family. I want us to win!

Together, United, We Cannot Be Defeated

Much as Karl Rove is desperate to spin Wes Clark's honest assessment into campaign fodder for the hapless Republican candidate John McCain. Much as the traditional media has taken the bait like Pavlovian lap dogs, there are wiser heads, including Paul Krugman of the New York Times and Marc S Ellenbogen, UPI International who are standing up to state flatly that Wes Clark told the unvarnished truth about a Republican candidate who is so weak that neither he nor his party can bear it.

unless, of course,
the Obama campaign knows
that its internet fundraising operation is
so wholly dependent on the felt personal connection
to the candidate and his brand, that even he himself
cannot persuade his own donors to give to the DNC instead.

Right now, the DNC needs the money.   It has much less money than the RNC and slighlty less money that it needs to produce the Democratic National Convention, since the Denver Host Committee fell $11M short of its pledged obligation.

It is generally presumed that Obama renounced public financing because  he and his internet-based fundrasing machine  can raise so very much more (from small donors, mostly) than the  $84M he would have gotten from the government.   BUT WHY did he think that that limit would in ANY way limit that fundraising??
It simply wouldn't have: it would at best have required those contributions to be re-directed.

My anger at this point is at an all-time high. The MSM is sooooo ready to try and tie this thing to have an exciting race that they have all together abandon their role as just news and is reporting all kinds of shit. The PUMA, pro-Clinton, folk was a fucking right out lie. The Obama dissing a kid story, just a fucking straight out lie. The entire Obama moving to the center hit-piece is a straight up lie. FISA is a real deal. Thats it. McSame broke the pledge for campaign finance period. And now, this fucking bull-shit about Iraq time tables is..... Look, I know that a lot of you are mad as shit at Obama for FISA, so be it. But are we really gonna sit back and let the MSM do this shit to us a-fucking-gain? Look at this bullshit hit job on Obama on CNN.

More.........