Many here and elsewhere are concerned about the rift being created in the Democratic party, and are asking for Hillary to step down. Some are even asking for Obama to step aside, but there is little logic to support that. I just got through reading this diary about a Hillary supporter and it got me thinking. We the people have made our choice, and we the people don't have to wait for everyone else to figure it out.
More below the jump.

This is a report of a particularly dramatic caucus in Texas. I must say that everything went quite smoothly in spite of the chaos and 300 people showing up in a small elementary school cafeteria. This is compared to about 20 people showing up for the Republican caucus, in a red suburban district in Texas. The full story is below the jump.

(Note that this is a repost. In the chaos last night this lasted about five minutes before it scrolled off, and it was not appropriately titled.)

This an example of how a single person's vote can count, and on top of that, how I contributed in unique ways to the campaign and the party, even though I only got started today at 6:30 p.m.

I have said it here before, but I will give my background just for those who don't know. I voted for GWB the first time around, thinking he would be the education president. Not that it mattered, his carrying Texas was a foregone conclusion. In fact, I live in Collin, one of the reddedst counties in Texas, where the only real conversation was during the Republican Primaries, about whether McCain or Bush would be the president nominee. Anyway, after Saddam failed to gas our troops, I figured out it was all a lie. Not only were there no nukes, there weren't even minor WMD like gas or biological. So in 2004 I voted Kerry. Fast forward to the present.

I have come clean in the past, and I will again here out myself: I used to vote Republican. At least once in my life, I even voted the straight freakin' ticket. I am pretty much their target demographic from the 90's. I'm well off, middle-aged, stock investor, worked for start-ups and started my own business in the past; wife owns her own business, Texan, Christian, etc. My representative Sam Johnson was a former POW who made it a point to be involved in the reddest of red districts where I live, and generally voted the way I would have on issues I agreed with. I donated to his campaign fund, but I don't think I ever wrote him a letter.

I voted for G. W. Bush in 2000, and was quite happy to see him win after a long, drawn-out battle in Florida. I was also happy to see him strike Iraq with shock and awe when I heard that Saddam had chemical and biological weapons and was working with the terrorists to provide them eventually with Nuclear weapons that he was surely building.

I promise this gets better below...

Many people, today most of them either Republican or non-political, argue that since they have nothing to hide, there is no problem with government surveillance of all of their phone calls, e-mails, etc. In the future, however, it may be us making this same bad argument in a few years under a Democratic president.
Daniel Solove, a professor at George Washington University Law School, has written an essay about this argument and why it is flawed. His essay also addresses the question of what exactly we mean by privacy, and what are the problems associated with it. This essay stemmed from a blog post where he asked the question as to counter arguments to this defense.

Make the jump for more.

The CIA has released a huge document sometimes referred to as the "family jewels" detailing 25 years of violation of the CIA charter, in which they spied on journalists and anti-war protesters and plotted assassinations and experimented on humans.
From the article

Gen. Hayden called today's release "a glimpse of a very different time and a very different Agency."

See you after the break:

Welcome to part XIII of the Live Blog on the Senate hearing on the Dismissal of the US Attorneys.

This is post-blog now. Pictures are OK.
 

Don't forget to unrec previous liveblog diaries and rec this one.  

dday has a great diary about Sen. Whitehouse, check it out.

Call Schumer's office as recommended here by Scout Finch.

Nice summary here by cfaller96.

Last week, I went with some members of my church on our inagural adult mission trip to help rebuild in Mississippi, on the outskirts of Biloxi. This diary contains some memories from that trip, along with references to current information about Mississippi and its ongoing struggles.

If you voted yesterday, you can go back and vote again today to ensure that DailyKos wins the Best Blog weblogs award. This is a short sacrifice diary to remind you to vote again today, the last day of voting. Thank you and please recommend.

http://2006.weblogawards.org/...

I hate to do this, and spoil someone's fun (and all the fun all the geeks are having at TD's expense, still, at 5:35 on December 11). After this diary, the fun ends, but I will lay it out for Clueless Tom:

Quick on the heels of Dem. Vilsack, Sen. John McCain has announced that he will begin his campaign for president in 2008. As I noted in a previous comment, I will now have to throw my full support to him for 2008. However, I would like to modify that with the conclusion that if Russ Feingold runs, I will vote for him anyway.

Ars Technica, a technical site with news for PC enthusiasts, has posted an article detailing more or less step by step how to steal an election county-wide or state-wide with just one bad apple somewhere in the loop.

Tony Blair announced today that British troops should be pulled from Iraq in 16 months. The brilliance of the Murtha/Democratic/Sheehan position is now clear: whenever we do leave, it will be seen as a vindication and victory. Blair dropping out just pushes the line that much closer to Laura and Barney being the only ones left to support Bush.

Yes, just as you always thought, the highest levels of the vast right-wing conspiracy do meet together to get on the same page. Unfortunately for Republicans, the troops have lost their marching orders.
According to that article in the New York Times and the following piece at WND (yes, I know), the Republicans, having long since lost most true run-of-the-mill conservatives, are now also losing their megaphones.

It seems that the Path to 9/11 was just the first of perhaps many "Blame Clinton" propaganda devices being created by Cyrus Nowrasteh and whoever he can get his hands on. Via thinkprogress, he is now working on telling the story of that Neo-Con triumph, The Hunt for Osama Bin Laden. Skeptical observers will guess that, indeed, it is all Clinton's fault that bin Laden got away. Was it at Tora Bora that Clinton failed to capture him? I can't remember.

More after the break.

I've been lurking here for about a year, but this is my first diary, and as such it is a GBCW diary. I won't bother to link to the diary from a while back that snarkily noted that "This is my last diary at DKos = This is my first diary at DKos", because it is the sort of diary that is destroying DailyKos. Nor will I link to the template diary #17, of which this is one instance, for the same reason. The story of my specific reasons for jumping ship follows...

A little over a year ago, my psyche had a run in with one of those nasty 9/11 conspiracy sites. Like many people, I had some nagging doubts about the official story of 9/11, but brushed them off as largely implausible for the obvious reasons. Then I was hit by something I was psychologically unprepared for: plausibility.

More below the fold.