Everyone's talking about Obama's running mate. But who would you like to see in an Obama cabinet?

Today you can vote on the next Secretary of Veterans Affairs. Also, the previous rounds are still open for voting. More below the fold.

Every State. Every race. Right here.

This is number nine in a planned series of 50 entries between now and November, looking at each of the 50 states in terms of every race on that state's ticket--Presidential, Gubernatorial, Senate, House, State legislatures--the whole ball of cotton.  Special attention paid to identifying and promoting the most important contests per state.

With our new Congressman Travis Childers’ very public capture of "A Congressional seat in rural Mississippi" (as opposed to, I guess, urban Mississippi), sending Republicans into a panic nationwide, Mississippi is in the seat of honor, and a reminder to the progressive blogosphere, that, yes, every state counts!  Here’s to the State of  Mississippi!

Fox. Henhouse.

The Bush administration said yesterday that it plans to start using the nation's most advanced spy technology for domestic purposes soon, rebuffing challenges by House Democrats over the idea's legal authority.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said his department will activate his department's new domestic satellite surveillance office in stages, starting as soon as possible with traditional scientific and homeland security activities -- such as tracking hurricane damage, monitoring climate change and creating terrain maps.

Sophisticated overhead sensor data will be used for law enforcement once privacy and civil rights concerns are resolved, he said. The department has previously said the program will not intercept communications....

Democrats say Chertoff has not spelled out what federal laws govern the NAO, whose funding and size are classified. Congress barred Homeland Security from funding the office until its investigators could review the office's operating procedures and safeguards. The department submitted answers on Thursday, but some lawmakers promptly said the response was inadequate.

Here we go again. "It's all legal," they say, "because we say so." But they've also classified it, of course, so that Congress can't do proper oversight.

Jane Harman says the experience with having been burned on the NSA warrantless wiretapping has made her more of a skeptic, and she wants answers from Chertoff on the legal underpinnings of this program. Implementation of it has been delayed since last fall while Congress tried to pry that information from the White House. Chertoff sent a letter Thursday to Harman and Bennie Thompson, chairs of the Homeland Security Committee and its intelligence subcommittee, but both say his answers are inadequate, and want more.

Chertoff is stonewalling.

DHS officials said the demands are unwarranted. "The legal framework that governs the National Applications Office . . . is reflected in the Constitution, the U.S. Code and all other U.S. laws," said DHS spokeswoman Laura Keehner. She said its operations will be subject to "robust," structured legal scrutiny by multiple agencies.

Is the legal framework for the NAO in John Yoo's October 23, 2001 memo? The one that said the 4th Amendment could be suspended? By no means should this program be allowed to go forward until we know what was in that memo. Put the NAO on the shelf with the FISA rewrite and wait until we've got a new administration to determine if it's even worth implementing.

I figured with all the absurd hit pieces that we have going on here today, a little good news for the Obama faithful here might be nice.

Chills! Thrills! The terrifying sequel!

But first, I've shortened the title, which used to be "Extremely Annoying People Who Should Just Shut Up." Part of the reason is the fact that a fellow Kossack remarked in effect under the first installment that the First Amendment means we can yap all we want. Which is right--and I also realized that if every Annoying Person who said offensive, ridiculous, or other stupid things actually did "shut up," I wouldn't have any material.

Perhaps one of the real benefits of my wee hours babysitting chores is my unrestricted access to the C-SPAN rebroadcast of Committee Hearings.  This morning I watched a doosey - The House Committee on Homeland Security .  You can link to the video on this page.

Beginning in October 2007 the Department of Homeland Security will open a new office called the National Applications Office (NAO) charged with civil/domestic intelligence gathering.  

This new division of Homeland Security was conceived entirely by the Executive Branch, with no Congressional input, and will serve as a clearinghouse for requests to access the data provided by military spy satellites, with a resolution of inches, to view the territorial United States.  During the hearing Charles Allen, Assistant Secretary for Intelligence & Analysis told Chairman Bennie Thompson that their legal and civil rights oversite concerns were misplaced.  

I’ve wanted to post my first diary a lot earlier in the first year of my first term as an elected official but as you can imagine, we are just a little bit busy here in New Orleans.  After reading story after story where President Bush’s surrogates have tried to push the story that the Federal Government has done more than their part to rebuild our city and that it is somehow a problem on the state or local level that we can’t seem to spend the money  I decided I should set the record straight.

As they say there is more after the flip.

In case you were starting to get too comfortable, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has a gut feeling:

Yeah, I said it.  I sat on my anger for days, and with Bennie Thompson referring to liberals as it if was a dirty word, not to mention spouting off  ReThug Talking points, I find I can no longer be silent about this travesty.

For the last few years, many of us political activists have gone out of our way to make sure the Congressional Black Caucus remained relevant in the theory of political discourse.  And what do we have to show for it?

...but which you probably don't know about because they're not exactly given a high profile by our GOP/Media Complex:

I've been writing a fair amount recently about the alignment of forces in the House that look poised for conflict after the (we're supposing) Dem win next week.

The kerfuffle over the remarks of Ellen Tauscher a day or two back and other noises off suggesting that the Blue Dogs will be making their presence felt have added to the expectancy.

Today, we get the Post suggesting not only that it'll shortly be seconds out in the Hoyer/Murtha fight for Majority Whip, but that Rahmbo is supposedly contemplating trying to take down Caucus chairman Clyburn.

Nancy Pelosi, John Conyers, Bennie Thompson, Henry Waxman, George Miller, Barney Frank and others were on CSPAN2 addressing post-Katrina legislation. I'll try to post a transcript shortly. Here's a Link to the CSPAN Katrina page where video is available.