pow wow was right, the problem isn't Obama, it isn't even Bush, IT IS THE CONGRESS!!! A president is only as powerful as the Congress let's him be! The Constitution, and our system of checks and balances, places the Congress at the center, and for good reason. In our large nation, now numbering more than 300 Million (that's 300,000,000!) citizens, a single person can neither be chosen or held accountable in any meaningful way by the population. He is too distant, too remote, and, of necessity in trying to please half of the electorate, too compromised. But, there are 535 congresspeople. My congressperson's office is just a few blocks away, AND YOURS IS TOO. And, believe it or not, they DO listen to their constituents. What if even 100 people showed up at a congressperson's office demanding to know why they abandoned the Constitution? A thousand volunteers campaigning door to door could probably change an election result in just about any district. It is HARD to influence a president, much easier to influence a congresscritter. It is that critter's job to influence the president for you. And when a President tries to run amuck, it is the Congress' job to stop him.

The fundamental problem is the NATIONAL media, which makes us think that the national election is what is important, and almost completely ignore the local elections. But that is where the true power struggle can be fought and won, NOT THROUGH THE PRESIDENCY! And almost all of you have bought into the idea of the future depending on ONE person. Bush could only do what he did because YOU have voted into Congress SHEEP. Congress is supposed to set policy, not just be a big rubberstamp for policies made up by the President and his inner circle. But, except for Republicans when a Democrat is President, that's exactly what it has become.

The Act Blue idea is EXCELLENT! That is EXACTLY what needs to be done, but on a much bigger scale. But targeting three of the critters isn't enough. Work to expand it so that the constituents of EVERY SINGLE congressperson's, Democrat and Republican, who voted to spy on US knows that they sold their liberties to F-ing PHONE COMPANIES!

EVERYBODY hates the F'in phone companies. It should be a piece of cake.

As many many people have noted, not voting for Obama would be stupid. But, what if you spent that $300,000+ dollars to attack Pelosi? If you could bring down the speaker of the house for this and for taking impeachment off the table, THAT would be an effective way of punishing the House Dems and getting Obama's attention. Not to mention a lot easier and less risky to the country than attacking Obama directly.

Even if we can just make her worry about keeping her seat explicitly over this, it would send a very powerful message to Congress.

Hoyer et al. fine, but the one with the most power, especially when it concerns back-room daling, is the SPeaker. And it was HER decision to bring this to the floor after only 24 hours, to limit debate to 1 hour, and her speech supporting the bill which gave cover (not to mention probably most influenced the vote of congresscritters not paying attention).

As I said last time, IT'S THE CONGRESS, STUPIDS!

2006 election returns:

Congressional District 8

* Nancy Pelosi (Dem) 101,002 80.5 %

Mike DeNunzio (Rep) 13,043 10.4 %

Kristine Keefer (Grn) 9,611 7.7 %

Philip Z. Berg (Lib) 1,880 1.4 %

The problem is PRECISELY that WE ARE ALL TOO FOCUSSED ON PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS!

That is NOT how the Constitution is constructed, and so the Constitutional checks and balances fail because national politics has overwhelmed local politics. Thanks to network television going directly into homes where people sit like zombies 5 hours+ a day, the average citizen hears many orders of magnitude more information about the most minor of presidential candidates than they do about their own representative. And so people blindly vote party based upon their perception of the president or presidential contender, ignore their congressional primaries, and the result is a congress/president voting in lockstep ignoring the will of the people. And you all buy into it by talking incessantly about Obama, Hillary, McCain, Bush....

BUT THAT IS NOT THE WAY OUR GOVERNMENT IS DESIGNED TO WORK! It is a representative republic, based on the idea that you elect someone to go to Washington and represent your wishes there. But, your congresscritter now knows that you don't vote for them, you vote for the party as most strongly represented by the president or presidential candidate. And so OF COURSE power is more and more concentrated in the executive.

If you want to change the government, work to get people to NOT focus on the presidential election, but on their LOCAL election, and who they are sending to Washington to represent them.

If you were going to donate to the Obama campaign before this:

Take that money donate it to Cindy Sheehan

https://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/1590/t/2705/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_KEY=1901

write both Nancy Pelosi and Obama to tell them that you just donated X amount of dollars to her opponent specifically because of her support of FISA, and you believe that that menas she is not fit to be a congressperson.

that that was money you had planned to donate to Obama, but his stance on this FISA bill caused you to give it to Cindy Sheehan instead.