With the Congress in recess, members typically return to their States and Districts for the Holidays. Many hit the Parade and Picnic circuits. We should be there.

Options include lining the route with signs, trying to march as contingents, cornering the Members for personal pleas, and, my favorite, cutting old tapes into 5 foot segments and using it as confetti, or 'tickertape.'

Please look on your Senators' and Reps websites and campaign pages, search local papers, etc. and list their holiday appearances as comments.

Also spread this call to action to other sites, especially local once you've identified times and places.

If you can't find your DC representatives' parade schedules, work your local one anyway.

Bring a printout of the FISA legislation, in case your Senator admits they haven't read it yet.

WIRETAP THIS M#*&@-$>@^"RS!

Facebook event page

FISA coming up now was certainly not Obama's choosing. I don't think Pelosi let it come up specifically to screw with Obama, rather, a conflict of legitimate divergent interests. Most House members top priority is bringing federal money home. In some cases, it's the only interest.

The Iraq supplemental had hit an impasse. The Speaker imagined that as in Spring 2007, she could leverage Iraq funding for a chunk of dough for various domestic programs, this time the GI Bill, unemployment extension and flood relief. The Budget negotiation broke down as Bushco drove a wedge insisting the telco bailout be included in the package. Nancy had to go with it, you don't get between a Member and  the takehome in an election year. Obama's stuck with the same dilemma.

The demise of the Clinton campaign was sewn just after the 2004 election, when pollster Mark Penn sought to explain the Bush victory among so-called "values voters."

He found that uptight parents were less concerned with abortion than the idea of their kids watching "Sex in  the City," "pumped into their homes" which they'd never seen, and was then only on cable, and playing "violent videogames."

The next year, Senator Clinton held a press conference with Joe Lieberman and Republican Senators Santorum and Brownback, threatening the game industry with legal restrictiopns if they didn't "clean up their act."

Clinton allies introduced State Laws, with press releases claiming "86% of 16 year old boys play 'these' games."

Clinton's appearances today are about salvaging specific delegates. In DePere now to fight for the closest CD, Steve Kagen's 8th. It's pledged delegates split 3-3, but Kagen's vowed to cast his SuperD vote for the District winner. In Madison tonight, she's trying to hold the split to 5-3.

Just got an Obama robocall. Smart, he emphasises mechanics of voting in this Madison youth ghetto neighborhood. (informs you can register at polls, bring Photo ID plus proof of address.)

Last night, only Obama ads oln Fox adult cartoons. All positive. The Iraq one especially good.

Weather: Quite cold, but dry. Ok for rural voters, who've got quality coldweather gear. Not so good for seniors. Advantage, Obama.  

Yesterday was the final day to file Nomination Papers in Wisconsin.

I qualified for  the Senate ballot with 2,178 valid signatures, and another 63 with correctable errors, against a requirement of 2,000.

Also making the ballot, Republican Attorney Robert Gerald Lorge, and the Green Party's Rae Vogeler.

Libertarian Dave Redick, who'd started his run as an anti-war Republican, but jumped after being dissed at their State Convention, apparently fell short in circulating papers, as he did not file.

Republican State Senator Glen Grothman provided the suspense, arriving at the State Elections Board just after filing closed. (cont)

Big shakeout this week on the GOP side.

First, Dave Reddick quit the Republicans, and is now running as a Libertarian.

Another GOP candidate, mint farmer Marcus Gumz, my codefendant in a marathon Freedom of Assembly battle after I rented his farm for the Weedstock Festival in 2000, passed away Sunday. I'll be making the visitation Friday.

Tommy Thompson has finally announced he's definitely not running.

This leaves Atty. Robert Gerald Lorge unopposed for now. GOP insiders are begging the off-cycle State Senators to go thru the motions, not finding a taker. Even if they do, the populist Lorge could pull it out, as he did for the Secretary of State nomination over the handpicked candidate 4 years ago.

According to his Friday press release, U.S. Sen. Kohl: Kohl To Listen To Concerns About Medicare Drug Benefit At Monday Roundtable In Milwaukee, (issued after Frist's announcement of the schedule,) Herb will be hosting a Milwaukee event on Medicaid Part D. If this holds, he's effectively a vote against cloture.

Who: Senator Herb Kohl, seniors, individuals with disabilities, pharmacists, and advocacy groups  

What: Roundtable discussion on the challenges resulting from the implementation of Medicare Part D, the prescription drug benefit passed by Congress in 2003.  

When: Monday, January 30, 2006  9:30 a.m.  

Where:Wilson Park Senior Center
2601 W. Howard Ave
Milwaukee, WI

Section 602 makes holding an un-authorised sign at a Democratic or Republican National Convention a felony punishable by a year imprisonment. A not much more farfetched interpretation would have made felons of the entire Wisconsin Delegation to the 1968 Democratic Convention when Mayor Daley ruled them out of order for moving to adjourn the Convention and reconvene outside Daley's bailiwick.

Section 603 makes a seperate offence of entering the convention with forged credentials, possessing such, or even perhaps the time-honored tradition of passing ones' entry pass to a friend.

Full text of the Conference Report revised PATRIOT ACT, with the "Joint Explanatory Statement" from the GOPers on the Conference Committee can be found at http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2005_rpt/hrpt109-333.html .