Every day I am reminded that change can only happen when citizens stand together and take ownership over their government, their country, their communities and themselves. Every day I am reminded our work does not end with a campaign, but rather begins with a new President, a new government, and a new day.

Electing Barack Obama has actually been sort of the same thing. For a lot of people, just getting Obama elected president was IT. They’d been fighting (or hiding under the bed, whichever the choice) for so long that this was the be-all and end-all. And then he got elected (with the help of a lot of people and people who actually went and stood in the voting booth and made their choice) and everyone held their breaths and waited for some disaster to hit before the inaugural. And then Aretha Franklin stood up and sang and the Chief Justice screwed up the oath and they did it again. And there’s been all this noise trying to delegitimize the entire thing.

Rahm Emanuel and Max Baucus may have forgotten the Democratic Party platform, but it's still around. Health care is the first issue it deals with, and the first specific health care policy prescription is for a public option. Maybe someone could remind Obama before next week's speech.

In 2008, we put a Democrat in the White House, delivered a filibuster-proof 60 votes in the Senate and a 79 seat majority in the House, just so. . . a Republican could write the health care bill.

Things that many Americans, thanks in large part to well-financed conservative myth machines, think are true but which aren't: "The 'Wild West' Didn't Have Gun Control." Oh yes it did.

The Republicans came at Obama with a barrage of lies in September '08, and he beat them. Does that mean he can do it again now?

Photographs from Pittsburgh

Eight months after the November 2008 elections, Al Franken is about to be sworn in, on Paul Wellstone's family Bible, as a United States Senator from the State of Minnesota. You can watch it here starting at 11:00 am Central (12:00 noon Eastern) thanks to The UpTake.

While trying to make a virtue of what might have been necessity on her part, Sarah Palin takes dead aim at the actions of fellow governor, Republican and presidential wannabee, Minnesota's Tim Pawlenty: "...I thought well about how much fun some governors have as lame ducks - travel around their state, maybe travel to other states, maybe take their overseas international diplomatic trade missions, so many politicians do that. Then I thought that's what's wrong - many just expect that lame duck status, they draw a pay check and milk it and I'm not going to put Alaskans through that."