Among the priorities of the Obama Administration needs to be...

[misanthrope]

...taking a hard, critical look at the Patriot Act, The Department of Homeland Security and FEMA's relationship with DHS.

Americans of varying political hue have expressed concern and suspicion over all of these. If he needs to start trimming budgets, DHS would be the logical place to start. I think it would earn the new POTUS political capital across the land.

[panader0]

1. The Department of Homeland Security just needs to go away.

What is it? Didn't we already have the army, navy, air force, marines, coast guard, etc? What did the DHS give us? A color coded alert warning? After the billions funneled through the DHS, nothing is safer, not the Nuclear plants, not the ports, nothing as a result of bushco's window dressing department.

[az chela]

2. The first priority is to BRING OUR TROOPS HOME NOW

[BlueCaliDem]

3. Election Reform! Once again, there have been too many shenanigans perpetrated by the Repubs

... in this election as they try to subvert the will of the people for political power.

I have no idea how we can go about doing that but they could enlist RFK jr., Brad Friedman of BradBlog and that guy who wrote the book "How to Rig an Election" who was tried, convicted and escorted off to prison for his part in it.

Oh, and fine the GOP for shelling out dollars to the YPM that had changed registrations from Dems to Repubs in California while posing as a petition for stronger penalties against child predators.

One thing's for sure: we need to get rid of the provisional ballots! We need to get Diebold to either bring up their machines to the standards their ATM machines enjoy and harsher penalties other than throwing up hands with a mea culpa. These should be drafted AND enforced.

And yes, the Patriot Act must be go, the DHS needs to be revised and curtailed and FEMA should be a separate dept. This would save the taxpayers millions.

However, I'd wait with rescinding the FISA Act. It might come in handy IF President Obama and Vice President Biden keep their campaign promise and begin investigations into alleged corruption by the Bush Administration.

Just my 2 cents worth. :D