Pres:  Warren or Ventura
VP:   Ventura or Warren
Attney gen:  Greenwald
Homeland sec (until dismantled): Snowden
Sec Def: Rand Paul
Fed chair:  Ron Paul
Interior: Babbitt

Seriously, I would like to see Warren and Ventura travel together and debate.  I'm sure they have massive differences, but probably also respect for one another (or would.)  If they strongly hinted that they'll probably choose the other as a running-mate, that would be neat.

I dis-agree.  I should have used the '(until dismantled)' identifier on that as well

 - edit:  And if Rand Paul is being half-way honest, he could solve most or all of our budget issues as secretary of defense.  At least given a bit of time since it is actually the military/industrial complex owned congress who spend the money.  Presumably Paul could form up a new command who's mission was to re-distribute the excess funding however.

Ya, Warren in a normal way is a pipe-dream.  However, I don't think that some combination like Ventura/Warren is totally unfeasible.  Remember Ventura won the governorship in conditions where everyone was disgusted.  And he was certainly not a disaster.  He actually earned more in salary than he spent to get the governorship which is pretty amazing in U.S. politics today.

(As an aside, I lived in CA the whole time Schwarzenegger was gov.  His job was to kill the lawsuit against Enron.  That took a few weeks, and once it was done he was fee to do as he pleased and he actually was not that bad a gov relatively speaking.)

2016 is going to have Clinton.  I'll bet that a great many people who are progressives like me are simply not going to vote for her.  Period.  I'll bet there are plenty of Repub candidates who would provoke the same response in conservatives.  If it's Paul v. Clinton I'll vote for Santaclaus and just live with whoever wins (just as I did in 2012.)

If Ventura is on the ballot I'll certainly vote for him over Clinton vs Anyone, and if he has a runningmate who is decent, that's even better.  Warren and Ventura facing off as independents in the primary and teaming up in the race strikes me as something which could have a chance.

Your points are good ones.

I would say that the executive branch really does have extra-ordinary power, and especially if they have a will to use it (as did Dick Cheney when he became prez.)  They can clean (or re-arrange) house rapidly in the upper echelons where it really matters.

I would also say that we've really not had anyone in the executive branch who had the disposition to make much of a change in the direction opposite fascism for at least 50 years now, or at least one with the combination of will and spine.  If that occurred I think the results might be more surprising than a lot of us disenchanted observers might imagine.

I would also say that it is probably becoming more difficult rather then less to use unsavory means (e.g., assassinations) to achieve a result.  This both because technology marches forward and relatedly, because the public is becoming more suspicious (I think that is the case at least but it could be my own projection.)  Increasingly the most realistic way of implementing an actual assassination which would be effective would be to do it in a very prophylactic manner.  That is, one would have to accurately predict a threat a fair distance into the future and nip a problem in the bud.  It is an unusually brazen or very desperate man who could do Wellstone in that manner.  I think that Cheney was the former (and in an odd way I have a lot of respect for him for this and the aformentioned reason.)