So, I blogged over at UnionReview and Uniongal that IAFF endorsed Obama.  For those of you who don't know, IAFF endorsed  Mike DeWine in Ohio for Senate despite Sherrod Brown's support among the locals. The IAFF endorsed Huckabee in the primary (and Dodd). They've even endorsed Christ (yep, Charlie) and Jim Douglas (VT). Sure, they endorsed Kerry, but this endorsement is really different. This time, the endorsement really packed a punch AND, guess who represented Obama to the IAFF at the National Convention, come on guess.  Biden.

Okay, enough giber gabbering, let's talk IAFF and let's hear what they had to say...

I got an email from my father today.  He asked me to share it because he doesn't know "how to blog."  So here goes a deeply personal post.  His email is at the end and it's better than my writing, so if you need to, just skip to the last part.  

I had the pleasure to meet many of you at Netroots Nation in Austin.  My name is Amir Samandi, a.k.a. "Texican."  I would like to share a personal story that explains my personal connection to this campaign.  Why I understand the urgency of now.  

In today's Dallas Morning News there was a front page story describing the plight of the many Texans without health care coverage.  Between the years of disasterous (non)leadership provided by George Bush and the continuing misgovernance by his republican successor, Bill Perry, Texas once again leads the nation with the highest percentage of residents without health care insurance, according to the US Census Bureau. Almost 25% were uninsured in 2006 and 2007.

As might be expected, the republicans found a unique way to spin these numbers and their spokesperson is none other than an individual who help McCain put together his healthcare policy...  See below the fold.

John Kerry once again made me very proud tonight. His speech just knocked me out.

I wrote this diary yesterday but couldn't find the time to post it, so I'll put it up tonight as a tribute to all of us, who got back up after getting knocked down, and how we built a foundation out of the ashes.

While it seems that we are working better at defining the debate more to our advantage, we are still using terminology that can be seen as advantageous to McCain.  McCain is seen as a strong military-style leader (I know this shouldn't be the case, but it is), and as long as we use the Republican framing, this race is far too close for comfort.

The Election season and true campaigning will begin soon.  Next week is the Republican Convention and democrats plan on going to Minnesota and trying to step on republican messages just as republicans have tried to step on democratic messages this week.  But we also need to go after the republicans in other parts of the country also.

This may not qualify as what I have come to know as really informative, well written diary here at KOS, am a novice at this but am about to blow a top.  Thanks in advance to anyone who may read, but am probably just another of us, watching the media try to manipulate another election, wondering what to do... got to do something.  Can't sit here and watch this anymore.  After having viewed what ABC considers news, unbelievable.  

I never do these kind of diaries:

for the past eight years, the man in the oval office has tipped up his hat and snoozed at his desk. He slept on duty, while his vice president conspired with oil cronies.

Jesus! get this on youtube if you're not watching now!

He is incredible!

Will update.

Update 1:
not much beyond emphasizing "science," by golly. "Wind, solar, geothermal." "Energy-smart America."

Getting ready to whack McSame.

Update 2:
Whacking offshore drilling. Nice: actually adding facts to the discussion.

"Old Doc McCain" and snake oil... fun.

Update 3:
"Look what they've done to our country."

"threats to our planet are threats to our country."

Holy cow -- what an environmental message. I didn't know he had it in him!

Today's CNN/Time state polls of Colorodo, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, and Nevada show a good, solid shift to Obama. These polls, which I read at realclearpolitics.com reflect phone calls made from 8/24-8/26. So this is live and current. Also a mason dixon poll has Obama up 1 in florida, which is nice to see.

Obama has had a few down days in the last week in these battleground states.

+13 in new mexico and

+5 In pennsylvania and nevada

It's just nice to see the positive numbers given the media's negativity fest against Obama.

On this historic night, when America has taken one giant step forward, we must not forget those among us who are still battling for equality and the civil rights that most Americans enjoy.  

Del Martin, the long time lesbian activist passed away.

http://www.cnn.com/...

I promised myself on the night Obama won the Wisconsin primary, that my next diary here at Daily Kos would be about this speech, given 45 years ago tomorrow.

Forty-five years ago, I was eight years old. I lived in a migrant labor camp with my parents, uncles, aunts and cousins in a single ramshackle farm house in California's Salinas Valley.

My eighth summer there, I remember our house opened to three strangers--none of whom looked like any of the braceros who had come from Mexico at the dead of night, and border patrols looking away to allow cheap labor into our state. These three were different. One was a young black man, couldn't have been more than twenty-years old. The other was a young white red-haired man, the last one a blonde. I know these descriptions are generalized, but I was a child then, and so I have the memories of a child with no cognizance of who I was really looking at. But these were the first black and white people I had ever seen.

Since adding my 2 cents will take us to $653080.34.

What my ad would look like:

The people don't want to shake hands with the GOP candidate while McCain's stepping on their chest.  Blood needs to fly.  

Here's how and why:

"If folks were expecting any drama tonight, they’ll just have to make due with the uplifting kind." Such was the bottom line of David Goldstein's blog for HorsesAss.org, entitled "A Stunning Lack of Disunity." I ran into David here at the Big Tent (the DNC mecca for new media journalists, bloggers, reporters, and non-profit leaders – erected here in Progressive Future's parking lot), and thus launched into a discussion of the disparity between the media's playing up the contention between the Obama and Clinton camps, and the actual on-the-ground unity within the Democratic Party.

We'll read five polls a day, every day, until November 4th. We'll hear questions about the PUMAs every day until that first Tuesday in November. We'll hyperanylize every move and rumored move of the Obama campaign. We'll critique every ad, every speech, every movement of money among the swing states. But tomorrow night, for an hour or so, I'm going to let all that go.

Because I told my wife in August of 2007 that an Obama primary victory was a physical impossibility. And on August 29th, 2008, before a crowd of 70,000 and a tv audience in the tens of millions, the Democratic Party will nominate Barack Obama for President of the United States. And, m'friends, that deserves some drinkin'. So my question is: what are you drinking to toast the Obama nomination?

An interesting point of view from the founder of big box store Home Depot, Bernie Marcus, explaining how enforcing labor law will lead to the ruin of America....I'm not sure how many houses Bernie owns, but in my neighborhood America is already in economic ruin, despite the long decline of unions.  

I think the path to economic ruin was caused by the declining wages from Americans competing globally against workers in the third world.  Big boxers like Walmart and Home Depot also helped kill a lot of small businesses and entrepreneurs, with their unfair advantage in beating down employees by abusing labor law.  Beating down suppliers is okay, but keeping your labor costs low through illegal means isn't.  Plus the bulk of the customers for small biz are the middle class.  They need fair wages.

Would enforcing labor rights help America back track from the path to Economic Ruin?  Maybe.  When unions were the strongest in the late 1950's the middle class was thriving.  CEO's like Bernie only made about 20 times the average workers salary back then, so maybe not so much from his perspective.  Today CEO's rake in 200x the average salary!

Obama's lightning-strike response to charges he lacks the experience to be president is, in essence, 'At least I have more wisdom than my opponent(s).'

The signature exhibit in his case is the vote on the Iraq War. He spoke out against it before entering the senate. Hillary, like McCain, voted for it. As the war has proven to be a blunder of epic proportions, the logic goes, all the years of experience of his colleagues ain't worth but a fraction of his native wisdom. As an Obama surrogate put it in a public memo:

Barack Obama has a very simple case. On the most important commander in chief test of our generation, he got it right, and Senator Clinton got it wrong.

So what does Obama say about Biden's vote for the Iraq War? And does Obama value Biden's experience?

One unintended benefit of all the buzz about whether Hillary Clinton will support Obama and how strong that support will be is that it heightens interest in the convention overall.    If many in the country are interested in what Hillary has to say, more will watch the convention on television.  From what I have seen in the ratings numbers, that is what is happening.  Of course some of the interest in Obama could be driving that, as well.

The next question is to see how many people will tune in to hear what Bill Clinton has to say?  I predict he will do a great job, like he always does.  The traditional media is asking the question of how strong is his support of Obama?  That could drive viewers, too, and if he does as good a job, as Hillary did, it could benefit the Democrats.  Maybe we doth protest too much.  Maybe they are smarter than we are!

While watching Hillary last night, I was again struck by the difference that eight years makes.  As First Lady, she was pilloried for being too liberal, for changing her hair too much, being the feminist Yale lawyer and now she is the darling of the blue collar vote.  Who'da thunk?