I know, shocked aren't you?  But Pat Buchanan sat there and spoke about how Cindy McCain had done work around the globe and adopted a baby from India, what has Michelle Obama done?

Seriously.  I have no video but I'm telling you, I was seething (My poor mother had no idea why I was so angry, I couldn't even listen to the rest of the commentary).

If anyone can find a transcript or video, I would greatly appreciate it.  Not only must we fight for Barack Obama but we must stick up for Michelle Obama.  She deserves that much from us.

Yeah, I'm thinkin' Pacino in Scarface.

I'm really gonna' enjoy this serious can of Democratic Whoop-Ass!

Paraphrasing what I said in a comment in another diary, earlier today, "In a battle of wits with the Republican's Vice Presidential nominee this Fall, the Democrats have all of the ammunition."

from clinton tonight:

The two party conventions showcased vastly different directions for our country. Senator Obama and Senator Biden offered the new ideas and positive change America needs and deserves after eight years of failed Republican leadership. Senator McCain and Governor Palin do not.

After listening to all the speeches this week, I heard nothing that suggests the Republicans are ready to fix the economy for middle class families, provide quality affordable health care for all Americans, guarantee equal pay for equal work for women, restore our nation's leadership in a complex world or tackle the myriad of challenges our country faces. So, to slightly amend my comments from Denver: NO WAY, NO HOW, NO McCAIN-PALIN.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/09/04/no_direct_attack_from_clinton.html

I had a fairly traumatic youth. My parents were excellent parents but parents cant be super heroes.  They tried to do their best but external factors influenced our lives so much, and the only reason I turned out the way I did was because of my parents love and because of community organizers like Barack Obama.

I was born in Philadelphia. My mom was a stay at home mom when we were young but later became a pastor.  My dad worked as a building contractor.  Everything was pretty good until 1989.  I was just entering high school and my mother had become a pastor a few months earlier. Well, in the middle of March, my mom ended up quitting the church because as in the words of the senior pastor there "she was only hired to shut the women up"  My mom was devastated, and to this day will not attend church, neither will I.  We all become cynical of the church and Christians yet never lost our faith.  My mom still despises "Christians" and is very critical of people like Dobson and other nut jobs. Well at this same time, my dad became very sick.  We could not figure out why.  He could no longer work at all, if he tried to return to work he would become even more sick.  He went in for test after test after test, but they could not figure out what was wrong.  He had not been working and my mom could not work, she never had never finished high school.  We tried to get unemployment insurance but were told that they believed that he was faking and refused us. We had no choice, we had to move in with my Grandparents in Quebec city.  They did not have any money either but had room for us. Now moving is hard enough but also moving countries (even if it is Canada) is very difficult. Plus I had to take a crash course in French.  Our financial trouble never improved.  I started school in a French school and found it very hard being in a new country, even though I am Canadian, and even worse when you speak french with an accent.  My dad still could not work and he didn't know much else besides construction. We were extremely poor.  I remember for the entire winter I walked to and from school, about half an hour, with running shoes and on the right shoe the top had come apart from the bottom on the front of my shoe exposing my toes to the harsh Canadian winter.  I remember walking home with every step more and more snow being shoveled into my shoe, wearing an old winter coat that I had from Philadelphia that barely fit me anymore. I always thought to my self that its going to get better, it cant get much worse, and luckily it did. Finally as the snow began to melt, my mom came in contact with this community group in Quebec which offered her a job offering computer training courses. We finally began to bring in a steady income. My Dad who had been trying to work as much as possible but still getting sick finally got proper testing done at a hospital in Montreal. They told him he was allergic to wood dust and could not be around any construction.  The same community group that got my mom that job offered to retrain my dad so he could work in management.  He was retrained and got hired to be the manager of a local hardware store (Rona for all the Canadians out there).  With my dad finally making good money my mom was able to go back to school follow her passion and became a Therapist. After Graduating from CEGEP I went to McGill University in Montreal and graduated with a masters in Political Science and worked for a Bloq MP(It was a different time) from Montreal before quitting and becoming a language consultant for major companies and government operating in Canada and the USA.

So why write all this? Well because when I hear people say things like

   "He worked as a community organizer. (Laughter) What?...Barack Obama has never led anything, nothing, nada."

from Giuliani or

   "This world of threats and dangers, it's not just a community and it doesn't just need an organizer. (Laughter.)"

From Sarah Palin, it sickens me. Me and my family are where we are because of people like Barack Obama.  I am not where I am because of the government, it is because of community organizers who got my mom a job and retrained my dad so that he could provide a living.  It is not because of the government that I went to one of the best schools in Canada, it was because a group of 14 people in Quebec City saw my family needed help and offered help.  The only response we got from the government was "he is faking."  When I hear stories about Cindy McCain's outfit costing between $299,100 and $313,100 it sickens me to think that she would gladly spend $300,000 on a outfit while there are kids out there who cannot afford shoes that doesn't shovel snow right onto their socks.  It infuriates me that these F*#$ers think its ok to waste money on houses and expensive outfits and continue to help those that already have the means to help themselves and mock the very people that are trying to make this world a better place for everyone.  Yet for some reason they have the audacity to think they deserve the right to lead this country, well I think Obama needs to show them what a true leader does for those they lead.

I had the pleasure of volunteering at a Joe Biden event last night here in Sarasota.  In Booker Highschool's gymnasium (the school Syesha attended, for you Idol fans), a standing-room only crowd gathered.  My team of folks helped the elderly and disabled in and took care of them, two elderly ladies had a hard time with the heat and it was my honor to walk them into the gym and fuss over them with water and attention.

Senator Biden showed up just about on time, not bad for having done three previous events yesterday.  He gave a twenty minute speech that was very well delivered and very well received, followed by an hour of question and answer.

Since not one person has posted about my "insights" into Obama's interview with O'Reilly, I'll just cut that part out and talk about polls or more accurately, my "opining" about what the polls will show based on absolutely nothing but speculation:

Palin will not move the daily tracking poll numbers (I highly value daily tracking polls unlike the Obama campaign and everyone else on this blog). Obama will be up 5 in Rasmussen on Saturday and up 6 in gallup on Saturday and Sunday.

Here's another prediction based on nothing (what else would be basing predictions on, there have been three reliable state polls released in the last two weeks): for all her virtues, Sarah Palin puts the state of Florida firmly in the toss-up camp. It's unsurprising that Obama would dispatch HRC to Florida on Monday (though it's kind of weird that Obama's camp doesn't seem to want this info getting to the national press as TPM was the entity that confirmed it); what is pertinent in my opinion is that Schumer is being sent down there. Schumer is our top gasoline thrower when it comes to Jewish values and his campaigning down there suggests to me that Plouffe and Axelrod think there is a real fire with Palin on the ticket, just as there was some real fire with Jeremiah Wright. I disagree with Singer on Obama's Jewish support, he was underperforming among this demo according to the polls but I think Palin's selection gives him an opening here to achieve the amount of Jewish support that other dem candidates, such as HRC and Biden, would get among Jews in Florida. McCain had stalled Obama's polling in Florida without having to spend a dime in ads; however, Palin may be worth much more to Obama than any amount of money in ads, at least in Florida.

Cross-posted at Project Vote's blog, Voting Matters.

Weekly Voting Rights News Update

By Erin Ferns

While many see voting as an implicit right in a representative democracy, decisions in America about who can vote and how are actually controlled by the states and vary greatly from state-to-state, even from county-to-county.

Misinformation and misinterpretation of each state's particular laws--not only by voters, but also by state officials--has the potential to influence the outcome of the election, a problem seen recently as two of the country's most disenfranchised groups - youth and former felons -have encountered procedural roadblocks to electoral participation.

Christina of Yes to Democracy & Tommy Christopher of AOL seem to have done some seriously major journalism & exposed very troubling things about PUMA. The linked pages speak for themselves.

Start here

http://www.yestodemocracy.com/yes_to_dem ocracy_no_to_pu/2008/09/zbridge-outsour. html

Then go here

http://www.yestodemocracy.com/yes_to_dem ocracy_no_to_pu/2008/09/the-obama-movem. html

then here

http://www.yestodemocracy.com/yes_to_dem ocracy_no_to_pu/2008/09/the-riverdaught. html

then watch the other clips