American people are ready to withdraw from IRAQ.... and Afghanistan. yes, they are ready to let AL QAEDA go and focus on domestic policies. the trouble is, both the Candidate, Obama, McCain, havent realized that fact. Who is AL QAEDA and why do Americans need to spend 1 trillion dollar on them for the last 6 years?

Is AL QAEDA really worth that much?

We are all children of our parents.  In this age, "parents" can be defined in many ways.  They can be traditional, mother and father couples.  They can be single moms or single dads.  They can be grandparents.  They can be a village.  But speeches cannot be parents.  

Children often rebel and try to be the opposite of whatever their parents were or represented.  The rich child giving up wealth and comfort to go work as an aid worker for an NRO is but one example.  Children sometimes see their dad or mom as their hero.  They want to be just like them.  And sometimes, children want to better their parents.  These children have a competitive streak that means they will consider themselves failures if they have not achieved more than their parents.

The risk for Obama tomorrow night is that it will be too easy for him to see the I Have a Dream Speech as the "father" of his acceptance speech.  It is easy to see how one could make that error.  The historical coincidence is immense.  The two speeches are separated by 45 years to the day.  It would be easy to read MLK Jr.'s speech as the precoursor, the natural father of tonight's speech.  

Such a view would, in my view, be a disaster for Obama.

I hate to throw cold water on the festivities tonight. I am feeling the high right now, and I'm very happy with how the convention is going. I've been trying to watch the speeches on PBS and CSPAN as much as possible to get the filter out of the way. However, tomorrow is what's it about, and the Republicans have been basing their whole attack campaign on this speech tomorrow at Mile High.

Really.  I am not making this up.  

It was very unusual to have a lady barber those days.  

That lady was a pioneer. Like many pioneers, she was a person of strong opinions.

I lied, of course.  I had no intention of becoming a martyr.  

   Perhaps I haven't been as good and wonky as everyone else watching the Democratic Convention on CSPAN, but sitting through the last few days of this thing watching it on MSNBC, I'm starting to get a little angry at an aspect of the coverage that seems to indicate these people (including our beloved Rachel Maddow unfortunately) haven't really been paying attention throughout this campaign.

The networks decided that they would only cover what they considered 'news-worthy' at the party conventions. That arrogant and ill-considered policy, which has persisted to this day, is part of the reason the American public is so misinformed about the men (and now women) who aspire to lead this country as President. The networks have a responsibility to inform and the citizens have a responsibility to be informed.  It's long past time we all paid attention.

Note to Obama Campaign: You MUST seize this opportunity!

Thanks to PaulVA for the entry earlier which included the clip of McCain making a total fool of himself while daring a hard working American to pick lettuce for $50/hour. If you didn't see it, check it out...
PaulVA Diary

Are you kidding me Senator McCain?

Seriously, this sort of ammunition against the republican nominee is too easy to fire, and the Obama campaign needs to lock and load.

More below the fold...

Thank you, Michael Wilson, for standing up for what is right in our country.

Thank you, Michael Wilson, for your clear thinking.

Thank you, Michael Wilson, for fighting for our vets, our people and the constitution.

And Thank you so very much for being the man to announce the nomination of our next president, Barack Obama.

Thank you sir.

I am sure I am not alone when I say we hold the deepest respect for you.

And especially sir ...

Thank You for your service to our country.

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.

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: