I live in Mpls will be at the RNC. I've already done a few political podcasts (accessible from my site). We had a Media Walk Through at Xcel Center a while back. The logistics of putting on a convention this size are tremendous and precise. If the convention is delayed, they may not have a space to hold it in. The Mpls convention center is booked...

I think someone's been funnin' the media again. You guys are such pushovers.

I've talked to a housemate in one of the raided houses, and to the Mpls police. Yes, because of Labor Day the Rules of Criminal Procedure means that the police can hold all those arrested until noon Wednesday even if they are never charged. See my site for interview and coverage of the ongoing story.

Whether they will be charged, or what they're lawyers have to say, or whether there will be more arrests, etc, is still unknown. The police generally get the benefit of the doubt, as they do in this case. However, we know for certain that the Bush administration is politicizing the enforcement branch on the federal level. Will this be a shining example of law enforcement or more sleazy Stalinistic repression by the right?

I await answers.

I'm having a grand ol' time covering the RNC for a local radio station. It's a big event, and the drama outside makes it even bigger. Everyone goes to a different convention. Right now, I'm collecting interviews and pictures (go to my site, follow links to LiveJournal) and will evaluate the RNC when the dust has settled.

The conservatives have an astonishing double standard, but are completely blind to _their_ moral relativism. I'm glad Keef is on the ball.

I was at the RNC (interviews and pics on my site) and saw how this plays out in Real Life (tm).

I was at the Republican National Convention (interviews on my web site) and talked with many Republicans about climate change. Few had strong convictions about how to deal with this major problem, and many didn't acknowledge the coming crisis at all. On the other hand, they were adamant about "reducing dependence on foreign oil" and promoting Newt Gingrich's "Drill Here. Drill Now. Pay Less." In short, they were utterly clueless, and are only going to make the problem worse.

(Some of these quotes were used on brother Joe's blog.)

Conservatives aren't dumb. Why are they so relentlessly cynical about the effect of man's greed; why do they want to impose the status quo on a changing world?

The answer is, of course, money. During the Bush administration, Saudi Arabia jumped to being our second largest source of imported oil. The Bush family's arab friends have made trillions from gullible US citizens who scream bloody murder at a 5 cent gas tax but gleefully shell out an extra $2 at the pump. Cheney abused the power of the VP to ensure that oil executives wrote the conservation laws.

When there's money to be made, the next generation doesn't matter.

Pathetic. And obsolete. John McCain doesn't get it, and Barack Obama does.

If you're booed at a professional hockey game, how much worse do you get in the gossip-filled bleachers at kids games?

Perhaps all this mudslinging using McCarthyist tactics isn't working because McCarthy's enemy doesn't exist anymore. As you point out, Glenn, Republicans have been defined by their sliming of anyone who is even remotely less than their definition of patriotic. They used a false and self-serving definition of patriotism, but when your world could end 15 minutes after a push of The Button, you didn't always need to be subtle.

But here it is, twenty years after the fall of the Soviet Union, seven years after 9/11 and our biggest political enemy just hosted the Olympics and our worst economic threat sells us a lot of oil. Our world is not any less scary, but the problems are less stark.

And the far right is on the wrong side of all the solutions.

Sphincter conservatives can get hot and bothered by gay marriage, while most of us are far more frightened about global warming and religious zealotry. It's a scared new world that has such people in it.

The conservative news media has been getting it wrong for a long, long time. This year, in a desperate attempt at ratings, they've needed to keep flogging the "horserace" even where none exists. As Glenn keeps saying, too many politicians and news pundits are not merely wrong, but are spouting the exact opposite of reality. The Exact Opposite should be the title of Glenn's book.

Aside: I'm Jewish, and have been an Obama supporter for a long time. Hillary would make a great president, and may someday. Now it's Obama's time.

The GOP loves to distract people by pumping up stories that are either completely irrelevant or outright lies. Haircuts, ties to people who had something in their past but are now model citizens, voter registration irregularities by the other guys, denying unethical and illegal behavior, enraging crowds with right-wing buzzwords.

Her expenditures on wardrobe and makeup do not, in and of themselves, disqualify her for the vice-presidency, but they utterly tarnish her image as folksy hockey mom.

You live by the sound bite, you die by the sound bite. Be careful what you wish for.

"[Sarah Palin] was never a hockey mom, she was always the prom queen sitting in the back of the convertible waving to the hockey moms" -- Simon Doonan, of the high-end clothing store Barney's in NYC

Frankly, I'm less curious about a senator lobbying for a constituent than I am about the concerns of the Secretary of State about a three-star general. Why didn't his boss think Adm. McCain deserved a promotion?