John McNicotine is now for the tobacco lobby after years of working against it.  He not only opposes the cigarette taxes he used to support but also opposes FDA regulation of the tobacco industry after years of supporting it.  McNicotine is an ex-smoker and should understand just how addictive nicotine is, and he even acknowledged the exceptionally high death rate for tobacco users when he joked that cigarette exports to Iran were part of his plot to kill Iranian citizens.  For McNicotine to cave in to the tobacco cartel is the ultimate flip-flop:
http://www.boston.com/...

Why has McNicotine caved in to the interests of the tobacco drug cartel?  It couldn't possibly have anything to do with hiring tobacco lobbyist Charlie Black as his senior adviser.  Move along folks.  There's nothing to see here:
http://firedoglake.com/...

Now let's use the traditional Rethug "moral values" and "sanctity of life" frames against McNicotine!  There's more in the flip.

When you spend your time, as I do, immersed in politics and the issues that said politics purport to solve or at least endeavour to solve, it is easy to forget that many -- indeed, most -- people in this country have neither the time, energy nor inclination to wade into such a bog, let alone devote any significant block of time to that political swamp for fear they might emerge from it as mentally pruny and wrinkled as the fingers of a child after an hour in a paddling pool of equally questionable water quality.

The reasonable fear of sensory overload combined with the unreasonable burdens of economic hardship, deliberate disinformation propaganda campaigns of over thirty years by a corporate-owned media and a dying, decaying educational system have conspired to create what we now are as an America society: An apathetic, barely participatory citizenry in what is laughably called a "republic" but what is, for all intents and purposes, a plutocracy.

Sorry I don't have a lot of time.  I've been very busy lately.  But growing up in Colorado I just saw the following:

First.

Denver Post and Water

and

ColoradoPols and Water

    Canvassing for Obama today in a very conservative small city in this battleground state (Wisconsin), I came off the streets  after 5 hours feeling . . . elated.  That is not an exaggeration, and it's not because of finding lots of  Obama supporters.

Welcome back to Austin, TX for the very first Camp Obama of the general election cycle! There are also sessions in Los Angeles today, and in New York City next weekend. The focus of this Camp Obama is to train people who can commit 5 weeks of their time to solid volunteering. These folks will become leaders wherever they go, and some of them might work with all of you when you find your way into an Obama campaign office this election cycle. It’s really exciting to be part of this grassroots organizing. I’m looking forward to hearing about what brings these folks in to participate.

Join us in Austin below the jump for photos and session recaps, to be updated throughout the weekend.

Important: There are Camp Obamas scheduled next weekend for Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio. More info below!

I have been a lurker here on Daily Kos for a long time, commenting maybe twice and never doing a diary.  But the recent success of the wonderful hummingbird photo breaks by juliewolf and a desire to help an endangered species have convinced me to finally lose my Daily Kos diary virginity and take the plunge in the hopes that this community can help save a pretty cool bird.

10,000 Birds is the place that I, along with two other bloggers, inhabit in the blogosphere. Bird blogs are a small niche habitat on the interwebs, but we have managed to survive and even thrive through hard work, a great online community, and humanity's nearly insatiable desire to learn about the natural world.  And while writing about the birds we see is rewarding in and of itself, we at 10,000 Birds have made the collective decision to not only write about birds but try to help them, because, after all, it is one thing to see a bird and share a picture but it another thing entirely to help ensure that the species will be there for others to experience.

So a Sharp Whatnow?  What is that?  Read on kossacks...

On June 25, 2008 the ADA Amendments Act of 2008 passed by a whopping 402-17 vote in the House. Sometime in September, the full Senate is expected to begin floor action on the Senate bill (S.3406). It currently enjoys the sponsorship of 65 Senators, and the endorsement of a wide variety of business and disability community organizations, so it's widely expected to pass, but your help is needed to provide just that little bit of insurance so that the opportunities and protections intended by Congress in the original ADA are certain to be restored to persons with disablities. We need to pass this with a veto-proof majority!

After the fold, there's an action request (the links are toward the bottom of the diary) as well as background information on why it's so important for the ADA Amendments Act (ADAAA) to pass...

Note: I'm posting this quite late - it's nearly 2AM! - and won't be able to stay awake to respond right now to any comments. So here's a shameless pitch: please, my fellow night owls, help me out and rec this diary up, so that people may have a chance to see it in the morning. It's not campaign-related, but it's such an important issue!

This is a short diary.

Anti-choice protesters in Cleveland, Ohio have begun videotaping patients, doctors and clinic escorts at local abortion providers.

Please help stop this blatant invasion of privacy.

Cokie Roberts is an idiot who needs to be fired... plain and simple.  Somehow Hawaii isn't  American enough for Cokie... good to see Hawaii's Senator Daniel Akaka taking her to task for this stupidity

"Saying our 50th state is somehow 'foreign,' does a great disservice to the hard working, patriotic Americans who call Hawaii home. For months people have been asking me, 'when is Sen. Obama going to come home?' I'm so glad he found time to visit his sister and his grandmother, show his daughters more of his home state, and relax a little. Hawaii is a great U.S. destination, just ask the 5.5 million Americans who visited last year for business and pleasure."

Below the fold for the repeated Cokie Roberts assertions that Hawaii isn't Americana enough for her conservative tastes... it's too "Exotic" and "Foreign" for Barack Obama... it doesn't take a pundit or PhD to understand the not too thinly veiled references here...  Also note in the NPR piece she incorrectly claims  on Obma that "He makes such a point of being the boy from Kansas & Kenya""... subtle there Cokie, real subtle.

It is time to start flooding Pelosi's office with DEMANDS.

We must demand Congress be immediately recalled from vacation.

We must demand Congress immediately begin impeachment proceedings against VP Cheney, and if the investigation leads to it, Bush, Rice, etc.

Ron Suskind's book is just the latest evidence of high crimes committed by the Bush administration.

The evidence is everywhere, and it is overwhelming.

A neighbor and I were out canvassing our neighborhood tonight, in the first blast into our precinct since the primaries. I am tired and wanted to get to sleep, but this is bothering me so much that I thought perhaps I could get some help, via all of the experience represented at here at DailyKos.

I live in a low-income area of a relatively liberal Oregon town. I believe we are still considered a swing state, as Obama's majority may be well under 10%. It is polling under 7% right now, and with all the smears, it could get close.

So, now I come across people who are too progressive to vote for Obama, and a couple of mellow but firm republicans, and I can't sleep. I don't know what to say to convince them to help us to  get this thing done. I watched the video about McCain promising more wars, and I can't sleep without asking for your help. More below...

Crossposted from Native American Netroots.

Currently, Native American tribes aren’t eligible for the federal production tax credit available to non-tribal project owners under law.

Without this 2 cents per kWh tax credit, it is much harder for wind farms to get built on reservations.  

Action Info Below

If you’re from California, you have probably noticed that your monthly gas bill (from  PG&E, San Diego Gas & Electric, or Southern California Gas, depending on where in the state you live), has a number of fees and surcharges tacked on after the actual energy charges.  One of these fees is generally labeled "PPP," and it goes to support a number of so-called "public purpose programs."  These public purpose programs are well worth supporting; they include direct assistance to low-income customers and an efficiency program for low income customers, which installs energy-saving measures, ranging from CFLs to high-efficiency furnaces, for people who couldn’t afford them.  These programs are known as California Alternative Rates for Energy (CARE) and the Low-Income Energy Efficiency (LIEE) programs.  Other programs, including efforts to expand use of solar power and reduce greenhouse gases in California are also supported by the PPP Fund.  

These programs are now being threatened.  More information and an action item after the jump.

Atlanta attorney Jim Martin had much to celebrate last night at Piedmont Park's Park Tavern as he, his family, and campaign team savored a landslide victory rout over DeKalb County Executive Vernon Jones.

Atlanta's WSB-TV is reporting this morning that Martin garnered 190000+ votes to win 60/40 over Jones with 99% of precints reporting. WSB election results data can be found here.

According to the Atlanta Journal Constitition:

.Turnout was light in the race for the Democratic Party nomination for the U.S. Senate seat held by incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss.

Only 18 percent of registered voters cast ballots in the primary, and fewer than half of those were expected to return to the polls Tuesday for 12 hours of voting that began at 7 a.m.

More on the flip:

It seems that a portion of the Dogs fellow Kossacks are feeling like the Obama Campaign is not kicking Sen. McCain (Cloud-Yeller, AZ) hard enough in the metaphorical junk. There have been multiple diaries decrying this state of affairs and offering suggestions, good, bad and ugly for how to remedy this. On the one paw this is a good thing, as we (the net roots) are all about participatory governance and this is our forum for the generation and dissemination of ideas. On the other, (and the Dog says this in the best way possible) it is arrogant to assume that we, with somewhat less information, have better ideas than the team that put the smack down on to Sen. Clinton (DLC, NY).

Greetings from New York City! Today casperr and I met up to hang out and help at Obama Summerfest in Central Park. I came north from Austin to visit my old home for a few weeks, and when casperr mentioned the event I had to join in. The event was organized by ObamaNYC, one of the many fantastic grassroots groups working hard to organize here in the city. It was a ton of fun, and for those of you not lucky enough to be there, casperr and I wanted to share!

Photos and a recap below.

By Mitchell Aboulafia  

I was tempted to title this piece, "The Cowardice of Bloggers," but I figured that this might be needlessly inflammatory. No reason to get people angry by calling them cowards just to get a bit of attention. (READ ME because I’m too controversial for words.) I have to admit that the temptation was great, for it seems that one needs to become the Dr. Strangelove of the Blogosphere to get noticed these days.

For the record, before I begin, I should make it clear that I am not suggesting that pseudonyms be banned from web sites. Nor I am suggesting that it isn’t fun and at times useful to use a handle that hides your true identity. Everyone wants to be Clark Kent on some days of the week. And of course there are serious political reasons, for example, retaliation by employers or governments, for hiding one's true identity.  No question, there are good grounds for using "pen names." With this string of caveats in place, I now make my case.

The Blogosphere is about to be buried in junk. When exactly it will be totally buried is anyone's guess, but I see the sphere turning into the electronic equivalent of Wall-E's earth, probably before the glaciers melt.

This is my first entry in what will be a weekly series of Canvass diaries.  Like many of you, I spent my time during the primaries glued to the television, surfing channels between MSNBC, CNN, and CSpan.  I listened to the pundits and yelled at them in outrage.  I constantly checked the polls, surfed the web for information, and quckly became an election media junkie.  I realized the power of financial contributions, maxed out my donations, and even canvassed a few times.  Now we're in the general election and the frustration is starting again.  I find myself taking personal offense when someone with an ego like Joe Scarborough actually thinks it's appropriate to call Barack Obama arrogant.  I feel my blood boil when the media has the nerve to brand the Obama campaign as players of the race card.  I feel so passionately about this election and I've decided not to let my frustration with the media and the arrogance of the McCain campaign turn me into a wreck again.  I'm taking my Obama energy to the streets.