Just love this quote attributed to the father of Powell chief of staff Larry Wilkerson:

My father used to say, 'Larry beware of the left because they will bankrupt you; beware of the right because they will kill you.'

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From Huffpost:

John McCain, who has harshly criticized the idea of sitting down with dictators without pre-conditions, appears to have done just that. In 1985, McCain traveled to Chile for a friendly meeting with Chile's military ruler, General Augusto Pinochet, one of the world's most notorious violators of human rights credited with killing more than 3,000 civilians and jailing tens of thousands of others.

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Since January, the 300,000 members of the United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters have been supporters of Barack Obama. From the group's endorsement:

Barack Obama is the choice of the UA because he has always fought for working people throughout his career and will do the best job of bringing badly-needed change to Washington. Obama will help us keep existing jobs and work to develop new, higher paying jobs here in America, reform our health care system, fix our ailing schools and make sure that the pensions of our retirees are safe.

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So, with McCain traveling the country boasting about "Joe," what can we do to get the real word out about Obama and the real plumbers? Why isn't this union campaigning aggressively? How can we get their message out?

Great anecdote from Ben Smith:

I voted today. I'm a 33 year old, white criminal defense lawyer in southwest Kansas. The early voting is at the courthouse. I arrive to find 12 old white people occupying all the voting machines. I wait. A machine opens up. The 80 something white male who had been using the machine is now up at the front table asking if he can vote again. The lady running the table says "no, one person, one vote." He replies, "well, I just want to make sure we don't have some terrorist running the country."
This obviously catches my attention so I look at the old man. Our eyes meet. He points a bony finger at me and says, "Don't let it happen." Thinking this old man could one day kill someone and need my services, I don't say anything and proceed to vote.
As I'm leaving the voting room, the young black janitor is in the hallway in front of the room with his cleaning cart. "Did you do the right thing?" he asks me. "You know it." I say and we exchange a terrorist fist jab.

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Very moving item on Obama's grandparents:

. I was looking at this picture of Obama's grandparents and thinking how much he looks like his grandfather. And suddenly, for whatever reason, I was struck by the fact that they had made the decision to love their daughter, no matter what, and love their grandson, no matter what. I'd bet money that they never even thought of themselves as courageous, that they didn't give much thought to the broader struggles in the the world at the time. They were just doing what right, honorable people do. But the fact is that, in the 60s, you could be disowned for falling in love with a black woman or black man.

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