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From Kagro X, reporting from the Pepsi Center...convention goers watching Bill Clinton on TV. Remember, these folks are all about ten steps away from seeing it live. But rather than miss a word during the ten foot walk, they stayed glued to the screens.

John Kerry reporting for duty ....

Before John McCain debates Barack Obama, he needs to finish the debate with John McCain.

America can do better than that and Barack Obama will do better than that.

Clinton just laid some branding on the Democrats and made the Republicans own the last eight years as we saw their ideology in practice.

They want us to reward them for the failures of the last four years with four more years.

The third time is not the charm.

Bill says that Hillary is supporting Barack Obama, that his support makes two of them, and:

Actually, that makes 18 million of us.

And that:

Barack Obama is the man for this job.

Barack Obama is ready to be President of the United States

The Big Dog is up. Prepare for media tears as Bill Clinton endorses Barack Obama. Says Bill:

I am honored to be here tonight...[crowd going nuts]...I am here, first to support Barack Obama and second I'm here to warm up the crowd for Joe Biden.

Former President Bill Clinton is up next.

Who remembers this?  Back in September 2000:

President Clinton announced Wednesday that the federal budget surplus for fiscal year 2000 amounted to at least $230 billion, making it the largest in U.S. history and topping last year's record surplus of $122.7 billion.

Nancy Pelosi is facing "tough questions" via Digg on CNN.

Check it out.

Update:  And they're done.  It was cool, though.  The Internets really work!

It's still not even primetime coverage time, but the real political junkies are tuned in and chatting away...

Discuss amongst yourselves.

They're really moving through the speakers this afternoon here in Denver. Here's the thread to keep up, if you can. And here's the schedule for the rest of the evening.

Jeff Merkley
Candidate for US Senate from the State of Oregon

Tom Allen
Candidate for the US Senate from the State of Maine

5:00 PM – 6:00 PM (LOCAL)
Remarks
The Honorable Richard M. Daley
Mayor of Chicago, Illinois

The Honorable Robert Wexler
Member of the US House of Representatives, Florida

Video - The Course of Our Nation
Brittany Washington
A student at Howard University in Washington, DC from Los Angeles, California

Women of the US House of Representatives
The Honorable Nancy Pelosi
Speaker of the US House of Representatives
Permanent Chair, Democratic National Convention
The Honorable Rosa DeLauro
Member of the US House of Representatives, Connecticut
The Honorable Nita Lowey
Member of the US House of Representatives, New York
The Honorable Hilda Solis
Member of the US House of Representatives, California
The Honorable Louise Slaughter
Member of the US House of Representatives, New York
The Honorable Maxine Waters
Member of the US House of Representatives, California
The Honorable Kathy Castor
Member of the US House of Representatives, Florida
The Honorable Lois Capps
Member of the US House of Representatives, California

Remarks
The Honorable Elijah Cummings
Member of the US House of Representatives, Maryland

Mark Docherty
Veteran and a firefighter from Sterling Heights, Michigan

The Honorable James Clyburn
Member of the US House of Representatives, South Carolina
The Honorable Manuel Diaz
Mayor of Miami, Florida
The Honorable Jay Rockefeller
US Senator, West Virginia

Live Performance
Melissa Etheridge accompanied by Phillip Sayce (guitar)

Award-winning singer/songwriter
Video - First Time Delegates: Renewing America's Promise

6:00 PM – 7:00 PM (LOCAL)
Remarks
The Honorable Harry Reid
US Senator, Nevada
Senate Majority Leader

CSM Michele S. Jones, US Army (Ret.)
First female command sergeant major of the US Army

The Honorable Patrick Murphy
Member of the US House of Representatives, Pennsylvania
Joined by Iraq war veterans

The Honorable Madeleine Albright
Former Secretary of State

America’s  Town Hall - Economy
Moderator: The Honorable Joe Sestak
Member of the US House of Representatives, Pennsylvania
Panelists: Kathy Roth-Douquet, CSM John Estrada, Collin McMahon,
Representative Ellen Tauscher/California

Remarks
The Honorable Evan Bayh
US Senator, Indiana

Xiomara Rodriguez
Nevada delegate and retired member of the US Coast Guard

The Honorable Jack Reed
US Senator, Rhode Island

The Honorable Tom Daschle
Former US Senator and Senate Minority Leader, South Dakota

7:00 PM - 8:00 PM (LOCAL)
Remarks
The Honorable Bill Clinton
Former President of the United States

Beth Robinson
Stay-at-home mom from Hampton Roads, Virginia

The Honorable John Kerry
US Senator, Massachusetts

Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy, US Army (Ret.)
First woman to achieve the rank of three star general in the US Army

Rear Admiral John Hutson (Ret.)
President, Franklin Pierce Law School in Concord, New Hampshire

The Honorable Bill Richardson
Governor of New Mexico

Video – Changing The Course of Our Nation
John Melvin
Iraq war veteran from DeWitt, Iowa

Veterans Video and Remarks
The Honorable Chet Edwards
Member of the US House of Representatives, Texas

8:00 PM – 9:00 PM (LOCAL)
Remarks
Tammy Duckworth
Director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs
Helicopter pilot and wounded Iraq war veteran

Vice Presidential Nominating Speech
Quincy Lucas
Delaware woman who volunteers to work on domestic violence issues.  

Seconding the Nomination – from the floor

Introduction of the Vice Presidential Nominee
The Honorable Beau Biden
Attorney General, Delaware

Remarks
The Honorable Senator Joe Biden
Vice Presidential Nominee
US Senator, Delaware

Benediction
Sister Catherine Pinkerton
Congregation of St. Joseph’s in Cleveland, Ohio

Recess
The Honorable Leticia Van de Putte
State Senator from Texas
Co-Chair, Democratic National Convention

It's official:  Nancy Pelosi entered a motion to nominate Barack Obama by acclamation, it was seconded and carried. Discuss.

From the SF Examiner via Think Progress, this hardly needs any commentary:

On Monday, AT&T threw an exclusive party for the Blue Dogs, the House's moderate and conservative Democrats, at the historic Mile High Station in downtown Denver. Among the guests was House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., who in June led Blue Dogs in crafting a compromise bill that shielded telecommunications companies from lawsuits arising from the government's terrorism-era warrantless eavesdropping.

Hoyer spokeswoman Stacey Bernards said Hoyer was not aware of any connection between the party and his work on the legislation.

"I’m sure Mr. Hoyer didn’t even know who the sponsor was," she said.

Yep. AT&T throws an "exclusive" party for the Blue Dogs after the Blue Dogs have jammed through immunity for telcos against the wishes of the rest of the party. But it's OK, because Steny Hoyer doesn't see a connection. AT&f'ingT throws the Blue Dogs parties all the time, I'm sure.

I hate politics. These people are so corrupt they don't even give a damn whether they look corrupt.

Check out the Digg Stage -- live from The Big Tent in Denver!  

Live Streaming from Ustream

Devilstower and I just went to a talk here at the DNC featuring T. Boone Pickens. Everyone was under the impression that the event would involve an actual discussion (as in, a Q & A session, like nearly all of the other Big Tent special topic sessions). We had a really energetic live blog thread going, where all of you were submitting questions.

Sorry, guys. Apparently, the whole thing was just a sales pitch.  T. Boone hightailed it out of there before anyone could even raise their hand.

The other two people at the presentation were John Podesta (President and CEO of the Center for American Progress), and Carl Pope, who is the Executive Director of the Sierra Club.

They both stayed behind to answer questions... but it's the Pickens Plan, so you'd think the guy whose name is on it would want to stick around and answer questions about the project with his name on it.

Maybe he was afraid we'd ask questions like:

In 2004, you helped pay for the Swift Boat ads, along with fellow billionaire Harold Simmons, who's funding the Ayres attack ads this cycle. If you're willing to tolerate, and even encourage, that level of dishonesty in political discourse, why should we trust you on any subject?

(From Devilstower)

I wanted to ask him:

Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma is well known for saying that global warming is the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people," and is one of the most outspoken climate change science deniers around, as well as being joined at the hip with the oil companies.

In your presentation today, you specifically said that you "believe global warming is real".

However, you have heavily funded James Inhofe's campaign.  How do you reconcile your support for Inhofe with your promotion of renewable energy programs?

From an energy expert acquaintance via email:

Can you please explain why people should take your plan seriously when, for example, you do not include any energy efficiency measures within it?

If the natural-gas part of your plan does not get the support of Congress and the Obama Administration, will you still be strongly in support of windpower?

(From dailyKos user trivium, on the live blog thread.)

I'm all for building up wind electricity capacity, but I have serious reservations about the natural gas portion of your "plan" (rhetorical quotes are important - it isn't really a very origianal plan).

The natural gas used now to make electricity is used on some of the most efficient equipment ever built (60+% efficient).  What since does it make to start burning natural gas in an internal combustion engines that are at best 25-30% efficient?  This is in some ways going backward.  (It also ignores the fact that while we have some natural gas, other nations still have a lot more than us.)

It would be more efficient to power our electricity with electricity, coming from wind, natural gas, solar or other sources.  Of course cars are very good at using electricity, but trains and transit are.

(From dailyKos user jsmyers, on the live blog thread.)

There are many more great questions on the live blog thread, and I'm sure most of the other attendees at the talk had some points to discuss as well.

For those of us who are progressives, I think the overall question is:

T. Boone Pickens, why the hell should we trust you at all?

I've already written about the experience of walking into the convention hall. So what happens next?

In the New Hampshire delegation at least, people are settled in. A bag of popcorn and a pack of gum get passed around, and in addition to talking about politics, people reminisce about, say, being teenagers.

We'd seen Dana Delaney and Anne Hathaway in the security line coming in, but that was from a distance. Sitting with the delegation, Matthew Modine comes by to promote his Bicycle for a Day project.

But mostly signs are the business of the day. Orange- and yellow-vested people pass out the signs for each speaker, and the delegation's page (a teenager doing a truly impressive job) gets telephone instructions and gives the cue for exactly what line should trigger sign-waving. Wave after wave of signs comes through -- these things had better be post-consumer recycled -- and the page is in a constant struggle against people jumping the gun. This is a particular problem when Hillary speaks, because as soon as people have those signs in their hands they want to be waving them.

And as for Hillary? Yeah, they loved her. There may have been chit chat during the earlier speeches, the sense that occasionally people were listening less to the content than to intonation so they wouldn't miss an applause line (and anyone who could sit through like 6 hours of speeches at one stretch paying total attention should feel free to judge them for that). But not during her speech.

Behold, the live Ustream feed from the Digg Stage at the Big Tent.

Live Streaming from Ustream