Lollapalooza opened today in Chicago, the biggest one yet. The Chicago Tribune will be live-blogging it all weekend. Here's the lineup.

Will Sen. Barack Obama make an appearance? He's nuts if he doesn't. Rather than pitching them on his candidacy, since most probably already support him, he ought to welcome them to his home town and use the opportunity to encourage them to register to vote. And reach out and text a friend with the same message.

Three-day attendance is expected to top 200,000 for the first time since Lolla made its Grant Park debut in 2005.

8 stages,120 bands, 700 journalists and record high heat. Last year, we were all at Yearly Kos in Chicago when Lollapalooza kicked off. Too hot with too much humidity for me, but I can see why it's such a big deal.

Radiohead, Rage Against the Machine,Wilco, Kanye West and Nine Inch Nails seem to be among the more well-known groups. The clip above is Radiohead's House of Cards.

Via Digby, all three Bush men, George I, GW and Jeb got on the phone today to call Rush Limbaugh and congratulate him on the 20th anniversary of his show and his "excellent and important broadcasting." The transcript is here. At one point, Bush I, who didn't realize they were on the air, says to Rush,

Do you see our man Ailes at all?

Another open thread.

Update: Sitemeter is causing blogs to crash in Internet Explorer 7. Try using Firefox or Safari, it works fine in those.

Update: Skippy is having different problems, blogger has blocked his site as spam. For those of you looking for his site, it's temporarily here at Skippy, Jr.

As an aside, Facebook disabled TalkLeft's page, it's now two days and no explanation. Sometimes the internets just suck.

Update: Susie at Suburban Guerilla is laid off and needs 3 operations and her insurance is running out. If you can send a few bucks her way, that would be great.

It's hot in Denver...104 degrees today. Too hot to even search for a unique summer song. Summer in the City, Heat Wave, even Boys of Summer, I'm tired of them.

Here's Bryan Adams and The Summer of '69...at least it rocks.

This is an open thread.

The judge in the Jena 6 case has been removed due to inappropriate comments about the arrested teens.

Judge J.P. Mauffray Jr. had acknowledged calling the teens "trouble makers" and "a violent bunch" but insisted he could be impartial. Defense attorneys disagreed and asked that he be removed. Judge Thomas M. Yeager, who was appointed by the state Supreme Court to decide whether Mauffray should be taken off the case, found there was an appearance of impropriety.

"The right to a fair and impartial judge is of particular importance in the present cases," Yeager wrote.

Where the case stands now: [more...]

Emily's List has just sent out a press release announcing that on August 26th at 2pm it will hold a gala reception at the The Sheraton Denver Hotel, 1550 Court Place in Denver, featuring Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and "Special Guest" Michelle Obama.

You can get a ticket here for as little as $50.

This will be one of the highlights of the week for me and I'll be there live-blogging the event

The DNC Platform Committee is meeting this weekend in Cleveland.

The sessions begin Friday afternoon when policy experts suggest planks for the Democratic platform. On Saturday party leaders will hear comments from the public and then will turn their attention to writing a draft platform.

The draft goes before the full platform committee Aug. 9 in Pittsburgh....The platform is expected to closely reflect Obama's views.

In 2004,John Kerry insisted on removing support for the death penalty from the platform. It was the first time since the 1980's that the Democratic platform did not contain an endorsement of the death penalty. Will Obama keep it out or put it back in?

There are public accounts that Hillary Clinton will speak the second night (Tuesday night, August 26) of the Democratic National Convention. It is unknown if Bill Clinton will speak, but if he does it no doubt would be Monday night, August 25. Thursday night, Barack Obama will deliver his speech accepting the Democratic nomination from Invesco Field before 75,000. One of the previous nights there will be a so called "keynote" address.

On Wednesday night, August 27, the Democratic nominee for Vice President will speak. What a tough spot. To have to speak the night after Hillary Clinton speaks and the night before Barack Obama speaks? This is the occasion when the Vice Presidential nominee will be introduced to the country. How can the Vice Presidential nominee deliver under such circumstances?

Not a spot to envy in my opinion.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

The defense has rested in the Guantanamo military commission trial of former driver Osama bin Laden driver Salim Hamdan.

The testimony for the defense portion of the case was closed to the public and journalists -- not because Hamdan or his lawyers wanted it closed but because the rules mandated it.

[More....]

Sen. Barack Obama got heckled today while giving a speech in Florida. The hecklers were African Americans who wanted to know why he hasn't spoken out for the AA community. The audience booed the hecklers, and to Obama's credit, he gave them an opportunity during the q and a following his talk to ask a question:

"My question is, in the face of the numerous attacks that are made against the African community, or the black community, by the same U.S. government that you aspire to lead," the man started, before naming sub-prime lending, police shootings of blacks, the Jena 6 case and Hurricane Katrina.

"In the face of all these attacks that are clearly being made on the African community, why is it that you have not had the ability to not one time speak to the interests and even speak on behalf of the oppressed and exploited African community, or black community, in this country?" he asked. As some in the audience booed, Obama started his response.

Obama's answer below: