The Conventions are now over. Time to focus on the upcoming election, issues and crime-related initiatives and injustices. All of TalkLeft's convention coverage can be accessed from these two links:

• TalkLeft's Republican Convention Coverage
• TalkLeft's Democratic Convention Coverage

Convention blogger aggregators are here and the Tank Bloggers are here

My immediate assessment: Conventions are good for rallying the troops, preaching to the choir and offering the opportunity to network and enjoy the comraderie of others sharing one's point of view. From a substantive or issues standpoint, they are fairly irrelevant. As to the impact on undecided voters, I will leave that call to the politcal experts and pollsters. The "bystander" interviews I conducted were not particularly insightful--so many just didn't care one way or the other. The one exception was the Planned Parenthood concert--that was totally focused on a substantive issue, every singer and comic and speaker addressed it, and it also was the best entertainment of the week.

Many thanks to TalkLeft's readers for enabling me to go to Boston and New York. I will send out thank you emails this weekend. It's good to be home.

Frequent TalkLeft commenter Roger says Orlando is about to be hit by Hurricane Frances. He is now securing his house and laying in food and water supplies. He has graciously agreed to live blog the storm, power permitting, as he did with Hurricane Charlie.

Feel free to contribute or comment---this is a hurricane open thread. To all our Florida readers, stay safe, let's hope it's over fast.

Update: Florida's poor can't get out.

Functional Ambivalent analyzes the five highest-profile speakers at the Republican convention -- President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Senator Zell Miller, Governor Schwarzenegger, and former Mayor Giuliani -- and arrives at this breakdown:

• Mentions of Osama bin Laden: 0
• Mentions of John Kerry: 42
• Mentions of Saddam Hussein: 21

Go check out his complete analysis.

Here are some of the photos that summarize the RNC in New York:

Jailed protesters inside Guantanamo on the Hudson
(Larger version at IndyMedia website)

Last Sunday's anti-Bush march

Last Friday's NY nude protest

Received from the John Kerry campaign, excerpts of his Ohio speech tonight. The gloves are off. Finally. Our advice to Kerry: Keep them off.

The election comes down to this. If you believe this country is heading in the right direction, you should support George Bush. But if you believe America needs to move in a new direction, join with us. John and I offer a better plan that will make us stronger at home and more respected in the world. And we need your help to do that.

For three days in New York, instead of talking about jobs and the economy, we heard anger and insults from the Republicans. And I'll tell you why. It's because they can't talk about the real issues facing Americans. They can't talk about their record because it's a record of failure.

We all saw the anger and distortion of the Republican Convention. For the past week, they attacked my patriotism and my fitness to serve as commander in chief. Well, here's my answer. I'm not going to have my commitment to defend this country questioned by those who refused to serve when they could have and by those who have misled the nation into Iraq.

Actor Ron Silver, the Bush-convert, has been on MSNBC every night during the RNC. He was intriguing in his Zell Miller-like conversion the first night. He was tiring the second. He's impossible to listen to tonight. A broken record. Grating. I'm so burned out on Ron Silver. Can he please go back to acting now?

The tables turn. Right now on MSNBC, Janeane Garofalo and Sam Seder of Majority Report are tearing into Silver on Joe Scarborough. This is getting heated. Tune in if you can.

A judge in New York today ordered the city to immediately release 470 protesters by 5pm and imposed a $1,000.00 fine for each prisoner not timely released.

There were accusations that the city was deliberately holding the protesters longer so they would not be in the streets during Bush's speech. "The evidence shows that the city told defendants that they would not be released until George Bush went home," said Dan Alterman of the National Lawyers Guild. The New York Police Department denied the charge.

State Supreme Court Justice John Cataldo fined the city $1,000 for every protester held past a 5 p.m. deadline that he had set for their release. It was unclear how many detainees were still in custody, but Cataldo had ordered the release of 470 people. "These people have already been the victims of a process," Cataldo told the city's top lawyer. "I can no longer accept your statement that you are trying to comply."

50 of the detainees went on a hunger strike. Conditions at the make-shift jail at Pier 57 were reportedly deplorable, prompting a rally yesterday to protest "Guantanamo on the Hudson." You can read the stories of some of those arrested in their own words here and here.

Check out the photos at Am I Patriotic? --today's are here. The AP story is here.

Bush's speech was 5,000 words. Here's the breakdown, according to an e-mail we just received (no link, so fact check if you must.)

0 mentions of Iran
0 mentions of North Korea
0 mentions of Osama
3 mentions of Al Qaeda
5 words on the current situation in Iraq

Or how about these numbers for the speeches over the last four days?

No 'debt' or 'deficit'
Unemployment - 0 mentions
Uninsured – 1
Outsourcing - 0
Premiums - 0
Middle-income families – 1

Daily Kos has the text of Bush's speech, which had been embargoed.

Bush said in his speech tonight that he supports the protection of marriage against activist judges. He said the judges he appoints will know the difference between personal interpretation and a strict interpretation of the law. He lied.

Bush's judicial nominations to date include some of the most extreme right-wing ideologues and activists out there. William Pryor; Charles Pickering; Priscilla Owen; Janice Rogers Brown.

If George W. Bush gets re-elected, he will likely appoint 3 Supreme Court justices during his next term. Say goodbye to Roe vs. Wade and a woman's right to choice. Say goodbye to equal rights for gays. Say goodbye to all the freedoms you want to preserve for your children. They will be gone.

Look for the new ad by Mothers Opposing Bush:

Far from the convention-centric streets of Midtown, on Greenwich Street in Tribeca, a nascent political action committee launched its very first television ad Wednesday afternoon. Mothers Opposing Bush, a group of women who say they "didn't want to wake up in November 2004 to the same politics and policies we believe are unhealthy for our children and our planet," debuted a 30-second spot starring Edie Falco, aka "Carmela" on HBO's "The Sopranos."

"Mothers always put their children first," Falco says in the ad. "Mr. Bush, can you say the same?" She closes the spot, which begins a three-day run tomorrow on CNN, by urging viewers to "join the MOB. How could you not?"

Go here and join the MOB today.

[hat tip National Journal.]

I'm listening to Bush and so far he's not saying anything. He's boring. He should fire his speech writer. 1,000 soldiers died in Iraq and he wants to talk about creating a new tax code and going after trial lawyers? George Pataki's speech was more impassioned and heartfelt than his. Here is John Kerry's response to Bush's speech:

“The election comes down to this. If you believe this country is heading in the right direction, you should support George Bush. But if you believe America needs to move in a new direction, join with us. John and I offer a better plan that will make us stronger at home and more respected in the world. And we need your help to do that.

“I believe it's time to move America in a new direction; I believe it's time to set a new course for America. And we have a specific plan to do just that. So tomorrow morning, John and Elizabeth and Teresa and I are hitting the road across America’s heartland. From here, we’ll go out and talk with Americans in towns across Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Michigan. And because a stronger America begins at home, we’ll talk about our plan to create jobs, cut taxes for the middle class, lower health care costs, and make America safer and more secure.”

John Kerry is holding a midnight rally tonight in Ohio. Tune out Bush, Tune into Kerry. George W. Bush, Flip-Flopper in Chief.

Update: Read Michael Berube on last night's speeches. The best so far.

What poetic justice. Yesterday the Republicans were hailing Zell Miller as their new champion. After the massive criticism of Miller's attack on Kerry, they have disowned him.

After gauging the harsh reaction from Democrats and Republicans alike to Sen. Zell Miller's keynote address at the Republican National Convention, the Bush campaign - led by the first lady - backed away Thursday from Miller's savage attack on Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, insisting that the estranged Democrat was speaking only for himself.

Late Thursday, Miller's name was removed from the list of dignitaries who would be sitting in the first family's box during the president's acceptance speech later in the evening. No explanation was immediately offered, but the change was made only a few hours after Laura Bush, asked about Miller's deeply personal denunciation of his own party's nominee, said in an interview with NBC News that "I don't know that we share that point of view."

Aides to President Bush and his campaign said Miller was not speaking for all Republicans.

Markos of Daily Kos writes:

LOL. All those smug f***s, braging about bagging a Democrat as their keynote speaker, can't run far enough in the other direction. They welcomed him with open arms. He's theirs. We're not taking him back.On the other hand, we like our keynote speaker. Ours -- Barack Obama -- represents the future of this country. Zell was the past. They can have the past.