by Julia Rosen [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

Watch this fabulous video put together by FireDogLake and then click on over to take action. Great song.  Important message.

Send an email to an executive on one of your favorite shows.  I sent one to my favorite new show Life.  I love me a good cop drama, especially one with Sarah Shahi in it.

And if you are on Facebook, don't forget to join the 1,000,000 fans strong for striking writers.  I hear word that there will be some fun actions coming up soon.

by Robert in Monterey [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

On Thursday Kirk Murphy wrote a compelling piece at Firedoglake, "Drown it in a Bathtub?" - How Grover Norquist, the Club for Greed, and Arnold Let SoCal Burn, explaining how anti-tax sentiment in San Diego County left firefighters without adequate resources to respond to this week's inferno.

Unsurprisingly, this has happened elsewhere. As firefighters battle to save Silverado Canyon and prevent the Santiago Fire from reaching Riverside County homes, we are now learning that Orange County firefighters faced similar crippling shortages of equipment and personnel - shortages that prevented them from being able to quickly extinguish the Santiago blaze.

Specifically, Orange County Republicans campaigned hard against Measure D, a 2005 ballot proposal that would have diverted $80 million in surplus public safety funds from Proposition 172 to help properly staff Orange County fire departments. The failure of Measure D leads directly to the OCFA's inability to quickly contain the Santiago Fire when it broke out Sunday evening.

The full story is below.

by jsw [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

Today is the second day with a special SoCal wildfire blog roundup. In a little while, I'll post a blog roundup on other topics that will cover the last couple days.

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

The Courage Campaign and David Dayen of Calitics have a video up displaying widespread blogger willingness to challenge GOP dirty tricks to steal the White House. Included are "Jane Hamsher from Firedoglake, John Amato from Crooks and Liars, Howie Klein from Down With Tyranny, some Kos diarists, and more." There's also video of West Wing star Bradley Whitford.

by David Dayen [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

I was up half the night putting together this little video for the Courage Campaign's effort to fight the Republican dirty trick to split California's electoral votes and steal the Presidential election.  We got a handful of semi-famous bloggers together (Jane Hamsher from Firedoglake, John Amato from Crooks and Liars, Howie Klein from Down With Tyranny, some Kos diarists, and more) and sent a message that we can fight this thing, energize California Democrats, and make the Republicans wish they never brought it up in the first place.

The Courage Campaign is setting up a conference call featuring Bradley Whitford of The West Wing to discuss the next steps.  You can RSVP for it at the link.

by David Dayen [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]