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live video here and join the conversation as we live blog the 2012 Democratic convention
4:45 PM PT: Education Secretary Arne Duncan is on the stage now.
4:48 PM PT: Coming up in the eight o'clock hour: Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards and Rep. Barney Frank.
4:53 PM PT: I think Jim Hunt is maybe thinking about running for a 5th term.
4:55 PM PT:
SCOOP: Paul Ryan requested the codename BADGER but the Secret Service told him it was taken. So he went with BOWHUNTER.
http://t.co/...
— @jameshohmann via web
4:59 PM PT: Hunt is warming after spending a lot of time talking about his record as governor of North Carolina. He's accusing the Republican economic philosophy of basically being a belief in magic—the magic of tax cuts. This isn't a time to depend on magic, he says. We need to reelect President Obama and invest in education if we want long-term success.
5:00 PM PT:
MT @JohnJHarwood: Clinton's ex-Treas Secy Rubin just fell in pool at (poolside) Ritz-Carlton #Demconvention party //so he's in the tank
— @Atrios via TweetDeck
5:04 PM PT: I like this slogan "Stronger Together." Especially because it makes Republicans want to nominate a guy for whom Ayn Rand is a personal hero.
5:08 PM PT: Libby Bruce, a new mother who needed access to birth control 12 years ago to protect her health, makes the case for Planned Parenthood—the organization that gave her the care she needed when she needed it. And she lacerates Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan for opposing the organization that made it possible for her to have a child. "I'm here for my daughter," she says, so that Planned Parenthood will be there for her when she needs it.
5:08 PM PT: Cecile Richards—president of Planned Parenthood and daughter of former Texas governor Ann Richards—takes the stage.
5:10 PM PT: Haha, right of the bat, she calls out House Republicans for running on a jobs platform—but immediately governing on anti-woman platform: against cancer screenings, against birth control, and even to redefine rape. And now, she says, Romney is running to overturn Roe v. Wade. "So this November [women are] voting for the leaders who fight for us."
5:18 PM PT: Steny Hoyer is in the house! W00t.
5:21 PM PT (Kaili Joy Gray): New thread here.