Ryan's Speech, Thurgood Marshall's Confirmation: Things to Know 8/30

1. Paul Ryan's Convention Speech: Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan introduced himself to the public in his speech at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday night and the takeaway: he made a number of fact errors. This from Salon.com, "He attacked Obama for failing to keep open a Janesville GM plant that closed under Bush in 2008. He hit him for a credit-rating downgrade that S&P essentially blamed on GOP intransigence. He claimed that all taxpayers got from the 2009 stimulus was “more debt,” when most got a tax cut (and the stimulus is known to have saved between 1.4 and 3.3 million jobs). He derided the president for walking away from the Simpson Bowles commission deficit-cutting recommendations when Ryan himself, a commission member, voted against those recommendations."

2. What I'm Working On: Last night I spoke with board of education candidate Ann De Lacy about the criticism she has received from bloggers and a former school board candidate. She said she feared for her safety and that people mistake her passion for aggression. A full story will be out today.

3. Featured Blog Post: HoCo Rising's Tom Coale was a fan of Paul Ryan's speech last night. Coale wrote on his blog this morning, "I want to start off by noting that Con. Paul Ryan put on a clinic in political speech-making last night.  If you are a Democrat, or a left-leaning independent, and those big blue saucers didn't put a quiver in your knees, you probably were watching something else.  Good speeches are equal parts humor and power.  Ryan balanced it perfectly and probably will account for a 3-5 point post-convention bounce regardless of what Mitt Romney does tonight."

4. Weather: Sunny, high of 86, low of 68 in the evening, according to weather.com.

5. Today in History: Thurgood Marshall was confirmed as the first African American Supreme Court justice in 1967. Marshall was born in Baltimore in 1908 and eventually applied for entrance into the University of Maryland law school, but was turned away due to its segration policy. He graduated from Howard Law instead and his key moment as a litigator came when he won the now landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, which desegregated American schools, according to History.com.