**Sigh**  Yesterday, Larry Kissell, a candidate we all admire (running as a Dem. in NC-8), posted a diary asking Kossacks to follow a link to the Progressive Patriot's Fund, headed by Russ Feingold.   Kissell asked us to vote for him in a competition among progressive candidates there; the Prog. Pats Fund would give the candidate with the most votes $5,000.

I had the temerity -- the nerve --to compliment the diary, and make a suggestion.  Now, I'm an Asshat.  And all because I said...

Your regularly-scheduled weekly forum to ask questions about how this place works.

Daily Kos, last week:

USAToday is by no means alone in having found fault with Teresa Heinz Kerry, who in the end did release critical tax information, while giving a pass to Cindy McCain. The Washington Post, The Houston Chronicle, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Newsday all editorialized on the subject in 2004, but have been curiously silent this year.

Surprise!

Washington Post, today:

Mrs. McCain's Refusal
The wife of an ethics-and-transparency crusader seeking the presidency shouldn't shield her tax filings.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008; A18

"IT WON'T DO." That was our bottom line in 1984 when Rep. Geraldine Ferraro of New York, Democratic vice presidential candidate, balked at releasing her husband's income tax returns. Ms. Ferraro ultimately relented. It was our bottom line four years ago, when Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of the Democratic nominee, refused to release her returns; Ms. Kerry relented as well. And it is just as apt now with regard to Cindy McCain's tax returns.

And while we're at it, the Washington Times, today:

Cindy McCain's 'privacy' charade

May 14, 2008

Cindy McCain refuses to release her tax returns. This is not just a questionable political decision that threatens to haunt her husband's campaign for the next six months. It is also the wrong decision. Mrs. McCain needs to change her mind and release the returns as quickly as possible. How Republican John McCain, the presumptive presidential nominee who rightly fancies himself the king of transparency on Capitol Hill, and his campaign strategists can permit this open sore to fester is unimaginable.

And the New York Observer, today:

Show Us Your 1040, Mrs. McCain!
by Joe Conason  |  May 13, 2008

[...]

In contrast to their unrelenting demands for absolutely complete disclosure by Bill and Hillary Clinton over alleged or suspected conflicts of interest, the so-called conservative media have remained mum about Mrs. McCain.

That silence similarly contrasts with the hell raised four years ago over Teresa Heinz Kerry’s reluctance to reveal her tax returns alongside those of her spouse, the Democratic presidential nominee and senator, John Kerry.

About damn time, too. Hey, who knows? Maybe they'll eventually report on the Pentagon's fake experts, too. After all, reading about it in the New York Times hasn't moved the rest of them. Maybe you have to read it on a blog -- where people talk about it in "real people terms," like, "Holy S#*t! This 'administration' sucks!" -- before other media outlets will believe people actually care about it.

UPDATE: For no real reason other than hilarity, you're gonna get O'Reillyrolled.

While we wait for West Virginia to have its say... on the way to Clinton's gracious concession in mid-June (figure a week or so after the last primary, to give the last of the supers time to (re)align themselves with Obama), how about (yet another) "Who Should Be Obama's Vice Presidential Running Mate & Why?".

It is better if the "Demographic Tuesdays" community demographic polls stay up in the Recommened Diary list all day so that they can get an equivalent sample of us - morning to night, west & east coast. But I don't want to pimp for Recommends when there is a primary (yes, even this one) or other important national level election going on. Who the hell picked Tuesday to be election day anyway, don't they know it's for Demographics not Democratics. Hurrumph. So it's not a community demographic poll. And I am not pimping.

Everyone just loves to viciously attack me and my grammar, or just mention the ‘Rules’ again and again, but what about the Voters?  

Would you like it if you went to the Polls and excitingly (if not hypnotically) Voted for Barack Obama, only later to be told your Vote just doesn't count?  
The Voters did not change the Primary Date; therefore, they should not be punished.

The only question I have for my fellow Democrats is - what if the shoe was on the other foot?

I thought Our Party was the Party of INCLUSION and getting the Disenfranchised and those on the fringes of our society a voice and making sure that every Vote cast is counted.  Have we as a Party not learned anything from The Last Two Presidential Election Results in Florida and how angry and resentful we all were?  
Now, in 2008, we are telling those same Voters to stay out of the Primary because of the ‘Rules,’ and that the Democratic Party has its own priorities and FLORIDA & MICHIGAN just simply Doesn’t Count???!!!  

Shame on Us!

Today seems to be Shame People Out Of Their Counterproductive Hillary-Bashing By Insulting Them Day.

For example:

Evil.  A woman also.  How dare anyone even think of competing with Barack Obama?  Burn the witch.  

I got that a few months ago on Daily Kos.  It's never changed.  Boring and not useful, except for little minds.

Now how does that childish bs help elect Obama agaisnt mcCain, since he needs the entire Democratic Party coalition.

But I know.  It's more fun to trash Hillary Clinton than it is to defeat McCain and elect Obama.  

Worthy end. Lousy means.

Just as some Hillary supporters need time to adjust to reality, some Hillary haters need time to work accumulated grievances out of their system. [I think I'm almost finished.] It's not an occasion for cheap displays of moral superiority.

Next time try something like...

Fortunately, we don't have to waste our energy fighting Hillary any more. Now we can focus on that lying warmonger McCain.

1. I'm going to get Ted Kennedy.

2. I'm going to get Claire McCaskill.

3. I'm going to get Bill Richardson.

4. I'm going to get Daily Kos.com.

I have been periodically visiting MyDD when my resolve has been high enough to withstand the fierce heat of fanatical devotion to a very flawed candidate and campaign (not to mention a brooding hatred of the 'Great Orange Satan'). And even though my preferred candidate is consistently belittled and slandered by almost all of the recommended diaries as well as most all of the posts of a certain 'blogfather', I couldn't keep myself away for too long. It's a bit like passing a terrible car-wreck on the freeway, a rubbernecking of sorts. A small part of me wants to understand what in the world is going through these democrats minds, to be so full of angst toward one of their own candidates.

Well, judging by my past few visits there, it looks as though alot (though not all of course) of them are finally starting to come around.

On January 3, 2003, three months (and a few days) after Steve Soto first commented on Daily Kos, Markos made an announcement:

Introducing the first dKos guest contributors

Greetings everyone. Work and the Political State Report have been keeping me busy. So busy, in fact, that I have lined up two guest contributors to pick up my slack over the next two weeks.

Long time readers will recognize the guest contributors immediately: Billmon and Steve Soto, both of them comment board favorites. The two of them will essentially take over this site starting tomorrow (and may start posting as soon as today). I'll still post occassionally, but in effect this will be their site for the two-week period.

Try to be nice.

Update: Posts written by either Billmon of Steve will be signed by their respective authors. If you see a post with no signature, it's still me.

Posted January 03, 2003 09:28 AM

Yes, it should have been "Billmon or Steve" in the update, but typos happen. So do jumps. One right about...now!

Guys, I'm heading out with Eli to El Salvador tonight to bid my final farewells to my ailing grandmother. With some luck, we'll get there in time for her to see her 18th great-grandchild, who she still hasn't met.

I should be back early next week, but well see. You'll be in good hands with Susan and the gang running the joint. If I have the chance, I might even check in with some West Virginia predictions, though perhaps I should quit those while I'm ahead. And really, right now I don't give a shit about that anyway.

See you soon.

It was the last day in September, 2002, and Yahoo News was reporting that embattled New Jersey Senator Robert Toricelli would announce his decision that afternoon on whether he'd withdraw his candidacy for re-election a mere 36 days from then on November 5th. This was big news, and Steve Soto made his first appearance right after a commenter named Zak suggested Bill Bradley as a replacement :

Zak stole my thunder. Why not Bradley? It's not like he's going to run for President again, right? And he would be a cinch compared against Forrester. With Clinton out of the White House and McCain/Feingold addressing some of the unpleasantness he found in politics, he may be induced to come back for a term or two. He's still young, and can be a player once again.

Posted by Steve Soto at September 30, 2002 01:07 PM

As it turned out, we ended up with a different former Democratic senator, Frank Lautenberg—the following comment was Markos reporting that Bradley had "emphatically refused to be considered". But we also ended up with Steve Soto: a win/win situation. Steve's many 2002 comments are all linked to over the jump.

In a hilariously stupid diary entry yesterday and comments, the Daily Kos community warned a well-known Clinton supporter not to support Obama if he is the nominee in November.

Your regularly-scheduled weekly forum to ask questions about how this place works, and get them answered.

For those people wondering whether things will calm down once there is actually a well-defined nominee, the answer is yes, eventually. If the past is any guide, that is. The 2004 primary wars were pretty vicious here, but once Kerry became the nominee, most everyone rallied around him. Not everyone, but the vast majority. I have a feeling that the same will happen this year. It may take weeks or a couple of months, but it will happen.

-dms

This website. Is crap. It used to be about the environmental and the anti-GOP articles, now it has a raging bias, and is not objective, or useful anymore. It used to be great, so what happened? The election started. Please. re-start Dkos. It sucks. An anti-Clinton bias is very apparent, I think kos should work to make it so Clinton supporters can at least talk, but everyone treats them with utter contempt. It is not fair, or just to insult blindly. It was a two-party system, now, a three party system. Can we repair ties, and write about the issues that count, like the (all important) Senate filibuster? If we don't get 61 seats, the GOP can kill any piece of legislation the Democrats want to push through.

Thanks.

Given today's other events, I decided to do a purely fun poll today. It is better if the "Demographic Tuesdays" community demographic polls stay up in the Recommened Diary list all day so that they can get an equivalent sample of us - morning to night, west & east coast.

And today did not seem like a good day to ask for that.  
Last time we did a Meta look back at polling so far, but that was only a few weeks ago.

So today's will be "Worst President Ever - Historical Edition."
Sorry, but W, Reagan, Nixon, etc. are not in the running.
This is George Washington to Herbert Hoover only.

I'm currently a student at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

I'm enrolled in a class called Digital Democracy. Proclaimed to be one of the first undergraduate introductory courses of its type by our professor, it has been a real treat, especially for someone like me whose been a habitual lurker and infrequent writer here at daily kos. A college class about blogging and the internet as to how it pertains to politics? Sweet. I know.

However, today was a real treat, as we dove head long into the ethics of blogging.

And of course, there is no way this in-class conversation couldn't not end up encompassing and discussing our very own community.

Jump if you're interested.

I can't take it anymore. I'm sick of walking on eggshells. I'm sick of having to be the bigger person when it comes down to dealing with Clinton supporters so we don't "jeopardize the General". I'm sick of being told that I have to be "careful" and "gentle" and be the grown up when dealing with their attitude towards Obama and not respond too harshly . I'm sick of it ! I'm sick of this thing dragging on . We all know Obama will be the Democratic Nominee and I just want to sink my teeth into John Mc Cain already , but I can't because I am constantly having to deal with Clinton Tactics and this process is driving me crazy. Why does it feel like I am dealing with a totally different party with them ? I want it OVER !

I'd like to thank Teacherken for a nice diary which, in part, discusses a Bobby Herbert article.

http://www.dailykos.com/...

Yes, the Herbert article blasts the media for focusing on stuff of little consequence.  Yes, some of the right wing shills think that such focus is appropriate.

http://www.sj-r.com/...

But, Hope is on the way, if it isn't already here.  One of the things that gave me comfort is, believe it or not, a statistics article!  More below the fold