I'm proud to say that the netroots convention that some you may have attended in Chicago last August has made a difference in the Obama-Hillary race as it cames down to the end.  Obama has a new ad out.  It's called "Guide":

Boasting a jaunty lounge-lizard soundtrack and faux film-reel effects, the ad matches the cool irony of Obama's "Annie Oakley" attack; with no voiceover and no mention of Obama's name, think Ginsu knife more than meat cleaver. But the slick style masks a typically aggressive Obama counterpunch: the implication that because Clinton has accepted more money from lobbyists "than any other candidate, Republican OR Democrat" (and once said "they represent real Americans"), she would, as president, put their priorities above the needs of average Americans--just like a typical Washington "player."

    The second part--about inviting Hillary R. Clinton--may seem counterintuitive, with her NAFTuzlA meltown, etc.; but I still think it would be not only good manners but also prudent and appropriate to invite Hill, and Barack Obama, to the inaugural Netroots Nation in Austin, Texas.
    (Maybe they got invited already. No one tells me these things.)

    There is the meme of the Hillaryista boycott of the Kos to combat, too, including some Clinton rep applauding that boycott on O'Reilly. Ouches.
    I.e., if the convention don't invite Clinton to attend, maybe folks will think of the netroots as a bunch of hostile kommunistas who are taking revenge on Hillary because of the boycott, etc. Therefore, Hillary should be embraced, not rejected, by the convention. (Individual attendees can reject her, sure, but not the convention as a whole...)

    No, I see no conspiracy here, but it's interesting to note anyway.

    Sidney Blumenthal, Clinton counselor (and YearlyKos 2 attendee; I spoke to him briefly at the Teamsters cookout, and he was cool/cold but polite), be in some trouble, see AP channeled by Yahoo, Police: Clinton aide to plead guilty,

   A senior adviser to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton has agreed to plead guilty to drunken driving after the arresting officer was ordered to Iraq making a trial on a more serious charge impossible, police said Monday. ...
    Now an unpaid adviser to Hillary Clinton's campaign, Blumenthal, 59, was arrested Jan. 7, the day before the New Hampshire primary, and charged with aggravated drunken driving. Police said Blumenthal was traveling 70 mph in a 30 mph zone. ...
    The plea deal was reached after the arresting officer was activated by the military and ordered to Iraq, Segal said, adding that without the officer's testimony a trial would not have been possible.

    I feel that a CRUCIAL issue in the Iowa Dem caucus has been neglected, i.e., what about the OrangeClouds115 factor?
    Iowa is a veggie-corn-ethanol sort of state, so what if everyone writes in Jill Richardson, aka OC115, rather than the expected Bill Richardson?

    If you forget who she is, see this foto from YearlyKos 2007, with OC115 in orange (surprise), and Eddie C in front of her, along with others around,

    Am not sure who some of the dishevelled-hair type characters are in background, but whatevs. (And see here for the original Eddie C source, thanks Eddie!)

    (MORE Richardsonia below--)

(Courtesy of 24-7TMZGawkerHillaryGotcha.com)

    Our reporter on the scene says that Hillary Rodham Clinton is claiming that she is be the most experienced and prepared presidential candidate, ready for the job from the start. Or close.
    As her sub-sub-campaign manager, known as "Mr. Bab Janhson from Chicaaago", obsequiously fluttered about, strewing breath mints and campaign materials, the wife of former president Bill Clinton announced to a rally crowd, "I'll be ready to be President from day 14!!" The crowd gasped as the clumsy Mr. Jahnson, wiping pie off his tie, blubbered, "D-day 1, Mrs. Clinton means! Just because she MADE A HUGE MISTAKE LAST WEEK and sent out caucus cards saying THE CAUCUS WAS ON JANUARY 14TH, and is Freudian-slipping the 14th date again, ain't no reason not to vote for this Great Lady!!! !"

(more happy Hillary below)

    Should Kos endorse someone before Iowa?

    This is actually a pretty important question. --It's one thing to host the candidates to YearlyKos (which was great), but an endorsement by Kos could potentially be even more important.
    And you get to vote on it, below!

    ...First, let's look at the cons and pros of Kos endorsing a Dem presidential candidate before the 1/3/08 Iowa caucus:

(starting below fold)

Originally Posted on Citizen Orange

The Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) recently partnered with Blue America in order to hold Rahm Emanuel accountable for his anti-migrant posturing as the representative of one of the most diverse congressional districts in the nation .

ICIRR began this fight with a rubber chicken campaign at YearlyKos (see left) in an effort to get Emmanuel to stand for migrant rights.  

The exact opposite happened.  After a close electoral fight in Massachusetts, Emmanuel assumed the role of Tom Tancredo of the Democrats, and issued this comment to the Washington Post:

It's true.  
It was during her YearlyKos 07 breakout session.  I was the last questioner and  she called on me because it was all planned in advance and I didn't even know it.  

It all started during registration check-in when I was asked who I wanted to see during break out.  At first I thought Edwards, but then Obama is so dreamy.  It was a tough call and Richardson was offering little cinnamon cookies.  Then all of a sudden, this little voice told me to pick Hillary.  "Yeah, go with her.  The other hot candidates are going to be booked and she'll be all by herself.  We know you're PO'd with her IWR vote but c'mon, you may never get another chance to ask her about it."

I thought it was one of the elves in my head egging me on but now I'm sure there was a Clinton guy standing next to me that actually said it.  So, like a chump, I took the Yellow Bracelet!

Some of you might have caught the big announcement yesterday regarding Hillary’s new website - The Fact Hub.  It’s getting quite a bit of attention already - The New York Times just did an article on it.  Since that site was announced I’ve been thinking about all the ways Hillary’s gone out of her way to engage the good people at DailyKos and other progressive online communities over the past 6 or 7 months, and I couldn’t help but come to the realization that Hillary is INDEED  the one and only true Grassroots / NetRoots Candidate out there right now.

Seriously – hear me out you guys.  I’m not just rambling here – make the jump cos there’s a whole lot more...

The expert is Rick Stiggins, who is the founder of ETS's Assement Training Institute in Portland OR.   The sage commentary appears in the current )Oct 17) edition of Education Week, the national weekly indispensable for news on Education (and even if you are not a subscriber you can register for free to read two articles a week).  The article to which I refer is entitled Five Assessment Myths and Their Consequences (this link might require you to register before you can use it).  Below I will offer all five of the myths, a bit of what Stiggins has to say about each, and as per my custom, offer a few comments of my own.

We're continuing the Virtually Speaking interview series we started as a run up to YearlyKos.  Tonight, Ilona Meagher is coming by to talk about her book, Moving a Nation to Care about post-traumatic stress disorder and the impact PTSD has had on soldiers coming back from Iraq.  If you missed Ilona at YearlyKos, where she attracted a throng to her signing, you can stop by the Virtually Speaking studio tonight at 6 pm Pacific, 9 pm Eastern.  

As always, we'll get together for a dance party afterwards.

    Saith David Brooks, at least: see NYT, The Center Holds,

    ...Now it’s evident that if you want to understand the future of the Democratic Party you can learn almost nothing from the bloggers, billionaires and activists on the left who make up the "netroots." You can learn most of what you need to know by paying attention to two different groups — high school educated women in the Midwest, and the old Clinton establishment in Washington. ...
    Obama and Edwards get most of their support from the educated, affluent liberals. ...Hillary Clinton’s core support, on the other hand, comes from those with less education and less income — more Harry Truman than Howard Dean. ...
    Several weeks ago, I asked John Edwards what the YearlyKos event was like. He couldn’t remember which event I was talking about, and looked over to an aide for help.

    (more)

The brilliant and invaluable Glenn Greenwald has provided yet another service this morning.  After reading David Brooks's uniquely infuriating column this morning, I was walking to work composing another diary on Brooks, my head filled with new ways to describe the faux pundit's ever-increasing mendacity.

Then, I clicked on Greenwald, and, with a sigh of relief, found that Glenn had saved me the time.  He captures Brooks's ultra-sophistry perfectly:

Here’s how to win. You have a super message. You campaign as hard as you can.

Is that enough to win? No, I don’t think so. You also have to show you care.

This lesson came home to me today after some quiet time pondering the message from the life of a man who died Sept. 5, Bill Davis, one of the early leaders of Vietnam Veterans Against the War.
MORE below the fold, also posted on www.miami-dade-dems.blogspot.com.

It seems only fitting that a panel at YearlyKos regarding food and agriculture would be responsible for sowing seeds of change in my daily life.

I've already written about how helpful I found the Forging Links to An Alternative Food Chain panel. I'm now in the middle of reading The Omnivore's Dilemma, and What To Eat is waiting in the wings. Both of these books do a great service in raising awareness of where our food comes from. Tom Philpott's portion of the panel was a fitting complement to these books, in that he explained how factory farming is dismantling our agricultural infrastructure, poisoning our environment and leading to an increased dependence on an unsustainable model.

Or maybe the O'Reilly Bump. Or, perhaps most accurately, the YearlyKos bump. Whatever you want to call it, it's clearly that dKos has experienced a surge of new people recently. Anyone who's looked at the intros to jotter's daily summaries will know this, with hundreds of new users signing up every day. So, what's going on?

Updated!  The 11th Hour is expanding on Friday 8/31.  Click below for details.

On Friday, August 2nd, YearlyKos featured a screening series that was sponsored by Warner Independent Pictures and Tree Media.  We were treated to two unreleased films ("The 11th Hour" and "In The Valley of Elah") and a clip from a 3rd film that premiers in 2008 ("The Chicago 10").

Due to transportation arrangements, I was only able to catch the first film that was shown:  The 11th Hour.

"The 11th Hour" takes an indepth look at the state of the environment from the expert's point of view. But it does more than put the earth under the microscope, it offers concrete and practical solutions for restoring the planet's ecosystem. Narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio, this film will be on the 'must see' list for anyone who cares about the future of our planet

Ok, I'm a bucks-up Kossack. We're out there, accidental millionaires true to our values.

I met John Laesch at the first Kossack Convention, and my son and I decided to give him our entire candidate contribution budget.

John took the battle to Denny Hastert, and tied up the Meat Puppet and his money so other Dems could win.
Now Hastert's leaving early.

If you want to give to the gutsy veteran who represents us best, and have a chance to win a piece of history, this is your chance.

Click here to give and enter

You could give a few dollars and have a chance to win the Yearly Kos 1 Banner