Thank you to the diarist who published this.

Update: Thanks for the interest.I did post this at MyDD and lo and behold,I get the same stream of responses (sorts of pro and con and a lot favorable to the idea in my diary).
My point is that it is easier for the victor to be generous.
I am not asking for the moon and her first born,I am asking that Democrats suck it up, stop the bleeding and get ready to smite the Joe Liebermans and McBushes and McCains of this world. Obama can be generous, he has the high ground. We have to pick and choose and we don't have a huge surplus of supporters to toss away. If you believe all our people are precious, stop wondering about "our" people, claim them.
(more on jump)

Welcome, New Users, to The Daily Kos.  This Diary is intended to help you orient yourself to the site and ask questions about how to use it.

In the Body you will find some links intended to get you participating more effectively.  Also in the Body this week is a discussion of Comments Bookmark and Searches.

After that you can ask me any question you want.  I don't know all the answers so if you stump me, you do.  I invite those wiser than I to contribute and correct (or raise a ruckus, just don't scare people).

No permission slips needed, join us at the deep end of the pool for adult swim.

Okay, so this is funny, as reported by Media Matters:

O'Reilly compared Moulitsas to white supremacist David Duke

Summary: Bill O'Reilly compared Markos Moulitsas, founder of the progressive Daily Kos blog, to white supremacist David Duke and criticized Newsweek for its decision to hire Moulitsas as a regular contributor, stating: "And Newsweek magazine, by the way, has legitimized him by giving him a columnist position. I talked to the editor by email, and I said I can't believe that you're -- that's like hiring David Duke. Again, I use Duke too much, but I have to -- the level of hatred coming out of that website is unprecedented."

O'Reilly is pissed that we're mocking him for his Inside Edition freakout. So he had one of his hapless interns find some diary which juxtaposed images from Jenna's wedding with images of the Iraq War. Apparently, that was The Worst Thing Ever because we must pretend that we're winning and that war has no consequences.

O'Reilly's rant predictably generated a "flood" (like 20) emails from his acolytes. You want to see an "unprecedented level of hatred"? Check out some of those emails:

You are a queer little fucking retard!!  Stay gay you cock sucker!!

You have gone too far with this liberal, fascist bullshit....sit down and SHUT UP and stop posting despicable stories to further your own ends. I am sick and tired of the radical left and I hope people like Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck can exert their influence to SHUT YOU DOWN!!!!! If you don't like America, get the fuck out!

Hey asshole if I ever run across you in public I am going to really gonna give my best attempt to beat the living dogshit out you!!! Especially if I see you fly through DFW or if I go through O'Hare and run into you there. You suck!!!!

ive given ur actual city, state address to al qaida websites...i do believe they will be taking you out very shortly and not a soul will care...not even ur mother......

now i know why u dont go driving around or walking around in public...ur the skinny, nerdy high school kid who gets punched out for just being stupid looking and im sure that would still happen....after all, cowards are always cowards....

Fuck you communist sons-of-bitches! If you really want a war your leftist ,commie,scumbag asses had better be good to go! there is no more room in the United States for garbage like you! Anytime motherfucker!!

you guys are the scum of the earth. Your hatred of America and Bush is treasonous. Bush is a man of honor. You are not even in the same league.

You are truly disgusting.

Too bad you came back from visiting Grandma with little Spannish-speaking Eli.

Better luck for all of us next time you visit your homeland.

Go home, foreigner.

Hooray. I only found out about you today and I am celebrating. Your web site is so outrageous and literally full of it that intelligent people will be turned off, the same as with Michael Moore, Moveon.org, and totally incompetent people like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and all your ilk!!!!

You are pieces of shit. You do not deserve to live in our great Nation. Get the fuck out. Do not let me catch you on a free street.

Hey Fagg,

Go let your Gay lover buttfuck you to death and quit taking up bandwidth!

You're an incredible asshole 'Markos' for your idiotic snot / blog on the bush wedding. The only jackasses that had a problem with that are the few liberal freaks who have nothing to contribute other than complaints.  And I think ICE should check your status.

You classless fucktard. You're the fucking problem with this country you cocksucking asshole. I hope some one beats the living shit out of you and that Mahler3 scumbag soon.

Drop fucking Dead!

Watch your back you fucking liberal ass..... ALL our days are numbered and yours is getting shorter... trust me.

Hmmm, a bizarre obsession with homosexuality, as if being gay is bad and being called gay is an insult (it's not and it's not). Mix it in with hatred toward my Latino heritage (some of it even directed at my one-year-old daughter). Some standard-issue threats. Unhealthy anger levels. Fake bravado. And, without a doubt, an unprecedented level of hatred.

But my favorite is this one:

Markos is a pig,and a certain secret society is watching you. And we dont like liberal Pigs like you, and the people that read this shit.The left are few,the right are many, and Pigs like Liberals will never run America.And your boy Obama is a Pig like the rest of you scum.

You know who else is a member of a "secret society" which doesn't like people like me (immigrants) and Obama (black)?

David Duke.

Bill O'Reilly and his illiterate fans are truly comic relief.

I'd like to congratulate the owner of this website.  He has angered Bill O'Reilly so much that he has ranted against Newsweek magazine for hiring "our Kos" as a columnist.

More below the fold

**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