Your regularly scheduled forum for asking questions about how this place works.

To all the naysayers, chicken littles, psychological Obama staffers and the what if crowd, here is MHO of what I have become accustomed to when reading the Kos.

A kind of witness.

Orson Swindle, a fellow POW, says that he remembers McCain telling the story about the cross in the dirt sometime in 1971.

Orson Swindle's charity, Citizens Against Government Waste, laundered money for Jack Abramoff. The Senate Finance Committee report is here.

ETA: A correction is below and a mea culpa is in my next diary, The Battleground McCain Prefers.

Okay, DailyKos, we need to talk about us. We need to talk about our Goals.

slinkerwink's made the rec list again with another chicken little, little campaign manager diary, that exists with the purported intent of giving Barack Obama advice and the implied purpose of trying to audition for a slot as a campaign advisor to Barack Obama. This has been followed by a pile-on of diaries all ranging from less than sane and less than lucid to well completely insane and completely not lucid. All again with the stated intent of ... well I guess trying to give Barack Obama campaign advice. Sometimes it is pretty hard to tell.

And, over and over again, as I read the somewhat sane to the completely insane stuff I sit and wonder: What's your point?

Markos Moulitsas Zúniga will prove to be an important historical figure in 21st century American politics.  The creation of Daily Kos not only provided an outlet for, organized and activated a frustrated liberal voting bloc, but it also helped establish they very discipline of political blogging.  The success of Daily Kos has spawned books, political office holders, and good old fashion in your face journalism/activism (See, Mike Stark).  However, the success of Daily Kos has put the site in the spotlight and is assumed to speak for large chunks of liberal voters.  With great power, comes great responsibility.  With greater prominence comes greater scrutiny.  Under the spotlight, the question that must be asked is has the Daily Kos community met the challenge, or have they jumped the shark.

UPDATE: I changed the name of the diary because too many people only read the title and don't read the content.

As Friday August 15 dissolves into Saturday August 16th, you will note a ground breaking change of policy at Daily Kos.  It is a startling reversal of policy. One is reminded of observing "glasnost" era Gorbachev's USSR.

Somehow it has become not only possible, but recommendable to suggest, without much convincing evidence that current US President George W Bush is "responsible for the Russian invasion" of Ossetia.

See a gnostic 's diary... or you couldn't have missed it anyway ?

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

I support a gnostic's right to post his diary.
But consider this.

Normally considered barely competent, President '43 is portrayed as capable of remotely controlling the armed forces of a foreign state widely thought to be governed by Vladimir Putin and a ventriloquist dummy by the name of Medvedyev.  ( the y helps )

What does this embrace of unproven and unsubstantiated assaults on DKOS tradition mean ?
Jump below to consider the possibilites.

I don't watch Fox, I just don't have the stomach for it but Rawstory has this piece up, they watch so you don’t have too:

http://rawstory.com/...

The piece is funny in a number of ways, firstly that Corsi is now crying about being attacked and how unfair it is that people call him names like Liar.  It may be factually correct to call him a Liar but apparently it hurt his feelings, so sorry, you big fat Liar.

The front page ad for willyoujoinus.com has got to go. Who's with me?

Umpteenth in a regular weekday evening series, a place to ask questions about how this place works and get them answered. We strive for accuracy in answers, but bear in mind the following disclaimer:

I certainly don't want to see this diary on the rec list.  I post it to keep a record of a diary which was just deleted, and another diary that may be deleted soon.  The deleted diary garnered 639 recommendations and is still on the limited rec list - and that's a cryin' shame.  When inconsistencies in the diary were pointed out, the diarist deleted rather than editing the diary to explain glaring, factual contradictions between the highly rec'ed diary & one that he had published last month.  [Update: He later returned and discussed what had happened with numerous members of the dkos community.]  I added bold to emphasize some of the contradictions, and hope to return later to work on it some more.

Please Don't Recommend This Diary

The archive of those diaries has been moved to comments - links below the jump.

This diary is an upgrade of a long comment I left on Kos's diary Thanks.  I was replying to this comment, wherein user ProfJonathan asks Kos if a particular user could be unbanned now, and another helpful user subsequently explained hide rating to me.  But I want to know more about banning on Daily Kos.  It's different than hide rating, yes?  Hide rating is community self-policing, and the community can also check and balance?  And the banned member, Stranahan, wasn't being abusive, he was saying something unpopular?  Tell me how banning works here.  

is, apparently, a fictionaliztion or an amalgamation of two people that is presented as biographical, and yet there is no fiction tag.

It is hard for me to spell this out without risking the violating the faq's. I initially commented positively to the top diary. Then I was shown evidence that the story that had pulled at me heartstrings was, at least partially, not true. One man is either alive or dead. We live in a quantum universe, but this was asking too much.

Excuse me a moment of pride, but I'm really proud of you guys.

Last week was a tough one for the Edwards clan, and ultimately led Elizabeth Edwards to write this sad and tragic diary. Further down in the thread, she wrote this comment:

Thank you, all

When I wanted to make a statement, I had to decide where to make it.  I chose here. And I can see that my decision was the right one.

Thank you all for your support and affection, your understanding that we all have days we wish we could take back, and for making this hard, hard day a little bit easier.

I'm often happiest when I'm on the warpath, engaging the enemy head on with brute force. That's generally my contribution to this place (besides keeping the lights on, of course). It's actually you guys who have created and nurtured this incredible community, one that made it easier for one of the most amazing people on this planet to deal with the roughest of times.

If evidence was ever needed that this place has long since grown beyond me, it's Elizabeth's comment above. I'm not a "warmth" and "affection" sort of guy. But I don't need to be -- you guys exist, and you provide lots of things to this site (warmth and affection included) that I never could. I'm happy that you are here to offer your help and empathy to whoever might need it, and I couldn't be more honored that you have chosen to make this site one of your online homes.

I've been really pleased with the responses to my diary about adding transcripts or captions to diaries with videos - especially in this age with "video+2 sentence" diaries. Many people have been more than willing to take the time to create transcripts for videos they deem important for the Kos Community. For example, Danya Romulus transcribed the Paris Hilton response video last week; as a result, many more people were able to access this viral media. I have friends who are both deaf and hearing who were not able to see what Ms. Hilton said - until Danya stepped up to the plate. But something disturbs me: the number of people who say "transcript for the hard of hearing." More on why this is disturbing, below the fold...

Last night I got embroiled in a discussion on an "I/P," or Israel/Palestine post.  I find such discussions sad and sometimes scary and always futile.  But I go to them, and this time I got more involved.  One of my comments was "hide rated," and hours later when I saw it I did some research on Arab involvement with the Nazis, looking for sites to link to, and got thoroughly depressed.  This morning, still feeling sad, I decided to write this diary.

I've had this thought for a long time so I am just going to say it, even if it isn't popular. You know we don't always have to be offended. We don't have to call out this diary or that diary cause we don't agree. We don't have to beat this person bloody cause they write something that makes us mad. We can just ignore it and go off a comment elsewhere. It is really kind of simple if you think about it for a couple seconds.

More below the fold if you care.

"Political efficacy," defined roughly, is the feeling that a person can effect the system.  That their voice matters in the large scheme of things.  Political efficacy matters because if people don't feel that they have much, they become increasingly unlikely to participate, vote, attend meetings, volunteer, and so on.  This is what I think DailyKos is about.

DailyKos is important to Democratic political efficacy because it is a channel by which an otherwise untapped and once-disaffected LARGE group of citizens can gather to share information about races and effect those races.  If the reader follows the larger narrative of this website, it started with Kos blogging and slowly coalescing a group of people who care about progressive politics.  

More...

We're doing it LIVE at NY Milkshake Company at 342 E 47th St!  clammyc, kath25, DemocraticLuntz, and MORE are here having a great time!  Reflections of Netroots Nation (I'm doing next year!), enjoying a cool NY night with a nice breeze, and having great food, and of course, MILKSHAKES!  If you're in the area, will you join us??