Daily Kos
Encyclopedia
Daily Kos is an American political
Politics of the United States
The United States is a federal constitutional republic, in which the President of the United States , Congress, and judiciary share powers reserved to the national government, and the federal government shares sovereignty with the state governments.The executive branch is headed by the President...

 blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...

 that publishes news and opinions from a progressive
Progressivism in the United States
Progressivism in the United States is a broadly based reform movement that reached its height early in the 20th century and is generally considered to be middle class and reformist in nature. It arose as a response to the vast changes brought by modernization, such as the growth of large...

 point of view. It functions as a discussion forum and group blog for a variety of netroots
Netroots
Netroots is a term coined in 2002 by Jerome Armstrong to describe political activism organized through blogs and other online media, including wikis and social network services. The word is a portmanteau of Internet and grassroots, reflecting the technological innovations that set netroots...

 activists, whose efforts are primarily directed toward influencing and strengthening the Democratic Party
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...

. Additionally, the site features a participatory political encyclopedia ("DKosopedia"), glossaries, and other content.

Daily Kos was founded by Markos Moulitsas (Kos from the last syllable of his first name, his nickname while in the military) in 2002. In 2007, its parent company, Kos Media, LLC, began a fellowship program to help fund a new generation of progressive
Progressivism in the United States
Progressivism in the United States is a broadly based reform movement that reached its height early in the 20th century and is generally considered to be middle class and reformist in nature. It arose as a response to the vast changes brought by modernization, such as the growth of large...

 activists. About a dozen contributing editors provide content for the site, with three to four new editors being chosen from the Daily Kos community every year.

As of January 2010, Daily Kos had an average weekday traffic of hundreds of thousands of visits. It is financially sustained by advertising
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...

, with Google AdSense
AdSense
Google AdSense which is a program run by Google Inc. allows publishers in the Google Network of content sites to automatically serve text, image, video, and rich media adverts that are targeted to site content and audience. These adverts are administered, sorted, and maintained by Google, and they...

 and Blogads
Blogads
Blogads is an online ad network based in Carrboro, North Carolina that provides advertising services to both bloggers and advertisers. Blogads was founded in August 2002 by parent company Pressflex LLC and its CEO Henry Copeland.-History:...

. The ads focus mostly on activist causes, media, and political candidates. Members can also purchase an ad-free subscription to the site if they want.

The website ran on the Scoop
Scoop (software)
Scoop is a content management system originally developed by Rusty Foster. Scoop's focus is on collaborative publishing, and its feature set is geared toward encouraging user contributions and participation. Scoop is written in Perl and runs via mod_perl on Apache web servers with a MySQL database...

 content management system until 2011 when it moved to its own custom content management system referred to as "DK 4.0". In 2009, Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...

magazine listed the Daily Kos in its "Most Overrated Blogs" section. Despite the listing, Time magazine readers named the Daily Kos the second best blog.

Content

Moulitsas and a small group of select contributors post directly to the front page; other users can post "diaries", the titles of which appear on the front page in reverse chronological order, with special attention and longer display time for those diaries highly recommended by other users. The other major source of content is the comments posted in response to front page entries and diaries. Comments for popular or controversial diaries or front page articles can run into the thousands.

Front page entries and diaries often take the form of a news story from an outside source interspersed with commentary from the author of the diary or post. Sometimes these stories contain a request for action from other members of the community, such as to get involved with a particular campaign, give money to a candidate or contact an elected official about an issue. Some front page entries are called "open threads", which encourage people to post comments on any issue. One of the versions of these open threads are "live threads" of commentary on important events happening in real time, such as debates or elections.

Administrators have the ability to edit or delete diaries, though this is done rarely. "Trusted users" have the ability to recommend or hide responses posted by ordinary members whose comments they deem solely disruptive. Less than 0.01% of comments are hidden.

Daily Kos had previously partnered with Research 2000
Research 2000
Research 2000 is a U.S. opinion polling and marketing research company based in Olney, Maryland. It began doing research on upcoming elections in 1999 after its President, Del Ali, moved on from Mason-Dixon Political Media Research...

 to produce nonpartisan
Nonpartisan
In political science, nonpartisan denotes an election, event, organization or person in which there is no formally declared association with a political party affiliation....

 polling for presidential, congressional and gubernatorial races across the country. In June 2010, Daily Kos terminated the relationship after finding their data showed statistical anomalies consistent with deliberate falsification and announced its intention to sue the polling firm.

On November 30, 2010, an agreement to a settlement began as lawyers for the Plaintiff filed a status report indicating that both parties were in "agreement as to the contours of a proper settlement but are still in the process of determining whether the execution of the proposed terms is feasible." In May 2011, the Huffington Post reported that the lawsuit had been settled with Research 2000 pollster Del Ali making payments to Daily Kos.

Prominent contributors

Numerous political figures use Daily Kos to publish frequent or occasional content, including consultants, candidates, and sitting members of Congress. Prominent posters include:

Current & Former officeholders
  • Mark Begich
    Mark Begich
    Mark Peter Begich is the junior United States Senator from Alaska and a member of the Democratic Party. A former mayor of Anchorage, he served on the Anchorage Assembly for almost ten years prior to being elected mayor in 2003...

  • Earl Blumenauer
    Earl Blumenauer
    Earl Blumenauer is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1996. He is a member of the Democratic Party. The district includes most of Portland east of the Willamette River. A native of Portland, he previously spent over 20 years as a public official representing the city.-Early...

  • Debra Bowen
    Debra Bowen
    Debra Lynn Bowen , a member of the Democratic Party, has been Secretary of State of California since January 8, 2007. Before that she was a member of the California State Legislature from 1992 to 2006. In March 2008, she was given the Profile in Courage Award by the John F. Kennedy Presidential...

  • Barbara Boxer
    Barbara Boxer
    Barbara Levy Boxer is the junior United States Senator from California . A member of the Democratic Party, she previously served in the U.S. House of Representatives ....

  • Mark B. Cohen
    Mark B. Cohen
    Mark B. Cohen is a Democratic politician from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Succeeding Eugene Gelfand, he has represented Pennsylvania House of Representatives, District 202 in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives since June 10, 1974, making him the most senior member in the Pennsylvania...

  • Steve Cohen
    Steve Cohen
    Stephen Ira Cohen is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 2007. He is a member of the Democratic Party. Tennessee's 9th district includes almost three-fourths of Memphis. Cohen is Tennessee's first Jewish congressman....

  • John Conyers
    John Conyers
    John Conyers, Jr. is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1965 . He is a member of the Democratic Party...

  • Richard Durbin
  • Russ Feingold
    Russ Feingold
    Russell Dana "Russ" Feingold is an American politician from the U.S. state of Wisconsin. He served as a Democratic party member of the U.S. Senate from 1993 to 2011. From 1983 to 1993, Feingold was a Wisconsin State Senator representing the 27th District.He is a recipient of the John F...

  • Bart Gordon
    Bart Gordon
    Barton Jennings "Bart" Gordon, is a lawyer and former U.S. Representative for , serving from 1985 until 2011. The district includes several rural areas and fast-growing suburbs east of Nashville. He was Chairman of the House Committee on Science and Technology from 2007 until 2011. He is a member...

  • Alan Grayson
    Alan Grayson
    Alan Mark Grayson is a former U.S. Representative for , serving from 2009 until 2011. He is a member of the Democratic Party and loves cookies. After losing the election he moved to Austin to start stand-up comedy and a cookie business. The district Grayson represented lies in central Florida...

  • Christine Gregoire
    Christine Gregoire
    Christine O'Grady "Chris" Gregoire is the 22nd and current Governor of the state of Washington, and a member of the Democratic Party. Gregoire defeated Republican candidate Dino Rossi in 2004, and again in 2008. She is the second female governor of Washington...

  • Tom Harkin
    Tom Harkin
    Thomas Richard "Tom" Harkin is the junior United States Senator from Iowa and a member of the Democratic Party. He previously served in the United States House of Representatives ....

  • Jane Harman
    Jane Harman
    Jane Margaret Lakes Harman is the former U.S. Representative for , serving from 1993 to 1999, and from 2001 to 2011. She is a member of the Democratic Party....

  • Steve Kagen
    Steve Kagen
    Steven Leslie Kagen, M.D. is a physician and was the U.S. Representative for , serving from 2007 to 2011. He is a member of the Democratic Party...

  • John Kerry
    John Kerry
    John Forbes Kerry is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, the 10th most senior U.S. Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 presidential election, but lost to former President George W...

  • Larry Kissell
    Larry Kissell
    Lawrence Webb "Larry" Kissell is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 2009. He is a member of the Democratic Party. The district stretches from Charlotte to Fayetteville.-Early life, education, and early career:...

  • Jim McDermott
    Jim McDermott
    James Adelbert "Jim" McDermott is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1989. He is a member of the Democratic Party. The 7th District includes most of Seattle and Vashon Island, and portions of Shoreline, Lake Forest Park, Tukwila, SeaTac, and Burien.He serves on the House Ways and Means...

  • Jeff Merkley
    Jeff Merkley
    Jeffrey Alan "Jeff" Merkley is the junior United States Senator from Oregon. A member of the Democratic Party, Merkley was a five-term member of the Oregon Legislative Assembly representing House District 47, located in eastern Multnomah County within the Portland city limits...

  • Brad Miller
    Brad Miller (congressman)
    Ralph Bradley "Brad" Miller is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 2003. District 13 includes all of Caswell and Person counties, and parts of Alamance, Granville, Guilford, Rockingham and Wake counties...

  • Jim Moran
    Jim Moran
    James Patrick "Jim" Moran, Jr. is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1991. He is a member of the Democratic Party. The district is located in Northern Virginia and includes the cities of Falls Church and Alexandria, all of Arlington County, and a portion of Fairfax County.Jim Moran was...

  • Chris Murphy
    Chris Murphy (politician)
    Christopher Scott "Chris" Murphy is the U. S. Representative for , serving since 2007. He is a member of the Democratic Party.Murphy previously served in the Connecticut House of Representatives and the Connecticut Senate....

  • Barack Obama
    Barack Obama
    Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...

  • Frank Pallone
    Frank Pallone
    Frank Pallone, Jr. is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1993. He is a member of the Democratic Party. He previously represented the 3rd district from 1988 to 1993.-Early life, education, and early political career:...

  • David Paterson
    David Paterson
    David Alexander Paterson is an American politician who served as the 55th Governor of New York, from 2008 to 2010. During his tenure he was the first governor of New York of African American heritage and also the second legally blind governor of any U.S. state after Bob C. Riley, who was Acting...

  • Nancy Pelosi
    Nancy Pelosi
    Nancy Patricia D'Alesandro Pelosi is the Minority Leader of the United States House of Representatives and served as the 60th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 2007 to 2011...

  • Tom Perriello
    Tom Perriello
    Thomas Stuart Price "Tom" Perriello is the former U.S. Representative for , serving from 2009 until 2011. He is a member of the Democratic Party. The district includes much of Southside Virginia and stretches north to Charlottesville....

  • Jared Polis
    Jared Polis
    Jared Schutz Polis is an American entrepreneur, philanthropist, and U.S. Representative for , serving since 2009. He is a member of the Democratic Party...

  • Harry Reid
    Harry Reid
    Harry Mason Reid is the senior United States Senator from Nevada, serving since 1987. A member of the Democratic Party, he has been the Senate Majority Leader since January 2007, having previously served as Minority Leader and Minority and Majority Whip.Previously, Reid was a member of the U.S...

  • Andrew Rice
  • Bill Richardson
    Bill Richardson (politician)
    William Blaine "Bill" Richardson III is an American politician, who served as the 30th Governor of New Mexico from 2003 to 2011. Before being elected governor, Richardson served in the Clinton administration as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and Energy Secretary. Richardson has also served...

  • Ciro D. Rodriguez
    Ciro D. Rodriguez
    Ciro Davis Rodriguez is the former U.S. Representative for , serving from 2007 until 2011. The district stretches from El Paso in the west to San Antonio in the east, a distance of some 500 miles. He previously represented the neighboring from 1997 to 2005, and was a member of the Texas House of...

  • Brian Schweitzer
    Brian Schweitzer
    Brian David Schweitzer is an American politician from the U.S. state of Montana. Schweitzer is its 23rd and current governor, serving since January 2005. Schweitzer currently has one of the highest approval ratings among governors in the nation, with polls regularly showing a rating of above 60...

  • Chuck Schumer
  • Louise Slaughter
  • Ron Sparks
    Ron Sparks (politician)
    Ronald D. Sparks is the Commissioner of Agriculture and Industries for the state of Alabama. Sparks is a member of the Democratic party, and was the Democratic candidate for Governor of Alabama in the state's 2010 gubernatorial election.- Early life, education and career :Sparks is a graduate of...

  • Linda Stender
    Linda Stender
    Linda Stender is an American Democratic Party politician who has served in the New Jersey General Assembly since 2002, where she represents the 22nd legislative district. She ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, representing New Jersey's 7th District, in 2006 and...

  • Jon Tester
    Jon Tester
    Jon Tester is the junior U.S. Senator for Montana, serving since 2007. He is a member of the Democratic Party. He previously served as President of the Montana Senate.-Early life, education, and farming career:...

  • Mark Warner
    Mark Warner
    Mark Robert Warner is an American politician and businessman, currently serving in the United States Senate as the junior senator from the Commonwealth of Virginia. He is a member of the Democratic Party. Warner was the 69th governor of Virginia from 2002 to 2006 and is the honorary chairman of...

  • Henry Waxman
    Henry Waxman
    Henry Arnold Waxman is the U.S. Representative for , serving in Congress since 1975. He is a member of the Democratic Party. He is considered to be one of the most influential liberal members of Congress...

  • Jim Webb
    Jim Webb
    James Henry "Jim" Webb, Jr. is the senior United States Senator from Virginia. He is also an author and a former Secretary of the Navy. He is a member of the Democratic Party....

  • Anthony Weiner
    Anthony D. Weiner
    Anthony David Weiner is a former U.S. Representative who served from January 1999 until June 2011. A Democrat, Weiner held the seat previously occupied by Democrat Charles Schumer and won seven terms, never receiving less than 59 percent of the vote...

  • Robert Wexler
    Robert Wexler
    Robert Wexler is the president of the Washington-based S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace.Wexler was a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives, representing , from 1997 until his resignation on January 3, 2010.-Early life:Wexler was born in Queens, New York to Sonny and...

  • Lynn Woolsey
    Lynn Woolsey
    Lynn C. Woolsey is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1993. She is a member of the Democratic Party. The district includes all of Marin County and most of Sonoma County. She is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and its co-chair...

  • Rocky Anderson
    Rocky Anderson
    Ross C. "Rocky" Anderson served two terms as the 33rd mayor of Salt Lake City, Utah, between 2000 and 2008. He is the Executive Director of High Road for Human Rights...

  • Birch Bayh
    Birch Bayh
    Birch Evans Bayh II is a former United States Senator from Indiana, having served from 1963 to 1981. He was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president in the 1976 election, but lost to Jimmy Carter. He is the father of former Indiana Governor and former U.S. Senator Evan Bayh.-Life...

  • Chris Bell
    Chris Bell (politician)
    Robert Christopher "Chris" Bell is a Democratic Party politician. He last served as a one-term congressman in the United States House of Representatives from Texas's 25th congressional district in Houston from 2003 to 2005 before being defeated in the Democratic primary by Justice of the Peace Al...

  • Jimmy Carter
    Jimmy Carter
    James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...

  • Jon Corzine
    Jon Corzine
    Jon Stevens Corzine is the former CEO of Goldman Sachs and of MF Global, and a one time American politician, who served as the 54th Governor of New Jersey from 2006 to 2010. A Democrat, Corzine served five years of a six-year U.S. Senate term representing New Jersey before being elected Governor...

  • John Edwards
    John Edwards
    Johnny Reid "John" Edwards is an American politician, who served as a U.S. Senator from North Carolina. He was the Democratic nominee for Vice President in 2004, and was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 and 2008.He defeated incumbent Republican Lauch Faircloth in...

  • Ted Kennedy
    Ted Kennedy
    Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy was a United States Senator from Massachusetts and a member of the Democratic Party. Serving almost 47 years, he was the second most senior member of the Senate when he died and is the fourth-longest-serving senator in United States history...

  • Bob Kerrey
    Bob Kerrey
    Joseph Robert "Bob" Kerrey was the 35th Governor of Nebraska from 1983 to 1987 and a U.S. Senator from Nebraska . Having served in the Vietnam War, earning the Medal of Honor for his actions, he moved into politics. He was an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1992...

  • Eric Massa
    Eric Massa
    -March to the Primaries:Freshman incumbent Randy Kuhl had been elected to Congress with slightly over 50% of the popular vote in a three way race in 2004. In early 2005, former U.S. Naval officer Eric J.J. Massa, a long-time friend of 2004 presidential candidate General Wesley Clark filed to run...

  • Eliot Spitzer
    Eliot Spitzer
    Eliot Laurence Spitzer is an American lawyer, former Democratic Party politician, and political commentator. He was the co-host of In the Arena, a talk-show and punditry forum broadcast on CNN until CNN cancelled his show in July of 2011...

  • Tom Vilsack
    Tom Vilsack
    Thomas James "Tom" Vilsack is an American politician, a member of the Democratic Party, and presently the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture. He served as the 40th Governor of the state of Iowa. He was first elected in 1998 and re-elected to a second four-year term in 2002...



  • Former candidates
    • Pete Ashdown
      Pete Ashdown
      Peter Lynn "Pete" Ashdown is the founder and CEO of Utah's first independent and oldest Internet service provider, XMission. In 2006 he challenged and lost to incumbent U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch, running as the Democratic candidate....

    • Lt. Col. Charlie Brown
      Charles Brown (California)
      Charles Duane 'Charlie' Brown is a retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Colonel and was the Democratic nominee for Congress in the 2006 election and the 2008 election for California's 4th congressional district.-Life and career:...

    • Jack Carter
      Jack Carter (politician)
      John William "Jack" Carter, , is an American businessman and politician who unsuccessfully ran for the United States Senate in Nevada in 2006. Carter is the eldest child of former President Jimmy Carter and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter....

    • Wesley Clark
      Wesley Clark
      Wesley Kanne Clark, Sr., is a retired general of the United States Army. Graduating as valedictorian of the class of 1966 at West Point, he was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to the University of Oxford where he obtained a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, and later graduated from the...

    • Paul Hackett
    • Lois Herr
      Lois Herr
      Lois Kathryn Herr is an aspiring American politician from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and was the unsuccessful Democratic nominee for U.S. Representative for Pennsylvania's 16th congressional district in 2004, 2006 and 2010....

    • John Laesch
    • Ned Lamont
      Ned Lamont
      Edward Miner "Ned" Lamont, Jr. is a businessman and heir and most recently an unsuccessful candidate for the 2010 Democratic nomination for Governor of Connecticut. On May 22, 2010, Lamont received more than fifteen percent of the vote at the state Democratic convention, and appeared on the...

    • Jim Martin
      Jim Martin (Georgia politician)
      James Francis "Jim" Martin is an American politician and former member of the Georgia General Assembly. He is a Democrat. Martin opposed incumbent U.S. Senator Saxby Chambliss in the 2008 election...

    • Lois Murphy
      Lois Murphy
      Lois Murphy is a Democrat from the state of Pennsylvania, who unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. House in Pennsylvania's 6th congressional district against the Republican incumbent, Jim Gerlach in 2004 and 2006....

    • Scudder Parker
      Scudder Parker
      Scudder Parker is a Democratic politician from Vermont.Parker grew up on a dairy farm in a region of Vermont known as the Northeast Kingdom. Parker attended Union Theological Seminary, and became an ordained minister, like his father and grandfather...

    • Gilda Reed
    • Jeff Seemann
      Jeff Seemann
      Jeff Seemann is an American politician of the Democratic Party. He ran in 2004 for Ohio's 16th Congressional District against Republican incumbent Ralph Regula. The 16th District includes the city of Canton, Ohio, and overlaps portions of Stark, Wayne, Medina, and Ashland counties. Seemann received...

    • Ron Shepston
    • Jonathan Tasini
      Jonathan Tasini
      Jonathan Yoav Tasini is a strategist, organizer, activist, commentator and writer, primarily focusing his energies on the topics of work, labor and the economy. On June 11, 2009, he announced that he would challenge New York U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand in the Democratic primary for the 2010...

    • Bill Winter

    Consultants
    • David "Mudcat" Saunders
    • David Sirota
      David Sirota
      David J. Sirota is a progressive Denver-based American political figure, radio show host and commentator. He is an author, book reviewer, nationally syndicated newspaper columnist, a Democratic political strategist, political operative, Democratic spokesperson, and blogger...

    • Larry LaRocco
      Larry LaRocco
      Larry LaRocco is a Democratic politician from the US state of Idaho, who served two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. LaRocco was defeated by Republican Jim Risch for the open U.S. Senate seat in Idaho in 2008....

    • Jerry Northington
      Jerry Northington
      Jerry Northington sought the Democratic Party nomination for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2008. The race was an effort to unseat long-term Republican incumbent Michael Castle from the US House of Representatives...

    • Barry Welsh
    • Alexi Giannoulias
      Alexi Giannoulias
      Alexander "Alexi" Giannoulias is an American politician who served as Illinois Treasurer from 2007 to 2011. A Democrat, Giannoulias defeated Republican candidate State Senator Christine Radogno in November 2006 with 54 percent of the vote, becoming the first Democrat to hold the office in 12...



    Commentators
    • A. Whitney Brown
      A. Whitney Brown
      Alan Whitney Brown is an Emmy Award-winning writer and comedian probably best known for his recurring appearances on Saturday Night Live in the 1980s opposite Dennis Miller in a biting satirical...

    • Michael Moore
      Michael Moore
      Michael Francis Moore is an American filmmaker, author, social critic and activist. He is the director and producer of Fahrenheit 9/11, which is the highest-grossing documentary of all time. His films Bowling for Columbine and Sicko also place in the top ten highest-grossing documentaries...

    • Keith Olbermann
      Keith Olbermann
      Keith Theodore Olbermann is an American political commentator and writer. He has been the chief news officer of the Current TV network and the host of Current TV's weeknight political commentary program, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, since June 20, 2011...

    • Michael Schiavo
    • Sam Seder
      Sam Seder
      Samuel Lincoln "Sam" Seder is a comedian, writer, actor, film director, television producer-director, and talk radio host...

    • Cindy Sheehan
      Cindy Sheehan
      Cindy Lee Miller Sheehan is an American anti-war activist whose son, U.S. Army Specialist Casey Sheehan, was killed by enemy action during the Iraq War. She attracted national and international media attention in August 2005 for her extended anti-war protest at a makeshift camp outside President...



    Authors
    • David Brin
      David Brin
      Glen David Brin, Ph.D. is an American scientist and award-winning author of science fiction. He has received the Hugo, Locus, Campbell and Nebula Awards.-Biography:...

    • Bob Altemeyer
    • John Dean
      John Dean
      John Wesley Dean III is an American lawyer who served as White House Counsel to United States President Richard Nixon from July 1970 until April 1973. In this position, he became deeply involved in events leading up to the Watergate burglaries and the subsequent Watergate scandal cover-up...

    • R. A. Salvatore

    Contributing editors

    List encompasses so-called "front-pagers," both past and present.
    • Angry Mouse (Kaili Joy Gray)
    • BarbinMD (Barbara Morrill)
    • brownsox (Arjun Jaikumar)
    • DarkSyde (Steven Andrew)
    • DavidNYC (David Nir)
    • DemFromCT (Greg Dworkin)
    • Devilstower (Mark Sumner)
    • DHinMI (Dana Houle)
    • georgia10 (Georgia Logothetis)
    • hekebolos (Dante Atkins)
    • Hunter (Michael Lazzaro)
    • Jed L (Jed Lewison)
    • Kagro X (David Waldman)
    • mcjoan (Joan McCarter)
    • Meteor Blades (Timothy Lange)
    • MissLaura (Laura Clawson)
    • Plutonium Page (Page van der Linden)
    • Scout Finch (Jennifer Bruenjes)
    • smintheus (Michael Clark)
    • Steve Singiser
    • SusanG (Susan Gardner)
    • Trapper John (Jake McIntyre)
    • Turkana (Laurence Lewis)

    Guest bloggers

    Beginning in 2003, as his blog expanded to a community, Kos appointed four or five "guest bloggers" (also called "front page diarists," "contributing editors," "front-pagers," and simply "FPers") who are selected from the community and tasked with regular contributions on the front page (without needing to have their articles recommended or promoted).
    • 2003: Billmon
      Billmon
      Billmon is the pseudonym of an American blogger who wrote commentary on various political and economic issues of the day from a left-wing perspective. His blog was called Whiskey Bar.-Career as a blogger:...

      ; Steve Soto; Steve Gilliard
      Steve Gilliard
      Steve Gilliard was a freelance journalist and left-wing political blogger who ran the website The News Blog...

      ; RonK, Seattle
    • 2004: Meteor Blades; DHinMI; Melanie; Trapper John; theoria; DemFromCT
    • 2005: DavidNYC; kid oakland; Hunter; Armando; a gilas girl; Plutonium Page
    • 2006: georgia10; SusanG; mcjoan; DarkSyde; Superribbie (announced as a front-pager, but backed out the next day, citing time constraints)
    • 2007: BarbinMD; Kagro X; Devilstower; MissLaura
    • 2008: brownsox; Scout Finch; smintheus; Jed L.
    • 2009: Steve Singiser


    Additionally, while on the promotional tour for Crashing the Gate
    Crashing the Gate
    Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People Powered Politics is a book authored by American political bloggers Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos and Jerome Armstrong of MyDD, published in 2006 by Chelsea Green.-Summary:...

    , Kos turned over much of the day-to-day management to the 2006 guest bloggers. Emeritus guest bloggers have frequently retained some privileges depending on circumstances, but are not expected to post as often.

    A front-page diarist known as "Armando" (Armando Lloréns-Sar) took a prominent role during Moulitsas' book hiatus in 2005 and was well known for his foreign policy and legal analysis. He also had his own political blogging website, called Swords Crossed, and was a guest political commentator
    Pundit (politics)
    A pundit is someone who offers to mass media his or her opinion or commentary on a particular subject area on which they are knowledgeable. The term has been increasingly applied to popular media personalities...

     in a wide variety of media outlets, including The Majority Report
    The Majority Report
    The Majority Report is a talk radio program originally on the Air America Radio network hosted by film actress/comedienne Janeane Garofalo, and actor/comedian Sam Seder, until Garofalo left in July 2006. Garofalo was reportedly originally asked by Air America to host the program and suggested Seder...

     and Talking Points Memo
    Talking Points Memo
    Talking Points Memo is a web-based political journalism organization created and run by Josh Marshall, journalist and historian covering issues from a "politically left perspective,". It debuted on November 12, 2000...

     Cafe. After his identity and details of his legal career were made widely known, he announced his departure from Daily Kos in June 2006, citing loss of anonymity. For 2 months, Armando would resurface periodically, and all of his comments were accompanied by a signature line stating that he would be returning to blogging in December 2006. Armando did indeed resurface, albeit under a user ID, "Big Tent Democrat," in September 2006. Armando "Big Tent Democrat" then left the Daily Kos site again in March 2007, citing "differences with the management."

    Another contributor posts pseudonymously as "DarkSyde" on the front page of Daily Kos and a blog called Unscrewing the Inscrutable. He is best known as a science writer with specific attention paid to biology, astronomy, and political issues such as creationism
    Creationism
    Creationism is the religious beliefthat humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe are the creation of a supernatural being, most often referring to the Abrahamic god. As science developed from the 18th century onwards, various views developed which aimed to reconcile science with the Genesis...

     or climate change. In particular, DarkSyde's Hurricane Katrina
    Hurricane Katrina
    Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...

     diaries were widely read during the storm and in the immediate aftermath. They are included in a collection of science articles in the e-book Kosmos: You Are Here, co-written with science fiction novelist Mark Sumner and illustrated by paleowildlife artist Carl Buell. All the contributors to Kosmos donated the proceeds to fund the YearlyKos
    YearlyKos
    Netroots Nation is a political convention for American progressive political activists, originally organized by readers and writers of Daily Kos, a liberal political blog. It was previously called YearlyKos...

     convention.

    "Bill in Portland Maine" (Bill Harnsberger) is a front page regular, best known for his recurring Cheers & Jeers feature
    Feature story
    - Published Features & news :While the distinction between published features and news is often clear, when approached conceptually there are few hard boundaries between the two. It is quite possible to write a feature in the style of a news story, for instance...

    , in which he bestows plaudits and brickbats on various newsmakers. Cheers & Jeers, which first appeared on Daily Kos on 9 December 2003, has evolved into a mini-community within the larger Daily Kos community, in which members post announcements about weddings, engagements, births, deaths, pet news, and other personal items, as well as sharing their own particular plaudits and brickbats. He lives with his partner Michael (known as "Common Sense Mainer"), a cat named Vegas, and his beloved chocolate lab
    Labrador Retriever
    The Labrador Retriever is one of several kinds of retriever, a type of gun dog. A breed characteristic is webbed paws for swimming, useful for the breed's original purpose of retrieving fishing nets. The Labrador is the most popular breed of dog by registered ownership in Canada, the United...

    , Molly. In the fall of 2007, Harnsberger lost his job, and the Daily Kos community collected $50,000 in pledges to allow him to continue to write Cheers & Jeers as a full-time paid position.

    On June 2, 2007, Steve Gilliard
    Steve Gilliard
    Steve Gilliard was a freelance journalist and left-wing political blogger who ran the website The News Blog...

    , one of the blog's original contributors, died at the age of 42.

    Campaign fundraising

    During the 2004 U.S. election campaign, Daily Kos readers gave approximately $500,000 in user donations to fifteen Democratic
    Democratic Party (United States)
    The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...

     candidates denoted as most needing funds. The candidates were Tony Miller
    Tony Miller (Kentucky)
    Tony Miller is a U.S. politician from Kentucky.Tony Miller served as the Circuit Court Clerk for Jefferson County, Kentucky from 1988 to 2006....

    , Ben Konop
    Ben Konop
    Ben Konop is a former Lucas County Commissioner. He was a candidate for Mayor of Toledo, Ohio in 2009, as well as the Democratic Party candidate in Ohio's 4th congressional district for the United States House of Representatives in 2004...

    , Daniel Mongiardo
    Daniel Mongiardo
    Frank Daniel Mongiardo is an American physician and politician from Kentucky. Mongiardo is a Democrat and has been Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky since 2007. He was a member of the Kentucky State Senate from 2001 to 2007. He also ran for the U.S...

    , Richard Romero, Samara Barend
    Samara Barend
    Samara "Sam" Barend was the 2004 Democratic Party nominee for the U.S. House of Representatives for the 29th Congressional district of New York State...

    , Jeff Seemann
    Jeff Seemann
    Jeff Seemann is an American politician of the Democratic Party. He ran in 2004 for Ohio's 16th Congressional District against Republican incumbent Ralph Regula. The 16th District includes the city of Canton, Ohio, and overlaps portions of Stark, Wayne, Medina, and Ashland counties. Seemann received...

    , Nancy Farmer
    Nancy Farmer (politician)
    For the author, see Nancy FarmerNancy Farmer is Missouri politician who was the 43rd State Treasurer of Missouri, serving from 2001 to 2005....

    , Ginny Schrader, Jan Schneider
    Jan Schneider
    Dr Jan Schneider is a Democratic politician. She ran for United States Congress in in 2002 and 2004. Both times she won the Democratic Primary, and lost to Katherine Harris in the open election...

    , Lois Murphy
    Lois Murphy
    Lois Murphy is a Democrat from the state of Pennsylvania, who unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. House in Pennsylvania's 6th congressional district against the Republican incumbent, Jim Gerlach in 2004 and 2006....

    , Jim Newberry
    Jim Newberry
    Jim Newberry was Mayor of Lexington, Kentucky from December 31, 2006 until January 2, 2011. He defeated incumbent Mayor Teresa Isaac by the largest vote margin in the history of Lexington-Fayette's merged "Urban County" government...

    , Brad Carson
    Brad Carson
    Brad Rogers Carson is an American lawyer and politician from the state of Oklahoma. A member of the Democratic Party, he served in the United States House of Representatives from 2001 to 2005.-Background:...

    , Tony Knowles
    Tony Knowles (politician)
    Anthony Carroll Knowles is an American Democratic politician and businessman who served as the seventh Governor of Alaska from December 1994 to December 2002. Barred from seeking a third consecutive term as governor in 2002, he ran unsuccessfully for Senate in 2004 and again for governor in...

    , Stan Matsunaka
    Stan Matsunaka
    Stanley Toshi Matsunaka is a former Democratic member of the State Senate of the U.S. state of Colorado, serving from 1995 to 2003. He served as President of the Senate for two years...

     and Richard Morrison. All of these candidates lost. However, Moulitsas had stated that he was deliberately selecting candidates who were not receiving significant financial support from other sources; candidates who were expected to win — or even be competitive — were, by and large, already being funded by the DNC
    Democratic National Committee
    The Democratic National Committee is the principal organization governing the United States Democratic Party on a day to day basis. While it is responsible for overseeing the process of writing a platform every four years, the DNC's central focus is on campaign and political activity in support...

    , DCCC
    Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee
    The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is the Democratic Hill committee for the United States House of Representatives, working to elect Democrats to that body. They play a critical role in recruiting candidates, raising funds, and organizing races in districts that are expected to yield...

    , and other national and regional organizations.

    He also argued that the campaign was successful in that it forced several Republican
    Republican Party (United States)
    The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

     incumbents to spend time and money defending "safe" seats that they had never had to defend before. For example, between Tom DeLay
    Tom DeLay
    Thomas Dale "Tom" DeLay is a former member of the United States House of Representatives, representing Texas's 22nd congressional district from 1984 until 2006. He was Republican Party House Majority Leader from 2003 to 2005, when he resigned because of criminal money laundering charges in...

     in Texas
    Texas
    Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

     and Marilyn Musgrave
    Marilyn Musgrave
    Marilyn Neoma Musgrave , American politician, is a former Republican member of the United States House of Representatives who served from 2003 to 2009, representing the 4th District of Colorado....

     in Colorado
    Colorado
    Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...

    , Moulitsas calculates that the seed money
    Seed money
    Seed money, sometimes known as seed funding, friends and family funding or angel funding , is a securities offering whereby one or more parties that have some connection to a new enterprise invest the funds necessary to start the business so that it has enough funds to sustain itself for a period...

     provided by the blog's fundraising tied up well over ten times as much GOP
    Republican Party (United States)
    The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

     money in return, and kept two of the GOP's most prolific fundraisers back home campaigning in their own districts for several weeks each, rather than roaming the country raising money for other candidates, as they had in past elections. At least two of his candidates came exceptionally close to winning what would have been significant upsets.

    Daily Kos led a fundraising campaign again in the 2006 midterm election campaign in conjunction with MyDD
    MyDD
    MyDD is a collaborative politically progressive American politics blog. It was established by Jerome Armstrong in 2001. Its name was originally short for "My Due Diligence." In January 2006, the name was changed to "My Direct Democracy" as part of a site redesign, with the new tagline "Direct...

     and Swing State Project. This time around, they raised over 1.4 million dollars for 17 "Netroots Candidates," of which 8 were victorious: Jim Webb
    Jim Webb
    James Henry "Jim" Webb, Jr. is the senior United States Senator from Virginia. He is also an author and a former Secretary of the Navy. He is a member of the Democratic Party....

     (VA-Sen), Jon Tester
    Jon Tester
    Jon Tester is the junior U.S. Senator for Montana, serving since 2007. He is a member of the Democratic Party. He previously served as President of the Montana Senate.-Early life, education, and farming career:...

     (MT-Sen), Tim Walz
    Tim Walz
    Timothy James Walz is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 2007. He is a member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party .The district comprises the state's southern end, running along the entire border with Iowa...

     (MN-01), Joe Sestak (PA-07), Ciro Rodriguez (TX-23), Patrick Murphy
    Patrick Murphy (politician)
    Patrick Joseph Murphy is the former U.S. Representative for , serving from 2007 to 2011. He is a member of the Democratic Party....

     (PA-08), Jerry McNerney
    Jerry McNerney
    Gerald "Jerry" McNerney is an engineer, energy specialist, and the U.S. Representative for , serving since 2007. He is a member of the Democratic Party...

     (CA-11), Paul Hodes
    Paul Hodes
    Paul Hodes is an attorney, musician, and the former U.S. Representative for , serving fom 2007 until 2011. He is a member of the Democratic Party. He was New Hampshire's first Jewish representative....

     (NH-02). Several other Kos-endorsed candidates came within 3 percentage points of winning: Larry Kissell
    Larry Kissell
    Lawrence Webb "Larry" Kissell is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 2009. He is a member of the Democratic Party. The district stretches from Charlotte to Fayetteville.-Early life, education, and early career:...

     (NC-08), Gary Trauner
    Gary Trauner
    Gary S. Trauner is a Wyoming businessman and a two-time unsuccessful Democratic nominee for , his state's lone seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. He was defeated in the 2006 and 2008 general elections by Republicans Barbara Cubin and Cynthia Lummis, respectively.Trauner lost by 1,012...

     (WY-AL), Linda Stender
    Linda Stender
    Linda Stender is an American Democratic Party politician who has served in the New Jersey General Assembly since 2002, where she represents the 22nd legislative district. She ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, representing New Jersey's 7th District, in 2006 and...

     (NJ-07) and Darcy Burner
    Darcy Burner
    Darcy Gibbons Burner is a Democrat from Carnation, Washington. She was a candidate for in 2006 and 2008, but lost to incumbent Dave Reichert in both elections. She worked for twelve years in high technology including five years at Microsoft as a Marketing Manager, working on .NET...

     (WA-08). The success of these candidates can be simultaneously considered a cause and effect of the Democratic wave in the 2006 election: fundraising on Daily Kos and other progressive / liberal blogs / websites contributed heavily to this and other races, boosting recognition of Democratic candidates across the board; on the other hand, the general anti-Bush, anti-incumbency sentiment across the country helped boost these candidates and many others on the Democratic side.

    YearlyKos convention

    In June 2006, members of Daily Kos organized the first ever political blogger convention, called YearlyKos, in Las Vegas
    Las Vegas metropolitan area
    The Las Vegas Valley is the heart of the Las Vegas-Paradise, NV MSA also known as the Las Vegas–Paradise–Henderson MSA which includes all of Clark County, Nevada, and is a metropolitan area in the southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada. The Valley is defined by the Las Vegas Valley landform, a ...

    , Nevada
    Nevada
    Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...

    . The event was attended by approximately 1000 bloggers and featured appearances by prominent Democrats such as Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid
    Harry Reid
    Harry Mason Reid is the senior United States Senator from Nevada, serving since 1987. A member of the Democratic Party, he has been the Senate Majority Leader since January 2007, having previously served as Minority Leader and Minority and Majority Whip.Previously, Reid was a member of the U.S...

    , California
    California
    California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

     Senator Barbara Boxer
    Barbara Boxer
    Barbara Levy Boxer is the junior United States Senator from California . A member of the Democratic Party, she previously served in the U.S. House of Representatives ....

    , General Wesley Clark
    Wesley Clark
    Wesley Kanne Clark, Sr., is a retired general of the United States Army. Graduating as valedictorian of the class of 1966 at West Point, he was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to the University of Oxford where he obtained a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, and later graduated from the...

    , Governors Mark Warner
    Mark Warner
    Mark Robert Warner is an American politician and businessman, currently serving in the United States Senate as the junior senator from the Commonwealth of Virginia. He is a member of the Democratic Party. Warner was the 69th governor of Virginia from 2002 to 2006 and is the honorary chairman of...

    , Bill Richardson, Tom Vilsack
    Tom Vilsack
    Thomas James "Tom" Vilsack is an American politician, a member of the Democratic Party, and presently the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture. He served as the 40th Governor of the state of Iowa. He was first elected in 1998 and re-elected to a second four-year term in 2002...

     and DNC
    DNC
    DNC may refer to:*Daigaku Nyūshi Center, a Japanese Independent Administrative Institution which administers the National Center Test for University Admissions...

     Chair Howard Dean
    Howard Dean
    Howard Brush Dean III is an American politician and physician from Vermont. He served six terms as the 79th Governor of Vermont and ran unsuccessfully for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination. He was chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2005 to 2009. Although his U.S...

    . The event was widely covered in the traditional media including Capitol Hill Blue, The Boston Globe and MSNBC. C-Span
    C-SPAN
    C-SPAN , an acronym for Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network, is an American cable television network that offers coverage of federal government proceedings and other public affairs programming via its three television channels , one radio station and a group of websites that provide streaming...

     also carried portions of the convention.

    The event was generally considered a success. YearlyKos 2007 took place in Chicago
    Chicago
    Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

     in August 2007, at which time it was announced that future conventions would be known as Netroots Nation. In 2008, the conference was held in Austin, Texas, with a surprise visit from Al Gore
    Al Gore
    Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. served as the 45th Vice President of the United States , under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President in the 2000 U.S. presidential election....

    . The 2009 conference was held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
    Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
    Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...

     from August 13–16. Pittsburgh was chosen in part due to its environmental merits, as the city is a leader in green building, with more square footage than any other city in the country. In addition, the city has a rich labor union history, which also was a factor in its selection.

    Dean campaign consultancy

    In 2003, Moulitsas was retained by the Howard Dean
    Howard Dean
    Howard Brush Dean III is an American politician and physician from Vermont. He served six terms as the 79th Governor of Vermont and ran unsuccessfully for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination. He was chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2005 to 2009. Although his U.S...

     campaign as a technical advisor, an arrangement he disclosed on the site the next day. A year and a half later, when Daily Kos criticized Armstrong Williams
    Armstrong Williams
    Armstrong Williams is an African American political commentator, author of a conservative newspaper column, and host of a daily radio show and a nationally syndicated TV program, called The Right Side with Armstrong Williams. From 2004 to 2007, he co-hosted a daily radio program with Sam...

     for accepting money to promote George W. Bush
    George W. Bush
    George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....

    's education agenda (including the No Child Left Behind Act
    No Child Left Behind Act
    The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 is a United States Act of Congress concerning the education of children in public schools.NCLB was originally proposed by the administration of George W. Bush immediately after he took office...

    ), The Wall Street Journal
    The Wall Street Journal
    The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....

    reported on the payment to Moulitsas as well as a similar payment to Jerome Armstrong
    Jerome Armstrong
    Jerome Armstrong is an American political strategist and blogger. He is credited as one of the architects of Howard Dean's '04 grassroots Presidential campaign, and one of the leading web strategists in the world...

    .http://online.wsj.com/public/article/0,,SB110566243803425942,00.html?mod=today's%5Ffree%5Ffeature Zephyr Teachout
    Zephyr Teachout
    Zephyr Rain Teachout is an associate professor of law at Fordham University.She directed Internet organizing for Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign. Earlier, she co-founded and was the executive director of the Fair Trial Initiative, which supports attorneys working on death penalty cases...

     said,

    On Dean’s campaign, we paid Markos and Jerome Armstrong as consultants, largely in order to ensure that they said positive things about Dean. We paid them over twice as much as we paid two staffers of similar backgrounds, and they had several other clients.

    While they ended up also providing useful advice, the initial reason for our outreach was explicitly to buy their airtime. To be very clear, they never committed to supporting Dean for the payment — but it was very clearly, internally, our goal.


    The Journal reporters have been criticized for equating the two events (Moulitsas and Armstrong were not journalists) and for "burying" deep in the article the information that Moulitsas had promptly — and prominently — disclosed the payment, and that Armstrong had stopped blogging entirely while working for Dean. Joe Trippi explained in an interview with Dave Winer that he wanted Kos so that Kos wouldn't go work for Clark or anyone else.

    Meanwhile, Chris Suellentrop of Slate
    Slate (magazine)
    Slate is a US-based English language online current affairs and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. On 21 December 2004 it was purchased by the Washington Post Company...

    criticized Moulitsas not for taking money from the Dean campaign — something he told his readers about — but for working as a political consultant for candidates for whom he raised money on his site. Moulitsas refused to disclose the names of his clients, citing non-disclosure agreement
    Non-disclosure agreement
    A non-disclosure agreement , also known as a confidentiality agreement , confidential disclosure agreement , proprietary information agreement , or secrecy agreement, is a legal contract between at least two parties that outlines confidential material, knowledge, or information that the parties...

    s signed with the candidates in question; on the other hand, neither his name nor that of Armstrong Zúniga LLC has been reported in the Federal Election Commission
    Federal Election Commission
    The Federal Election Commission is an independent regulatory agency that was founded in 1975 by the United States Congress to regulate the campaign finance legislation in the United States. It was created in a provision of the 1975 amendment to the Federal Election Campaign Act...

     financial disclosure forms of any of the "Kos Dozen" candidates.

    Armstrong Zúniga shut down after the 2004 political cycle, and Moulitsas has done no consulting since then.

    Fallujah comments

    Daily Kos attracted some controversy in April 2004 by publishing comments (written by Moulitsas) about the killings of four private military contractors in Fallujah
    Fallujah
    Fallujah is a city in the Iraqi province of Al Anbar, located roughly west of Baghdad on the Euphrates. Fallujah dates from Babylonian times and was host to important Jewish academies for many centuries....

    , Iraq
    Iraq
    Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

     that many considered to be insensitive:
    Let the people see what war is like. This isn’t an Xbox game. There are real repercussions to Bush’s folly. That said, I feel nothing over the death of merceneries. They aren’t in Iraq because of orders, or because they are there trying to help the people make Iraq a better place. They are there to wage war for profit. Screw them.


    John Kerry
    John Kerry
    John Forbes Kerry is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, the 10th most senior U.S. Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 presidential election, but lost to former President George W...

    's official blog removed a link to his blog in response. In a subsequent article, Moulitsas attributed his remarks to anger that the Blackwater
    Blackwater USA
    Xe Services LLC, better known by its former names, Blackwater USA and Blackwater Worldwide, is a private military company founded in 1997 by Erik Prince and Al Clark.. Xe is currently the largest of the U.S. State Department's three private security contractors...

     employees in Fallujah were given more attention than the five Marines who were killed on the same day, as well as to childhood memories of warfare in El Salvador
    El Salvador
    El Salvador or simply Salvador is the smallest and the most densely populated country in Central America. The country's capital city and largest city is San Salvador; Santa Ana and San Miguel are also important cultural and commercial centers in the country and in all of Central America...

    .

    Conflict between supporters of Obama and Clinton

    In early 2008, a major conflict erupted between Daily Kos users due to the rivalry between the two Democratic presidential candidates they supported: Barack Obama
    Barack Obama
    Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...

     and Hillary Clinton. The New York Times reported,

    On Friday, it got to be too much for Alegre, a diarist on the flagship liberal blog DailyKos, who frequently writes in support of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. "I've put up with the abuse and anger because I've always believed in what our online community has tried to accomplish in this world," Alegre wrote Friday evening. "No more."

    Objecting to the tone of attacks against Mrs. Clinton and her supporters on the blog, the diarist called for a "writers strike." "This is a strike - a walkout over unfair writing conditions at DailyKos. It does not mean that if conditions get better I won't 'work' at DailyKos again," Alegre wrote, promising to come back only "if we ever get to the point where we're engaging each other in discussion rather than facing off in shouting matches."


    ABC News senior correspondent Jake Tapper described the disagreement:

    This is how ugly things have gotten between supporters of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama -- Clinton supporters are staging what they call a "strike" at the influential liberal website DailyKos. ... [T]hese diarists' boycott of DailyKos is indicative of the turmoil in which the Democratic party finds itself.


    On March 17, 2008, Moulitsas stated that Senator Hillary Clinton did not stand for the principles behind Daily Kos and said Clinton "doesn't deserve fairness on this site." He equated the Democratic primary to a "civil war." His statement was precipitated by a 'strike' conducted by several prominent pro-Clinton bloggers, even though none of these posters were paid or in any way officially linked to the site. Moulitsas noted that if bloggers were dissatisfied, there were plenty of other websites at which to blog.

    Related sites

    • Streetprophets.com is a "Daily Kos Community" focusing on the intersection of faith and politics, launched in 2005 by Moulitsas and Rev. Daniel Schultz (known by his username "pastordan"), a United Church of Christ
      United Church of Christ
      The United Church of Christ is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination primarily in the Reformed tradition but also historically influenced by Lutheranism. The Evangelical and Reformed Church and the Congregational Christian Churches united in 1957 to form the UCC...

       minister from Wisconsin
      Wisconsin
      Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...

      .

    • MotherTalkers.com is another "Daily Kos Community" focusing on the intersection of motherhood and politics. The three mom bloggers, Elisa Batista, Erika Chavez and Gloria Riesgo, share their take on modern motherhood and the relevant news that affects parents everywhere.

    • In April 2004, Daily Kos started dKosopedia.com, a political wiki
      Wiki
      A wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...

      , with the aim of compiling relevant information for netroots
      Netroots
      Netroots is a term coined in 2002 by Jerome Armstrong to describe political activism organized through blogs and other online media, including wikis and social network services. The word is a portmanteau of Internet and grassroots, reflecting the technological innovations that set netroots...

       efforts, with its contents licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License
      GNU Free Documentation License
      The GNU Free Documentation License is a copyleft license for free documentation, designed by the Free Software Foundation for the GNU Project. It is similar to the GNU General Public License, giving readers the rights to copy, redistribute, and modify a work and requires all copies and...

      . It applies open politics methods from George Lakoff
      George Lakoff
      George P. Lakoff is an American cognitive linguist and professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught since 1972...

      's book Moral Politics
      Moral Politics
      Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think is a 1996 book by cognitive linguist George Lakoff. It argues that conservatives and liberals hold two different conceptual models of morality. Conservatives have a Strict Father morality in which people are made good through self-discipline and...

      . Some of its conventions are copied from Wikipedia and other projects in the GFDL corpus, including article names for neutral or non-controversial concepts like the names of elections. As of February 2008, dKosopedia had 13,962 articles. Notable DailyKos diaries are often adapted into dKosopedia articles. Compilation of timelines and profiles on political rivals are other major projects.

    • Another site created is Congress Matters. Congress Matters is dedicated to "watching, learning, analyzing and discussing the daily activities of the Congress." The site is run by David Waldman (known by his username 'Kagro X').

    External links

    The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
     
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