We are hosting a series of DK meetups in Chicago to allow the netroots to mingle with our progressive candidates and get view of campaigns and current needs.  Following are the remaining events:

October 4: Mark Pera (IL-3)
October 18:  Dan Seals (IL-10)
Nov 1:  Bill Foster (IL-14), confirm pending

Mark Pera is an Environmental Crimes Prosecutor and President of the Lyons Township HS Board.  He is a progressive leader throwing his hat into the ring against Dan Lipinski, who from an undemocratic election to un-Democratic stances on every key issue, is a blight for a strongly Democratic constituency.  It is time for Blue Chicago to start living up to its moniker and replacing the Chicago Democratic Machine with true progressives who have vision, leadership and commitment to the citizens who elect them rather than to the manipulations of the machine that elects them.  

We will host a series of DK meetups in Chicago to allow the netroots to mingle with our progressive candidates and get view of campaigns and current needs.

September 20: Daniel Biss (State IL-17)
October 4: Mark Pera(IL-3)
October 18:  Dan Seals (IL-10) confirm pending
Nov 1:  Bill Foster (IL-14), confirm pending

We kick off this Thursday.  Please come and join us for appetizers and beers/margaritas at the Blue Agave!  

You may have met kossack Daniel Biss, running for State Rep IL-17, at a DK meetup or YearlyKos.  Let me acquaint you with Daniel as a candidate:

Daniel Biss will find and create order out of the chaos that is Illinois legislation today.  A mathematics professor at the University of Chicago (and an alum of Harvard and MIT), he is a progressive who connects with people.

Hey everyone,

Please come and join us for a Chicago DK meetup this Thursday, Sept 20th at the Blue Agave!  The feature of this upcoming meetup is Kossack Daniel Biss, running for State Rep in IL-17.

You may have met him at a previous DK meetup or at YearlyKos.  Let me acquaint you with Daniel as a candidate:

Daniel Biss will find and create order out of the chaos that is Illinois legislation today.  A mathematics professor at the University of Chicago (and an alum of Harvard and MIT), he is a down to earth progressive who embraces the principles of fair governance and connects with people.  Having only turned 30 within the last month, he brings to the table a dynamic energy and passion for the future.

The DK Chicago Meetup unveils its October surprise:  Dan Seals (IL-10) will be joining us for our meetup tomorrow at Blue Agave.  He will speak and will be available for questions.  

Kristin Lash from the John Laesch campaign (IL-14) will also be joining us tomorrow.  And last, but never least, Crashing the States is in town and will be there to film the event, and to push the party along.

Here is a quick DK meetup introduction to the well loved candidates:

Dan Seals was never much of a come-up-from-behind guy; he's been out in front of everything all his life.  The son of a Chicago Bears player, he grew up in Chicago, attended BU, learned fluent Japanese during a 2 yr stint teaching high school in Japan, attended the Johns Hopkins school of International Studies, received a Presidential Management Fellowship and an MBA from the University of Chicago.  His experience balances public and private life; he has worked with Congress on trade issues as well as made distinctive inroads into corporate America.

Each of us who attended YK2006 has a YearlyKos diary, although we haven't all written them yet.  I'm only writing mine now.

I'm writing about YearlyKos partly because Dan Biss suggested it when we decided to write DK Meetup diaries all week.  Then yesterday Chicago was announced as the location of YK2007.

I'd like to focus on the part of YearlyKos that is pertinent to a meetup, that relates to the experience of chatting anonymously for years then suddenly showing up and saying, ok it's me.

You've heard it before, likely, that the people at YearlyKos were normal.  If I recall correctly, this was Kos' initial blogged reaction.  Perhaps that sounded strange to you, and you wondered, um, as opposed to what??

It is five weeks to elections and many of you are working feverishly for your chosen candidates and causes.  And others of you are a little buried in your lives but contributing cash, attention and hope.  We're inviting all to take a breather from the race (of politics and your lives), and join us for another DK meetup in Chicago...those of you out in the burbs, we've heeded your requests and scheduled on a weekend so you'd better join us!

Meet David Brooks, fictional journalist.  To clarify, he's not fictional, but he engages in a style of fiction posing as journalism--also shared by former NYT colleagues Stephen Glass and Jayson Blair.  This University of Chicago educated writer asserts that he used to write based on facts, but now considers it "dishonest".

When his first book "Bobos In Paradise" was published in 2000 as a sociological journalism book, a sharp and enterprising reporter named Sasha Issenberg ("Boo Boos in Paradise", Philadelphia Magazine) thought the data cited rang false.   He decided to do a little of his own research.  What he found was that David Brooks wrote a book of made-up-facts, known by those outside the public intellectual pantheon as fiction.  

I will begin with the end of the story.  Issenberg called him up regarding his research of Brooks' research.  This was Brooks' response,

The Washington Post acknowledges Colbert's impact Saturday night, albeit in the TV Column and by guise of discussing Jon Stewart's reaction to Colbert's performance.  As follows:  

As one by one of the politicians (and yes, here is where they are showing themselves to be politicians, Mr. Feingold) fold under their duty to protect the American people, Dick Durbin is standing up again.

Below the fold, from  Crain's Chicago Business.  You need a password to access, but here is most of it:

Last night's Washington Monthly "Kos Call" article about Kos, and by extension, DailyKos, is still sitting uncomfortably with me.

I perused some of Wallace-Wells' other articles since this piece suffered from a lack of fundamental journalism skills--in particular the ability to collect good data and prioritize relevant information--and I wasn't sure whether this was a stumble by a weak journalist, or an intentional misstep.  Per other Wallace-Wells pieces, he seems to work primarily with policy or criticism of policy fleshed out with limited data supporting an implied thesis.  They appear solidly reasoned and adequately sourced.  ("Off Track" is a good recent article.)

But this particular article, "Kos Call", is oddly off.

Apologies in advance, this is not a substantive diary and does not add to the urgent national discourse of the day.  But a friend emailed this an hour ago and I am still laughing, so thought I'd share.

As follows:

here's a question for you:  who in the dem party was stephen moore (club for growth) most afraid of?  it wasn't the simple answer that so surprised me from a piece he wrote for the weekly standard , 9/15/03:

I stumbled across kid oakland's diary as I was catching up reading this weekend, and it gave me pause.

it was a good analysis, and it was also the first concrete evidence to substantiate some nagging thoughts.  

shorter diary:  kid oakland appreciates the influx of new kossacks, but notes something precious is being lost in the great new shuffle, can it be preserved?

I went on a reading binge sat night straight through 10 am sun--read theoria, marisacat, mcjoan, paper tigress, the infamous shut your pie-hole diary, the liberal street fight site--which is the salvage of the intimate and expert discussion that fed many original dkos faithfuls.  I got a sense of the talent, passion and knowledge, and confirmed what I knew:  that I had much to learn, about current events as well as the ecosystem of local, federal and international politics/economics/philosophy.  I saw commitment to intellectual freedom, democracy and original, explorative discourse--the love of teaching and learning defined the dialogue.

just read about kerry throwing down the gauntlet by proposing child healthcare.  the post election battle may prove to be better than pre-election.

but dems need to continue defining stances on more key issues.  we all know, and knew going in to this election, all the key repug stances.  the talking heads knew. the media knew.

dems had intelligent proposals with well-constructed arguments, but I didn't know specifically what each looked like.

if anyone is interested, I'm getting together a progressive business club in chicago focusing on rural and small business development, corporate incentives for community reinvestment, workforce training and other initiatives that reflect our view of desirable business growth.

for too long, the reigning and unchallenged view of business growth has been that of the republicans: emphasis on tax-cuts, consolidation (anti-competition), and corporate lobbying for gov't favors.

this isolates and accumulates wealth, effectively destroying the incentive for progress that true competition would provide.

if anyone is interested, I'm getting together a progressive business club in chicago focusing on rural and small business development, corporate incentives for community reinvestment, workforce training and other initiatives that reflect our view of desirable business growth. for too long, the reigning and unchallenged view of business growth has been that of the republicans: emphasis on tax-cuts, consolidation (anti-competition), and corporate lobbying for gov't favors.