I'm posting this here and not on my personal blog because my girlfriend is a Clinton supporter, and she reads my blog, and she's deep in her grief right now. Things are hard enough between us on this issue without her having to read this, so... you got the drama. Sorry 'bout that.

I just realized, I have no idea how to win. None.

Never once in my life -- and I'm 49 years old -- has the candidate I wanted to become the presidential nominee actually, well... won the nomination.

I mean, even Presidents are thin on the ground; the only winner I ever backed was my first time out of the gate, voting for Jimmy Carter. After that, it was all downhill, including four years ago when I let go of my dream that Dr. Howard Dean and the "democratic wing of the Democratic Party" would win the nomination.

One of my jobs is as editor of a music blog based in Austin. We've covered South by Southwest for the last couple of years, and this year, my final day there was the longest and busiest of the entire week. Two events dominate it absolutely. First was the premiere of an unbelievably powerful documentary, "Body of War," the story of Tomas Young, who was struck with a bullet almost immediately after beginning his first tour of duty in Iraq, came home paralyzed from the chest down, and became an anti-war activist.

The second was the showcase concert that followed, featuring artists from the soundtrack including Tom Morello (Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave, the Nightwatchman), Ben Harper, and Billy Bragg. The recording features original material by Eddie Vedder as well as contributions from dozens of other alternative artists. But right now I'm just grateful the music got me there, because I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

Inspired by the film and concert, in the last couple of months I've built a playlist of some of my favorite political music, and recently found videos for many of the songs... and I thought I'd share this video playlist with you here.

I'm not a lawyer; I'm a journalist. But in a conversation with a progressive Michigan attorney, my love of words and her love of the law intersected, and we both realized there's something that's been driving us crazy for a long time now -- and it's something progressives, regardless of which candidate they support in the primary, do on a daily (or hourly, in the case of Kossacks) basis: use the term "disenfranchisement" when discussing the Michigan and Florida primary votes.

Back in March, Bill Clinton said:

I must say that this new strategy of denying and disempowering and disenfranchising the voters in Florida and Michigan is, I believe, a terrible mistake. Hillary believes their votes should be counted. And I don't know how we're gonna go to those people in the general election and say you gotta vote for us even though we dumped all over you in the primary.

But Clinton, who should know better, is simply wrong. You can't be "disenfranchised" from a state primary vote, because there's no franchise to be dis'd from.

I haven't seen this diaried yet, despite diligent searching. If I missed something, please let me know and I'll delete.

Barack Obama was formally adopted into the Crow Nation today -- and given the name "One Who Helps People Throughout the Land."

I was shocked (although I shouldn't have been) to learn that he is the first presidential candidate who has ever visited the reservation of the Crow Nation, located in the state of Montana.

I'm a contributing editor to a nationally syndicated pet feature, and one of two lead bloggers at one of the best known and most popular pet blogs, Pet Connection. I’ve had an account here since the last presidential election, and did a lot of blogging here during the pet food recall, covering it from a political and regulatory perspective.

And if you read my personal blog or my comments here, you also know I am as crazed a supporter of Barack Obama as anyone has ever been.

But that’s not what this post is about. It’s about the Kentucky Derby, and the horse race of politics, and how disappointed I am that some of Obama’s supporters here on Daily Kos don’t seem to share his vision for a new kind of politics in this country, because they’re willing to use what happened to Eight Belles at the Kentucky Derby today as some kind of cheap political metaphor.

I'm a contributing editor and blogger for a nationally syndicated pet feature, and I do a lot of coverage on the ongoing movement for animal control and shelter reform in the United States. So when I saw an April 1 diary from adigal alleging that South Carolina State Senator Kent Williams had dumped his pregnant German Shepherd at a local animal shelter, where she'd given birth to her litter, it grabbed my attention.

I wasn't able to find any confirmation on the story, and there was no follow-up here on Daily Kos. Then I got the flu, and it chewed up my vocal cords, and it was a few days before I was able to get back on the story. But when I did, what I found out was even worse than the original post suggested.

Crossposted from Pet Connection.

Let’s say you volunteer in a shelter. Let’s say there are problems, so much so that an investigation is ordered and paid for by the county that operates the shelter. And then let’s say that the people who work in and run the shelter don’t particularly like that, and decide that criticism from volunteers is a workplace issue, and use laws and regulations against a "hostile working environment" to silence you.

What would you do? Resign so you could continue to speak out for the animals, but leaving stuck in the same situation about which you’re complaining, but now without you to see what’s going on? Keep volunteering as well as talking, and risk legal action?

The FDA announced today that a second country has been found adding melamine to an ingredient it exports.

That country? The United States.

Late last night, I saw a story come across my news alert service, stating that tests for antibiotic residues in imported Chinese catfish had come back negative. I was going to glance at it anyway, but what made me glance at it extra-hard was the fact that it had come in under an alert for news stories on melamine.

The headline just said that FDA labs in Denver had found that the fish, imported for human consumption from China, had tested all-clear on a couple of antibiotics that are not approved for use in aquaculture in the U.S., and which have been of concern in fish imported from China.

And that's how the story led, too. And then, just in passing, they dropped this little bomb:

When I started covering the pet food recall for PetConnection.com and our nationally syndicated pet column for Universal Press, I thought that if this had happened to human food, it would have been taken more seriously.

I was wrong.

Today the government announced at least some of the chickens and hogs fed contaminated food were being processed into the human food supply, because, as they say, the risk of the extremely low levels of melamine in their meat pose no risk to human health. But that's not what they said back in April.

Menu Foods has expanded its pet food recall, and this time, it's not involving wheat gluten from ChemNutra, but cross contamination. And for the first time, pet foods sent to the European market are being recalled.

In an import alert buried deep on its website and just uncovered tonight, the FDA last Friday expanded its hold on imported foods from China - ingredients including Wheat Gluten, Rice Gluten, Rice Protein, Rice Protein Concentrate, Corn Gluten, Corn Gluten Meal, Corn By-Products, Soy Protein, Soy Gluten, Mung Bean Protein, Soy Bean Meal/Powder/Gluten/Protein Isolate, Soy Protein Powder, Wheat Gluten, Wheat Flour Gluten, Wheat Gluten, Rice Protein, Rice Gluten, Rice Protein, Corn Gluten, Milled Rice Products, Amino acids and protein hydrosylates.

They also, for the first time, published estimates of pet deaths closer to what other authoritative sources have been speculating for weeks now:

It's been 24 hours since the FDA last responded to my follow-up questions to yesterday's press conference about the pet food recall.

More than 24 hours since reporter (and veterinarian) Dr. Debbye Turner of CBS News asked "should we expect any additional voluntary recalls among pet food in the coming days and weeks?"

More than 24 hours since David Elder of the FDA replied to her, "We aren’t aware of any other potential recalls at this time involving either pet food produced from contaminated wheat gluten or from contaminated rice protein concentrate. As we say time and again, the investigation is open, we continue to follow the trail, but we don’t have anything else that we expect to emerge."

I just got out of an FDA media teleconference, which I liveblogged on PetConnection, in which the FDA's David Elder said something to the effect that the FDA isn't aware of any additional pet food recalls at this time. "As we say time and again, the investigation is open." We continue to follow the trail. We don’t expect anything else to emerge, but we will follow the trail.

I have no idea what to make of this, since even while he was saying that, I was waiting to ask him about a recall that had just a few minutes before been confirmed by American Nutrition, of some of Costco's Kirkland Signature brand pet foods.

Did they really not know? And would it be any more reassuring if they didn't know, than that they didn't tell?

I tried to decide why the flurry of wire stories, picked up on websites, TV stations, radio stations, and newspapers around the world, with headlines about the FDA investigating whether or not the contamination of pet food was intentional, was bugging me so much.

It's not that I can't see why that angle seems important. It opens the door to criminal legal proceedings, and makes the story sexier, turns it into an investigative piece, a sort of "whodunit" of food safety.

But that angle also steers perception of the story in a specific way. If this is just a limited issue of corporate wrong-doing in China, some unscrupulous companies tossing in a little melamine to up the protein content of their product and make a little extra money? That dogs and cats were canaries in the coal mine, and that's sad and even tragic, but still, limited?

What the FDA knows, and you don't: The FDA knows the two remaining companies who received shipments of contaminated rice protein concentrate and won't name them. I know, because when I asked them on Thursday at their press conference, they refused to name them.

What the FDA doesn't know, and should: First it was wheat gluten from China, sold in the United States for human or animal use, and used, as far as we know but without certainty, only in the production of pet food. Then it was corn gluten from a different Chinese source, sold in South Africa, and used in pet food, where it has caused illness and death in large numbers of pets.

Then it was rice protein concentrate, from yet another Chinese source, sold in the United States, and used in pet food. Some of this found its way into livestock feed, as well. Three sources, all in China. Three different products. All contaminated with melamine.

I'm a contributing editor with Universal Press Syndicate's Pet Connection, a nationally syndicated pet feature that's in over 75 newspapers nationwide. We have been covering the pet food recall on our blog for more than a month now - and we got a shout out at the Senate hearing on the recall from Dick Durbin for the job we've been doing.

I cover the late night shift on this story, and so I've gotten a fair amount of the midnight press releases in which bad corporate news is usually dumped. And tonight I got another one, and I can't quite believe what it said.

I'm a contributing editor for Universal Press Syndicate's Pet Connection, a syndicated pet column appearing in around 70 newspapers nationwide. We've been covering the pet food recall story on our blog as well as our column.

I just got out of an FDA press conference, where a reporter asked the agency's Dr. Stephen Sundlof if people could be feeding unsafe food to their pets right now, because the FDA won’t reveal the name of another company - one that makes dry or "kibbled" food as well as "wet" pet food - that received wheat gluten from the same source Menu did.