Here's video from today's announcement that of a middle-class task force to be headed by Joe Biden. The announcement came in the wake of news that the economy shrunk by 3.8% in the final three months of Bush’s presidency. Full transcript here.

If you've been following DKTV, you'll notice that this is a new player. In addition to being resizable for embedders, it also has a different layout, including a controlbar that fades during playback (unless you move the mouse over the video).

This video also uses new encoding settings that will hopefully be more reliable than other videos I've posted. If you have the time, I would very much appreciate it if you would comment (or e-mail) on whether the video played for you (ideally all the way the through). You'll notice that the video tells you which version of Flash you are using -- if you can supply that information along with your comment it would be very helpful.

Thanks in advance for any feedback you can provide on video playback. As soon as I finish debugging the playback issue for longer and higher bitrate videos, I'll be able to move DKTV out of beta and get back to my normal video blogging routine.

This is impressive, even for the Republican Party:

Not a single vote in favor of the economic recovery plan passed today by the House. Nobody expected overwhelming GOP support. But for every single Republican member to oppose a new economic recovery plan?

After the 2008 election, that's just stunning, especially given the fact that it's the Bush Recession that we're recovering from.

But perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise. It's the same thing that happened in 1993, when not a single Republican voted for Clinton's stimulus bill after the first George Bush's presidency.

Hopefully the economy rebounds just as strongly this time as it did back then.

(Side note about the screen capture: the final vote was actually 244-188. One Democratic switched from 'nay' to 'yea' at the last second.)

This comment just came across the transom:

you used to post more and better videos. go back to that format please.

Even though that comment is in part critical, I actually couldn't agree more with it, and the good news is that is exactly what I'm working on, behind the scenes. Although DKTV beta is now out, there's tons of work left to be done to get it ready for prime time, and if youi've noticed my posting schedule being relatively light -- that's the reason. As somebody said to me: you gotta' build the house before you paint it, and right now I'm still building. I am super enthusiastic about where DKTV is heading, however, and I'm looking forward to it being up and running, and of course cross-posting videos here and at Daily Kos itself. I find myself fighting off the impulse to dive into a new video (for example, I'd love to do one showing Boehner and McConnell three weeks ago vs. today), but I want to get DKTV right first. A few folks have written me asking "why not just post to YouTube.?" Well, the reason is simple: YouTube (thanks to Viacom) deleted both my JedReport AND Daily Kos accounts because of three short videos claimed by Jon Stewart's show (at least two of which relied on footage from other channels). Combined, these videos had maybe 10,000 views, tops (and probably less), compared to about 20,000,000 video plays that I've had over the last year or so. Since Viacom has ensured that YouTube is no longer a viable option, I'm spending the time on DKTV to be an even better alternative for posting videos.

William Kristol departs the NYT.

I cannot think of a better spokesman for progressives and moderates in America today than William Kristol.