An ill-built Townhouse.
By trevino Posted in User Blogs — Comments (35) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Promoted from Diaries, without comment. - Moe Lane .
Update [2006-6-21 13:47:45 by Moe Lane]: OK, one comment. TNR looks like it's about to demonstrate the truth of the old adage "Never do an enemy a small injury". Pass the popcorn.
Update [2006-6-21 15:00:00 by Crank]: You simply must read the Plank item in full. If Kos wants to sue people for reprinting items in the public domain (including public records of a federal agency) and asking pertinent questions, he should be laughed out of court. And given how cut-and-dried the SEC's charge against Armstrong was (touted stock, got paid, didn't disclose the payment), I will be very surprised if he has a plausible defense.
Update [2006-6-21 14:50:38 by Thomas]: Let me just second Crank here: If Chief Acupuncture Needle is seriously evaluating lawsuits against bloggers who regurgitate what's already in the public domain, I suggest that he start setting aside money now to pay sanctions. I know plenty of attorneys who would get a kick out of trying out Rule 11 or Fla. Stat. 57.105 on that kind of pile of refuse pleading.
TNR's The Plank re-prints an e-mail from Matt Stoller's not-so-secret Townhouse group -- the entry page for the associated distro list is here -- in which Markos Moulitsas asks his fellow left-bloggers to maintain a studious silence on the slowly coalescing story on what looks very much like a Jerome Armstrong-dKos pay-for-play cash nexus. "It would make my life easier if we can confine the story," he writes. No doubt: it would make his life much easier if he didn't have to answer questions about the remarkable concurrence of his political touting with Armstrong's paymasters -- and all that it implies.
There are three principal lessons to be drawn from this.
First, the left-blogosphere is much more of a top-down, hierarchical, and fundamentally groupthink organization than it wishes to acknowledge. The left-bloggers, with few exceptions, will assiduously follow the dictates of the conferred consensus. I know firsthand, having seen it (and the relevant Townhouse e-mails) during the formation of Online Integrity (the whole account is here). Townhouse in particular is a highly relevant -- if not the relevant -- forum where the received wisdom of the left is formulated and disseminated. Crack it, and you crack the code to much of the online left's behavior and topical obsessions. Whence the en masse endorsement of this or that candidate? Whence the mob-action on this or that issue? Whence the popular delusion on a particular point? One need only ask: what did they talk about at Townhouse? So much for the independent, free-thinking left.
Second, the internal mythos of online political activism on the left is almost wholly false. The storyline they tout is that they're a group of "regular" people -- chief among them, dim-bulb Hollywood producer Jane Hamsher, natch -- who rose up, seized control of the discourse, freed the people from the imposed narrative, etc., etc. Chris Nolan shoots this one down with aplomb: "Since when is a non-practising attorney living in Berkeley, CA and running a website that's given him a six-figure income a 'regular person'? How about a 23-year-old law student living with her parents in Chicago? Or Armando...an attorney with a list of corporate clients as long as his arm?" Indeed. One might add, "Since when is a coordinated and secretive cabal of activists -- who cooperate to suppress troubling news stories -- 'regular people?'"
Third, and perhaps most important, the Armstrong revelations have them scared. Make no mistake: were his unethical actions on the financial markets a standalone screwup by Armstrong (admittedly a huge one in its own right) with no repercussions for the still-secret finances of DailyKos.com and the online left at large, it is incredibly unlikely that Moulitsas would be reminding his colleagues of omertà now.
For the rest of us, we merely need to keep asking why.
I hope Brit Hume puts it on the Grapevine tonight on Special Report. You know, to breathe some oxygen into it.
- Is there evidence that either Jerome or Markos were getting paid and promoting people, without publicly disclosing that relationship? Or were their consulting jobs public knowledge?
- How are the stock issue and the consulting issue related?
Let all the lefty bloggers keep silence before him.
Lefty bloggers: [Silence].
Nice job, Josh, actually for a few days now, on this little affair de jour. Nothing like full disclosure under the bright sun, to show who is who and what is what.
Shining the bright-beam lights on Jerome has been thoroughly entertaining so far, and can only get better. If Markos wants to make this his fight, then hey, there's room here in the sunshine for everybody. He can bring the mocha-fraps and his dKos financial records. I'll bring the Krispy Kremes....
On a related topic: in a perfect world, one not infested by John McCain, the only great need inre political campaign finance laws, would be that every contribution and every campaign's finances be fully public. If the public knows that Senator so-and-so is a wholly owned subsidiary of George Soros, or for that matter Halliburton or whoever, then voters can make informed decisions. Under-financed non-incumbents can point to the finances to show exactly how their well-financed opponents got to be so well-financed.
a fairly popular bumper sticker around my way. It is affixed to cars owned by the Brahmin illuminati who are proud to have voted for John Kerry, an advertisement of their self awarded superiority.
The MSM[the NY Times ] plays a larger role in ringing the noses of the left. The hapless boobs create a self image for themselves based on what they're fed, tell them they're intelligent, shazam, they're intelligent.
Re Kos; most of them will do exactly what they are told to do by their Svengali, pitiful creature that they are. Given that they breed, maybe the human race will be the next to go the route of the Dodo bird.
Is my bumper sticker
The left-bloggers, with few exceptions, will assiduously follow the dictates of the conferred consensus.
"Conferred consensus" carries so succinctly such biting irony. That hallmark of leftist wisdom, the consensus, is conferred upon the mind-slaves from a few powerbrokers on a Google list.
Bullseye.
As reader of several political blogs on both sides (kos, du, redstate, lfg) I think this blog is a bit over the top. The second point in particular is way off base. Thousands of bloggers and readers pass through both of KOS and Redstate every day, and to characterize them all based on one or two of those bloggers defies logic.
The groupthink argument could easily be applied to any sort of forum in which like minded people come to discuss politics.
The real criticism comes from the evidence, which I must say, is very interesting.
is that the phony, antiAmerican bigot can stonewall this so that the Kos Koolaid Kids are completely demoralized about October, when it blows up so big that even his pals in the MSM can't keep a lid on it any longer. That way the snivelling dnc hack candidates who kissed up to Kos all these years will be seen as the pandering twits they are and it will motivate the Conservaitves to come out swining that much ahrder, when they arealize that the vile attacks we have suffered from Kos all these years were coming from a schill.
I am waiting to see if Kos cares as much over the brutal killings of American soldiers as he did over the retired soliders brutally killed in Fallujah?
if the targets have simply reprinted public records and then commented on them. Rule 11 sanctions might be slapped on the attorneys, as you pointed out.
I am confused as to one point, though. Jerome Armstrong, regardless of his economic status, obviously settled with the SEC. But with the new allegation--that Kos endorsed candidates after his pal got paid as a consultant--is there any civil or criminal liability there? It would seem just an ethical breach. I can see how the past infraction was an indicator of future behavior, and thus relevant to this as a story, but is this just a nice, tawdry tale of amorality? Or is this something more?
As to the groupthink over at that dark place, it is a wonder to behold as others have pointed out. It is a case study in the messiah complex gone electronic.
I am waiting to see if Kos cares as much over the brutal killings of American soldiers as he did over the retired soliders brutally killed in Fallujah?
You could probably come up with some sort of jerry-rigged theory, but I couldn't see a realistic cause of action there. On the payola suggestion, it is - again - public record that Kos has repeatedly endorsed or said nice things about candidates, sometimes candidates he had been previously skeptical of, after they were hired by Armstrong. I hardly see where you could sue someone for libel for pointing that out and speculating about what it might mean.
and the dinosaur media left. Notice that it was a New York Times reporter that broke this news. When was the last time you can recall the new york times breaking anything damaging about anyone on the left no matter how damning the evidence ? This newspaper had no trouble not talking about the swiftboart vets. They have no trouble not mentioning a supposedly innocent prisoner in gitmo actually has every other member of his family convicted of terrorism. Their attitude has always been yes its wrong but its for the cause.
The fact that the times broke the story only shows that there is resentment on their part towards the new media left.Which is kind of ironic seeing as they feel much the same way about the new media right.
we proud Conservatives are outbreeding the libs three to one :)
loyal opposition. After his poltroonery regarding Falujah, I have seen him as a bag of foul hot air.
I was hoping the sheep he leads would not realize that nothing he has said has been correct, and that every candidate he has backed has lost in general elections.
This unfortunately will be the straw on the camel's back, and his sway will end too soon to help us as much as his continued infestation otherwise has.
If specuation on business connections is libel, then Moulitsas has probably libelled every member of the Bush administration.
...summarized succintly on bumper stickers; a perfect match in terms of breadth and depth, and an apt representation of the Left's collective attention span.
--furious
Sinn Fein = Political Wing of the IRA.
Democrats = Political Wing of the IRS.
--furious
Dumb when I realized he was in the Army at one point. In 25 years in the military, I've met 2 Liberals. None even remotely as unhinged as Kos.
I can see why he got out. Ayone talking that kind of hideous filth about former SEALs would have his face scraped off over the parade grounds. You just DO NOT talk about men who gave theirs lives, doing their duty.
If it was a top conservative activist, or even a conservative consultant, it would be prominently on the front page of every liberal paper, especailly if it involved a GOP White House hopeful.
Which raises a question: Is Mark Warner still paying this guy after the news of his scam has surfaced? If so, what does that say about Warner and his posssibel deal with Armstrong/ Kos?
is going to fall so far, and so spectacularly.
I can only hope the timing is good for the country.
there is even a remote possibility that Kos' use of his site to obtain payola may have violated some obscure campaign finance or FTC reg. I will assume it didn't, but he hasn't really acted like someone whose sole concern is their massive ego and already battered reputation.
Just so I was clear, there is no judge even in the 9th Circuit who would entertain a libel suit filed by Kos because his associate's public sanctions have been discussed on other websites.
drags Dean out of his seat and puts an adult in charge?
Hey have to give him at least one election before they boot him; Armstrong or no the activists would be outraged if he didn't get that chance.
The same model Fenton Communications does over at Townhouse. You assemble what appear to be a bunch of individual blogs (activist groups) and then coordinate their activities toward a common goal. Fenton would have Code Pink, MoveOn, Veterans Against the War, Win Without War, Cindy Sheehan, Larry Johnson and a number of other organizations as their PR clients and focuses their message and public activities so as to create the appearance of many different groups having come to exactly the same conclusion and eveh sharing each other's rhetoric.
Townhouse seems to be the same model in the blogosphere. Coordinated action that appears on the surface to be many coming to a certain position independently when it is in fact directed from a central point.
As someone else pointed out, this explains their paranoia in thinking people on the right are somehow coordinated by Rove. I nave noticed in my own life experiance that when someone accuses you of doing something you would never consider doing it is often because A: they would do the same thing if they were you or B: they already ARE doing the same thing or have done so in the past.
I thought the funniest comment of all was this one from Kos' "secret" email:
This story will percolate in wingnut circles until then, but I haven't gotten a single serious media call about it yet. Not one. So far, this story isn't making the jump to the traditional media, and we shouldn't do anything to help make that happen.
So for all his hoopla about the "netroots" and the Wave Of The Future™, Kos doesn't figure he's gotten a "serious" media call until he's heard from the MSM. Heh.
The netroots is the grassroots is the bottom-up mobilization of the people except when it isn't because it needs connections and validation from the MSM and then it can't take too much of that because it wouldn't be democratic and might give us an elitist taint, but that's OK as long as it's authentically for the grassroots cause and in support of the netroots, except that we can't have any mention of it, except when we need to and we have to have their support, which could backfire, so we don't want that too much, but sometimes we do.
Boy, this stuff is getting tougher to follow EVERY DAY. Whew. ;)
we need a full court press on the hypocrisy and corruption from the left blogosphere. They are such sheep over there that Kos could have video pulling the trigger on Helen Thomas and the kids would claim it is a VRWC. stay on the subject and hopefully at some point some other lefty media guy wanting to make a splash will begin to cover it..
is an albino monk, a few Knights Templar, a couple of cardinals, and maybe a Shriner or two to make this story complete.