Thursday, September 27, 2007

Why MAMZ Minions Will Make a Determined Effort to Drive Me Away from Huffington Post


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I'm already planning to write an article to publish at political Fleshfeast ASKING the MAMZ minions to come and campaign against me at Huffington Post.

Because everytime they drive me out of one forum, I come back in another forum much larger and more dangerous than the person they drove away. They drove ONE man out of DailyKos, and the next time they see me I'm one of eighty AfroSpear bloggers, if three dozen US states and seven countries on four continents. And this group is growing literally every day.

Then, they drove me out of MyLeftWing and the next thing you know 60,000 AfroSpear partisans are marching on Jena, Louisiana!

If they drive me out of Huffington Post, (which I believe they will in short order) then that's all the opposition I will need from them to see Hillary Clinton elected president AND publish my book about Extreme Color-Aroused Antagonism. So, come one and come all! (If that sounds megalomanaical, I would have thought the same thing about the March on Jena.)

As much as they hate me at DailyKos, I have become a household word there, as famous in exile as I was in residence, even though I haven't posted there in almost a year. Some there call me the "energizer bunny" and it's true that not a day goes by when I don't at least try to reveal some new bizarre aspect of MAMZ's determined effort to take over the Democratic Party and turn it into a Kafakaesque anti-First Amendment version of the Klu Klux Klan and the Third Reich. Perhaps we should call him neo-MAMZ, for the allusion to neo-conservative.

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Anyhow, I'm sure that if the MAMZ minions drive me out of Huffington Post, then the barn fire they make in the process will be seen nationally. That's just the kind of exposure I need to publish my book on Extreme Color-Aroused Disorder (ECA).

Moreover, sooner or later people are going to begin to wonder why the MAMZ minions so determinedly try to drive me out of every forum where I might publish my thoughts and my research. Maybe they think I'm onto something.

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Maybe I saw through MAMZ when he published his 2006 essay condemning Hillary Clinton in the pages of the Washington Post. Maybe it's MAMZ who is the neo-conservative, far more conservative than Hillary Clinton ever was. Because Hillary Clinton has never condemned anti-war demonstrations and she doesn't support "states rights," and she doesn't oppose gays in the military. But, MAMZ has and he does and he does.

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In the run-up to the 2008 presidential elections, MAMZ is first going to support John Edwards (the white man) and then he's going to reluctantly support Hillary Clinton nominally, while all the while bad-mouthing her at DailyKos, even during the general election campaign, reinforcing Republican talking points, inventing some of his own, and trying to subtly convince well-meaning Americans that Republican Mormon Mitt Romney would be a better president than Democratic woman Hillary Clinton.

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MAMZ will never come out and say it directly (he needs to maintain his cover) but he aims to be the Ralph Nader of the 2008 election cycle, subtly but effectively throwing the Clinton election to the Republicans, after which Karl Rove will be back as Secretary of State or Director of Homeland States of Seige.

I've got my eye on Markos C.A. Moulitsas Zúñiga. That's why his minions are going to make a determined effort to stop me from publishing my essays at Huffington Post. But the crosses they burn to drive me out will only draw greater attention to the information I have amassed and published:

The Indictment of Markos C.A. Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA
by Justice and History

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

David Brooks Defrocks Moulitsas in New York Times


Rarely do I agree with anything that David Brooks says, but here I do, and so I'm going to quote him and encourage you to read his entire article.  Today, David Brooks is changelling Francis L. Holland, and may even have made reference to the Truth About Kos  (Brooks uses Markos' last last name "Zuniga" even though Markos detests it because it connects him to his Salvadoran oligarchy family and their receipt of monies from the US Government's Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC):


( . . . ) The fact is, many Democratic politicians privately detest the netroots' self-righteousness and bullying. They also know their party has a historic opportunity to pick up disaffected Republicans and moderates, so long as they don't blow it by drifting into cuckoo land. They also know that a Democratic president is going to face challenges from Iran and elsewhere that are going to require hard-line, hawkish responses.


Finally, these Democrats understand their victory formula is not brain surgery. You have to be moderate on social issues, activist but not statist on domestic issues and hawkish on foreign policy. This time they're not going to self-destructively deviate from that.


Both liberals and Republicans have an interest in exaggerating the netroots' influence, but in reality that influence is surprisingly marginal, even among candidates for whom you'd think it would be strong.


Several weeks ago, I asked John Edwards what the YearlyKos event was like. He couldn't remember which event I was talking about, and looked over to an aide for help.  ( . . . ) New York Times

Although I rarely agree with David Brooks, I am also very, very sick of the fawning press that states' rights advocate Markos C.A. Moulitsas has received.  After all, were it not for the Fourteenth Amendment that limits "states' rights," gays could be prosecuted for engaging in consensual heterosexual sex in their own homes.  "States' rights" is the rallying cry of the Klu Klux Klan, not progressive Democrats.


Truth About Kos

Strange Bedfellows, Yes. But, Chuck Colson?


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Breaking Point.Org.

As I remember it, Chuck Colson, mentioned in the graphic above, was a bagman for impeached ex-President Richard Nixon in the Watergate Scandal, who eventually became a Christian and started Christian Ministries.  And as I understand it, these Christian Ministries are part of a vast right-wing conspiracy to use religion as a wedge-issue against the Democratic Party.

So, what is a writer at Chuck Colson's Christian Ministries doing citing the Francis L. Holland blog?

In my efforts to discredit the CIA-trained Markos C.A Moulitsas Zúñiga, he of the Salvadoran oligarchy, it didn't take me long to realize that most of America couldn't care less about my primary beef with him - that his site is 96% white and likes it that way.  After all, much of America is segregated.

Of course, I know that Markos Moulitsas wants to carve out an outsized role for himself in the Democratic Party, after which the Party would probably exclude Blacks just as DailyKos itself does, so what could I do to prevent that from happening?

As I was pondering this question, I saw a poll by Dr. Steve B. at DailyKos which, when crunched, indicated that 69% of DailyKos participants don't believe in God.  Of course this is not news on the left, but atheism is the single most despised quality among potential elected officials for the electorate as a whole.  This means that whichever candidate has the outspoken support of Markos Moulitsas can expect to be the target of negative ads that accuse the candidate of atheism and of supporting anti-religious views and advocacy. (I hope John Edwards is listening to me right now, because he's mentioned in the above article as well.) It also means that any newly elected Democrat who nominates or appoints Kos for dog-catcher is going to have to defend this nomination in Congress as if they had nominated Lucifer himself (which is just about true). 

Now, personally this is not my issue, this matter of atheism and agnosticism vs. right-wing religious zealots.  I just want equality for Black people.  But, when you're fighting white supremacist states' rights pseudo-leftist CIA trained Republican infiltrators for the soul of the Democratic Party, and when your minority group (Blacks) is only 13% of the electorate, then you've got to take help wherever you can find it.

So, I laughed out loud this afternoon when I discovered through my site meter that someone at Christian Ministries had cited my blog for the fact that 69% of DailyKos participants are either atheists or agnostics.  Maybe if this becomes widely enough known, it will prevent Markos C.A.Moulitsas Zúñiga from taking over the Democratic Party and making it as hostile to Blacks as is DailyKos itself.  It's going to take a bi-partisan coalition of CIA-haters to drag that orange rat out from under the Democratic porch.

You see, to me there really is no difference between DailyKos and the Republican Party.  They both oppose anti-war demonstrations, and there are more Blacks as a percentage of delegates to the Republican National Convention and Republican voters (6.7%) than there are Blacks at DailyKos (2.5%).  At least the Republicans have a few Blacks among their leadership, even if they're the worst Black people in America.  DailyKos can't seem to stomach any Blacks at all, and that worries me.

There's something else I want the whitosphere pseudo-progressive big [white] boys of blogging to know (MAMZ):  An angry Black man who knows how to read, write and blog can be a devastating enemy, particularly AFTER he has been banned from your F-ING apartheid blogs.

Friday, September 21, 2007

Daily Kos Hid Business Partner's SEC Lawsuit


Daily Kos Hid Business Partner's SEC Lawsuit, the Workbench blog.

This story has been updated:

In April 2003, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed suit against Jerome Armstrong, the business partner of Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, for touting a Linux company called BluePoint when it first went public:

On March 6, 2000 and after, Jerome Armstrong ("Armstrong") promoted BluePoint on the Raging Bull internet site, which carried hundreds of posts about BluePoint. ...

Armstrong posted over eighty times on the BluePoint message board located on the Raging Bull website in the first three weeks. He praised BluePoint's investment value and encouraged traders who were having trouble getting their orders filled to keep trying. Armstrong never stated in his posts on the Internet that he was being compensated for making the postings. However, Goelo and Markow compensated Armstrong by transferring stock in three separate companies to Armstrong at below market prices during the relevant time period. ...

Armstrong made at least $20,000 from selling the shares of the three securities he received from Markow and Goelo.

The New York Post reported that Armstrong settled the case in December 2003 without admitting guilt and paid no fine. The paper claims to have found numerous online posts from 1999 to 2003 where he supported stocks that are "virtually or entirely worthless" today.

After the story broke, Moultisas encouraged some prominent liberal bloggers to ignore the story on a private mailing list post that was reprinted by New Republic blogger Jason Zengerle:

... Jerome's case, if it could be aired out, is a non-story (he was a poor grad student at the time so he settled because he had no money). Jerome can't talk about it now since the case is not fully closed. But once it is, he'll go on the offensive. That should be a couple of months off. ...

My request to you guys is that you ignore this for now. It would make my life easier if we can confine the story. Then, once Jerome can speak and defend himself, then I'll go on the offensive (which is when I would file any lawsuits) and anyone can pile on. If any of us blog on this right now, we fuel the story. Let's starve it of oxygen. And without the "he said, she said" element to the story, you know political journalists are paralyzed into inaction.

Zengerle suggests in a followup that the members of the Liberal Blog Advertising Network have a financial motivation not to publicize this scandal, since the network's run by Armstrong and Moulitsas with MyDD founder Chris Bowers. Zengerle links to my own experience being ousted from the network last November, which appears to have resulted in a dramatic decline in ad sales on the Drudge Retort.

I hope this looks worse than it is, but on its face, Armstrong behaved reprehensibly and Moultisas won't own up to it. Investors lost millions on dubious Internet stocks like BluePoint during the dot-com boom, and Armstrong allowed himself to become one of the famous blogging wunderkinds of the Howard Dean campaign while he was under active SEC investigation.

Did either of them consider how it would have looked, while Dean was the early favorite for the Democratic presidential nomination, if this SEC case came to light in the press? I think the people who associate themselves with a candidate have a responsibility not to engage in any conduct that might hurt the campaign, and a victory-minded activist like Moultisas had to know the risk they was taking. Were Dean or campaign manager Joe Trippi told about this investigation in 2003?

Instead of getting in front of this story by acknowledging a mistake, Moulitsas showed total ignorance of how the blogosphere works by pretending it would go away. Forced to respond, he then used the bully pulpit of Daily Kos to attack the New Republic without saying a word about Armstrong's SEC problems or their decision not to disclose the suit to the Kos readership for three years:

It is now beyond clear that the dying New Republic is mortally wounded and cornered, desperate for relevance. It has lost half its circulation since the blogs arrived on the scene and they no longer (thank heavens!) have a monopoly on progressive punditry. We have hit their bottom line, we are hitting their patron saint hard (Joe Lieberman) and this is how they respond. By going after the entire movement.

My personal view is colored by the fact that I wouldn't trust Bowers to tell the time. But I think the 85 bloggers in the Liberal Blog Advertising Network and popular Kos diarists need to take a hard look at these guys and how closely they want to be associated with them.

Politics has a tendency to attract people who put their own interests above party or principle when the money starts rolling in, as Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff have ably demonstrated. I'd hate to see well-respected liberal bloggers like Joshua Marshall and Atrios burn too much capital in defense of More-Kash Moulitsas.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Ensuring orthodoxy among the "netroots": the Townhouse email list in action...


Ensuring orthodoxy among the "netroots": the Townhouse email list in action... (+)
by: StupidAsshole
Mon Sep 17, 2007 at 19:28:19 PM PDT
I saw this post by D. Throat on Mariscat's blog, and received his/her permission to repost it here. It gives a great snapshot of Democratic Party messaging being distributed down into the "netroots," so that it's repeated on multiple mainstream "liberal" blogs. One can only assume that an email encouraging the Big White Boys of Blogging to tamp down any dissent among the little people about Bush's new attorney general nominee was sent out over the famous Townhouse email list.

Gee… ya think an email on the "Condo Mailing List" went out:

DocuDrahma:

Some thoughts on the new AG nominee, Michael Mukasey
by: A. Chandler Moisen
Sun Sep 16, 2007 at 23:14:07 PM PDT

(Topical enough for the afternoon? Hello, Fall. Sorry I'm late with this, crew… (FP'ed at 12:50 pm, PDT, September 17, 2007) - promoted by exmearden)

First, I'll confess a minor bias in favor of federal judges. I've clerked for federal judges, and I've had personal interactions with quite a few of them. By no means are they all perfect, but compared to the politicians from the other two branches of government, I think they deserve a much higher degree of regard.

That said, I think liberals could do much, much worse than Michael Mukasey as AG. He's not an idiot like Gonzo, and he's not a partisan hack like Ted Olson or Lawrence Silberman.

Daily Slop:

Why we shouldn't b**ch if the Democrats confirm Mukasey
by taylormattd
Sun Sep 16, 2007 at 04:16:17 PM PDT
StupidAsshole :: Ensuring orthodoxy among the "netroots": the Townhouse email list in action...
Boring Left:

Don't Expect A Big Fight Over Mukasey's Confirmation
by: Chris Bowers
Mon Sep 17, 2007 at 12:04:43 PM EDT



So, basically, Mukasey is a right-winger, but everyone they nominate will be a right-winger, and at least Mukcasey stuck it to the Bush administration by upholding legal standard in the Padilla case. This will result in mixed messaging coming from both the left and the right, and as such no negative conventional wisdom will be formed around Mukcasey.

Unless there is some sort of smoking gun or major skeleton found in Mukcasey's closet, it looks like his nomination will be a done deal. These battles are frequently won and lost in the first twenty-four hours, and right now it looks like he is winning handily.

"Glenn"

There is no question that Judge Mukasey, a Reagan appointee who served as the Chief Judge for the Southern District of New York before retiring recently, is close to the far right on the judicial spectrum. He undoubtedly holds many legal and political views which most Democrats would find objectionable, perhaps even intolerable. But that will be true of any nominee Bush selects, and it is true of the current Acting Attorney General, Paul Clement, who will remain in place if no nominee is confirmed.

I want to highlight one extremely relevant consideration concerning Judge Mukasey - the impressive role he played in presiding over the Jose Padilla case in its earliest stages. After Padilla was first detained in April 2002 and declared an "enemy combatant," he was held incommunicado, denied all access to the outside the world, including counsel, and the Bush administration refused to charge him with any crimes.

"Ezra"

Mukasey In The Hall Of Mirrors

By Neil the Ethical Werewolf

The early word is that Bush will nominate Michael Mukasey for Attorney General. You can read Jeralyn Merritt's post on his history of rulings, Steve Benen's post on how he's regarded by groups on the left and right, or look at his Wikipedia page. Unfortunately, much of the information out there now is of the strange hall-of-mirrors form where you want to like him because right-wing bloggers are disappointed with him because Chuck Schumer and Nan Aron like him.

Putting everything together, he looks like a staunch conservative, but one who will be independent enough to not let Bush get away with Gonzales-era politicization of the judicial system.

"Jeralyn"

Michael Mukasey May Be Named AG Monday
By Jeralyn, Section Other Politics
Posted on Sun Sep 16, 2007 at 09:23:00 AM EST
Tags: Mukasey (all tags)

Bump and Update: President Bush may announce Mukasey as Attorney General on Monday. Glenn Greenwald has a lot more analysis, particularly on his role in the Padilla case.

"The Carpetbagger"

Oddly enough, Mukasey's principal problem, should he be the nominee, is that he may draw fire from the right, not the left.

For one thing, conservatives wanted Olson, not just because of his record as a conservative ideologue, but also because the right relished a high-profile fight with Senate Democrats over the Attorney General vacancy. Conservatives don't care about "confirmable"; they care about partisan warfare.

But more importantly, the right doesn't perceive Mukasey as "one of them."

"Conservatives might have some serious concerns with Mukasey," said one Republican close to the White House. "He's not well known in the community."

Even worse, the progressive legal community doesn't seem to hate him too much. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has been encouraging White House counsel Fred Fielding for a Mukasey nomination, and the Alliance for Justice, a liberal legal group, suggested in 2005 that Mukasey would be a conservative-but-fair Supreme Court nominee.

These are not exactly the kind of accolades conservatives want to hear.

Yglesias:

This is already dull conventional wisdom, but it seems to me that the rumored new guy at the Justice Department, Michael Mukasey, stands a good chance of rescuing the DOJ from its Gonzalez-era status as a cesspool of depravity and incompetence and bringing us back to the glory days of John Ashcroft when one primarily worried about the Attorney-General's ludicrously wrongheaded ideology.

Okay… I think you get the picture… there will be no dissent.

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Markos C.A. Moulitsas Zúñiga (MAMZ) to Endorse Edwards for President



MAMZ is going to endorse Edwards, so maybe this is the Obama campaign trying to cut MAMZ off at the pass?

From the Washington Post today:
And some in the party's [all-white, CIA-sponsored] Net roots -- the bloggers and online activists who have grown in influence and were also early critics of the war -- argue that former senator John Edwards of North Carolina has been more outspoken [than Obama] in his opposition in the past two years.

"It's great [Obama] had good judgment," said Markos Moulitsas Z?niga, who runs the popular liberal blog Daily Kos, but he added: "There's no clarity of message." Moulitsas said that Obama should have firmly come out against any bill that offers funding for the war without a timetable for withdrawal, as Edwards has. ( . . . )Elizabeth Edwards, whose husband has strong support among bloggers and in the antiwar movement despite having voted for the war when he was in the Senate, has questioned that notion. She told the Progressive magazine this summer that Obama is behaving in a "holier than thou" way on the war, arguing that his 2002 speech was "likely to be extraordinarily popular in his home district." WaPost
I wonder how much Edwards is paying MAMZ this cycle?

Technorati Profile

Friday, September 14, 2007

Youtube Series Dramatizes CIA Truth About Kos

Politics is about inspiring people. This year, my Truth about Kos Blog has inspired someone I don't know, some named "Truthout1020," to make three videos, posted at YouTube, that graphically explore the shocking truths that my research has uncovered about Markos C.A. Moulitsas Zúñiga (MAMZ).

All of the videos touch upon MAMZ's shocking involvement with the Central Intelligence Agency. But the latest video specifically dramatizes MAMZ's virulently anti-gay essay that he published in the Northern Star campus newspaper at Northern Illinois University (NIU) on January 25, 1993. Shortly after I uncovered and publicized this essay, the entire archive of the campus newspaper went off-line, including the virulently homophobic essay.

Now, the archives are back on line and they include many articles from 1993. But still missing is the virulently homophobic essay MAMZ published in January of 1993, as well as the series of articles on "racism," in which he disavowed being an immigrant or a minority. Thankfully, many of us made screenshots of those articles when they were still available.

But a troubling question has arisen and it remainst unanswered: Did a major university take its archives offline to prevent embarrassment to Markos Moulitsas? If the NIU archives come back online but they are stripped of the articles that embarrass Moulitsas, then we will have to conclude that the protection for MAMZ in the blogosphere extends even to the point of stripping MAMZ's own statements from the historical record when they embarrass him.

That being said, I am honored that my research, blog and series of investigative articles on MAMZ have inspired Truthout1020 to make a series of graphic video presentations, posted at Youtube, dramatizing The Truth About Kos. I hope we will see many more videos from Truthout1020. S/he certainly has a lot of true material to work with at the Truth About Kos Blog.

The 31-Count Indictment of Markos C.A. Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA by Justice and History

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Blogging for Dollars: On DailyKos and MyDD

Hang Daily Kos,
but not for taking money from Howard Dean.

By Chris Suellentrop, Re-Posted from Slate Magazine

Journalists think blogging makes everyone one of them, but not everyone wants to be a journalist. That's the lesson from a long-running discussion among prominent political bloggers that spilled into the pages of the Friday Wall Street Journal. The Journal's lede: "Howard Dean's presidential campaign hired two Internet political 'bloggers' as consultants so that they would say positive things about the former governor's campaign in their online journals, according to a former high-profile Dean aide." The "high-profile aide" is Zephyr Teachout, the former head of Internet outreach for Dean. Teachout earlier this week blogged on the subject of "Financially Interested Blogging." She wrote, in part, "In this past election, at least a few prominent bloggers were paid as consultants by candidates and groups they regularly blogged about."

Teachout named two prominent bloggers in particular: Jerome Armstrong of myDD.com and Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of Daily Kos. "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," Teachout wrote. "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." In the past, Teachout has also fingered Matthew Gross for writing about Erskine Bowles while Gross was on the candidate's payroll.

Armstrong and Moulitsas have complained vociferously on their blogs about Teachout's post and about the Journal's story, and they have a point: Armstrong quit blogging for the half-year that Armstrong Zuniga, the two men's political consulting firm, was on the Dean payroll, and Moulitsas posted a somewhat grumpy disclosure on his site's front page during the same period. If the two men were journalists, those disclosures would be woefully insufficient. But Armstrong and Moulitsas aren't journalists. Nor does having a blog make someone a journalist.



The word "blogger" connotes enthusiastic amateurism, but nowadays bloggers can be PR flacks, salesmen, and yes, party hacks. The New York Times Magazine's cover story on the liberal blogosphere discussed Moulitsas' awkward place in "the established machinery of the Democratic Party" and noted that the Dean campaign "in fact employed Moulitsas for several months." In April 2004, the Weekly Standard called him "a Democratic political consultant on the make." In December 2003, USA Today noted that "some candidates have hired him as their Web consultant." Despite all this, the Times Mag somehow convinced itself that Moulitsas was one of the "amateurs" on Dean's "thrill ride." NBA ballers get to play in the Olympics now, but calling Moulitsas an amateur shows how far the standards have fallen since the days of Jim Thorpe.

Still, my verdict is to let Armstrong free with a slap on the wrist. Joe Trippi's hiring of Armstrong because of MyDD.com was one of the most-reported anecdotes of the primary season. What's new is Teachout's revelation that the Dean campaign hired Armstrong because they wanted him to give them good blog, not because they wanted his sage political advice. But Armstrong didn't know that, so it's tough to be too hard on him for it.

Moulitsas is a different case. He's never pretended to be a journalist—this past October, he told National Journal, "I am part of the media. But a journalist? No. If I had put a label on it, I would say I am an activist."—but in the year since he stopped cashing Dean's checks, he's gained a reputation as "the liberal Instapundit" and the most popular left-wing blogger. And while it's true that his role as a Dean consultant was disclosed and reported in the press on multiple occasions, it came as a surprise this week to a whole lot of people, including a lot of prominent bloggers. Perhaps more important, the people who were aware of Moulitsas' consulting work aren't 100 percent comfortable with it. "Markos is infamous for these kinds of issues. That may be too strong a word. But it's come up with Markos before," Nicco Mele, the Dean campaign's Webmaster and director of Internet operations, told me. "I can find you threads on Markos's own site about it."

Moulitsas' crime isn't taking money from Howard Dean. He, too, can get away with a suspended sentence for insufficiently disclosing his role in the Dean campaign once he was off the payroll. The hanging offense is that Moulitsas took money from other, undisclosed, political clients. And while he may have disclosed—in 2003—that he wouldn't disclose them, that's not good enough. DailyKos raised money for a dozen congressional candidates this past election. Which, if any, of them paid Moulitsas for the honor of directing his grassroots minions to part with their wallets? If you gave one of Moulitsas' preferred candidates money, wouldn't you like to know if Moulitsas' endorsement was purchased?

Political campaigns and consultants are becoming increasingly skillful at manipulating the mainstream press by planting stories in the blogosphere. Despite this, the mainstream press remains credulous about blogging. During South Dakota's U.S. Senate race between Tom Daschle and John Thune, the Thune campaign put two local political bloggers on its payroll. One got $27,000, the other $8,000. Their anti-Daschle reports trickled up into South Dakota newspapers.

The lesson for a campaign is obvious: Got a story you can't convince a mainstream reporter to run? Leak it anonymously to a blog on your payroll. Then get a local reporter to write a story on the controversial, gossipy, local political blog. Soon everyone in town will be talking about the story you leaked to the blog. Voila! Eventually a mainstream news organization will run a story on the rumor that "everyone is talking about." Or they'll do a "what people are buzzing about on the Internet" piece. And no one will know that the blog post was a paid placement until after the election.

If Moulitsas takes money from political candidates in 2006 and 2008 without telling you who's paying him, stop giving his recommended candidates your dollars. Here's what Moulitsas wrote about payola pundit Armstrong Williams' assertion that "There are others" on the government dole: "Until names are named, we can assume every conservative pundit is on the White House's payola rolls." That's questionable logic, but let's take Moulitsas up on his challenge: Until names are named, we can assume every Daily Kos candidate this past election wrote him a check for his consulting work.

Thursday, September 6, 2007

MAMZ Lies About When he "Became a Democrat." Did He Ever Become a Democrat?


Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket


Markos Moulitsas has told the press,

Now, I went into the Army as a Republican, I came out as a Democrat, and it completely changed my outlook on a lot of things. And when you live side by side with, you know, your fellow soldiers and you realize that they're not a number, that they're actually human beings and they have families, it's a lot harder, I think, to talk about sending them to die for things that aren't really that important. ABC News

That appears to have been a lie. MAMZ was out of the Army and was a student at the Northern Illinois University by the fall of 1992, but he has admitted elsewhere that he voted for George H.W. Bush that fall, AFTER his four years in the Army had elapsed. "Moulitsas voted for Bush Sr. in 1992."

So, was he a Democrat who voted Republican?

If MAMZ was a Democrat by the time he left the Army, why did he publish THIS essay in January of 1993, AFTER he left the Army and when he was a freshman in college:

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Which of these MAMZ stories, these "fish stories," is true?

When MAMZ does these interviews with the press, does he the truth about his life's story, does he invent a series of stories to obscure a myriad of shocking truths, while creating mutually exclusive but invariably-self-serving narratives about whom he is and why?

If MAMZ can't tell the truth about when he became a Democrat, can he tell the truth about anything at all? MAMZ has been a liar all of his life, not just when he was a Reagan Democrat or when he was simultaneously at the CIA and starting DailyKos.

OPIC Sites One Million CAFTA Promotion Grant For "Manager" of Moulitsas' "Family Business."

Markos C.A. Alberto Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA (Kos of DailyKos and Netroots Nation) is a
family member of Carlos AlbertoDelgado ZÚÑIGA, the man in the photograph above below, manager of the Zúñiga "famly hotel". He's also the president of El Salvador's powerful CASATUR, the national tourism Board. A press release by the US Overeas Private Investment Corportation says that one of the family business received a one million dollar loan guarantee from the US OPIC.

So, why has Markos Moulitsas presented himself as a humble immigrant, telling the media, "I don't have money. I don't come from a famous or powerful family I was an immigrant to the United States", (whe he was actually born in Chicago and comes from an enormously powerful and wealthy Salvadoran family?)

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

The Newspaper Interview with Carlos Albert Delgado
About His Corporate Holdings?

Like Markos Alberto Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA (MAMZ), the second last name of the man above is ZÙÑIGA. But, like MAMZ, he prefers not to use this name in public, and his second last name appears mostly in public documents related to his business interests.

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Markos C.A. Moulitsas Zúñiga & C.A. Delgado Zuniga.
Hmmmmmmmmm.

He is listed in Salvadoran government documents as the "manager" of the Markos Moultisas "family business," the Jaltepeque Suites Hotel and he acknowledges that he owns the parent company, Club Joya del Pacífico. He acknowledges in the interview linked above that the Jaltepeque Suites Hotel is his business and this information, combined with MAMZ's assertion that the same business is a "family business," makes the man above a "family member" of Markos Alberto Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA (MAMZ).

In addition to acknowledging in the article linked above that the Jaltepeque Suites Hotel is his business, he further acknowledges that the Jaltepeque Suites Hotel is part of the Joya del Pacífico Group, which includes an array of hotel, condominium, club, pool and spa facilities along the banks of the Jaltepeque Estuary in La Paz, El Salvador.

What is he hiding from the public, the politicians and the news media?

"Secret Agent" MarKOS: Trading 101 Keys for 88

This article is cross-filched from Ft. Hard Knox, a strategic ally in the battle to drive Markos C. A. Moulitsas Zúñiga out of the infitration game.

by TXPoet & JennSierra

Markos (”Kos”) Moulitsas Zúñiga has recently become famous since founding the progressive website, the DailyKOS.


He was born and raised in Chicago, except for five years that he and his parents lived in El Salvador. His father is Greek and his mother is Salvadoran. His wife is Puerto Rican, and a former reporter; they have two children and now live in San Francisco. Their last name is Greek (”Moulitsas”), but he and his family often use his mother’s Hispanic name, “Zúñiga.” The name thing seems to bug him he doesn’t like explaining it but you can read why the names are like this here.

The family in El Salvador owns an upscale hotel in El Salvador and operates Baja Salt. The family receives large US government grants (at least $1 million this year according to OPIC) to promote CAFTA (the Central American Free Trade Agreement). According to some reports, the colorful history of the family includes ties to the death squads in El Salvador. Interestingly, one of Markos’ heros is Archbishop Oscar Romero who was assassinated by suspected death squad members. His other hero is Caesar Chavez.

Prior to founding the DailyKOS, Markos served in the army as an Enlisted Specialist 4th class (E4) , worked as a reporter , attended college (earning two undergraduate degrees in three fields and a J.D. from law school), and underwent some (possibly) paid interview time while applying to the CIA. According to him, before it was time for him to sign the contract, he backed out, preferring to work on the Howard Dean campaign.


Moulitsas is also a fellow at the New Politics Institute, a think tank of the New Democrat Network. The NDN’s stated purpose is to help elect “centrist” Democrats, and is considered by many to be a successor to the centrist Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), an organization that Simon Rosenberg resigned from in 1996.

Markos has a loyal following. The rabid KOS devotees love to jump all anyone who publishes anything remotely negative about their fearless leader, as evidenced by their attacks on Francis L. Holland, Esq at his blog since he first turned up all the negative information on Markos. Needless to say, he was immediately banned from the DailyKOS and his mirrored posts at MyLeftWing also came under attack. The attackers on Holland’s sites were considerably more circumspect with their language than what is often found on the DailyKOS site itself.

Markos, by his own admission, runs the DailyKOS with an iron fist; so he leaves little doubt that the hate-mongering and the name calling is not only seen but approved by him. Markos rarely responds to adverse comments posted elsewhere such as these, he prefers to direct his minions from afar.

In spite of his successes, Markos’ main problem seems to be the ambiguity of his personal statements. Here are some examples:

(from Gather) Markos: And I was offended by the lip service paid to national service when most Republicans couldn’t be bothered to wear combat boots. I voted for Bush in 1992, but that was the last time I voted Republican.

FACT: Most career soldiers vote Republican: “The traditional Republican lock on the military vote, coveted but rarely captured by Democrats…”

(from the DailyKos) Markos: “I subsequently received two bachelor degrees from Northern Illinois University (with majors in Philosophy, Political Science and Journalism)

NOTE: 1. Philosophy, 2. Political Science and 3. Journalism…three majors = two degrees…new math?

(from the Washington Monthly) Wallace-Wells quoting Markos: In November 2002, the Democrats lost seats in the midterm elections. Moulitsas had confidently predicted a big win, but in the aftermath of the disappointment, he became convinced that he understood the key to the party’s electoral failure. Republicans, he believed, had a “noise machine,”–a coalition of coordinated advocacy and opinion media outlets that pressured the mainstream media into reporting, and repeating, GOP-friendly spin. “The simplest fact about American politics,” he told me, “is that Republicans have a noise machine and we don’t.” Daily Kos, he decided, would become the Democratic noise machine, pressing the case against the Bush administration and the Iraq war in the strongest terms possible.

EDITORIAL COMMENT: Bwaa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!

(from ABCNews) Markos: I was in the artillery. I was actually a fire direction specialist, which is kind of a headquarters position. You manage the logistical flow of the missile battery…It means that there’s three missile launchers. I was in a track vehicle. I was in charge of making sure that the vehicles were fueled — the launches were fueled, that the troops in the platoon were fed, that there was enough fuel, ammunition, that sort of thing. So making sure all the other details that make a platoon work.

13p.jpg

OFFICIAL JOB DESCRIPTION: Skill Level 1 (Paygrades E1-E4). Records and transmits firing data using the fire direction system and voice radio. Operates fire direction systems, Platoon Leaders Digital Message Device, and Multiple Launch Rocket System communications equipment. Participates in gathering of operations and intelligence data. Plots using fire capability charts and friendly and enemy situation maps. Records ammunition expenditure, equipment serviceability, situation, firing point, target, and mission reports. Drives section vehicles, performs operator/crew maintenance on section vehicles, generators, and equipment.

Aids in collection and transmission of data. Installs, maintains, and operates radio wire communications, digital communications devices, and secure voice equipment.

SERIOUSLY: Anyone who has been in the service knows that a Specialist 4th class or PFC is never “in charge” of any thing. Markos likes to use words to inflate his own importance. Although he claims not to be into self promotion, his choice of words betray him and really give insight into his problem. Markos is a short 5’7” and he doesn’t like it. He was a soldier. Officers both commissioned and non-commissioned are “in charge;” the others simply follow orders!

Recently, at the YearlyKOS convention, Markos bragged that with his help, Lamont campaign, “kicked Lieberman out of the Democrat Party,” and also boasted, that “even the most powerful, entrenched forces can be dislodged by people-power.”



["Isn't MAMZ really, really cute . . . sie?
It's a shame he's so homophobic."
-- Francis L. Holland ]

INTERESTING: Markos was strangely quiet when Lieberman went on to win as an Independent even after the massive smear campaign against him.

Markos has many other interests other than the pursuit of more money and more power. He plays the piano. You might say he trades 101 keys for 88. At least with the 88 he hits fewer sour notes. He also writes and publishes, and runs sports blogs (SportsBlogs, SB Nation, AthleticNation). In a recent ABCNews interview, he declined to specify his annual income, but proudly noted that he’d recently purchased a $150,000 Bosendorfer Grand piano, and purchased a home in Berkeley, CA.

(Discover The Networks): Zúñiga wields considerable influence within the Democratic Party. In addition to his work for the Dean campaign, he reportedly consults with staffers for Senator Harry Reid; confers with aides for Democratic Senators on a weekly basis; and worked with Democratic operatives to devise a strategy for the 2006 midterm elections. In 2004 the Democratic leadership invited him to speak to Senate Democrats about how they could better use the Internet as a fundraising tool.

This is the frightening part. People are listening to this man. In every interview his style of talking is mentioned. The rapid fire dumping of ideas. He tends to contradict himself, correct himself and be thinking out loud. His statements are often contradictory but so far he has been able to control his errors by choosing his words. He is a contradiction. The one thing that remains constant is his desire to elect Democrats. Markos announced in Oct 2006 that he is leaving KOS sometime in the next year in an interview with Ana Marie Cox (who just happens to work for the same publications his wife did) . It will be interesting to see if this occurs.

Don’t bet on it. He displays symptoms of the “short man” syndrome. He has tasted power and now hungers for it. His political acumen is a shell game. He should stick to playing the piano and composing because he is good at that.

Markos himself, said:

It’s scary to me that I could be the guy who gives advice, and someone takes it and flops…

Indeed. The fact that the Democratic leadership looks to you for advice and guidance speaks volumes on their grasp of reality.

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[…] first one goes into the history of Markos (”Kos”) Moulitsas Zúñiga who founded The Daily KOS. Read here… It goes into detail on Markos’ history etc. and is very […]


Francis Holland's Comment: Should Black activists accept Republican help to unmask white supremacist apartheid bloggers, psuedo-progressive CIA-supporters within the Democratic Party? Well, we Blacks are in the minority in America, so we have to acknowledge strategic help where we can find it.

In this case, my enemy's enemies are . . . quite insightful and helpful. If I can find any more dirt on white supremacist blogs operating within the Democratic Party, I'm definitely going to post it at Republicans sites. We've got to drive up the price of white supremacist apartheid blogging so much that the big white boys of pseudo-progressive blogs aren't willing to pay that price anymore.

If they thought I was annoying when I was challenging them at their pseudo-progressive white supremacist apartheid blogs (e.g. DailyKos, MyDD), just look what I'm going to do to them when I'm pissing into their tents from the outside!

Markos and Matt, you might not want Black bloggers for friends, but you're REALLY not going like us as enemies.

Unmasking Kommandante Markos



TXPoet & JennSierra at Ft. Hard Knox have a wonderful piece on Markos Alberto Moulitsas Zúñiga, known by some as the Grand Ayatollah of the Kooky Kult of Koslam.

(from ABCNews) Markos: I was in the artillery. I was actually a fire direction specialist, which is kind of a headquarters position. You manage the logistical flow of the missile battery…It means that there’s three missile launchers. I was in a track vehicle. I was in charge of making sure that the vehicles were fueled — the launches were fueled, that the troops in the platoon were fed, that there was enough fuel, ammunition, that sort of thing. So making sure all the other details that make a platoon work.

Army of One, personified.


[official job description]

SERIOUSLY: Anyone who has been in the service knows that a Specialist 4th class or PFC is never “in charge” of any thing. Markos likes to use words to inflate his own importance. Although he claims not to be into self promotion, his choice of words betray him and really give insight into his problem. Markos is a short 5’7” and he doesn’t like it. He was a soldier. Officers both commissioned and non-commissioned are “in charge;” the others simply follow orders!

In other words, Private Zúñiga was assigned duties similar to that of a high school kid on his first job at Wienerschnitzel, McDonald's, Burger King or the local Whoop-de-doodle -- he was a gofer.

Or, as some folks would say, all around butt-boy. Jammie Wearing Fool

Should Black activists accept Republican help to unmask white supremacists CIA-supporters within the Democratic Party? Well, we Blacks are in the minority, so we have to acknowledge strategic help where we find it. In this case, my enemy's enemies are . . . quite helpful. If I can find any mroe dirt on white supremacist blogs operating within the Democratic Party, I'm definitely going to post it at Republicans sites. We got to drive up the price of white supremacist apartheid blogging so much that the big white blogs of pseudo-progressive blogs aren't willing to pay that price anymore. If you thought I was annoying when I was challenging you at your pseudo-progressive white supremacist apartheid blogs (DailyKos, MyDD), just look what I'm going to do to you when I'm pissing into your tents from the outside!

Monday, September 3, 2007

Why is MAMZ's Homophobic 1993 Essays Missing from Google Cache?

[UPDATE] of 11/08/2010:  The Northern Illinois University's Northern Star Student newspaper link to the letter below has changed not just three but now FOUR times in three years since my first publication of this letter at various blogs, but it can currently be found here.

[UPDATE] of 2/3/2010: The Northern Illinois University's Northern Star Student newspaper link to the letter below has changed three times in three years by the Northern Star newspaper, and was completely offline immediately after my first publication of this letter at various blogs, but it can currently be found here.


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On August 1, 2007, I revealed in an article at The Truth About Kos that "Markos C.A. Moulitsas published a virulently anti-gay essay when he was a college freshman, adamantly opposing ALL gays in the military because gays made him "inherently uncomfortable."

So that the article can be found through a Google search, I will post the original article verbatim here:
Posted: Monday, January 25, 1993 12:00 am

It's truly disturbing how much ado has been made over Bill Clinton's campaign promise to lift the ban on homosexuals from the U.S. military. It's ironic how it has taken a president who has never served in the military to make a promise that affects the military in such a negative manner.

Those who have served in the military, such as myself, understand the demands and pressures of military life are incompatible with allowing integration with homosexuals. I'm neither socially conservative or prejudiced, and neither is liberal columnist Mike Royko, Gen. Colin Powell, and influential liberal Democrats Sam Nunn and Les Aspin, all who've come out against lifting the ban.

Under military circumstances, as much has to be done as possible to focus the unit's mission and keep disciplinary problems to a minimum. Worrying about whether the known homosexual sleeping next to you is watching as you change your underwear may seem trivial as you read this, but to the soldier who's short-tempered after three weeks in the field and four hours of daily sleep, it becomes a matter of great importance to his pride and sensibilities. And in any case, there aren't many people who would change clothes in a group of co-workers if members of the opposite sex were in the same room watching. There is something inherently uncomfortable about it.

Such fears would go a long way in disrupting efficiency and morale in a unit.

MARKOS C.A. MOULITSAS

Undecided

Freshman
After reading this article, some readers have wondered whether "undecided" refers to MAMZ's sexuality or his intended major at the University.

Over the last three years, ss the Northern Illinois University has gone about reformatting its archives, it has added a field in which readers can click on comments.  With respect to its archives, this is  a mistake, since no apparent effort has been made to link to responses to letters to the editor or responses to articles made in the past.  In the present instance, NIU makes the mistake of saying that MAMZ's article had "0 comments", even though search of their archives shows that  a former military woman student, CHERYL ANNDEL,  published a vigorous counter-argument about MAMZ's letter.  That counter-argument is posted in its entirety, and can also be found on the NIU website by diligent searchers.  This critical article can also be found here at Truth About Kos even if NIU changes the addresses of all of their articles for a sixth time.

Within two weeks, the knowledge of Moulitsas' virulent college homophobia became part of what is known in the blogosphere about MAMZ, modifying forever the blogosphere's image of MAMZ, because the article showed MAMZ to be a reactionary Republican as well as a very sexually immature and insecure and really quite laughable man, like Republican Senator Larry Craig.

However, by August 31, I reported at Truth About Kos and others reported in two other blogs that the homophobic article had gone missing from the archives of the student newspaper where MAMZ published it, along with every single article mentioning the name "Moulitsas." In fact, at least thirteen years of archives that we online at MAMZ's alma mater on August 1 were no longer online on August 31. And now the article seems to be missing from the Google cache as well.


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On August 31, I called the Northern Star student newspaper at Northern Illinois University and was told that, as I reported at FPP, although the website was undergoing renovations, the all of the archives would be available again within a week, according to a named source at the paper.
On August 31, we thought we had found a reliable and readily accessible backup of the orginal speech when Roy Solomon at PFF pointed out that the article could still be found in cache on stored articles at Google, and he posted a screen shot of that cache.
On September 1, I reported that MAMZ was confronted at DailyKos with this essay, acknowledged that he had written it, and said it showed he was a "stupid ass."


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Howeveer, five days later, there are still nine years of articles missing from the Northern Illinois University campus newspaper, including almost three dozen articles written by MAMZ. And now the Google cache of the homophobic article has also gone missing.


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We've got some great technical minds at PFF and surely one of them can offer a perfectly reasonable explanation why the Google cache is not be available where it was before and the link no longer works.

Saturday, September 1, 2007

MAMZ Confronted w/His Homophobic Essay at DailyKos

Cross-posted at Political Fleshfeast.

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Yesterday, while Markos C.A.Moulitsas Zúñiga (MAMZ) was attempting to position himself as a progressive by heralding the Iowa decision in favor or gay marriage, a courageous DailyKos participant (who had not yet been banned) posted MAMZ's 1993 essay in which he opposed ALL service by gays in the US military. DailyKos

Courageous people are starting to challenge MAMZ's bullshit, using his own words and speeches to do so.

MAMZ responded by saying that he has changed, and therefore presumably is not still the virulently homophobic reactionary Republican who was a precinct worker for Ronald Reagan and who voted for George H.W. Bush right before Bush appointed Clarence Thomas to the US Supreme Court.

There are some errors of judgment that cannot be addressed in few pithy sentences. "I haven't hidden the fact that I was a REPUBLICAN back then. And yes, by being a Republican, I held stupid-ass beliefs. Then I evolved."

He didn't hold stupid ass beliefs because he was a Republican. He was a Republican because he was a stupid ass.

If MAMZ's beliefs have changed since then, they why did he tell the Cato Institute just last year:

We can fondly look back to a time when Republicans spoke a good game on libertarian issues. They professed fealty to state rights, spoke of shrinking the government, preserving individual liberty, and embracing fiscal responsibility. CatoUnbound, October 2nd, 2006
"States rights?" Like the right to prosecute gay sex?

WHEN did the Republicans believe in individual liberties? As I remember it, they have ALWAYS run for office against gay rights, against women's rights, against minority rights, and against the right of gays to serve in the military!

Since MAMZ admits he was a "stupid ass" when he was a Reagan Republican, and voted for George H.W. Bush, then why was he looking back "fondly" on the Reagan/Bush years as recently as last year, in his October 2nd, 2006 Cato essay?

The truth is, MAMZ has never valued the rights of the diverse coalition of the Democratic Party. That's why he said in one college essay,

"And as I left the ugly reality of racism behind, it struck me that what was such an easy and trivial exercise for me would be impossible for anyone whose skin color or religious persuassion (sic) made them the target of bigotry and discrimination. THEY would never be able to escape who THEY were." The Truth About Kos.(Emphasis added.)
In fact, MAMZ never left "racism" behind. He just announced his decision to ignore, it while it continued to rage all around him, even supporting it at the ballot box and as a Republican campaign worker. And the fact that he still "fondly" remembers this political period shows that he really never did "evolve."

The more power people like MAMZ gain in the Democratic Party, the more the base constituencies of the Party, and the Party's electoral viability itself, will be "left behind."