Monday, March 15, 2010

DailyKos Black Participation Increases 300% in Two Months?

On December 23, 2009, I wrote here that:
Quantcast.com, a service that measures site traffic demographics, says that the DailyKos audience is 97% white, 2% Black, and zero percent Latino. Another DailyKos participant argues that "Daily Kos IS NOT THE BASE, never has been..." (See:"Surprise! DailyKos is All White (and Full of Racists)"
Well, since I read that 97% white statistics in December, the Quantcast numbers moved to show DailyKos as 90% white and 6% African-American.

Something is amiss here. DailyKos did its own poll of participants two or three years ago and concluded that the site was 97% white. Quantcast looked at DailyKos in December and concluded that the site participation was 2% Black. And now we are asked to believe that Black participation has gone from 2% to 6% (a three hundred percent increase) in just two months and twenty days?

Something is amiss here, just as something is amiss at Northern State University's Northern Star, where the Web addresses of MAMZ's college school newspaper articles changed and the articles became unavailable a mere week or two after I published some of their shocking and laughable contents.

I don't believe for a moment that DailyKos' Black site traffic has increased 300% over two months. I think that MAMZ and his minions realized how embarrassing the Quantcast numbers were, so they Google-bombed his site to make it look like it had a larger Black audience than it does (although six percent is nothing to crow about when the nation has a Black president and 20% of delegates to the Democratic National Convention are Black.

Why does the site still show a mere 1 (one) percent Latino participation, even though MAMZ himself participates in a "family business" in El Salvador?


I believe the answer is that:

(1)
The site doesn't address issues, people and countries that are meaningful to Latinos, and

(2) The site is openly hostile to anyone who lets on that they do not have white skin and a white prototypically white mindset, and
(3) MAMZ has specifically disavowed being a minority, repeatedly refers to Hispanics and Latinos as "they", and MAMZ therefore not a Hispanic or Latino. (See Moulitsas Says His Attitude Toward Latinos, Hispanics and all Minorities is "detached selfishness".
(4)
MAMZ's flight from Latinohood is obvious in his insistence that "Zúñiga" should not be considered part of his name, even though it's part of his family's name. This is obvious in the lack of Latinos and Hispanic issues addressed at the site. Also see this prominent warning at Wikipedia: "This is a Spanish name; the first family name is Moulitsas and the second is Zúñiga." (In other words, leave the last (Latino) name out when referring to him, just as Wikipedia does in the address of his Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markos_Moulitsas*
, so
(5) Latinos can't see any good reason to waste their time at DailyKos.

Now that I've stated that the 1% Latino traffic at DailyWhitosphere is a problem rooted in MAMZ's self-identification, let's see if Quantcast is reporting by May that the number of Latinos visiting the DailyWhitosphere has increased six-fold, to six percent of site participation, while Latinos are more than 13% of the population in the United States and their votes decide who the next Congressmen and President will be.

* How do I know that MAMZ and his minions control the content of his wikipedia page? Just go to the Wikipedia page and see that there is no reference to the two years of training at the CIA, to which MAMZ has confessed. Why would anyone excise two years of training and internship in Washington DC from their resume unless they simply didn't want anyone to know about it?

I have gone to the Wikipedia page and inserted reference to the CIA, but it is always taken out later. Apparently, there are people who believe that two years of training at the CIA is irrelevant to the bona fides of a "leftist" bloggers. Rather than leave the information there for the public to weigh, the redact and erase the information so that MAMZ wikipedia page reads like a speakers bureau biographical piece. By excising this reference from the MAMZ biography, Wikipedia makes itself a vanity publisher for MAMZ's self-promotional press release.

MAMZ's Histrionics Include Calling for a Primary Challenge for Dennis Kucinich

Markos C. Alberto Moulitsas Zúñiga (MAMZ) once said that every time someone attacked him, it helped him to become more famous. It's also true that every time MAMZ attacks someone who is well-known, like Congressman Dennis Kucinich, MAMZ becomes more famous, which helps draw media and public attention to his 97% white and 65% atheist blog, as well as the books he has written.

Over the last two years, a newer phenomenon has arisen: Every time MAMZ says something that is shockingly wrong-headed or blatantly histrionic (like attacking an ex-US Congressman Tom Tancredo on television for not serving in the military, while MAMZ holds himself out as a veteran of the US Army), the public goes looking on Google for background information about MAMZ. Many people come to the Truth About Kos blog, wondering just what MAMZ's problem is.

The public wants to know whether MAMZ is gay because, in 1993, MAMZ wrote a vehemently homophobic letter to his college newspaper, in which letter MAMZ opposed ALL gay participation in the US military. This blog's research, discovery and publication of that letter, and MAMZ own publicly perceived effeminate manner, has had the effect of causing the public to think "gay" whenever they hear the name "Moulitsas." There's nothing wrong with being gay. There is something wrong with being a political hypocrite.

It is, indeed, ironic that a letter so vehemently anti-gay has led the public to wonder whether MAMZ is gay himself. There have been so many cases in the news over the last two years of covertly gay Congressmen overtly bashing gays in their political ravings, such that MAMZ's behavior is perceived in the context of ex-US-Senator Larry Craig's behavior.

Whether MAMZ is gay or not is only meaningful to determine just how hypocritical his letter of 1993 was, perhaps bashing others in order to solidify the public's perception of himself as non-gay.

What concerns me is whether there is a white male blogger, owner of a 97% white blog, trying to take over a Democratic Party that is 20% Black in its delegates to the Democratic National Convention. MAMZ crashing of the gates, if successful, would leave Blacks with no representation whatever in American politics. The Democratic Party would inevitably lose more often because Blacks always vote for the Democratic Party candidate while whites decide based on the presentations of the candidates and, statistically, are far more likely to vote for Republicans.

Of more concern to most whites, I would like to see ONE national media outlet post an article in which MAMZ explains why he was at the CIA training to be a spy at the same time that he was founding his ostensibly "leftist," all-white DailyKos blog.

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Dennis Kucinich Responds to Attacks from MAMZ ("Kos" of DailyKos, AKA DailyWhitosphere)



I pay close attention to this site's Site Meter in order to confirm this fact:

The more Democratic activists and progressives know about Markos C. Alberto Moulitsas Zúñiga (MAMZ), the more they see him as a dishonest two-year CIA-trained agent or asset, infiltrating and manipulating the Democratic Party and particularly the anti-war left and progressives.

About two or three dozen readers came to this blog when a link was posted in this story at SomethingAwful.Com, pointing out MAMZ's connection to the CIA. This shows that individuals in the blogosphere need not argue about Kos to discredit him. All they need to do is post a link to the Truth About Kos and that settles the issue definitively in conversations at blogs all over the United States and elsewhere.

(And you can pretty well assume that anyone who defends and/or collaborates with MAMZ--even after learning of MAMZ history and his habit of blatantly lying about himself and his Salvadoran oligarchy family--must themselves be an agent, an asset or an anus.)

So, I was pleased to note that an article at FireDogLake, entitled "," puts MAMZ's criticism of Congressman Kucinich in the context of progressive criticism of MAMZ for the two years he spent training at the CIA, between 2001 and 2003. (See probative links in right sidebar.)

In the comments, the article writer says,

Following is the full text of Markos Moulitsas Zuniga’s statement at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco in 2006 and his curious statements about the CIA:

QUESTION: Not long ago, liberals loathed the Central Intelligence Agency as the enemy of democratic governments and they installed dictators around the world, and these days you read the papers and people on the Left are rallying to the defense of the CIA and are indignant when the CIA is politicized. How did this come about, that suddenly liberals are championing the CIA:

Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA’S ANSWER: I don’t know. You know I.

QUESTION: Do you find it stranger or ironic, this sudden love for the CIA?

Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA’S ANSWER: You know . . . coughs . . . I think a lot of the people that did have problems with the CIA, I mean it was a very vocal minority.

Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA’S ANSWER: You know . . . coughs . . . I think a lot of the people that did have problems with the CIA, I mean it was a very vocal minority. I think most people really didn’t think about it all that much. Right? It wasn’t really on their radar screens, ah, in the way that now it is, because now we are in this huge war, and it was the CIA that was warning the Administration against invading because, there were no weapons of mass destruction.

Here’s a little secret I don’t think I’ve ever written about: But in 2001, I was unemployed, underemployed, unemployed. You know I was in that . . You all have been there “dot com” people? Kinda like, in between jobs, doin’ a little contract work and . . . kinda. So, you know. That’s where I was: in this really horrible netherworld of ‘will I make rent next month’ and . . .

So, I applied to the CIA and I went all the way to the end, I mean it was to the point where I was going to sign papers to become Clandestine Services. And it was at that point that the Howard Dean campaign took off and I had to make a decision whether I was gonna kinda join the Howard Dean campaign, that whole process, or was I was going to become a spy. (Laughter in the audience.) It was going to be a tough decision at first, but then the CIA insisted that if, if I joined that, they’d want me to do the first duty assignment in Washington, DC, and I hate Washington, DC. Six years in Washington, DC [inaudible] that makes the decision a lot easier.

[ . . .] This is a very liberal institution. And in a lot of ways, it really does attract people who want to make a better, you know, want to make the world a better place . . . Of course, they’ve got their Dirty Ops and this and that, right but as an institution itself the CIA is really interested in stable world. That’s what they’re interested in. And stable worlds aren’t created by destabilizing regimes and creating wars. Their done so by other means. Assassination labor leaders . . . I’m kidding!

[ . . . ] I don’t think it’s a very partisan thing to want a stable world. And even if you’re protecting American interests, I mean that can get ugly at times, but generally speaking I think their hearts in the right place. As an organization their heart is in the right place. I’ve never had any problem with the CIA. I’d have no problem working for them .

Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA at the Commonwealth Club.

The article writer further says,
Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, the millionaire behind DailyKos, grew up as as a self-professed Reagan youth, signed up to work for the CIA but claimed he didn’t want to work for them because it involved moving to Washington, D.C. to work for the Dean campaign:
Here’s a little secret I don’t think I’ve ever written about: But in 2001, I was unemployed, underemployed, unemployed. You know I was in that . . You all have been there “dot com” people? Kinda like, in between jobs, doin’ a little contract work and . . . kinda. So, you know. That’s where I was: in this really horrible netherworld of ‘will I make rent next month’ and . . .

So, I applied to the CIA and I went all the way to the end, I mean it was to the point where I was going to sign papers to become Clandestine Services. And it was at that point that the Howard Dean campaign took off and I had to make a decision whether I was gonna kinda join the Howard Dean campaign, that whole process, or was I was going to become a spy.
A You Tube video clip of Markos Moulitsas Zuniga (AKA "Kos") making these remarks and praising the CIA (the CIA’s a "very liberal institution" and "wants to make the world a better place") to California’s Commonwealth Club in June, 2006, is available here.

Maybe someone should ask Kos the question that Jane Hamsher put to Lonny Davis: who pays you?
One need only look to the 2008 Democratic National Convention's all-white state-blog system, based on Daily Kos' all-white state blog system (see Washington Post article), to see that MAMZ's behavior is inimical to promoting a united Democratic Party. Rather than support the parties constituencies, including women (look what he said about Hillary Clinton as she took on a field of white men), MAMZ tries to alienate key constituencies that participate in the blog world and the Democratic Party. Hillary Clinton: Too Much of a Clinton Democrat? (By Markos Moulitsas, Washington Post Op Ed Article, Sunday, May 7, 2006.) Clearly, MAMZ was unconcerned about attacking the only sure candidate at the time who was not a white man.

In fact, the tone of his op-ed piece trying to posit Hillary Clinton as the antithesis and anti-Christ of the "netroots" reminds me of the tone of the opinion article MAMZ published in his college newspaper thirteen years earlier, opposing ALL gay service in the US military and ridiculing President Bill Clinton for even raising the issue.

MAMZ has admitted, in his words, that he was "idiotic" for many years, including when he voted for George H. W. Bush in 1992. He hasn't said whether his "idiotic" years include the two years when he was in training to be a CIA Agent--a fact which he has acknowledged.

In 2007/2008, MAMZ tried almost successfully to turn the Democratic Party's accredited Convention floor blogging corps into a copy of his whitosphere apartheid virtually all-white state blog list, which you can see at his DailyWhitosphere blog.

When we Black bloggers took the issue to the national press, the Washington Post quoted me, saying,
"There is nothing 'Democratic' about an all-white Democratic National Convention floor blogging corps," he wrote in an e-mail. Holland is also asking for the inclusion of 15 Latino-operated blogs.
(In fact, the last time I looked at the DailyKos blog list, I noticed that one the two Black blogs mentioned among a hundred or so was the blog of a Black man who passed away years ago.

Thanks a lot, MAMZ! You may as well invite Malcolm X (but not Spike Lee) to blog at DailyKos while you're at it, so deep is your commitment to blog apartheid. If my late mother saw you parading your commitment to Blacks by putting dead Blacks on your blogroll, she'd surely say, "That's mighty white of you!"

The other Black person on the DailyWhitosphere bloglist (among a hundred blogs or so) was the blog of a Black woman who sits with Kos on the Board of YearlyWhitosphere (AKA Netroots Nation), which leaves me wondering WHATEVER to think and whom to believe and whom to trust?

StuartBramhall's Blog asks, "Who pays for the Daily Kos? Follow the money."

Over in the comments at RawStory, and linking to this blog:

malikk 2 days ago in reply to kucinich2012


2 people liked this.
daily CIA kos is


Starting in the early days of the Cold War (late 40's), the CIA began a secret project called Operation Mockingbird, with the intent of buying influence behind the scenes at major media outlets and putting reporters on the CIA payroll, which has proven to be a stunning ongoing success. The CIA effort to recruit American news organizations and journalists to become spies and disseminators of propaganda, was headed up by Frank Wisner, Allen Dulles, Richard Helms, and Philip Graham (publisher of The Washington Post). Wisner had taken Graham under his wing to direct the program code-named Operation Mockingbird and both have presumably committed suicide.

Media assets will eventually include ABC, NBC, CBS, Time, Newsweek, Associated Press, United Press International (UPI), Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps-Howard, Copley News Service, etc. and 400 journalists, who have secretly carried out assignments according to documents on file at CIA headquarters, from intelligence-gathering to serving as go-betweens. The CIA had infiltrated the nation's businesses, media, and universities with tens of thousands of on-call operatives by the 1950's. CIA Director Dulles had staffed the CIA almost exclusively with Ivy League graduates, especially from Yale with figures like George Herbert Walker Bush from the "Skull and Crossbones" Society.

Many Americans still insist or persist in believing that we have a free press, while getting most of their news from state-controlled television, under the misconception that reporters are meant to serve the public. Reporters are paid employees and serve the media owners, who usually cower when challenged by advertisers or major government figures. Robert Parry reported the first breaking stories about Iran-Contra for Associated Press that were largely ignored by the press and congress, then moving to Newsweek he witnessed a retraction of a true story for political reasons. In 'Fooling America: A Talk by Robert Parry' he said, "The people who succeeded and did well were those who didn't stand up, who didn't write the big stories, who looked the other way when history was happening in front of them, and went along either consciously or just by cowardice with the deception of the American people."
In an article at FireDogLake, Flambeau recites the proof of MAMZ's connections to the CIA and the Republican Party. Meanwhile, the docudharma blog (started by someone who didn't defend me when the virtually all-white (97%) night-riders of DailyKos were driving me off the blog), yes docudharma blog has comments on MAMZ's CIA history, linking to this Truth About Kos blog.

Well this has been what whitosphere bloggers used to call a "rant," before ranting became an illicit behavior at whitosphere blogs. The difference between my rants and some of theirs is that mine are filled with links that prove and let readers judge the facts about which I am ranting.

Friday, March 12, 2010

Objectivo Challenges MAMZ's CIA Roots At DailyKos


Yesterday, a writer who goes by the name "Objectivo" pointed out to DailyKos MAMZ minions that their fearless "leftist leader" was also a two-year CIA trainee. It's worth noting that MAMZ has acknowledged that he was in training to be a CIA agent, 2001 - 2003, at the very time in 2002 when he founded DailyKos.

Now, look at the comments to the diary, made inevitably by MAMZ minions. None of the deal directly, meaningfully or seriously with the fact that MAMZ is a CIA-trained leftist, which is an oxymoron, an internally impossible contradiction. In an audiotaped interview, MAMZ tries to rationalize his contention that he was trained by the CIA to be an anti-establishment leftist. Listen to what he says. No one who has listened to it thinks it makes any sense whatever. It doesn't make sense for two simple reasons: It's not true and it's utterly impossible for it to be true.

Some people wonder why I insist on referring to Markos C. Alberto Moulitsas Zúñiga according to his initials, "M.A.M.Z." Although MAMZ hates to hear anyone refer to his Spanish-language surname "Zuniga," that's perfectly understandable because the name connects him directly to the Salvadoran oligarchy family into which he was born.

MAMZ says that he was born into a family that was "not wealthy or influential" and yet the manager of his "family hotel," who shares MAMZ's last name, is listed in this online book, an international who's who, as the president of the Association of Salvadoran Hotels and president of the Salvadoran National Tourism Board. The unavoidable truth is that MAMZ is a liar.

So, who are those idiots at DailyKos who laughingly deride substantive and fundamental criticisms of MAMZ? Who trained them to all laugh and joke all at once when someone, anyone writes and publishes a diary at DailyKos that critically addresses the forbidden subjects MAMZ, Israel, 9-11 and coordinated activities that constitute conspiracies, which is defined at Merriam Websters dictionary as follows:

1 : the act of conspiring together
2 a : an agreement among conspirators b : a group of conspirators

One need only look at all of the idiotic, derogatory, threatening and off-topic responses to Objectivos diary to see that there is an ongoing "plot" to discourage, intimidate, threaten and ultimately ban those who challenge the site's owner's relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency. Remember that, as defined above, a "plot" need not be illegal to constitute a conspiracy.

The word "conspiracy" is six hundred years old (see above), and yet DailyKos insists that the word no longer has relevance in the context of today's CIA operations and, in particular, the super-secretive Townhouse Group whose purpose is to coordinate, mold and lead the messaging in the whitosphere without publicly acknowledging their conspiracy, or the effects that it has on the blog world. See "CIA-Trained Blogger [MAMZ] Disbursing Money to "Progressives."

Returning to the discussion of Objectivo's diary that was ridiculed at DK, it apparently is entirely permissible for MAMZ to confess to this covert behavior of training with the CIA (he never told us until 2006 that he was at the CIA in 2002. when he started DailyKos). But it is impermissible to discusses these bizarre facts are at DK, whatever these astounding discoveries ultimately include as the blogworld discusses and researches the facts more.

Although MAMZ confesses to fact that utterly undermines his credibility as a leftist, this fact cannot be meaningfully discussed at DailyKos or at any other of what I call the "MAMZ minion" blogs. These are (typically) whitosphere blogs such as MyDD, whose owner MAMZ refers to as "the blogfather." At such blogs, reporting and discussing negative facts about MAMZ is considered "troll-like behavior." Research and reporting are troll-like, while joining a mass idiots who deny the significance of CIA infiltration of the left is considered "troll-like."

Many bloggers ignore DailyKos and its fellow MAMZ-minion blogs precisely because readers quickly realize these are part of a fake Alice in Wonderland version of online communication and activism.

Are they all doing so spontaneously, or is it a subtle message to others at the blog that they must not try to have a serious conversation, because anyone who takes the facts seriously will be banned from participation?

That's how it works over at DK, and the comments to the above-linked diary prove it. If they all endeavor to evade, mock and ridicule the truth simultaneously, does that constitute a conspiracy? I think it does.

Wealthy Moulitsas-ZÚÑIGA (Kos) Family Pollutes Fragile Salvadoran Estuary, Threatens Wildlife Share

This 183-comment post was first posted at MyLeftWing, which blog should pay me for the site traffic this groundbreaking research has brought them, in the two years since they banned me for "bashing" (otherwise known as 'researching, attacking and discrediting') CIA-trained Markos C. Alberto Moulitsas Zúñiga (MAMZ).

Cross-posted at the Truth About Kos Blog.

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket


In April of this year, Markos Alberto Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA told La Prensa Gráfica, "I don’t have money. I don’t come from a famous or powerful family." Recently we have learned that none of this is true. In fact, contrary to what Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA has said, his family in El Salvador is wealthy and important enough to be one of the biggest environmental polluters of the Jaltepeque Estuary, where the family owns and operates a multi-million dollar hotel and subdividision conglomerate that is polluting a precious ecosystem.

The World Bank says, with specific reference to the tourism industry in the area where these hotels, clubs and subdivisions are being constructed,

Tourism in Jaltepeque generates income but has been developed with no coordination, regulation, or management, and has contributed significantly to degrading coastal resources in the area. In the Jiquilisco area tourism has been developed mostly through isolated, local initiatives with no clear promotion or management, leading to environmental problems such as waste and sewage accumulation, disruption of sea turtle laying and hatching by building too close to the beach, disruption of sea bird nesting, and landscape deterioration.

The rapid conversion of mangroves through illegal deforestation and fill operations constitutes a globally important threat. World Bank, p. 130.


francislholland :: Wealthy Moulitsas-ZÚÑIGA (Kos) Family Pollutes Fragile Salvadoran Estuary, Threatens Wildlife
Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

AN INVESTIGATIVE REPORT

Wetlands Cananda.Org

According to the Salvadoran Ministry of Tourism website, the "Costa del Sol" (Sun Coast) is 65 kilometers to the southeast of San Salvador, en the La Paz area.

Translated: "Located thirty minutes from the International Airport, the Sun Coast is the beach with the greatest tourist development in the country. Beautiful private homes, clubs, hotels and restaurants build on the oceanfront offer entertainment and value.

Particularly famous for its sunsets, this beach offers access to the Jaltepeque Estuary, where fishing, water-skiing, boat tours and bird watching in the natural mangrove habitat are daily activities." Salvadoran Ministry of Tourism


In an obscure reference in his wedding album, Markos Alberto Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA (M.A.M.Z) recounts the details of his honeymoon, acknowledging that his family is in the tourism business in El Salvador, specifically as owner of the Hotel Suites Jaltepeque, on the banks of the Jaltepeque Estuary. According to MAMZ online wedding album, "The Suites Jaltepeque is our family-owned hotel on El Salvador's Costa del Sol -- the largest uninterrupted beach in Central America. (. . .) The Costa del Sol is sandwiched between the Pacific Ocean and the Estero (estuary) de Jaltepeque. We also took a boat ride through some of the estuary's channels, and motored through a flock of hundreds of pelicans -- quite the sight!" (Emphasis added.)

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Tourism is big business in El Salvador. According to the Promoting Investment in El Salvador (PROESA) website, "During the year 2004, over 966,000 visitors arrived in El Salvador, generating $425 million and a growth of 13.4% with regards to the previous year." With associates placed at the very highest levels of the governance of El Salvador’s tourism industry, MAMZ’s family business is primed to do extremely well in the coming years, particularly by continuing the expand their hotel business on the banks of the endangered Jaltepeque Estuary.

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Online Wedding Album shows MAMZ's family owns
the Jaltepeque Suites Hotel, on the
banks of the Jaltepeque Estuary in El Salvador.

The Jaltepeque Suites Hotel shares a telephone number, e-mail address and contiguous property with the Club Joya del Pacífico (Jewel of the Pacific). Together, they are subdividing, developing, and destroying a crucial piece of environment that is internationally recognized as being endangered.

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

According to the environmental group Wetlands Canada,

In 1980, a study by the El Salvador National Parks and Wildlife Service estimated that more than 70% of the beaches have been divided into lots for recreational purposes. Development of these areas will be detrimental to adjacent wetlands that are perceived as wastelands and often cleared.

SPECIFIC VALUES AND FUNCTIONS OF EL SALVADORAN WETLANDS

The few remaining wetlands in El Salvador do not compare in size and variety to the vast wetlands of the Miskitia of Honduras and Nicaragua. However, they do provide an important function as refuges for commercially-important aquatic species. This and several other important functions and values of El Salvadoran wetlands are listed below.

The coastal wetlands, coral reefs, lagoons and riverine estuaries of El Salvador are critical habitats and nursery grounds for many commercial species of fish, crustaceans and molluscs. Mangrove forests provide timber and fuelwood for rural communities along the coast. Wetlands Cananda.Org

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

So, the wetlands and estuary surrounding MAMZ's family's Jaltepeque/Jewel of the Pacific hotel/club/subdivision conglomerate are internationally important and they are endangered. WorldWildlife.Org says:

The mangrove ecosystems of this Northern dry Pacific Coast ecoregion are a truly unique ecosystem and serve as the basis for most life in the surrounding environment. When the areas outside of this ecoregion begin to dry up and resources are scarce; the animals move into the mangrove ecosystem for refuge. This ecoregion supplies food from the most primary source up the food chain to complex carnivores.

Shelter is also a very important resource and is provided by the mangrove trees. Birds many different species living the mangroves year round and during the winter. Many bird species also nest in this ecoregion making it easier to raise their brood with so many available resource like invertebrate larvae, mussels, snails, fish fry, and other living things which help give the mangrove areas the representation of being nurseries to marine organisms. (…)

200 species of wildlife occur in near-shore marine and coastal areas of which 70 are threatened or endangered; are particularly concentrated around the estuaries. Mangroves provide protection, roosting and nesting sites to many waterbirds, while inlets and tidal flats are used as feeding grounds. Mangroves also provide critical habitat for the highly endangered white-fronted (Amazona albifrons) and yellow-naped parrots (A. auropalliata).

This unique ecoregion also holds the single most important bird nesting area, "Colegio de las Aves", a complex of mangroves, tidal creeks and flats, and small coastal streams associated with the Barra de Santiago estuary (Cotsapas et al. 2000). Some other representative birds for this ecoregion include reddish egret (Egretta rufescens), little blue heron (Egretta caerulea), great blue heron (Ardea herodias), sanderling (Calidris alba), sandpiper (C. mauri) and Wilson’s plover (Charadrius wilsonia).

Destruction and alteration of mangrove areas are the biggest threat to this ecoregion. The trees and other portions of the habitat are being destroyed and altered for tourism development, expansion of population centers, clearing for agriculture, over-grazing and construction of salt production ponds. WorldWildlife.Org

"In fact, the Central Costal Plane of El Salvador is the most extense by longitude and area, extending more than 100 kilometers, from Puerto de La Liberdad (Liberty Port) on the west, to the Bahia de Jiquilisco (Bay of Jiquilisco) on the east. The Central Coastal Plane includes the Estero de Jaltepeque (Jaltepeque Estuary) and the Bahia de Jiquilisco (Bay of Jiquilisco), considered the most extensive in the country, both with abundant mangroves and long sand beaches forward. These estuaries and their beaches are fed by three principal rivers: the Jiboa, Lempa and Grande de San Miguel, from the west to the east." Redmeso.Net

See Satellite Photographs of the Jaltepeque Estuary.

The Jaltepeque Estuary is universally recognized by environmentalists as a unique and precious internationally important ecosystem because of the rare birds and sea life in the estuary. Environmentalists from El Salvador and internationally, including the World Wildlife Fund, are working to defend and protect this precious and unique natural area.

But the estuary is extremely stressed biologically, because of increasing population in its watershed and polluted run-off and sewage from farms and new subdivisions along the banks of the Jaltepeque Estuary. The World Bank and many other organizations have recognized the environmental emergency. World Bank

EOEARTH.ORG says:

The Northern dry Pacific Coast ecoregion extends in patches along the coastline of Guatemala and El Salvador. The mangrove ecosystems are concentrated on lagoons and estuaries, with brackish waters. For example there are patches of this ecoregion in the Bahia de Jiquilisco, Estero de Jaltepeque, Punta San Juan, Rio Paz, Rio Acome, and Rio Lempa estuaries and behind Barra de Santiago and Monterrico Lagoons.

This ecoregion is a good example of how the combination of lagoon, bay, and river delta make the appropriate areas for mangrove growth. Many call this area Punta San Juan although the most notable river is said to be the Rio Lempa.

Destruction and alteration of mangrove areas are the biggest threat to this ecoregion. The trees and other portions of the habitat are being destroyed and altered for tourism development, expansion of population centers, clearing for agriculture, over-grazing, and construction of salt production ponds. EOEARTH.ORG


Population Environmental Research group says,
The rational and sustainable management of the mangrove ecosystem in El Salvador cannot be secured without a redefinition of entitlement rights and an examination of the mutual and overlapping concerns of those whose livelihoods are intimately connected to the health of the ecosystem.

The failure to ensure that production and consumption activities are undertaken without internalizing the costs of degradation or redressing them has compromised the health of the mangrove ecosystem and undermined its productivity.

In the absence of measures to harmonize resource use and modify entitlements the activities of competing users are likely to result in irreversible damage to the ecosystem contributing to the further loss of biodiversity and undermining habitats and livelihoods. PopulationEnvironmentalResearch.Org

Another environmental study said,

Direct effects occur where anthropogenic [human] activities reduce the coverage and density of the mangrove ecosystem. Indirect effects have taken place where anthropogenic activities generate byproducts or externalities that impact upon the health of the mangrove ecosystem. This may occur at source or at some distance from the activity itself. The extensification of farming, logging and salt-production which has consumed land adjacent to the mangroves, interrupted existing drainage patterns and cleared the mangroves for alternative uses. Population, Consumption and Environmental Degradation in a Mangrove Ecosystem in El Salvador, (p.4)

USGS Map of Central America

Even as environmentalists call for increased protection of this estuary to preserve its life for future generation, aerial images and commercial websites show that MAMZ’s family is building a new subdivision and condominiums right on the banks of the estuary, inevitably contributing to the congestion and pollution that are killing the estuary itself.

Making matters worse, Carlos Alberto Delgado Zúñiga, "manager" of the Hotel Suites Jaltepeque owned by MAMZ family, is also head of El Salvador’s national tourism board, and effectively a board member of the National Association of Private Corporations (ANEP). He is using his exalted position in El Salvador’s business community to create a new legal framework in El Salvador that devolves responsibility for environmental protection to the owners of the land, which in this case includes MAMZ family, so that development (and pollution) will take precedence over environmental protection. Club Pacific Jewel

The Wise Coastal Practices for Sustainable Human Development Forum says:

There is a real need to strengthen those institutions that define the rules and regulations governing the extraction and use of the mangroves at the national and local level. This requires the effective and full participation of communities and local actors as well as public and private sector institutions. The research findings drew attention to significant deficiencies in existing legislation and in the design and operation of policy. The recommendations highlight the need for concrete directives that establish parameters for the management of coastal resources and the use and conservation of the mangroves Wise Coastal Practices for Sustainable Human Development Forum

But, Carlos Alberto Delgado ZÚÑIGA is extremely influential and important in Salvadoran business circles nationally, because he is effectively a board member of the Asociaión Nacional de Empresa Privadas (National Association of Private Corporations) (ANEP). Prisma2.Org., says of ANEP:

La Asociación Nacional de la Empresa Privada (ANEP), es la gremial con mayor protagonismo en las esferas de la vida política, económica y social de El Salvador desde su fundación en los años sesenta.

Translated: The National Association of Private Corporations (ANEP) is the lobby with the greatest force in political, economic and social life of El Salvador since its founding in the 1960’s. Prisma2.Org

Carlos Alberto Delgado Zúñiga's self-interested behavior is a text-book case of corporate lobbying to put venal financial interests above the needs of the environment.

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Even having read this far, some supporters of Markos Alberto Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA will insist that the pollution of unique natural resources in El Salvador is irrelevant to politics in the United States, even when this pollution is paid for with millions of dollars of financing from the US Treasury. People who hold this perspective are free to ignore or inveigh against this report, as they certainly will.

Others among us (myself included) believe that the commercial and environmental behavior of our political leaders should be consistent with their publicly announced positions, and so we take environmental pollution by political leaders and/or their families very seriously, particularly if we believe that our leaders stand to gain economically from this pollution. In 2004, MAMZ correctly pointed out the "crimes against the environment" by the Administration in Washington.

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In light of the environmental behavior of MAMZ’s own family business in El Salvador, the question is: If MAMZ’s own family is an example of crimes against the environment, and if MAMZ himself stands to benefit financially, then is MAMZ the right individual to "crash the gates of the Democratic Party," and put our Party on track for creating a better environment here in the United States?

Can supporting leaders whose public statements are directly at odds with their own family commercial behavior really lead to better government in Washington? Is following the leadership of hypocrites really going to make Washington a better place?

In cases of environmental pollution, matters of cause and effect, proof and the appropriate balance between development and preservation are always complex and contentious issues. There is also a question of fact here, whether MAMZ benefits financially in the present from this destruction of the environment, and whether he will benefit in the future from the construction of this vast estate? Those are questions that need to be answered, not ignored.

Whatever the case, the entire international community has issued its judgment: These already-wealthy hotel interests are putting profit before ecology and destroying a precious ecosystem.

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Even as they pollute the environment in search of higher profits, the upper strata of Salvadoran society and governance are integrally related to the US Government and industry, a result of "anti-communist" efforts to blunt popular revolutionary movements on the 1970’s and 1980’s. USAID says in a report entitled, "EL SALVADOR: BIODIVERSITY, TROPICAL FORESTRY AND WATER RESOURCES ASSESSMENT" that:

Background on the USAID Program in El Salvador
The U.S. Government has a long history of assistance to El Salvador. Some would argue that "there are few examples in the world where the aid of one country has been so intimately linked with the policies, economy and institutions of the other, as in the case of the cooperation of the United States to El Salvador" (authors’ translation from Barry 1993).

During the long years of civil war, U.S. support for El Salvador amounted to the very significant sum of US$4.5 billion, including both economic and military assistance. Among the achievements of that period was setting up the network of private sector NGOs, led by the Salvadoran Foundation for Socio-Economic Development (FUSADES), which served to transform, reform and modernize the more economically powerful elements of society in ways that were essential steps toward resolving the basic social conflicts behind the war (ibid). USAID assistance has remained critical
in many ways as a guarantor of the ambitious economic and social sector reforms that were the result of negotiated peace process. (p 10.)
(p.27)

The report further states that, (consistent with US Republican Party and corporate policy,) the US Government’s approach to protecting the environment is that, rather than support the Salvadoran government in land-use restrictions, the US supports economic payments (pay-offs) to private business to influence them in favor of environmental protection. (If it does’t help the environment get cleaner, at least it helps the businesses get richer.) USAID says, "A survey of the baseline for two conservation areas – Los Volcanes and Jiquilisco-Jaltepeque – is being carried out. The management interventions for which payment for environmental services are being considered include sustainable agriculture, reforestation, agroforestry and soil and water conservation, all emphasizing the importance of water resources." USAID, (p.27)

USAID says, "The principal pressures on the natural areas under consideration are the advance of the agricultural frontier, poverty and the conflicts with local communities, settlements and illegal colonization, erosion and soil degradation, burning and forest fires, unregulated extraction of resources, and the destruction of marine and coastal ecosystems. These pressures lead to the following impacts: loss of wildlife and biodiversity resources and the loss of environmental goods and services that limit their eventual possibilities for socio-economic development." (Emphasis added.) USAID, (p.30)

However, USAID’s strategy to pay off wealthy Salvadorans in favor of the ecology doesn’t seem to be working, since Carlos Alberto Delgado ZÚÑIGA’s Joya de Pacífico resort, which is right on the banks of the Jaltepeque Lagoon, is still advertising on international websites for its new residential subdivisions on the banks of the Jaltepeque Lagoon, even as the lagoon itself is dying from pollution.

But the forces promoting tourism and other development at the expense of conservation have very powerful friends. Precisely because of the tension between nature preservation and tourism, Carlos Alberto Delgado ZÚÑIGA has had to exert himself in many of El Salvador’ forums to gain and concentrate as much political power as he could in his own hands, in order to win the battle against the national and international ecological groups who sought to limit the growth of tourism in order to preserve fragile ecosystems.

So, as president of the national hotel association, and also president of the "Cámara Salvadoreña de Turismo" (CASATUR) (the Salvadoran Tourism Board), and sitting, effectively, on the Board of the Asociaçión Nacional de Empresas Privadas (ANEP) (The National Association of Private Corporations), Carlos Alberto Delgado ZÚÑIGA has endeavored successfully to pass a "law of tourism" in El Salvador that would clarify the primacy of tourism (his business) over the interests of ecology. See Note 27.

With Carlos Alberto Delgado ZÚÑIGA at the helm of the relevant tourism industry boards, other areas recognized as crucial to the environment have been designated by the Salvadoran Government as protection areas, but the Jaltepeque Estuary, where ZÚÑIGA has his business, has not. World Bank Environmental Study

The United States Government advocates a highly ironic and convoluted approach to these tensions between the corporate polluters of natural water resources and those who depend upon those resources. With wealthy business interests polluting the nations water resources, the World Bank and the National Association of Private Enterprises propose that the ownership of drinking water resources should be privatized, and user fees from the drinking water should be aggregated and used to pay wealthy landowners to stop polluting the water. World Bank, Table 2.2.1

The Environmental Services Project provides payments to landowners whose land use practices contribute to the conservation and restoration of lands supporting globally significant biodiversity. World Bank, p. 112

Because the Jaltepeque Estuary includes some of the most important environmental diversity in El Salvador, Jaltepeque polluters would be among the main beneficiaries of the World Bank payments program. First these hotel interests get rich polluting the water, and then they will get paid again to stop polluting the water. And the money to pay them will come from the poor, who will have to pay user fees for their drinking water. World Bank, p.116, Table 2

These arrangement for these payments to be maide to wealthy members of the Salvadoran oligarchy is very useful to the United States, because it helps to keep El Salvador open and prone to US investments. According to the Salvadoran newspaper LaPrensaGrafica.Com, the US Government has provided 470 million dollars for the development of key industries in El Salvador, including tourism, energy, financial services and others, with the purpose being "to identify new opportunities for investment by US corporations in Central America." LaPrensaGrafica.Com

And then wealthy and influential members of the oligarchy, who control the Salvadoran Government, advocate not only for their own interests but also for the interests of US corporations wanting to do business in El Salvador. In 2002, ANEP presented no less than FIFTY legislative proposals for El Salvador whose purpose was to "accelerate free trade and Central American integration in search of greater competitiveness," and "consolidate and institutionalize the free market in the context of globalization. "

Among these proposals, (returning now directly to the matter of polluting the Jaltepeque Estuary), the "Law of Tourism" which directly affected the business interests of Carlos Alberto Delgado ZÚÑIGA, even as he was advocating as president of multiple business associations to put this law into place.

The "Law of Tourism" makes it clear that the very corporations that own land containing precious and unique ecosystems – NOT the Salvadoran Government – will decide how to preserve the land for tourism, and NOT necessarily for ecological purposes:

Art. 8.- Los recursos naturales, arqueológicos y culturales que integren el inventario turístico del país, serán preservados y resguardados por las instituciones a quienes legalmente correspondan tales atribuciones. Las entidades y organismos del Estado o de las municipalidades que tengan la atribución legal de autorizar construcciones, edificaciones o cualquier otro tipo de infraestructura, estarán obligadas a respetar y mantener la vocación turística de tales recursos y las de su ámbito de influencia, para lo cual las construcciones, edificaciones e infraestructuras que se autoricen deberán ser compatibles con los elementos necesarios para el desarrollo turístico de las mismas.

Translated: Article 8. The natural, archeological and cultural resources that are part of the country’s tourism inventory will be preserved and protected by the institutions which own these resources. The entities and organisms of the State or fo the municipalities empowered to authorized construction, buildings and whatever other sort of infrastructure that they authorize shall be compatible with the elements necessary for the TOURISM development of these resources. Salvadoran Government: Law of Tourism (Emphasis added.)

The business groups led by Carlos Alberto Delgado ZÚÑIGA are radically changing the Salvadoran legislative framework that governs their activities in order to promote globalization, privatization, and increased corporate freedom from government regulation, through the new "Law of Tourism":

The legal incentives included in the recently approved Law of Tourism, the projected Law of Services, Law of Investments, Law of Free Trade Zones and Commercialization, as well as the Law of Customs Simplification. OFFICIAL PROESA WEBSITE

But the legislative goals of the business groups led by Carlos Alberto Delgado Zúñiga run directly counter to the preservation necessary for the survival of the Jaltepeque Estuary and the mangrove habitat.

The rational and sustainable management of the mangrove ecosystem in El Salvador cannot be secured without a redefinition of entitlement rights and an examination of the mutual and overlapping concerns of those whose livelihoods are intimately connected to the health of the ecosystem. The failure to ensure that production and consumption activities are undertaken without internalizing the costs of degradation or redressing them has compromised the health of the mangrove ecosystem and undermined its productivity.

In the absence of measures to harmonize resource use and modify entitlements the activities of competing users are likely to result in irreversible damage to the ecosystem contributing to the further loss of biodiversity and undermining habitats and livelihoods. Consumption and Environmental Degradation (p.2)

Groups led by Carlos Alberto Delgado Zúñiga have stacked the legal deck in favor of developers and tourism interests, making it clear that the "redefinition of entitlement rights" will benefit wealthy developers, not environmental preservation.

I've always believed there had to be a good reason why Markos Alberto Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA has repeatedly and consistently lied to his supporters, journalists and the rest of America about his family’s background in El Salvador. With this report, we learn what one more of those reasons is.


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I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult. E. B. White

Fantastic Diary Again (7.67 / 3)
If you can imagine this diary has nothing to do with Markos Moulitasa and is simply a diary on the enviornment you have to say it's one hell of a piece of research, informative, bringing information together concisely about an obscure subject (for Americans) in another part of the world...

So to the critics....think about that....

This is leading to a very ugly conclusion, I think....and I think Francis Holland deserves a LOT of credit for bringing it out....I don't think he's done....

This is probably news in El Salvador....it's very rare to see this kind of INVESTIGATIVE journalism done on the internet....

If you can't see where this is going...you merely need to brush up on the history of El Salvador...(not that I know hardly anything..but enough) and a person would need to know how corruption works in political and business circles....The smell here is very famiiar and very bad, both on a business level and on a moral level...

Francis Holland said:

"Making matters worse, Carlos Alberto Delgado Zúñiga, "manager" of the Hotel Suites Jaltepeque owned by MAMZ family, is also head of El Salvador’s national tourism board, and a board member of the National Association of Private Corporations (ANEP). He is using his exalted position in El Salvador’s business community to create a new legal framework in El Salvador that devolves responsibility for environmental protection to the owners of the land, which in this case includes MAMZ family, so that development (and pollution) will take precedence over environmental protection. Club Pacific Jewel."

You knew this had to be when the head of the tourism board "owns" hotels on land where he encourages tourism....If there isn't a scandal lying there somewhere...I don't know where there is....This is typical, very common activity amongst all politicians...especially really crooked ones...because this is a blantant conflict of interests...state vs personal

Francis Holland said: "If MAMZ’s own family is an example of crimes against the environment, and if MAMZ himself stands to benefit financially, then is MAMZ the right individual to "crash the gates of the Democratic Party," and put our Party on track for creating a better environment here in the United States?"

The question here is ...is Marcos going to inherit some part of the family fortune....I don't know the answer....but it certainly contrasts with the contradictory statements of Moulitsas who says he came to this country as an immigrant..( as if he came in hunched over with just a sack of torn clothes thrown over his back)

So ...who is this guy?...this guy who at least applied to the CIA to become a spy in Washington D.C after speaking to the CIA about "his blog"..... and where did he really come from and go back to?

Why is Daily Kos a website that allegedly supports so called "Liberal" ideas with conservative candidates that look more like Reagen Republicans than they do JFK , Clinton or Jimmy Carter Democrates

And why are these people who support "liberal" ideas actually promoting conservative goals....

It's because everything has become so twisted and convoluted...people don't know their left from the right anymore.

Stu Piddy....a free range human


You're onto something, Stu! n/t (6.00 / 2)


"Only after we change that which seemed essential do we realize how natural the "new normal" really is and how inevitable it always was."

[ Parent ]
very excellent!should be frontpaged!Would recommend if there was a button! (11.00 / 1)
If I understand you correctly, you are saying that the vibrant emergence of this Salvadoran upper middle class, which includes Mr. Delgado Zuniga, ostensibly MAMZ uncle, was fomented by the d Aubisson regime's forceful "stabilization" of the country? That the death squads and the violent repression of leftist popular movements which was backed by powerful business interests, the largest and most influential being ANEP, created the environment in which these interests subsequently have prospered?

You must look at these events in long term perspective, mustn't you? You can't isolate a "bad" period like the 1970s-1980s and say that the economic development and environmental degradation of the 00s have no ties with those events.

Clearly, events must be viewed as a historical continuum, especially when considering economic and political developments of the type you describe so vividly.

These influential business interests who backed rightist repression 25 years ago are now reaping, through development, the economic benefits of the "stability" bought by the violent repression of the popular left, and paid for largely by we, the people, the US taxpayers.

Very instructive article.


Meanwhile, the poor are suffering as always. But, at least the rich are richer. n/t (0.00 / 0)


"Only after we change that which seemed essential do we realize how natural the "new normal" really is and how inevitable it always was."

[ Parent ]
Breaking: (8.29 / 7)
Markos' Family Responsible for the Sinking of the Titanic! The Black Death! The Crucifixion of Jesus!

Honestly, man, give it up. I'll defend to the death your right to say it, but what you're saying is crap, pure and simple. You should have just done a single diary and then moved on.

ProgressiveHistorians: History For Our Future


Can you describe CIA contacts, pollution and death squads in ONE diary? (6.00 / 2)
There are approximately 74 links to government, corporate and non-government organization (NGO) websites and photographs in this diary that deals exclusively with the issue of MAMZ's family's deleterious effects on one estuary. For those prone to information overload, if I dealt with the family's participation in groups connected to the death squads in the same diary, that would likely require 150 links in the same diary. Isn't that too much information for any person to assimilate at one time?

Add a comprehensive coverage of the connections to the CIA and you have at least 225 links. Add a comprehensive chapter on the connections to the Republican Party and you've got 300 links. Effectively, what I'm doing is dividing this information into chapters, with each chapter having a subject and a substantially separate set references and citations.

You suggest that all of this can be done in one chapter, but I don't think you can point to a single example of such different issues being comprehensively and successfully covered by anyone in a single chapter. One of the ways that white people try to oppress Black people is by judging us by standards that don't apply to anyone else and insisting that we succeed in doing things in ways that no one else has found to be successful.

I know that I am not superhuman, and so I accept to do this work in the same way that any other writer would - in chapters.

However, if you think you can summarize all that I have discovered and provide all of the links to prove it in one diary, then go ahead and do so! You will be doing a service for all those who want to know more about MAMZ and don't want to read my whole book about him.

I obviously believe that the destruction of an internationally important estuary with impunity by a rich and powerful family deserves its own diary (chapter). At least one. The CIA connections deserve a separate chapter. The links to the Republican Party deserve a separate chapter. The reasons why supporting states' rights is NOT "progressive" deserves a separate chapter.

I also believe that family connections to groups that support death squads deserves a separate diary, particularly when the repression of these groups is ongoing. That deserves a whole damned campaign to stop the repression, just as we write daily diaries about the horrors going on in Iraq.

Those who cannot punch any holes in the facts that I have reported are now resorting to the argument that the facts simply are not interesting enough to warrant more than one diary about all of them together. Well, the 1,325 visits to my The Truth About Kos Blog and the 2,386 page views tells me that people DO want to understand Marksos Alberto Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA better, because all that he has said about himself simply doesn't add up.

There are also a lot of people who deeply resent the way MAMZ has treated them and the way he goes about politics, and those people need the information necessary to oppose him effectively. You support MAMZ in spite of all that you have learned about him, so you oppose giving the public essential information about his background.

Somebody has to write the unauthorized biography of MAMZ and perhaps that's what I'm doing, one chapter at a time. If you don't like it, read one of the other biographies. But there's a problem with that:

Mine is the first and only one in existence, AND it has turned out to be more definitive than all of the MSM blather that was based strictly on unquestioningly accepting what MAMZ said about himself, without doing any investigation to find out whether any of it was actually true.

Some people have wondered why I call refer to the subject of my series as "MAMZ." It’s a matter of convenience, practicality and necessity. There four words and twenty-eight characters in the name Markos Alberto Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA, with thirty-seven keystrokes required to write his name with its Spanish-language punctuation. The punctuation is crucial because the name cannot be researched in Spanish without the proper punctuation in the name ZÚÑIGA.

Moreover, although MAMZ would have us simply forget that he is a ZÚÑIGA, his history and background cannot be researched without reference to his family, and ZÚÑIGA is one of his family names. I could write and entire chapter on this topic alone and many people have asked me to do so.

When writing about MAMZ and the other person with the name “ZÚÑIGA” who is listed in government documents as “manager” of their family business, it is obviously necessary to distinguish between them with complete clarity and consistency. After all, one of them trained with the CIA while there is no evidence (yet) to show that the other one did. So, using the acronym MAMZ – the initials of this historical figure – makes it easier for me to type my reports and easier for the public to read and understand them.

"Only after we change that which seemed essential do we realize how natural the "new normal" really is and how inevitable it always was."


[ Parent ]
The amount of true, accurate, and relevant information in this series (0.00 / 0)
could be fit in a single diary.

ProgressiveHistorians: History For Our Future

[ Parent ]
Then write that diary and prove your contention! n/t (0.00 / 0)


"Only after we change that which seemed essential do we realize how natural the "new normal" really is and how inevitable it always was."

[ Parent ]
You haven't scratched the surface (8.00 / 5)
Apparently the Moulitsos Zuniga family has not only assassinated Harry Potter, they have been deeply involved in a dog-fighting ring on property Michael Vick owns in Berkeley and Oakland.

In loving memory: Sophie, June 1, 1993-January 17, 2005. My huckleberry friend.

[ Parent ]
Hey FRANCIS! (0.00 / 0)
ONE MORE TIME... Your graphics. You need to size them at a maximum of 400 pixels. I've given you this code twice, yet you refuse to use it. Insert in your "img src" link the following code, width="400" (or less). I've just gone through this entire, very long document and inserted this in your image links so that your diary will fit on smaller or lower dpi screens without fucking up the margins.

It's clear that you are using screen shots, so it would seem you've already resized them once. Could you just resize them to 400 pixels or less? Then, to make sure that every browser sizes them properly, specify the width as I've explained above.

"What fresh hell is this?" -- Dorothy Parker


Next time, I'll come back to this diary and insert the code you've used. (0.00 / 0)
I hope that works. I have tried to resize the graphics using Paint and CorelDraw, but it doesn't work consistently.

Is there a minimum size preferences as well as a maximum size preference? Because if I look at a graphic and it doesn't seem too big, I'd be loathe to make it bigger and run the risk of having it overrun the page.

Thanks for your help with this formatting thing. I haven't yet learned how to use HTML code to resize graphics, but I'm going to try on the next go round and I hope you'll tell me how I do.

"Only after we change that which seemed essential do we realize how natural the "new normal" really is and how inevitable it always was."


[ Parent ]
Nope, no minimum. (0.00 / 0)
And I have given you the html... twice. width="400" (max) in your <> code.

I can't speak to why it's not working in your graphics program. I've used both Paint Shop Pro and Photoshop and it's basically the same in both. Click "resize" and select pixels (as opposed to inches, cm, mm, etc.) and specify a width. There should also be a box to check that says "constrain proportions" or something similar, that will all adjust the length, proportionate to the width. It's usually the default setting.

The reason it's a good idea to specify in your img src code is that some browsers will over-write the sizing on the photo and size differently, although it usually works to the smaller, when that's the case. If you want your photo to appear in every browser exactly as it does in your image editing software, note the width and height of the finished product and specify them accordingly. Example: width="268" height="354"

If any of this isn't clear and you need more assistance, just ask.

"What fresh hell is this?" -- Dorothy Parker


[ Parent ]
Too much crap, too little time. (6.86 / 7)
So let's just start from the top. And break down the refutation in to little bites. You state as your major premise:

In April of this year, Markos Alberto Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA told La Prensa Gráfica, "I don’t have money. I don’t come from a famous or powerful family." Recently we have learned that none of this is true.

Unlike you, who apparently blogs from Brazil, I happen to live in the same general community as Markos and know where he lives. Based solely on his neighborhood, I can assure that he is NOT, in fact, rich. To the contrary, he apparently was only able to afford home ownership as a result of the income generated from his business and book. He lives in a "lesser" neighborhood in Berkeley, in the flats, not the hills, and there is no reason to suspect that he's "wealthy" in any sense that the word would be used in this community.

You repeatedly imply that Markos has an ownership interest in what you allege is his Uncle's hotel. This assertion betrays a level of ignorance of property law, inheritance law, and common sense that are shocking for someone claiming to be a lawyer. When people speak of not coming from a rich family, they are properly understood to be speaking of their parents. And you have not yet presented any evidence of great wealth on their part.

The actual evidence of Markos' residence and lifestyle support the conclusion that Markos "doesn't have money."

You then state:

In fact, contrary to what Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA has said, his family in El Salvador is wealthy and important enough to be one of the biggest environmental polluters of the Jaltepeque Estuary, where the family owns and operates a multi-million dollar hotel and subdividision conglomerate that is polluting a precious ecosystem.

None of these assertions are proven in your diary. You offer no evidence that the development in question damaged a wetland other than to say it is in the general area of an environmentally sensitive area. But, many environmentally sentive areas are contiguous to development. Building a hotel a mile from a wetland is not the same as damaging a wetland. The real question is whether the developers of the subject property actually were damaging the wetland damaged it, and on this point you offer NO EVIDENCE, NADA, ZERO.

This is just more crap.

You have no evidence of wrongdoing.

No link of the alleged wrongdoing to any decisions by Markos (again we don't tar nephews with the sins of their uncles).

And no evidence that Markos is profiting from any alleged wrongdoing.

All this diary proves, again, is that you, Stu Piddy, Donkeytale, and others are damaged goods.


Like I said, corporate interests ALWAYS argue causation. (0.00 / 0)
If ANYONE is responsible for making sure that the hotel/condo/club industry doesn't damage this estuary it's the man who is president of the industry groups for the nation of El Salvador, and that man is "manager" of the Moulitsas-ZÚÑIGA hotel. Instead of shouldering his responsibility to develop responsibly, he is STILL subdividing an area that long since reached it saturation point.

It's not me whose drawing this conclusion. I'm relying the conclusions drawn by the World Bank, Wetlands Canada Org., WorldWildLife.Org, EOEARTH.Org and others. There is a consensus of those who have investigated this backward and forward:

"Destruction and alteration of mangrove areas are the biggest threat to this ecoregion. The trees and other portions of the habitat are being destroyed and altered for tourism development, expansion of population centers"

That's EOEARTH.ORG, not Francis L. Holland.

Now, you propose that, in spite of what all of the organizations have concluded, MAMZ family can continue subdividing and building on the banks of the estuary without negative results? That's precisely what there advertisements say they are doing, even we argue about it here. You, sir, are a true Republican! Build your house on the beach! says MAMZ family business, spitting in the eyes of all of the environmental groups that say that it is precisely this behavior that is destroying the estuary.

Now, you assure us that MAMZ will not benefit financially from this. Do you know if he paid market rates when he held his honeymoon at this $140,00 per day (for a single) "elite" hotel? If not, then he HAS benefited from this, hasn't he?

MAMZ told a reporter that his very own MOTHER had gone back to El Salvador to tend to the family hotel. Don't you believe MAMZ when he says this?

Since we don't know the family relationship (yet) between Carlos Alberto Delgado Zúñiga, and Markos ZÚÑIGA, it is pure speculation to say that MAMZ definitely is or is not in the line to inherit ALL of this property. For all we know, it is all owned by MAMZ mother, since he said it was a "family business."

The phrase "family business" came from MAMZ himself, not me. HE is the one who considers all of these people as "family," some of who share his last name.

If Markos Moulitsas is NOT benefiting directly from the pollution of this estuary, it's up to HIM to tell us that and to prove it. But MAMZ hasn't told us what his precise relationship to these people and the property is and I believe their is a good reason why he will NEVER volunteer this information of his own accord. It's too damning! That's why he has NEVER, EVER mentioned a single member of his family by name in public. It's simply too embarrassing and it opens a several cans of rotten and fetid "worms."

If these facts aren't damning to MAMZ, then why have you bothered to come here to "refute" them at all? And why haven't you come with some FACTS that would contradict the facts that are on the table, instead of mere speculation?

MAMZ says that these people, one of whom he acknowledges to be his MOTHER and another of whom shares his last name, are members of his "family." What is their "family" relationship to MAMZ and how much does he, personally, stand to gain, now and in the future, from the building of an estate based on the pollution of this estuary?

That's what we need to know and it seems to me that you have NO INFORMATION to offer that would help us to answer that question. Next time you're in MAMZ's neighborhood, why don't you ask him for us?

You assure us that he will gain nothing from his own mother's participation in this hotel business, but how do you KNOW that? The truth is, you don't know that at all! It stands to reason that as a mother's wealth increases, so does the value of her estate and her ability to bequeath wealth, now and in the future, to her children.

"Only after we change that which seemed essential do we realize how natural the "new normal" really is and how inevitable it always was."


[ Parent ]
Median house/condo value Berkeley CA $700,300 (2005 data) (6.00 / 2)
"Estimated median house/condo value in 2005: $700,300 (it was $380,200 in 2000)
Berkeley $700,300
California: $477,700"

http://www.city-data...

The average house value in Berkeley CA 2 years ago put both Kos and cityduck 7/10 of the way to being millionaires.

This isn't Fargo ND or Topeka KS we're talking about. There are no "lesser neighborhoods" in Berkeley CA.


[ Parent ]
LOL! (5.00 / 3)
You don't get around much do you?

You will get ZERO support for your statement from anyone who lives in the Bay Area. There are PLENTY of "lesser neighborhoods" in Berkely and Oakland. Much worse than you'd see in the hinterlands of the U.S. even though the housing prices (and wages) are much higher in the Bay Area.


[ Parent ]
Berkeley IS NOT Oakland (0.00 / 0)
Do not say Berkeley AND Oakland. It's a barefaced lie just like someone trying to say Pacific Palisades AND Venice Beach.

Berkeley is as different from Oakland as Pacific Palisades is different from Venice Beach.


[ Parent ]
Yes, but Berkeley does have "lesser neighborhoods." (9.00 / 1)
The housing prices in those neighborhoods are high by national standards, but that doesn't mean those neighborhoods are nice.

In San Francisco, where I live, the Bay View district is essentially a ghetto. But this does not mean that the housing prices there are inexpensive by national standards.

Photobucket


Lord of the Karmafishes


[ Parent ]
No, they have areas that are less filthy rich (9.00 / 1)
The fact some areas may not be a visually stimulating as other has little effect on prices in places like Berkeley, Manhattan, and Beverly Hills.

This is a discussion about property VALUE. Constant attempts to change the subject from Kos and cityduck owning houses in places it costs $700,000 on average to own houses is a distraction from that.


[ Parent ]
Are you from Topeka or Fargo? (4.00 / 3)
Because you lack of understanding of the economics of the Bay Area is breathtaking. Let me try to make this really easy for you to understand: People get paid a lot more here, but the cost of living is a lot higher here. So, you simply can't compare housing prices between SF and Topeka in any meaningful sense. Your assumptions are not reflective of reality, just your own lack of experience with the Bay Area.

[ Parent ]
Is this not afs's point? (6.67 / 3)
So, you simply can't compare housing prices between SF and Topeka in any meaningful sense.

That a person of average income cannot even think about owning property, any property, in that region. That you have to be a person of substantial means to own a home there, even in one of the less desirable sections.

"What fresh hell is this?" -- Dorothy Parker


[ Parent ]
Exactly (8.50 / 2)
People that think $160,000 a year isn't much money, and think $750K is chump change don't have a freakin' clue what poor people struggle with.

[ Parent ]
That's right. (6.50 / 2)
And therefore Markos must have access to funds beyond dKos and the book.

Those funds must therefore come from his death squad connected family.

And therefore Markos is really a right-wing conservative Republican in sheep's clothing.

And therefore Daily Kos is a fraud, filled with dupes and conservatives.

If Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity were aware of this conversation nothing would make them happier.

Photobucket


Lord of the Karmafishes


[ Parent ]
You missed the key sentence: (0.00 / 0)
"People get paid a lot more here, but the cost of living is a lot higher here."

A salary you might think of as "substantial means" in Topeka is "chump change" in San Francisco, one of the most expensive cities in the world. People are poor making $60,000. They are barely middle class making $160,000 and sure can't afford a single family residence in San Francisco anymore. This is a town where secretaries make $80,000 and aren't rich and live in apartments, where NON-PROFIT workers make six figures, and where insane law firms pay first year associate attorneys a starting salary of $160,000 and $20,000 in bonus.

You folks who aren't familiar with the Bay Area apparently have no clue what middle class looks like. Because when you make a lot of money, it doesn't really matter if you got a lot of costs (high rents, higher mortgages, highest gas prices, $25 a day in for a parking spot ($45 expired meter tickets if you park on the street), I could go on an on).


[ Parent ]
I didn't miss anything, cityduck. (8.50 / 4)
The point afs is making is that the cost of living in that area is extremely inflated and that middle income there isn't what it is in a lot of the country. Markos could earn that 70-80k in other regions and buy a decent home; not in the Berkeley area. That's the entire point.

"What fresh hell is this?" -- Dorothy Parker

[ Parent ]
It may be his point (0.00 / 0)
But the conclusions he draws from it are simply not accurate. My sister lives in Oakland, she has for over 30 years. She's a teacher, and was a single mother for most of those 30 years. I think her salary has finally increased above $50K a year and she has no "family" wealth. Her home is probably worth well in excess of a $million. Not bad for the $2,500 down payment she scrimped and saved for. She's the exception.

But beyond that, salaries are higher in the bay area (the crappy teacher's pay notwithstanding). So a $160,000 a year salary is not the same in SF or Berkeley or Oakland as it is in Topeka. You are not rich in the bay area making that kind of money. Its no better than solid middle income. You may live a long ways away from your job and still pay 35% or more of your pay every month for your mortgage and taxes. What's left over may be the same as whats left over in Topeka after a salary of 1/3 less.


to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance . G. Washington


[ Parent ]
Oakland IS NOT Berkeley! (9.00 / 1)
There is no point, because Oakland IS NOT Berkeley, just like the S. Bronx is not Manhattan.

[ Parent ]
But Markos doesn't claim to make (9.33 / 3)
that 160k. He claims to make half that, on which he is supporting a stay-at-home wife and children. That's the point. That his status as a home-earner on half a middle-class salary (in that area) is suspect.

"What fresh hell is this?" -- Dorothy Parker

[ Parent ]
He doesn't make that claim either (0.00 / 0)
He said he made $70-80K in '05. Unless you have other info, he made no claim about how much he made from his book or dkos after that, not to mention any speaking engagements. Dkos (and presumably its advertising revenues) grew like crazy and his income may have also.

to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance . G. Washington

[ Parent ]
No transparancy + Money doesn't add up = pending investigation (3.50 / 2)
Take a situation in which there is no financial transparancy (like Kos').

Throw in to the mix a expensive new house, and no obvious way to pay the bills that even his stanchest defenders can find?

Now... Add influence on US federal politics.

That's a investigation and scandal waiting to happen.


[ Parent ]
Cityduck, I live a 10 minute drive from Kos' house (0.00 / 0)
I’m quite familiar with prices in Berkeley, thanks very much.

The house which he bought is in a neighborhood where the price range starts at $650,000 for a VERY tiny 2 bedroom, 1 bath, and Mr. Moulitsas did NOT buy at the low end of that market.

I happen to know the market value of Mr. Moulitsas’ home, and no, I do not care to share it. But the cost of his home, while not jaw-dropping by inflated Bay Area standards, would require rather more income than he’s publicly stated—two and half to three times more—to qualify.

The only way he could afford that house is if:

1. He lied about his income (ok, so why should he tell US how much he makes?);

2. He’s got himself into one of those loans, which have been quite popular in this area over the past few years, in which one pays interest only for the first few years, and THEN you begin to repay the principal, as well. A lot of people financed with those loans because they’re the only way they could get into the market. They figured that when the principal payments hit, they’d either sell the house at a huge gain (which isn’t going to happen now that the market’s gone soft) or else their income might enable them to “keep up” at that point.

Either way, I don’t care. But yes, your know-it-all attitude is wearing a bit thin.

No one is allowed to argue with you on legal issues unless they’re an attorney.

Now, no one who doesn’t live in the Bay Area is allowed to argue with you about the price of real estate.

I used to work for the IRS, and believe me, I know quite a bit about concealing assets, concealing income, and real estate values—especially in the Bay Area.

Oh, and by the way, I don’t know who troll-rated you, but I uprated you with a “3” because your comment is NOT trollish.

Once again, I'm at the mercy of someone I wouldn't let pick my nose!--John Lithgow, "Third Rock from the Sun"

[ Parent ]
Never been to the Bay Area have you? (3.00 / 2)
Berkeley and Oakland literally flow seemlessly into each other. On one side of the street you are in the "Elmwood" neighborhood of Berkeley and on the other you are in the "Montclair" neighborhood of Oakland. Most people in the Bay Area who have ever shopped for houses in the East Bay are going to think about those two communities in a somewhat similar light. They both have some great neighborhoods, some average neighborhoods, and some bad neighborhoods.

The main difference is that Oakland has more worse neighborhoods.

The media house value in San Francisco, by the way, is higher than in Berkeley, but that doesn't mean that every neighborhood is ritzy. Just go visit Hunter's point. Most of Berkeley and San Francisco are very middle class in feel, albeit far overpriced. Just because you have to pay a $1 million plus for an entry level single family home does not mean its a castle, its actually a crappier structure and lot then a $120,000 house in Oregon.


[ Parent ]
Distraction, distraction, distraction (0.00 / 0)
Manhattan flows seamlessly into Harlem. Manhattan IS NOT Harlem.

Detroit flows seamlessly into Grosse Point. Detroit is not Grosse Point.

Torrance flows seamlessly into Compton. Torrance is not Compton.

You and Kos own houses in Berkeley NOT Oakland. Houses average $700,000 in value where you and Kos own houses.


[ Parent ]
Ummm (7.00 / 2)
Manhattan flows seamlessly into Harlem. Manhattan IS NOT Harlem.

You sure as hell could have fooled this native New Yorker.....because last time I was home, Harlem was part of Manhattan.

Are you trying to disown the folks that live north of 125th for some reason?

You can find my meanderings on all things Black and political at Maat's Feather


[ Parent ]
nitpicking over details as a distraction (0.00 / 0)
You're nitpicking over details trying to change the subject.

Which do you prefer... I name a rich neighborhood of Manhattan that flows seamlessly into Harlem, or alter the point and say Manhattan flows seamlessly into the S. Bronx?

Same point is made either way. Harlem is not Mid-town Manhattan. Manhattan is not the S. Bronx.


[ Parent ]
In Other Words (5.33 / 3)
You said something utterly ignorant. You got called on it. And don't have the cojones to just admit it. Instead, you deflect by claiming that calling you out on your ignorance is a "nitpick."

And yet you claim to be capable of declaring who is a progressive. Lord help progressives if in fact you get your wish and are in charge of deciding who is one.

You can find my meanderings on all things Black and political at Maat's Feather


[ Parent ]
In other words, Oakland IS NOT Berkeley (0.00 / 0)
You want to change the subject. I'm not letting you.

Oakland IS NOT Berkeley.


[ Parent ]
I Never Said it Was (5.00 / 2)
I didn't say anything about either Oakland or Berkeley so I think your exclamations/yelling are best directed at the folks you were discussing that with. I spoke on only one issue, your assertion that Manhatan is not Harlem. You were categorically incorrect. But instead of just back off on this issue, you're still swinging at the ball which is already in the catcher's mitt behind you.

Oh BTW, what Cityduck has said about Oakland and Berkeley housing and neighborhoods is correct, even if they are legally two separate cities (unlike the borough of Manhattan and the neighborhood called Harlem which lies within it.)

You can find my meanderings on all things Black and political at Maat's Feather


[ Parent ]
Oakland is still not Berkeley (0.00 / 0)
How many hints do you need get through your head I'm not taking the bait?

I'm still not letting you change subject.

Oakland is still not Berkeley.


[ Parent ]
HAHA. You're right! Some people will offer any crappy argument to defend MAMZ! n/t (1.00 / 1)


"Only after we change that which seemed essential do we realize how natural the "new normal" really is and how inevitable it always was."

[ Parent ]
AFS has 100% support from me, and I live in the Bay Area (0.00 / 0)
Cityduck wrote:

You will get ZERO support for your statement from anyone who lives in the Bay Area. There are PLENTY of "lesser neighborhoods" in Berkely and Oakland.


And I live in a very expensive area of the Bay Area. It’s automatically assumed that everybody who lives in my ‘hood has money. I happen to know exactly where Mr. Moulitsas lives and how much homes go for in that neighborhood…and the price of his house is far more than the median of $700,000.

Once again, I'm at the mercy of someone I wouldn't let pick my nose!--John Lithgow, "Third Rock from the Sun"

[ Parent ]
Oh come on. (0.00 / 0)
He lives in the flats near a BART station. He doesn't live up in the hills. It's a middle class neighborhood in Bay Area terms. Do you really disagree?

What neighborhood do you think he's in?


[ Parent ]
Of course it's a "middle class" neighborhood in Bay Area terms (0.00 / 0)
You have twisted the arguments of Mr. Moulitsas' critics.

The argument is that he has more income than he has publicly disclosed, else he could not afford the home he purchased last year.

As to the additional sources of income he uses to pay for his mortgage, as well as his three-week family tour of Europe, his plasma screen television, and his brand new grand piano, I care not.

Once again, I'm at the mercy of someone I wouldn't let pick my nose!--John Lithgow, "Third Rock from the Sun"

[ Parent ]
From the Chronicle: (6.00 / 1)
The dividend is that in a little less than three years, he has become one of few full-time political bloggers to earn enough (about $80,000 last year, plus a book advance and cash from pre-sales) to be able to buy a 2,000-square-foot, three-bedroom Berkeley house. He moves in next month.

Not bad for a guy who was doing temp work a few years ago. After washing out as a Web designer in the dot-com bust. After failing the State Bar exam.

"My friends were saying, 'You married an artiste. He keeps bouncing around to all these jobs,' " said Elisa, whose salary as a technology reporter supported the family until Daily Kos took off.

Sure sounds like a lot of family wealth filtering his way -- Not.


[ Parent ]
That or someone with a ton of money co-signed the mortgage (3.00 / 1)
How in the hell does a dot.com bust washout with one decent year of earnings get a $700,000 mortgage?

Help from elsewhere, that's where.

There's 3 bdrm., 2000 square foot houses all over SoCal and the Bay Area going for $700,000 up now.


[ Parent ]
Nah. (0.00 / 0)
If he had the down payment and good earnings going forward, a mortgage broker would find a way.

And he bought a few years ago, when the subprime mortgage market was gangbusters, probably for around $500,000. It's very doable. Around here you look at combined income between the husband and wife, triple it, and that's what you'd expect to your mortgage limit for an ordinary mortgage. So if they had combined earnings of $160,000, a $480,000 mortgage is easy enough to sustain. And, no, $160,000 a year is not a lot of money around here.


[ Parent ]
cityduck says $160,000 a year isn't much money (1.00 / 2)
Get out. Get out now, cityduck.

Anyone that would dare to have freakin' balls to step into a progressive website and say something like "$160,000 a year isn't much money" JUST DOESN'T FREAKIN' GET IT.


[ Parent ]
It's more than most Americans make (0.00 / 0)
and more than Markos claims to make, if memory serves.

"What fresh hell is this?" -- Dorothy Parker

[ Parent ]
You missed another sentence. (0.00 / 0)
Here it is: "So if they had combined earnings of $160,000, ..."

I'm assuming his wife works and made as much or more than him.


[ Parent ]
You've assumed wrong. (11.00 / 1)
See my comment below.

And they have kids! You, yourself, have proved, by your argument, that Markos cannot afford a home in that area at the income he has publicly disclosed.

"What fresh hell is this?" -- Dorothy Parker


[ Parent ]
Definitely less than that... (11.00 / 2)
Here from NY Times:

Last year, I probably earned somewhere between $70,000 and $80,000. I live comfortably. My wife and I just bought a house here in Berkeley.

So is his wife earning that extra 80k? Nope. She's a stay at home mother.

She's a stay-at-home mother and is going back to school to get a new degree in the spring.

I say none of this to validate Francis's outrageous claims. Merely to point out that something doesn't quite add up in terms of Markos own stated financial status.

"What fresh hell is this?" -- Dorothy Parker


[ Parent ]
It won't add up if you don't want it to (0.00 / 0)
But there is a logical explanation. He made $70-$80,000 last year, which would have been '05. (The article was written in 3/06) I think thats about the time they had their first kid, his wife was working before that. By the beginning of '06, Dkos was exploding. He bought a house, not based on his previous income, but rather based on what he expected to make, which may have been double, even triple what he made in '05. A small down-payment and $200,000 a year stated income, he qualifies for a $700,000 home.

Now I don't know if this is accurate. It may not be. But I can guarantee you that it happened hundreds if not thousands of times in the last 2 years in the high priced california metropolitan areas and suburbs of SF, LA and SD.

to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance . G. Washington


[ Parent ]
It don't add up. Period. (0.00 / 0)
You can't get a loan using income you aren't recieving and have no way to even demonstrate a example in the past that shows prior history of growth.

Nobody predicted the traffic DKOS got in '06. Not even Kos. How can KOS get a mortgage based on income from ad revenue on traffic that nobody knew was coming?


[ Parent ]
You're obviously not familiar (6.00 / 2)
with mortgage lending practices.

Stated income loans with little or no documentation have been common for many years. Since the beginning of this year, not so much.

to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance . G. Washington


[ Parent ]
I guess AFS hasn't read the headlines (6.00 / 1)
about the subprime scandal.

[ Parent ]
Obviously not (6.00 / 1)
n/t

You can find my meanderings on all things Black and political at Maat's Feather

[ Parent ]
So KOS is stupid enough to take $700K sub-prime mortgage? (0.00 / 0)
If KOS is stupid enough to get involved in 700K sub-prime mortgage, then that's enough stupidity all by itself to disqualify him consideration from any position of real leadership.

Jeez... I guess I have a higher opinion of KOS than you do, because I gave him credit to be smart enough not get involved in any sub-prime mortgage foolishness.


[ Parent ]
The foolishness would be yours (0.00 / 0)
If you're assuming that everyone that borrows with a sub-prime loan is foolish. Virtually all loans in excess of 80% of value are either sub-prime or Alt-A loans. Often, they work just fine. I suspect you have no idea what the term even means.

to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance . G. Washington

[ Parent ]
Kane vs. cityduck deathmatch on subprime loans (8.00 / 1)
Kane says sub-prime loans often work fine. cityduck says "sub-prime scandal."

I'll let you two kill each other over whether sub-prime loans are scandalous.


[ Parent ]
Your ignorance is showing (0.00 / 0)
There is no inconsistency between our opinions.

Investors will lose billions of dollars on sub-prime investments. Borrowers will lose tens of thousands of homes, foreclosed on because of inability to make payments on sub-prime loans.

Sub-prime loans are not the cause of the problem.

to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance . G. Washington


[ Parent ]
Maybe, but KOS lack of transparacy showing more (0.00 / 0)
A powerful progressive blogger chooses to move to one of the most expensive housing markets in the country, lands a mortgage on with no other assets than his blog ad income, and is making payments on house in a 700K median market?

We shouldn't have to be guessing about where the mortgage came from and where the money is coming from to pay those payments.


[ Parent ]
Who else have you asked this question? (9.20 / 5)
What other reporter, pundit, news media person, even politician, have you asked this same question? Even politicians, in their disclosures and tax returns (if they choose to publish them) wouldn't necessarily include the information you think Kos is obligated to disclose. You are demanding proof of liberal purity from someone who has already told you he's not the kind of liberal you want him to be. Its moronic. And it stinks. And the smell is not coming from Kos.

to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance . G. Washington

[ Parent ]
What reporter has Pres. Cands. showing to event named after him (0.00 / 0)
Kos has a summer party he named after himself that Presidential Candidates show up as a group for. That's why.

I don't see 5 Presidential candidates showing up to YearlyWolf.

All Federal, State, and Local Pols have asset/income reporting requrements. Most major party leaders report to a certain extent.

There's no information available on Kos at all,


[ Parent ]
None that I'm aware of (6.00 / 1)
including Markos. YearlyKos has (unless something has changed) nothing do with DailyKos other than the name. Its run by a completely different organization. DailyKos has no financial interest in it, nor is it funded by DailyKos (again, unless something has changed). And its certainly not named after Markos, its named after DailyKos.

And as I said, the disclosures required for politicians would not disclose the source of his downpayment or the amount of his mortgage payments, or how he may have qualified for the loan. Asset disclosures are broad enough to be virtually worthless.

to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance . G. Washington


[ Parent ]
I think we're in agreement. (0.00 / 0)
The "subprime scandal" is not that subprime loans exist -- they do and for many people they can work out just fine. The scandal is that certain subprime lenders, most notably New Century Financial, issued subprime loans to people who never should have been approved. They lent the money too easily (Kane's point).

When the inevitable defaults happened the subprime lenders lacked liquidity, received cash calls from their banks and financial partners (hedge funds), sending the lenders spinning into bankruptcy. New Century, for example, not only made a lot of bad loans, they didn't keep track of defaults and didn't attempt to foreclose on anyone.

So, no, I won't be squaring off against Kane. Now we are seeing a tightening of the subprime mortgage market such that many folks who could previously get a loan to buy a house now can't. This decreases housing demand and creates an additional hurdle for responsible borrowers who want to get into the housing market. We're also seeing greater foreclosures because the people who are buying the loans from the bankrupt lenders are actually paying attention to whether the borrowers are paying.


[ Parent ]
KOS' lack of transparency still the problem (1.00 / 1)
Part of being Progressives means you believe in people in power are supposed to be financial transparant. If they aren't, they aren't being very progressive, now are they?

Especially in a time marked by as much corruption as the time we are currently in.


[ Parent ]
Nah. (3.50 / 2)
He's not a candidate. He's not "in power." He's just a person with a blog. He doesn't even comment that much.

Most of us on the left value personal privacy.


[ Parent ]
Kos isn't in power? Oh puh-lueeez! (0.00 / 0)
"Senator Clinton Champions YearlyKos

This morning on DailyKos Peter Daou, Clinton's Internet Director, posted a statement from the campaign responding to the recent O'Reilly Factor Show...."

--------

YearlyKos Convention Presidential Leadership Forum on Saturday August 4, 2007 in Chicago. Confirmed candidates include Sen. Hillary Clinton, Sen. John Edwards, Sen. Barack Obama, Gov. Bill Richardson, and Sen. Christopher Dodd...."

---------

"YearlyKos Netroots Convention Welcomes Pelosi, Reid, Emanuel, Schumer To Ask The Leaders Forum

Posted on July 18, 2007

We are pleased to announce today that Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, U.S. Rep. Rahm Emanuel, and Sen. Charles E. “Chuck” Schumer will participate in a unique Ask the Leaders Forum to be held August 4 in Chicago....

-----

YearlyKos Netroots Convention Announces Presidential Leadership Forum Advisory Board

Yesterday we made an online form available to submit questions to be considered for the Leadership Forum. Those questions will be evaluated and selected by an advisory board and we can now reveal the members of that board.

We are proud to announce today the twelve individuals serving on the Advisory Board for the YearlyKos Presidential Leadership Forum to be held August 4 in Chicago.

Advisory Board members are: Sen. Gary Hart; Vice President Walter Mondale; Sen. George McGovern; strategist Donna Brazile; John Aravosis, AmericaBlog; Eric Davis, Democracy for Illinois; Adam Green, MoveOn.org; Taylor Marsh... TaylorMarsh.com; Ari Melber, The Nation; James Rucker, ColorofChange.org; Andrea Batista Schlesinger, Drum Major Institute; and Christy Hardin Smith, Firedoglake.com...."

http://yearlykosconv...

Look at this for god sake, cityduck... I hope you're just intentionally lying now. I rather you be a bareface liar than this much of a sheep this deep in denial.


[ Parent ]
Nope. (4.00 / 2)
He's famous. But, he's just a columnist on a blog. He's not really much of a power broker, more of a guy who's empowered others. Yearly Kos is a great example. He didn't organize that. It's run by a non-profit. It's a gathering inspired by him, but he exercises very little control over it. I think it shows what Kos really is: A catalyst.

A remarkeable catalyst. He's the reason this site exists, for example, but he has no power here.


[ Parent ]
He's not even really that famous. (2.00 / 1)
Most people probably never heard of the guy.

Photobucket


Lord of the Karmafishes


[ Parent ]
Most people can't name a member of the Supreme Court (0.00 / 0)
Most people are pretty ignorant of a lots of stuff they should be paying attention to.

[ Parent ]
So we are in agreement, he is not famous. (0.00 / 0)
[ Parent ]
No... we agree Kos isn't a celebrity (0.00 / 0)
We agree Kos is not celebrity like Paris Hilton or Britney Spears.

Kos is most certainly very influential and well publicized in the mass media.

Like I said, I don't see 5 presidential candidates showing up to YearlyWolf.


[ Parent ]
Kos and KOS only personally decides who is banned (3.00 / 1)
Only one person has the power to ban. Kos. Stop trying to ignore KOS power to ban,.

Every time you guys talk about this you try to ignore there is one and only one person that has the power to exclude people from the community, and the community's activities... KOS.

...and KOS has excluded half the progressive movement from participation.

You can't discuss KOS without discussion of his decision to exclude half the progressive movement.



[ Parent ]
It's probably fair to say that Markos is the only one (6.00 / 1)
that has the power to ban or reinstate at will on dKos.

The community, of course, also has the power of banning through the troll rating system.

So, to say that "Kos and Kos only personally decides who is banned" is rather misleading.

Photobucket


Lord of the Karmafishes


[ Parent ]
That is categorically incorrect (9.00 / 1)
Your ignorance of this subject has no bounds.

It's called a stated income loan. Which at least 15% of people who purchased property in CA have taken out in the last 5 years.

No verification. No documentation. A signature over a certification of your own unchallenged assertions about your income. That's it.

Many of these loans have the added bonus (not) of also being negatively amortizing, interest only loans - which means they are cheap month to month (at least until the ugly kickers crop up in 3-5 years.)

You really should actually learn something about housing if you're actually going to argue about it. Dang.


You can find my meanderings on all things Black and political at Maat's Feather


[ Parent ]
Like I said above, I guess I think KOS is smarter than you do (0.00 / 0)
I gave KOS credit not to get himself involved in a monstrous sub-prime or interest only mortgage.

[ Parent ]
I guess you never (0.00 / 0)
heard of Stated income loans then or No income loans.

[ Parent ]
What? (3.00 / 1)
Markos might have 3 million dollars in the bank from inheritances from his family or his wifes....You can't tell his wealth by income alone....he is part OWNER of the hotel in El Salvador...that's what he says....now maybe he doesn't actually have an interest...maybe he's just saying some people in his family own the hotel....but he said "OUR FAMILY OWNED HOTEL...and those words mean....I too am part of the family...i too an an owner....that's what the words mean...I don't know what the reality of ownership actually is...maybe he's exaggerating....

You have to remember he is very selective in how he expresses who he is....he leaves a lot out...

He said he was an immigrant....
He said he couldn't have afforded college...I think it meant law school at Boston U.

He always selectively presents himself as a person who has struggled.

There's not a line in his face, a wrinkle in his hand, a crook in his neck that shows struggle....he's a clearasil poster boy.

Everything about him points to privilige and wealth....those are facts...he grew up in a wealthy suburb....his family owns a very expensive hotel in El Salvador...his family was connected to the rulers of El Salvador in the 70' and or 80-'s through the Minister of Education....NOT DEPUTY....

What?

Stu Piddy....a free range human


[ Parent ]
SPORTS BLOGS! = elsewhere (7.00 / 3)
see here is probably a huge profit-maker. He also has his dKos spinoffs.

Now could everyone shut up about where he gets his $$ -- who the hell CARES?!?!?

I have never seen so much asinine back and forth as I do on these FH diaries -- seriously, don't ya'll have ANYthing better to do???

Never miss a good chance to shut up.
~~T e x a s B i x B e n d e r, from "Don't Squat with Yer Spurs On"


[ Parent ]
Millionaire? (6.60 / 5)
What horseshit. Make a 5% down payment and have enough cash reserves to last a few months (which is all some lenders require) and that gives an owner of a $700,000 house a net worth of less than $50,000. Neither you nor I know how much equity Markos or cityduck have in their homes. But using house value to claim they're 7/10 of the way to being millionaires is just crap.

to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance . G. Washington

[ Parent ]
I can't tell you how utterly depressing I find this (6.20 / 5)
absurd Jihad against Markos to be.

If these people would put their considerable efforts to going after someone who hates the left, like say Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs, they might actually do some good.

But, no. They're going after someone who is trying to elect Dems and to oppose the conservative movement.

It's the left fighting the center, rather than fighting the right.

Perfect.

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Lord of the Karmafishes


[ Parent ]
ROFL (5.75 / 4)
Please come visit us here in the Bay Area where, in my area of DEEP FUCKING HOOD, my little 60+ year old shack needing at least 50K worth of work just appraised at over $750K - and would have appraised for triple if it wasn't in the Deep Hood.

You have no idea. $750K in Berkeley? Chump change.

You can find my meanderings on all things Black and political at Maat's Feather


[ Parent ]
None of it even matters. (3.50 / 2)
They simply want to try to establish that Markos has access to funds beyond his income from dKos and the book.

And that these funds must come from his family.

And that his family is connected to death squads.

And therefore both Markos and dKos are bad.

Bad. Bad. Bad.

Meanwhile, over at Little Green Footballs...

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[ Parent ]
Your "hood" (0.00 / 0)
is on a serious upswing though. Pretty soon they'll be striking that first word from the "hood's" name and ignoring (white-washing?) it's history.

[ Parent ]
OMDB. (0.00 / 0)
=)

You can find my meanderings on all things Black and political at Maat's Feather

[ Parent ]
Congratulations (7.50 / 2)
on almost being a millionaire.

to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance . G. Washington

[ Parent ]
You (5.75 / 4)
Assume that there is no debt associated with that house.

You'd be sadly mistaken ;)

Millionaire status is still nearly a million dollars away for me LOL.

You can find my meanderings on all things Black and political at Maat's Feather


[ Parent ]
I'd be rich if I sold my house (9.00 / 1)
But then, where would I live? I'd have to move out of the Bay Area.

NOT going to happen!

Once again, I'm at the mercy of someone I wouldn't let pick my nose!--John Lithgow, "Third Rock from the Sun"

[ Parent ]
People that think $750K is chump change aren't progressives (1.00 / 4)
People that think $750K is chump change should not be setting the agenda for the progressive movement.

Too much separation from people who have to worry about sending their kids to bed hungry at night.


[ Parent ]
let them come and do it then. (0.00 / 0)
i am still waiting...

Rescue the frog.

[ Parent ]
Troll ratings: Cut it the fuck out. (6.50 / 4)
Why is this hard? A 0 rating should be reserved for content-free, actual troll posts; not for statements you vehemently disagree with. Please use the 1. Everyone will know what you mean.

That means you cityduck, and anyone else who is abusing the rating system in this thread. I don't feel like picking through it.

"What fresh hell is this?" -- Dorothy Parker


[ Parent ]
That's a troll comment. (2.67 / 3)
But I'll change the rating.

Hmmm. Who said there were no moderators or excersize of editorial perogative here?


[ Parent ]
I'm not threatening to ban you. (6.00 / 1)
I'm not changing your rating. I can't. I 'm asking you to please be civil. I can't make you be civil. I'm just appealing to your better nature.

"What fresh hell is this?" -- Dorothy Parker

[ Parent ]
Re: troll ratings (6.00 / 1)
Just a note, captainkillian has handed out an incredible 12 zeros to cityduck on this thread.

As you say, it would be lovely if everyone would refrain from abusing the ratings system.


[ Parent ]
I've gotten a few myself. (8.00 / 1)
I intend to frame them and hang them above my fireplace.

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Lord of the Karmafishes


[ Parent ]
And People (8.87 / 15)
Who have not a clue about how many cash-destitute homeowners there are who are living hand to mouth just to keep their raggedy roof over their heads - the only thing they have left - should get an education before spouting bullshit about who is or is not progressive.

I help these people for a living. I help them stay in their homes when folks try to take them away through fraud and for bullshit reasons - a very common occurrence out here, in the land of shacks that cost more than $1M. I get paid very little for it, compared to folks with my education doing money law. My choice, out of a love for poor people that I've practiced on the fucking ground since I was old enough to be grown. So, I don't need snotnosed arrogant ignorance such as you displayed in this post as my thanks for it. My progressive stripes are clear and provable. How about yours?


You can find my meanderings on all things Black and political at Maat's Feather


[ Parent ]
Ohhh you poor, poor affluent surburbanite (1.00 / 6)

Here's the world's smallest violin playing "My Heart Bleeds For You."

Lots of affluent people plead poverty. That where the Bush tax cuts came from. Rich people pleading poverty.

"According to a source in the Sun, “Geri Halliwell has been pleading poverty with her friends. She doesn’t own a house in the UK any more but she desperately wanted her baby to be born in London. She’s been living in various rented properties in Los Angeles and London for the past couple of years and doesn’t have a proper place to call home.”

She has apparently been in contact with friend George Michael and former fellow Spice Girls Victoria Beckham and Emma Bunton to see if they can help her out: “She’s asked George, Victoria and Emma if she can use their big houses in the country for a while.”

“She has told them she doesn’t have as much money as people assume, and that she needs a place in the sticks where she can have some privacy.”
http://fametastic.co...



[ Parent ]
You're comparing shannika to Ginger Spice? (5.50 / 2)
Damn.

[ Parent ]
I'm sorry I misspelled you name (0.00 / 0)
n/t

[ Parent ]
well at least (0.00 / 0)
they did actually include a picture of what appears to be, indeed, the world's tiniest violin.

That's sump'in.

As for the rest of it...ummmmm...

no.


[ Parent ]
Total Fucking Bullshit (9.80 / 10)
You are ignorant.

Today, my firm just took another client pro bono. Let me tell you about her. She's nearly years old. She has owned her little house for about 50 years, originally paid $14K or so for it, and owned it free and clear more than 20 years ago. Her annual income is around $6500, her dead husband's social security. She needed a new roof for her home about 5 years ago, and one of her children was trying to start a business. She had no money. So she was persuaded to take out a reverse mortgage to pay for those things. Reverse mortgages are highly dangerous creatures but, occaasionally, if managed well are OK.

She was then persuaded, however, by someone who called himself her friend that she'd known a long time, that her house was at risk with the reverse mortgage and that she should refinance into a conventional 30 year loan for safety. This friend set her up with the mortgage broker.
Who put her into a new loan, telling her that she had to take a certain minimum loan amount or they couldn't place it. The new loan had a principal of around $400,000 to buy out the reverse mortgage and pay the substantial penalty on ending it, but she could manage the monthly payments with her adult child.

Until that 2-28 adjusted a few months ago. She now finds herself with a mortgage loan with monthly payments which are 4x her annual income, and 1.5x what she *and* her adult child who is responsible for the mortgage earn together. Incomplete disclosure forms. Paperwork signed blank. All the hallmarks of the usual mortgage broker fraud which I've been litigating forever now.

This old lady has been a backbone of this community. She's hurting, and may lose her home if we can't help her. Yet someone like you, who doesn't even know your municipal geography, has the audacity and the nerve to mock people who say they are hurting, dead busted broke, despite sitting on high-value real estate which is the only thing they have of their own.

I too have been there, in a house appreciating dramatically here in Northern CA in value when at times I had less than a dollar to feed my kids in the bank. I've seen folks like that, over and over again, with far less options than I had to survive. And now that I'm in a position to help I do. Yet small minded ignorant people like you mock us/them?

Fuck you.

You can find my meanderings on all things Black and political at Maat's Feather


[ Parent ]
I hope you guys can help her, shanikka. (6.00 / 1)
[ Parent ]
OMG!! (6.00 / 2)
That is so evil. Unbelievable what is happening with real estate in this country. It's gone through the fucking looking glass. Well, what hasn't? The housing boom has a very dark side and not just in your area. I read about a guy in Asbury who was losing the house he grew up in (he was in his 90s) because the house was re-appraised and the taxes went through the fucking roof.

"What fresh hell is this?" -- Dorothy Parker

[ Parent ]
McGuire Woods LLP does pro-bono work,too (1.00 / 1)
A very close high school friend of mine who went to Yale Law School literally got stuck doing a summer internship for McGuire Woods because he didn't get his internship apps out quick enough.

McGuire Woods does their share of pro-bono work, too. However, they are mostly known as the law firm that defended Ford in the Pinto case, AH Robins in the DalCon Shield case, as well as a lot of work for tobacco companies.

Lots of predatory corporations wrap themselves in the press releases they send out about the occasional charity work they do.


[ Parent ]
judge not... (0.00 / 0)
and so on and so forth.

(Just pissin' in the wind here...)


[ Parent ]
Hey, I resemble that remark (6.00 / 1)
I own my raggedy-ass house. Got the deed and everything. I'm still pretty much poor.

[ Parent ]
Same in Santa Monica... (0.00 / 0)
many people make large salaries here, but have large house payments on not-so-large houses...I think it really equals out for the most part.

[ Parent ]
As a Bay Area resident, I find that the remarks of fellow residents Shanikka, Cityduck, and Karmafish show that they are misunderstanding the argument (10.00 / 1)
I will restate:

The argument is NOT that Kos is rich by Bay Area standards.

I agree that he is NOT.

The argument that Mr. Moulitsas’ critics are making is this:

Mr. Moulitsas has stated an income that is insufficient to qualify for a loan, even a subprime “liar loan” (so called because of the lax verification requirements), in Berkeley.

My own “back of the envelope” calculations, using my knowledge of real estate values at the time Mr. Moulitsas purchased his 2,000 square foot home in the neighborhood where he lives, is that his income would have to be far more than he has publicly indicated.

Quite frankly, whether Mr. Moulitsas has lied about his income is not a matter I care to investigate further than I have. I haven’t either the power nor the duty (not to mention the inclination) to see if he is, like his former partner Jerome Armstrong, and like right-wing blogger Armstrong Williams, “blogging for dollars”. Without access to Mr. Moulitsas’ personal and business records, I’d have no way of determining whether or not those allegations are true.

DailyKos is, in my opinion, fading into irrelevancy because of the insistence of Mr. Moulitsas and his editorial staff—who almost all seem to be Reagan Democrats or even (in Darksyde’s case) Reagan Republicans—on squelching the “people power” movement that so many people came to DailyKos to be a part of. In any case, I think that DailyKos is just one small part of politics, and scarcely merits the obsession that so many have lavished upon it.

Once again, I'm at the mercy of someone I wouldn't let pick my nose!--John Lithgow, "Third Rock from the Sun"

[ Parent ]
Where did i miss it? (6.00 / 2)
Where have i missed where Kos stated what his income was when he bought the house, or his forward looking income from that point? I've seen where he stated his prior year income, before DKos and his other blogs became so successful, and before his book was published. If he hasn't done that, then you really have no basis for asserting that his income is insufficent.

And FYI, when I was house shopping a couple years ago, I "qualified" for a loan in excess of 4 times my annual household income.

to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance . G. Washington


[ Parent ]
This is true, BC. (2.00 / 1)
But the purpose of establishing Markos' relative wealth is to demonstrate that he must have received funding from sources beyond his wife's income, dKos and the book.

And the reason they wish to establish this is to attempt to show a connection to this allegedly wealthy uncle and thus, somehow, to death squads.

That's the larger context and that's why the whole thing is so malicious and vile.


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Lord of the Karmafishes


[ Parent ]
I Disagree (10.00 / 1)
I just got done sharing a story where a woman is facing mortgage payments that are 1.5 times her *total household income* on a 400K note where she personally has less than 10K a year income. That's not a theoretical loan - that's an *actual* loan, on a house that's worth around 600K (the modest end here in my hood.)

So how can you even contend that there is no way that Markos could have qualified for a loan on a 70-80K income? I'm telling you as fact, having represented brokers and borrowers, that until early this year when the bottom fell out of the subprime and Alt-A markets that folks *routinely* obtained such loans and have ever since about 2002, with increasing frequency. Approximately 76% of all purchase money financing in the Bay Area was exotic loan products until the bottom finally fell out.

I'm not speaking about theory. I'm speaking about facts on the ground. With real lenders, real brokers and real borrowers. I realize that his numbers wouldn't qualify him for a *conventional* loan but most folks in the Bay Area haven't gotten their purchase money from conventional loans for at least the last 5-7 years.

You can find my meanderings on all things Black and political at Maat's Feather


[ Parent ]
I asked a realtor friend to run the numbers for me on both conventional and subprime loans (0.00 / 0)
I based my calculations on the MINIMUM purchase price for Mr. Moulitsas’ home and asked if he could qualify on $80,000 a year.

“No &*$%*# way!” was her response—“More like 2-3 times that, even pulling out all the subprime tricks—unless some rich uncle gave him a huge downpayment.”

She’s been a Bay Area realtor for 18 years, so I defer to her expertise in the matter.

Of course, ask five lawyers or five realtors or five experts in any field for their opinions, and you can easily get five different estimates, Shanikka. My realtor friend may well be wrong in this case. Your point about the prevalence of subprime loans in the Bay Area is a good one; in fact, these highly risky loans account for the majority of home loans written in the past 2-3 years and may have well gotten a lot of people in over their heads (which is why Bay Area housing I is in a bubble…but that’s another discussion altogether).

Given that Mr. Moulitsas is quoted elsewhere as stating that he struggled to make rent at the time he made application to the CIA, and that he also struggled for some years to pay off $100,000 in student loans used to finance his law school education, the notion that he had access to family funds, aka “a rich uncle” or wealthy parents, seems a bit far-fetched.

I agree that all of this is a snipe hunt, however, which is why I abandoned this line of inquiry long ago. I’ve stated my reasons elsewhere, but to reiterate: Mr. Moulitsas is small potatoes in the national political landscape, and the fact that he has income beyond what is possible for him to earn from selling ads on DailyKos and from his book royalties does not necessarily mean that something is amiss. Mr. Moulitsas may or may not be a “pay for play” blogger, as was hinted at by one reporter; learning the truth of that is beyond my ability to learn. That’s not even what Mr. Holland is alleging.

Perhaps Mr. Moulitsas has lied about his family background and finances. I find it more interesting, and fruitful, to focus on his easily verifiable public statements. The man has zero credibility as a progressive, given his support of DINO candidates and his admiration for Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ronald Reagan, so I doubt that anybody who listens to him NOW would be convinced that he’s not credible even if Mr. Holland’s unproven charges were true. Mr. Moulitsas is a bit like Mr. Bush at this point: if you still listen to what the man has to say on politics, then no additional evidence is going to make you stop listening.

Once again, I'm at the mercy of someone I wouldn't let pick my nose!--John Lithgow, "Third Rock from the Sun"

[ Parent ]
Your Friend (5.00 / 3)
Is not being straight with you. Sorry. Either that, or he has never dealt in exotic loan products.

You can go to Quicken loans right now, plug in a 1-5K downpayment on a 750K mortgage, and have it quote you a 2,100 monthly mortgage payment on an interest only note. (Their "secure advantage" program, they call it.) Now, the odds that you can actually get anyone but a bottom feeder lender to write the loan at that TODAY are no more than 1/5th of the actual odds of getting that loan when Markos bought his house in 2005.

As I said, I have represented brokers as well as borrowers and still communicate with brokers on pro bono cases. I've studied and worked in this area for years, on the end of things after they fall apart. Thus, I have reviewed hundreds of loan files as part of litigation and pre-litigation work on some of the worst predatory practices. Your friend is simply, utterly, wrong about the situation and what a borrower with 70-80K could buy 2 years ago, even if today he might be closer to accurate.

We agree on the larger issue of Markos. I really don't give a shit and nobody should give a shit. But from my perspective as lawyer dealing with the fallout of these many many MANY loans as folks struggle to save their homes, I simply can't allow a misimpression -- a stereotypical one -- to remain about precisely how much of the Bay Area purchase market was fueled by loans with the risk of complete meltdown in the next 2-3 years because their terms allowed people who clearly could not afford to buy a house, let alone a million dollar house, to buy almost anywhere middle class. There is a reason that values kept going up despite all indication that incomes were not matching it -- and it is exotic loan products that allow gardeners to buy homes on a 30K income (or a former student on a 70K income, which is what is possessed by the majority of families with just under median income in the East Area) that is the source of it.

You can find my meanderings on all things Black and political at Maat's Feather


[ Parent ]
Now experts that disagree with shanikka are dishonest/frauds? (0.00 / 0)
So let me get this straight, shanikka...

Shanikka: "Your Friend (7.00 / 2)
Is not being straight with you. Sorry. Either that, or he has never dealt in exotic loan products...."

shannikka's statement now is that any expert in the field... trained people in the field that have no reason to lie, and have no dog in this fight... that have an opinion that disagrees with shanikka are now either lying, or unqualified to discuss the subject, and therefore fraudulently giving advice

shannikka's above quote is a hysterical baseless non sequitur that would get shannikka a warning from a judge if it was ever uttered in a courtroom


[ Parent ]
My realtor friend has no idea who "Markos Moulitsas" is and has no motive for lying to me-quite frankly, I find the notion that she would lie to me a bit odd (0.00 / 0)
She sold over $10 million worth of residential and commercial real estate last year. I think she has acquired some expertise in the business, including “exotic” loan products.

While we’re on the subject of DailyKos revenues, its ad revenues seem to have dropped off precipitously. Many ad slots appear to be unsold, yet Mr. Moulitsas took his family on a three week trip to Europe.

There’s more to him than meets the eye, but I’ve got bigger fish to fry.

Once again, I'm at the mercy of someone I wouldn't let pick my nose!--John Lithgow, "Third Rock from the Sun"

[ Parent ]
Why do you insist that you know how much income he has? (5.00 / 2)
Of course, if you actually know where he lives, you could easily find out exactly how much he paid. But why do you insist that you know what his income is? His income almost certainly went up as DailyKos grew, as did his sports blogs, street prophets, his mom blog, along with his book. So you really have no idea what kind of loan he could have qualified for.

to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance . G. Washington

[ Parent ]
No one is claiming they know (11.00 / 1)
Markos's actual income. That's the point. We only know what Markos, himself, claimed to be making at the time of his home purchase. He publicly stated a rough figure. It's been quoted and sourced a few places in this thread. That figure raises some questions about how he is meeting the costs of his lifestyle, if his statement was accurate. That's all. I'm not overly invested, either way. I'm just stupefied at the circular arguments and miscommunication that seems to be occurring over this, and have tried to help pin it down, as I am doing now.

"What fresh hell is this?" -- Dorothy Parker

[ Parent ]
Kos choose to move to Berkeley when prices peaked. (0.00 / 0)
Kos did not buy a house 60 years ago. Kos did not inherit a house bought 60 years ago.

Of all the locations in America he could have chosen to blog from, Kos chose to move to Berkeley a couple of years ago. Right at the time real estate prices in the Bay Area peaked.

Kos chose to purchase in Berkeley when median home prices in Berkeley were 700K.


[ Parent ]
I haven't said anything about MAMZ personal wealth (yet.) (0.00 / 0)
I've totally disproven his statement that he doesn't come from a wealthy or powerful family, because I've proved that SOMEONE in his family is listed among the leadership of what a MAMZ defender calls a national "lobby" group. But, the CIA says this is a "political pressure group" that sponsors death squad activity.

Since MAMZ's supporters insist that DailyKos is not Kos alone but is its membership, perhaps MAMZ would be willing to show the membership the books of this organization so that we can see how much of its income comes from legitimate sources and how much, if any, comes from sources whose payments compromise the purposes for which the members are participating.

"Only after we change that which seemed essential do we realize how natural the "new normal" really is and how inevitable it always was."


[ Parent ]
More evidence you should be banned. (5.50 / 2)
But, the CIA says this is a "political pressure group" that sponsors death squad activity.

I've already dispensed with your "political pressure group" claim (that means "lobby" as used in the CIA World Factbook quote you have cited).

But, tell me, where does the CIA say ANEP "sponsors death squad activity."

I'm holding my breath.

Please get rid of this troll, MSOC.


[ Parent ]
You said, "You have no evidence of wrongdoing, " but . . . (0.00 / 0)
Archbishop Arnulfo Romero was assassinated and a number of sources, including the CIA, provide information that implicates ANEP. That's only the most notorious assassination in which ANEP has been implicated. In my book, but perhaps not in yours, assassination counts as "wrongdoing."

I know that MAMZ thinks highly of the CIA even though the CIA engages in extra-legal "extraordinary rendition." Since MAMZ approves of that, it won't surprise me if he ultimately offers a defense of death squads as well. Instead of arguing about what he thinks, why don't you ask him what his perspective is on his hotel manager's participation in a "political pressure group" like ANEP.

I know that some people would prefer to call this a "lobby," but lobbies don't pay people to assassinate people.

This is from a document called "El Salvador's Death Squads: New Evidence from US Documents:"

In 1983, another source provided the U.S. embassy with a chilling account of how death-squad operations were planned, financed and executed. According to the source, these right-wing death squads, which were all connected to D'Aubuisson's group, get their orders from paymasters in the Sol family ... younger members of the de Sola family and some members of the National Association of Businessmen (ANEP) ... The chain of command then proceeds to death-masters like [deleted] [who] have contacts with retired officers who go around to the different security forces as "black bag" men, paying off and recruiting likely footsoldiers. The latter are recruited at the lower and even middle levels (captains and majors) of the different security forces. Death squad hitmen thus recruited are on the receiving end of a vertical hierarchy leading up to the paymasters
(whom the footsoldiers do not now...).(17)

If you Google "death squad" and "ANEP," you get 278 hits. I wonder why! (Some are about a business group in Algeria, but some are about ANEP in El Salvador.)

Here's what another report (Shaping Change, by Bertlesman) says about ANEP:

"With the neo-liberal policies and the unions’ loss in significance during the 1990s, the topography of interest groups has thinned out and is entrepreneur-heavy. The powerful entrepreneurial organization Asociación Nacional de la Empresa Privada (ANEP), in particular, exerts considerable influence on the policies of the ARENA government. On the whole, the degree of organization among citizens is low. Civil society, which lost in significance during the 1990s, is comparatively weak, but is once again making a rudimentary start towards organizing itself, as example of the Foro de la Sociedad Civil shows. The most recent mass protests against privatization plans in the healthcare sector were supported by broad segments of society."

If your defense of MAMZ is going to be that ANEP is a "progressive" organization filled with "liberals," like MAMZ said about the CIA, I suggest so find another excuse really fast!



"Only after we change that which seemed essential do we realize how natural the "new normal" really is and how inevitable it always was."


[ Parent ]
Too Much Crap, Too Little Time (Part 2) (6.40 / 5)
You again repeat:

Carlos Alberto Delgado ZÚÑIGA is extremely influential and important in Salvadoran business circles nationally, because he is a board member of the Asociaión Nacional de Empresa Privadas (National Association of Private Corporations) (ANEP).

However, as I have previously demonstrated, this is wholly false. A visit to the website of ANEP reveals that "Carlos Alberto Delgado ZÚÑIGA" is NOT ON THE BOARD ("JUNTA DIRECTIVA") OF ANEP OR ITS "ASSORES COMITE EJCUTIVO":

JUNTA DIRECTIVA:

Presidente: Ing. Federico Colorado
Vice-Presidente: Licda. Elena de Alfaro
Secretario: Ing. Napoleón Guerrero
Tesorero: Ing. Jorge Sansivirini
Director: Lic. Carlos Imberton
Director: Ing. Agustín Martínez
Director: Lic. Carlos Renderos
Director: Lic. Rolando Duarte
Directora: Licda. Vilma de Calderón
Director Ejecutivo: Lic. Raúl Melara Morán

ASESORES COMITE EJECUTIVO:

Lic. Maximiliano Portillo
Don Eduardo Oñate
Ing. Guillermo Ruiz Maida
Ing. José Gustavo Belismelis
Lic. Ricardo Chávez Caparroso
Ing. Benjamín Trabanino
Lic. Ricardo Montenegro
Ing. Mario Andino
Lic. Ricardo Esmahan
Lic. Raúl Cardenal
Lic. Ricardo Cohen
Lic. Jorge Zablah
Don Leonel Mejía
Sr. Roberto Inclán
Lic. José Carlos Bonilla
Dr. Francisco A. Arias
Ing. Raúl Castaneda

This fact has been pointed out to FLH repeatedly, yet he persists in making this false claim, demonstrating the only true fact that can be taken from FLH's diaries: The only documented liar here is FLH.

Is this misrepresentation by FLH malicious? Yes. The "actual malice" is demonstrated by the fact that the only evidence he cites to support his misrepresentation is the denotation of one "Lic. Carlos Alberto Delgado Z." as the "Presidente" of "Cámara Salvadoreña de Turismo (CASATUR)" on that part of the ANEP website listing 43 associations who are MEMBERS of ANEP denoted as "gremiales miembros." See here. Obviously, this "evidence" does not come close to proving FLH's claim.

Of course, FLH's prior false claims that anyone who is now a member of ANEP, which he attempted to style as a nefarious "pressure group," necessarily was involved with death squad activity in the 1980s is also further evidence of his "actual malice," especially when we consider that FLH is now citing sources which accurately describe ANEP as a "lobby."

Again, FLH's diaries are pieces of crap.


I really think MSOC needs to rethink her position on FLH. (3.29 / 7)
FLH is not only defaming Markos, but his family members. He is accusing them of death squad activity based on factual assertions which are demonstrably false, despite having the falsity repeatedly pointed out to him. By not only countenancing this activity, but also explicitly encouraging through her assurance to FLH that he will never be banned from MLW, she is providing a safe haven for the most abhorent forms of defamation.

FLH is a troll. He should be banned. I do not view MSOC's decision to not ban FLH as a blow for free expression, I view it as an act of cowardice. It is one thing to stand up for unpopular speech. It is quite another to stand idly while a defamation occurs. MSOC is acting just like someone who "doesn't want to get involved" and call the police when they see a person being assaulted. I can not respect such a stand. It too is abhorent.


[ Parent ]
MSOC's Cowardice Really Does Piss Me Off! (1.00 / 4)
Unregulated free speech is no more of a social benefit than unregulated free markets. For example, it is wholly undesirable in the name of "free speech" to countenance false claims about products (e.g. "this drug has no side effects" when the manufacturer knows the drug has significant side effects including inducing birth defects and death) and consequently those of us on the left recognize that free speech must bow to regulation.

Similarly, it is wholly undesirable to countenance defamation given the real harms that such defamation can cause. We shouldn't "blame the victim" for not suing FLH and those who further such bad speech, instead we should self-regulate such speech. Our society would be a much better place if evil people suffered consequences for their actions. This is a time when MSOC's cowardice is allowing evil to flourish.


[ Parent ]
I think you know better than that (6.83 / 6)
Its not cowardice.

And I'm reasonably sure she's struggling with this series as much, if not more than anyone. But to this point anyway, she has come to the conclusion that there are no topics that are off limits. Nothing has changed since the very first in the series. Same shit, over and over again. So its unlikely she'll change her mind over specific content.

At this point, it seems the issue is how much annoyance she wants to tolerate. She's made it clear she doesn't want it here. If Francis had any respect for Maryscott he would have stopped when she asked. He didn't. He doesn't. Her tolerance is greater than mine, but I'm quite sure its not cowardice thats the motivating factor.

to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance . G. Washington


[ Parent ]
I am giving her the benefit of the doubt by calling it (3.83 / 6)
cowardice. Because I really hate to think she's countenancing this defamation due to the target.

I believe that MSOC has banned right wing trolls in the past. And under the Communications Decency Act of 1996 she arguably has a duty to regulate defamatory speech on her site since she reserves the right to, and does, exercise editorial control over content here, if she wants to maintain the immunity that the CDA may afford her from suit for the contents of her users postings. But that liability issue is besides the point.

This is about doing what's right. FLH is posting, repeatedly, demonstrable falsehoods about Markos and his family. The evidence strongly suggests that he is acting with actual malice and legal malice. This abhorent speech shouldn't be countenanced.


[ Parent ]
The malice on flh's part is completely obvious. (5.00 / 4)
It is utterly transparent.

He is seeking revenge for his dKos banning and is hoping to make some small name for himself by kicking around Markos.

It's a fucking disgrace, in my opinion.

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[ Parent ]
Exactly wrong (6.50 / 4)
While I agree these diaries are garbage, and the diarist reprehensibly dishonest, your legal analysis is incorrect.

And under the Communications Decency Act of 1996 she arguably has a duty to regulate defamatory speech on her site since she reserves the right to, and does, exercise editorial control over content here, if she wants to maintain the immunity that the CDA may afford her from suit for the contents of her users postings. But that liability issue is besides the point.

The only thing that keeps her from liability is her REFUSAL to exercise editorial control over content. She asks people to reconsider, to be nice, and even once in a while shuts things down for a bit to cool them down. But she does NOT (often to my owh chagrin) "exercise editorial control over content." Once she starts doing that, she has to do it with all content. Otherwise, the plaintiff will say "you edited THAT, but not THIS, therefore you approve THIS." See how that works?


[ Parent ]
I know exactly how it works. (5.00 / 2)
And you are wrong that she has not exercised editorial control. She has deleted posts and, I believe, banned users. She effectively deleted one of my posts as recently as last week.

This is a very unclear area of the law. You are deluding yourself if you think there are clear answers or hard and fast protections. I say this having litigated CDA issues. Still, I do agree that I'd rather be litigating these issues from a site owner defendant's side then on the plaintiff's side.


[ Parent ]
Shanikka is one of the administrators here, a dear friend of Maryscott, and a reputable attorney-and not exactly an ally of Mr. Holland (6.00 / 1)
I’ve yet to read any advice Shanikka has given that Maryscott is in danger of being on the wrong end of a libel suit. I would think that if there was a real danger, Shanikka would advise Maryscott to do so.

Or did Shanikka so advise, and I missed it?

Maryscott’s retort to threats of a libel suit against her are that she has about 1,000 causes of action against DailyKos if Cityduck’s argument proves true—which, in fact, she does!

Once again, I'm at the mercy of someone I wouldn't let pick my nose!--John Lithgow, "Third Rock from the Sun"

[ Parent ]
My question would be this: (2.67 / 3)
Has MSOC banned people in the past?

If so, then she should certainly ban flh for the very reasons that cityduck cites.

If, however, MSOC has made a principled stand against banning, and has therefore not banned people since making that stand, then she has boxed herself into a corner viz-a-viz flh.

In any case, cityduck is right.

There is no virtue in passively condoning slanderous speech.

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[ Parent ]
I prefer to think of Maryscott's position as bravery, not cowardice (6.75 / 4)
Maryscott allows Francis L. Holland to post diaries critical of Mr. Moulitsas even though she knows:

1. She will catch hell from you and from DailyKos partisans;

2. She doesn’t agree with the tone of these diaries and wishes Mr. Holland wouldn’t publish them at all;

Cityduck, you claim to be an attorney, so why do you use the word “defamation” so casually, wielding it as if it’s a cudgel to try and stifle the free speech Mr. Holland has on this site? Surely you don’t think that Mr. Moulitsas and his attorney, AdamB, are unaware of the content of Mr. Holland’s diaries on MyLeftWing and on his own blog? If AdamB think that Mr. Moulitsas has a civil cause for defamation, then it is his duty as Mr. Moulitsas’ counsel to contact Maryscott and Mr. Holland and make his case for having these diaries withdrawn from public view.

Yet after all this time, Maryscott has heard nothing from Mr. Moulitsas and neither has Mr. Holland. Could that be that these diaries do not meet the legal test for defamation of a public figure?

It’s not clear that Mr. Holland is libeling Mr. Moulitsas—in fact, it’s highly doubtful that Mr. Holland is doing so. And Maryscott, like any good defender of the right of free speech, permits speech with which she does not agree, and gives someone the benefit of the doubt when, in fact, doubt as to the defamatory character of Mr. Holland’s remarks exist.

I find THIS statement of yours particularly disturbing:

…we should self-regulate such speech. Our society would be a much better place if evil people suffered consequences for their actions. This is a time when MSOC's cowardice is allowing evil to flourish.


In other words, self-censorship, which is the most insidious of all. This reminds me of the infamous statement Ari Fleischer, the then-White House press secretary, made post 9/11:

All Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do.—Ari Fleischer, 9/01


In other words, censor yourself. Don’t allow that thought to be expressed as words, because a thought that dies unexpressed never has to be examined or challenged.

To which I reply: the best remedy for speech is more speech. Meet words with words and ideas with ideas. It was the principle upon which the United States was founded, and one that I wish to preserve. That’s why I defend Mr. Holland’s speech even though I don’t agree with most of what he says, nor the manner in which he presents it. It’s the principle I defend, not the person.

I think you’ve done a very good job of challenging Mr. Holland’s assertions in your comments appended to this diary, using your knowledge of Mr. Moulitsas and of inheritance law, property law, etc. I think that’s not only enough, but actually the proper remedy, and far preferable to the suppression of speech.

As for “allowing evil to flourish”—um, “evil”? Hitler was evil. Bush is evil. Bin Laden is evil. Mr. Holland doesn’t strike me as evil; he is perhaps misguided and has inflated Mr. Moulitsas beyond his level of significance, but “evil” is a strong word I reserve for the appropriate situation. Really, you need to self-regulate your speech. Or we shall have the Apocalypse brought down upon our heads.

As for your idea that “Our society would be a much better place if evil people suffered consequences for their actions”, I agree wholeheartedly. Isn’t that one reason we have attorneys, so that they can sue people who have defamed their clients?

But according to you:

We shouldn't "blame the victim" for not suing FLH and those who further such bad speech, instead we should self-regulate such speech.


You know, unless Mr. Moulitsas retains you as counsel, I wouldn’t worry about the defamation suit. And I find your position on it a little curious—isn’t telling people that the allegedly wronged party shouldn’t HAVE to sue bad for the lawyer business? You should be encouraging him to sue. If the California bar association finds out you’ve been telling people they shouldn’t have to sue, they’ll be after you quicker than a dog after a meat wagon.



Once again, I'm at the mercy of someone I wouldn't let pick my nose!--John Lithgow, "Third Rock from the Sun"

[ Parent ]
Total B.S. (3.00 / 3)
Clearly you are not an attorney. You state:

Cityduck, you claim to be an attorney, so why do you use the word “defamation” so casually, wielding it as if it’s a cudgel to try and stifle the free speech Mr. Holland has on this site? Surely you don’t think that Mr. Moulitsas and his attorney, AdamB, are unaware of the content of Mr. Holland’s diaries on MyLeftWing and on his own blog? If AdamB think that Mr. Moulitsas has a civil cause for defamation, then it is his duty as Mr. Moulitsas’ counsel to contact Maryscott and Mr. Holland and make his case for having these diaries withdrawn from public view.

The victim of a defamation is under no duty to attempt to prevent the defamation from occurring. The victim has the RIGHT to file suit when they want up to the limitations period. A smart plaintiffs' attorney, and Adam is smart, would allow FLH to hang himself, as he is now doing, by repeating falsehoods after their falsity was publicly demonstrated (as I have done). As far as we know, Markos is just waiting to ensure the strongest possible case. That is what I would do. It would be foolish to file until you knew it was a slam dunk. Especially since your targets will be the websites publishing this crap, as FLH is inconveniently in Brazil (tolling the limitations period as to him until he steps foot back in the U.S.).

Could that be that these diaries do not meet the legal test for defamation of a public figure?

I have demonstrated above they meet the "actual malice" test.

In other words, self-censorship, which is the most insidious of all.

What? Every time a co-worker or employee of yours makes a mistake and you bottle up your frustration and deal with the issue politely instead of yelling "YOU IDIOT!" in a threatening and intimidating fashion, you have excersized "self-restraint" and "self-regulation." This is desirable even if you call it "self-censorship." We all need to encourage good behavior and ethics, and exercise the degree of control we can to make society a better place. We cannot rely upon political structures to do all this work for us.

Attorneys generally don't file personal lawsuits, because we, more than anyone, understand the value of avoiding the courts and dealing with problems with reasonable informal action.


[ Parent ]
LOL, I predicted you would drag out the "you're not an attorney" argument (0.00 / 0)
So only members of the bar are allowed to debate this question. Well, to extend that logic, we should disregard any legal arguments made by non-lawyers.

Was the Constitution written by lawyers? That’s the supreme law of the land, and yet it was written by men who weren’t lawyers. Interesting…maybe we ought to throw that document out, since it wasn’t drafted by experts.

Counselor, surely you know that the proprietor of a website is not to be held liable for defamatory statements unless the proprietor moderates comments? Maryscott doesn’t moderate comments here, and hence has no liability for Mr. Holland’s diaries if the content is found defamatory after the fact.

Quit using the law as a cudgel to attempt to stifle speech with which you do not agree. It does neither the law nor you any credit.

Once again, I'm at the mercy of someone I wouldn't let pick my nose!--John Lithgow, "Third Rock from the Sun"

[ Parent ]
as a non-lawyer making (0.00 / 0)
the argument above, you may want to "advise" Maryscott to revise some of the language she uses in the Community Guidelines, for example:

Here -- By accessing The Blog, you agree to respect the privacy of every user and the moderators. [emphasis mine]

and here -- But I CANNOT edit COMMENTS. So if you post a COMMENT with a picture wider than 400 pixels, I have to delete it.

These things (among others, but go read for yourself) seem to imply that there IS moderation of comments -- even to go so far as to say there are "moderators" (and yes, I know MSOC said recently that there were none), so perhaps she CAN be held responsible, eh?


Never miss a good chance to shut up.
~~T e x a s B i x B e n d e r, from "Don't Squat with Yer Spurs On"


[ Parent ]
Again, you are clearly ignorant of the law. (2.33 / 3)
MSOC reserves the right to, and excersizes, editorial control over the contents of this site. She deletes comments, bans users, edits diaries, etc. Having done that, she arguably loses the immunity conveyed under Section 230(c)(1) of the Communications Decency Act (47 USC Section 230) which states, in pertinent part, that "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." This is because her exercise of editorial means she is no longer a passive recipient of information.

This is a developing area of the law. There are no clear answers. A lot of uncertainty exists. The analysis is complicated by Section 230(c)(2) which some believes imposes a duty to police sites for defamatory matieral:

(2) Civil liability. No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of--

(A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; or

(B) any action taken to enable or make available to information content providers or others the technical means to restrict access to material described in paragraph (1)."

Of course, non-attorneys are qualified to speak on many legal topics (and many lawyers aren't), but my comment was resulted from your obvious ignorance of the basics of defamation law, a topic pretty much all attorneys cover in Torts in law school.


[ Parent ]
I'm defaming someone by providing links to government websites? (0.00 / 0)
What you really object to is the public having any truthful information about MAMZ at all. In the past, all that has been known about him is what he's wanted us to know. Now, I've offered 72 links and photographs so that the public can follow the trail and believe what they will. That clearly has started to happen because we've gone from believing that MAMZ was a humble immigrant from a poor family to KNOWING that MAMZ's family owns a sumptuous and growing hotel and condominium conglomerate on the banks of an increasingly polluted and endangered estuary.

We also have learned that, although MAMZ says his family is not powerful, SOMEONE in his family, who works at the same place as his mother, is on the board of a national right-wing lobby group, which the CIA calls a "political pressure group" and which the CIA associates with death squad activity.

It is not illegal or morally wrong to provide government documents about the background of someone who would be a leader of progressives, were it not for the six months he spent in training with the CIA.

The MAMZ supporters are out in force, but none of them can offer any proof that MAMZ doesn't benefit financially, all the time, from what he acknowledges to be a "family business" where his mother works.

Because MAMZ was down in El Salvador and "motored through a flock of hundreds of pelicans" on his honeymoon, he can hardly claim to be unaware of the environmental damage being done by these hotel interests. The facts are that (1) his "family business" is making money even as the environment is damaged and (2) MAMZ attitude toward motoring "through a flock of hundreds of pelicans" shows that he couldn't care less about the harm to the environment. That's why he admits that he "motored through a flock of hundreds of pelicans."

"Only after we change that which seemed essential do we realize how natural the "new normal" really is and how inevitable it always was."


[ Parent ]
Again, it's the highly unfair negative inuenndo. (4.50 / 2)
You make it sound like Markos was crashing through those pelicans while swinging a baseball bat.

It's just another example of the bullshit way that you operate.

What does motoring through a flock of pelicans mean?

Did he hit the pelicans?

Were the pelicans endangered in any way?

Was he getting some sort of nefarious pleasure out of scaring the crap out of pelicans?

Or did merely ride by, francis?

See. INNUENDO. SMEAR JOB.

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Lord of the Karmafishes


[ Parent ]
Again this is why you must be banned. (4.67 / 3)
You keep repeating the same false claims over and over, and even contradict yourself.

On another post on this diary you take me to task for saying ANEP is a lobbying group. Here, you state ANEP is a "national right-wing lobby group."

Elsewhere on this diary I demonstrate that no family member of Markos is on the Board of ANEP, a fact you concede, but here you again assert that Carlos Alberto Delgado Z. is "on the board" of ANEP. He's not.

You again state that the "CIA associates [ANEP] with death squad activity," but have never shown any evidence of that claim, and, in fact, your attempt to equate the CIA's use of the term "political pressure group" is belied by the fact that your source, the CIA World Factbook, uses that term to mean "lobby" and as a descriptor for unions.

You should be banned.


[ Parent ]
Now you understand, and everyone here (4.00 / 3)
should understand, why flh was banned from dKos.

It had nothing to do with skin color or merely criticizing Markos, as he has falsely claimed.

Fundamental dishonesty was a big part of the community decision.

Thanks for staying on this, cityduck.

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Lord of the Karmafishes


[ Parent ]
This essay is full of facts and references and you don't like facts. (0.00 / 0)
That's why you don't like this essay. When MAMZ posts his honeymoon photos on a public website, bragging about how he "motored through a flock of hundreds of pelicans," that's perfectly alright.

But, when I point out that this same is where he stayed and which his family owns is subdividing the shoreline and killing the estuary, that's wrong? Why? Because EVERYTHING that casts MAMZ in a negative light is inherently wrong?

Why is MAMZ's family business announcing on international websites that it is subdividing the shores of the Jaltepeque Estuary even as international environmental groups and the World Bank are saying that this activity is destroying wildlife in the estuary? Aren't they rich enough already?

Are you saying that it is wrong even to pose this question? If we are not concerned about the environment when someone we know is demonstrably poisoning it, then when WILL we be concerned about the environment?

With MAMZ's family "lobbying" the laws that govern shore development, who's to keep their growing hotel and subdivision business from causing further damage to the Jaltepeque Estuary?

Why don't you try and answer these questions instead of saying that I am wrong to pose these question at all?

"Only after we change that which seemed essential do we realize how natural the "new normal" really is and how inevitable it always was."


[ Parent ]
The problem is that you do not operate in good faith. (0.00 / 0)
It is obvious that you are seeking anything that you can find to use against Markos.

This means that you have an obviously biased agenda.

Plus, you constantly imply things that are not necessarily the case.

You smear though implication.

For example, your most recent "pelican" anecdote.

You imply that Markos is a rotten human being because he "motored through" a flock of pelicans... as if he was being intentionally insensitive to pelicans, for fuck's sake.

Implication.

Furthermore, we know that you had a bad experience over at dKos (even though that was entirely your fault and you refuse to take any responsibility for yourself) and so therefore I do not trust you as a "reporter" working in a disinterested and fair manner.

You bring far too much negative baggage, both in your personal history with dKos as well as in your highly misleading rhetorical language, for me to take you seriously.

Even your usage of MAMZ is clearly meant to disparage.

You are not fair-minded and objective on this topic.

And on top of that, your work is a defamation of a person whose blog is trying to prevent conservatives and Republicans from holding power in the US government.

It therefore serves the interests of the right-wing in the United States.

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[ Parent ]
By Karmafish's rules, no Democrats allowed to fight Dubya (0.00 / 0)
According to Karmafish, Democrats/Progressives have a biased agenda, and do not operate in good faith against Dubya.

Active Dems/Progs most certainly are seeking anything they can use against Dubya.

A whole lot of people have had bad experiecnes with Dubya.

Even our use of name like Dubya, Smirking Chimp, Monkeyboy, etc are meant to disparage.

And this is the absolute fucking worst part...

where Karmafish says

"And on top of that, your work is a defamation of a person whose blog is trying to prevent conservatives and Republicans from holding power in the US government.

It therefore serves the interests of the right-wing in the United States."

How many times have we heard the Republicans say "if you aren't with us, you're with the terrorists"

Jesus Christ, karmafish. How dare you!


[ Parent ]
The interlocking directorate of "socios" includes the presidents of the member groups. (1.00 / 1)
Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Photographs don't lie. I offer a photograph of the webpage where Lic. Carlos Alberto Delgado Z[úñiga] is listed and where his exact relationship to ANEP is stated. I stated quite clearly that his importance and power in ANEP comes from sitting on the board of "socios" which is the board of groups that constitute ANEP. The graphic I offer shows that this is true.

You concede, I believe, that this person IS the same person who is listed in government documents as is "manager" at MAMZ's "family" hotel. So, you concede the connection and you concede that Lic. Carlos Alberto Delgado Z.[úñiga] is just as important nationally as I have said he is.

It seems to me that you are conceding that SOMEONE in MAMZ's family (although we don't know the relationship (yet) is listed on the website of a national business group (ANEP) as one of its leaders.

You call it a "lobby." The CIA calls it a "political pressure group" and says that this group "lobbies" by subcontracting the killing its opponents to death squads.

Without knowing your expertise, I believe the CIA is in a better position to know than you are. And since they favor right-wing groups and this is essentially an admission against CIA interests, I believe them.

I said that Lic. Carlos Alberto Delgado Z[úñiga] is "effectively" on the board because, as president of one of the national groups that is a constituent member(CASATUR), he sits on the board of "socios." This is the board of groups whose economic and political interests are prosecuted by ANEP. ANEP acts according to the expressed needs of its associate groups and Lic. Carlos Alberto Delgado Z[úñiga] is on the board of associates.

This is the graphic I offer to prove it, cut and pasted from the ANEP website:

I displayed this graphic (above) of the exact language used by the organization, so I am not "lying." Quite the contrary, I am showing exactly what the relationship is, so others can see for themselves this man's importance within ANEP.

As president of one of the constituent groups - the tourism group CASATUR - "Lic. Carlos Alberto Delgado Z." sits on the board of "socios." The national tourism group, of which "Lic. Carlos Alberto Delgado Z." is president, is one of the constituting organizations of ANEP and he is the PRESIDENT OF THAT NATIONAL TOURISM GROUP, sitting on the member board and representing the national tourism group.

The fact that you have followed my citations and found his name on the board of "socios" just proves that what I'm saying is true. The man is immensely powerful and Markos Moulitsas has consistently denied this.

Now, your position is that they only have two national boards and that the presidents of the national constituting organizations (like SALVATUR, where he is president) are not important people and not board members because they are not on these two boards. So, why is his name on the website among the leadership boards?

Well, since you have a different reading of this relationship, YOU TELL ME what you think his role is, based on what the ANEP website says. You tell me how YOU would translate the word "associados" and "gremiales" and "socios" so that people in the United States will understand them! And you tell me if he is not part of a national right-wing lobbying group! State your case now, and we'll see how long it stands up to media scrutiny!

I've made a graphic of the very words they use and translated faithfully what they say, explaining its importance. If you have a different reading of what it means, then YOU TELL US what you think his role is, and whether whatever role that is makes him, arguably, THE MOST IMPORTANT PERSON IN TOURISM in EL SALVADOR, based on his role in these groups.

WHY IS HE LISTED THERE AT ALL?

Of course MAMZ could explain all of this to us, but he NEVER WILL, because it is all too embarrassing. Only when someone in the national press raises these issues with him will he explain why he said he came from a poor family that was neither wealthy nor powerful.

Now, I said that "Lic. Carlos Alberto Delgado Z." is president of a national tourism organization, CASATUR. Concede or deny?

I said their hotel got millions of dollars of international investment. Concede or deny?

I said "Lic. Carlos Alberto Delgado Z." is listed in Salvadoran goverment documents as "representative" of Baja Salt. Concede or deny?

I said that as the president of one of the constituent groups of ANEP is effectively on the national board. Concede or deny?

I said the Jaltapeque Hotel Suites is a multi-million dollar business. Concede or deny.

I said the Jaltapeque Hotel Suites in on the banks of the Jaltapeque estuary. Concede or deny?

I said said that they are subdividing the banks of the estuary. Concede or deny?

I said international environmental groups say that this subdivision is poisoning the estuary and must not continue. Concede or deny that this is the position of the environmental groups?

I said that Markos is not an immigrant, although he said he was. Concede or deny?

I said Markos had his honeymoon at the family business, the Jaltepeque Suites Hotel. Concede or deny?

"Only after we change that which seemed essential do we realize how natural the "new normal" really is and how inevitable it always was."


[ Parent ]
This is why you must be banned. (2.00 / 2)
You state in this post:

You call it a "lobby." The CIA calls it a "political pressure group" ...

Actually, no, it is YOUR OWN DIARY that calls ANEP a "lobby." You specifically blockquote a cite to Prisma2.org as follows:

La Asociación Nacional de la Empresa Privada (ANEP), es la gremial con mayor protagonismo en las esferas de la vida política, económica y social de El Salvador desde su fundación en los años sesenta.

Translated: The National Association of Private Corporations (ANEP) is the lobby with the greatest force in political, economic and social life of El Salvador since its founding in the 1960’s.

Further, as has repeatedly been pointed out to you, the CIA uses the term "political pressure group" in its World Factbook to refer to both ANEP, other business organizations, and UNIONS. It is using the term to mean "lobby."

The utter lack of honesty here is hard to fathom. This is why you should be banned. The defamations are made with a clear disregard for the truth.

I could go point by point through this post and refute every paragraph. I could point out that you are now changing your claim that Carlos Alberto Delgado Zuniga was on the Board of Directors of ANEP to the claim that he is on an alleged board comprising the head of each of the 43 trade association MEMBERS of ANEP (which would be insificant because that concedes he is not on the Board or Executive Committee of ANEP -- and thus not in a position of power in the organization), and that even that claim is not evidenced (you highlighting a listing of the associations, not a listing of a board). But that takes too much time.

That's why you need to be banned. We can't spend all day refuting your lies. And we can't allow them to stand.


[ Parent ]
We don't ban speech in America, unless we are DailyKos and its minions. (1.00 / 2)
When you come here telling people that someone should be "banned," you sound just like P.W. Botha, of Afrikanner South Africa, trying to ban the political speech of Black people, simply because allowing them to speak would enable their message of freedom to get out.

Have you NEVER read the Constitution of the United States of America. I will NOT sit by idly and let "progressive" dictators introduce the word "banned" into American free speech discourse as if it were normal. We don't ban people in the United States of America! The term "banned" is alien to our laws and our Constitution. The fact that people such as yourself constantly seek to use such an undemocratic and dictatorial tool to stifle the political speech of your critics is evidence that you have nothing to do with progressive politics.

Are you trying to implement a dictatorship in the United States of America?

"Only after we change that which seemed essential do we realize how natural the "new normal" really is and how inevitable it always was."


[ Parent ]
Daily Kos has "minions"? (0.00 / 0)
See?

Here's yet another example of the dishonesty of your use of rhetoric.

Minions? Absurd.

Y'know, elsewhere you described your work here as something akin to the work of Woodward and Bernstein on the Watergate scandal.

(LOL.)

Do you think for one second that if they had used the word "minions" to describe Nixon supporters their work would have been taken seriously?

Perhaps there is a story buried amongst all the nonsense and innuendo and negative implications and misleading characterizations, but obviously you are not the person to present that story.

You are far, far too biased.


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Lord of the Karmafishes


[ Parent ]
Karmafish quote sounds like minion-speak to me (11.00 / 1)
Karmafish's earlier quote: "And on top of that, your work is a defamation of a person whose blog is trying to prevent conservatives and Republicans from holding power in the US government.

It therefore serves the interests of the right-wing in the United States."

...is not one bit different than Dubya's minions saying "If you aren't with us, you're with the terrorists."


[ Parent ]
I thought you lived in Brazil? (9.00 / 1)
Maybe that explains the problem you're having understanding basic concepts about the difference between "free speech" and defamation.

Setting aside that we're not talking about state action here and thus the First Amendment has no relevance, your assertion that defamatory speech deserves Constitutional protection is false. You are defaming individuals who may or may not be "public figures" (Markos - yes ... his family?). But, even defamation of "public figures" is improper if those who defame them do so with "actual malice," which I think the evidence suggests is the case here. You keep repeating claims that you know are false.

Real liberals know that REGULATION is necessary of markets to prevent abuse. This is as true for the marketplace of ideas as it is for the marketplace of products. That is why we have anti-defamation laws, why don't allow sellers to misrepresent the attributes of their products, etc. MSOC should act to regulate you out of this marketplace of ideas because you are a source of pollution.

Finally, the fact you defame people has nothing to do with your skin color, so stop trying to play the race card. It will get you nowhere here.


[ Parent ]
I see you havent answered my questions (6.00 / 1)


[ Parent ]
Well, here again is the list of group presidents who sit on the group presidents board. (0.00 / 0)
I've provided you this link and here it is again, with the name of Carlos Alberto Delgado ZÚÑIGA on the list of presidents of national organizations that sit on the "associates" board of ANEP. As I've said before, as the president of one of the industry group that constitutes ANEP, and whose interests ANEP pursues, he is "effectively" on the board of ANEP.

If you disagree with me about his function there, then I suggest YOU explain to all of us what role he plays on that list. And explain to us how his presence on this list is consistent with MAMZ insistence that he doesn't come from a powerful family?!

"Only after we change that which seemed essential do we realize how natural the "new normal" really is and how inevitable it always was."


[ Parent ]
What do you wish to accomplish? (9.00 / 1)
What is you goal in all this? What is in it for you? The last question i state is because very few people do things without a direct benefit for themself.

So I resate my question, what do you wish to accomplish?


Blacks have worked very hard to establish ourselves in the Democratic Party. (4.00 / 1)
It was and remains extremely important for us to support the Democrats, because the alternative is to let the Republicans win and appoint US Supreme Court Justices like Scalia and Thomas. Now, it turns out, there is a man who wants to "crash the gates" of the Democratic Party and this man SUPPORTED the Republicans presidents who appointed Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, namely Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

This shows how BAD MAMZ's political judgment has been from an historical and progressive perspective. It would be one thing if this was all historical, but just last year MAMZ wrote a magazine article in which he said he stopped supporting Republicans because they stopped supporting states' rights. In other words, if Republicans begin supporting states' rights again, then MAMZ can begin supporting Republicans again?

When you're in the majority, perhaps you don't care that much about the composition of the US Supreme Court, because you know that simply being in the majority will often protect your interests. But when you're a sociological minority, like women and Blacks have always been, you know that the composition of the US Supreme Court is very important. And people like MAMZ are the reason why the Court is as it is today.

I simply want to demonstrate that the worst thing that could happen to the Democratic Party is for it to be taken over by irresolute and dubious pseudo-progressives like MAMZ. We just don't need Leftist leaders in the Democratic Party who have supported Reagan, supported George H.W. Bush, supported them during the invasion of Panama, Grenada, Nicaragua and El Salvador, campaigned for Henry Hyde and spent 6 months training at the CIA. That just IS NOT the resume of a progressive leader.

So, what do I want? I want to continue the progress toward a more just and integrated society, but the statistics about membership at DailyKos tell me that MAMZ doesn't know much more more about integration than the Afrikanners in South Africa did. Right now, Blacks are 20% of the delegates to the Democratic National Convention and 6.7% of delegates to the Republican National Convention and three percent or less of the participation at YearlyKos and DailyKos. So, as between having this "exquisite little crank" crash and change the party or just leaving it alone, my interests are better served when MAMZ takes a hike.

"Only after we change that which seemed essential do we realize how natural the "new normal" really is and how inevitable it always was."


[ Parent ]
I'm sorry but (8.00 / 1)
I thought,in this particular thread, we were talking about environmental destruction, death squads and how much money a private citizen spent on his house. Shouldn't you do a different essay to discuss the negative impact that Kos has on race relations in the world?

[ Parent ]
Allow me to edcutate you on something (9.00 / 1)
"When you're in the majority, perhaps you don't care that much about the composition of the US Supreme Court, because you know that simply being in the majority will often protect your interests. But when you're a sociological minority, like women and Blacks have always been, you know that the composition of the US Supreme Court is very important. And people like MAMZ are the reason why the Court is as it is today."

I am NOT in the majority. I am half Black and half Puerto Rico and having YOU start making assumptions irrates the every living SHIT out me.

You know how to make the change.. start at the bottom, put the people you want in the local scene and build from there.. how do you the current crop of folks got there? They didnt just spring up. They networked and built a base and foundation. That what the Dems currently lack right now and that what i find lacking in what Kos is doing. He is ONLY looking at the federal level and not state level.. and THATs why these god damn fucker got into our govt and fucked this up royally. They start from the local, to state, to federal. While our current corp of folks dont seem to give a damn about what happened outside of thier desire for power. So while the powers( that be(and others) sweat and jitter over Kos, Dont you think since the hate is focused elsewhere, now is the time to build up without outside interfernce?

So keep wasting your enegry on trying to knockout a simple PAWN in this game.. meanwhile you keep losing ground in the war.

As i stated before I can give a damn what kos is or isnt.. he isnt a factor in what I want to accomplish, if anything its a good diverison.



[ Parent ]
What does it Matter...the Death Squads, Pollution, Family Wealth (11.00 / 2)
Now people are arguing about PROOF and BANNING....

No discussion on Why Marcos at least...applied to the CIA to become a spy in Washington...this is not in dispute....unless Marcos is lying about his interview with the CIA...

What about the contents....let's argue about that....

I don't think there is any PROOF offered that Moulitsas famiily was involved with the Death Squads or that Carlos Alberto Delgado Zuniga is directly related to him. But it does seem that this is a strong possiblity. And it would be very coincidental if Carlos Alberto Delgado Zuniga were not related to him directly.

What I have read is that a man Named Carlos ALberto Delgado Zuniga is associated with the hotel...he also appears to be head of CASATUR the tourism ministry for El Salvador and he also appears to be part of Baja Salt. This man is connected to the Hotel and bears the same last name as Marcos Moulitsas Zuniga. We also know ...I believe...that Marcos mother "works" in some capacity at the hotel and her name is Zuniga....we also know that Marcos Moulitsas has described the hotel as owned by his family or family owned.

We also know that Moulitsas says he had an uncle...according to the washington monthly who was an architect and served briefly as Education Minister in El Salvador...we know that Education Ministers in El Salvador were controversial...one being assassinated by gueriallas, another joining the guerillas, another resigning in protest of the governments right wing posture.

Now these are just dots...circumstantial evidence that the family may be one of the wealthiest, most powerful families in El Salvador....or perhpas they are not....but it seems based on the information that it is likely that they are...

What does this lead to?

It leads to more questions about the image portrayed by Moulitsas vs the actual background....

Whether Moulitsas lives in a poor or wealthy neighborhood doees not determine his actual wealth....or potential wealth. But we do know he lived in Dupage County Illinois....an extremely wealthy county in a very wealthy suburb called Schaumberg...we don't know if he lived there in modest means, poverty or grandiose wealth....but we know it's 19 out of 20 of the wealthiest suburbs in all of the U.S.A.

We know that the Education Ministry is a political postion and that many students and professors were killed, assassinated by death squads in the 1970, 80's 90's and last year a number were killed by an invasion of the army on to the campus in San Salvador...We know the Education Ministry is part of the government whether it be left wing or right wing and that the juntas that controlled El Salvador in the 70-80's were right wing to varying degrees.

It is worth wondering if the his uncle was in any way involved in the Death Squads....because other Ministers apparently were and were killed by guerillas in revenge....but perhaps his uncle was minister Samayoa....who joined the guerillas movement.....it's possible....but it doesn't seem as likely given the fact that Moulitsas is described as saying....his family was on the right wing side of the battle in El Salvador...

Does it matter if his uncle was Connected to the death squads?

Yes....because the CIA was connected to the Death Squads in El Salvador and Marcos at least applied to the CIA to work and one has to wonder given that possible thread....what is the total picture of this persons POLITICAL LIFE who claim to be a liberal.

It also presents circumstantially...at least a contradiction in his slective description of himself.

Stu Piddy....a free range human


Separating the wheat from the chaff. (5.50 / 2)
Legitimate points for criticism of Markos

* He applied for the CIA.

Feel free to bash away on this one. I think it's a legitimate issue to discuss and debate. There's no dispute he applied for the CIA, and there's no dispute he decided not to join the CIA. I suppose both of those events arguably reflect on his character, and to the extent you think its relevant, make your argument.

Illegitimate point for criticism of Markos

* His family has ties to Death Squads.
* His family is one of the wealthiest in El Salvador.
* His family is wealthy here in the U.S.

There is no evidence of this. Let's assume that Carlos Alberto Delgado Zuniga is a relative. What does that prove? Nothing. Carlos Alberto Delgado Zuniga is PRESENTLY the president of the tourism board. In 2007. Hardly a nefarious fact. There is no evidence of links between the tourism board and Death Squads now or in the past, let alone any evidence of a link between ANYONE named Zuniga and Death Squads.

Further, Carlos Alberto Delgado Zunia is not and has not been a member of the Board of Directors of ANEP or its Executive Committee. The tourism board is just one of 43 associations who are members of ANEP along with tens of thousands of businesses and individuals. Further, there is no evidence of any link between ANEP, as an organization, and death squads. The only evidence is that some unnamed "businessmen" who were identified as "members" of ANEP (which could be any one out of tens of thousands of members) were, along with with certain specified families NOT named Zuniga, linked to Death Squads in the early 1980s.

So, there is ZERO evidence of a nefarious link between Carlos Alberto Delgado Zuniga and Death Squads. In fact, as far as we know Carlos Alberto Delgado Zuniga is Markos' cousin not his uncle, and was too young to be involved with Death Squads.

There is no evidence of the wealth of his family in relation to anyone in the U.S. or El Salvador. We don't know what ownership interest, if any, they have in the hotel or any land developments. We don't know how they stand in relation to others.

Schaumberg has good and bad parts. It is noted for being a place where a lot of people who work for insurance companies live because Zurich and some other insurance companies had operations their. Claims adjustors for insurance companies don't make big bucks. Lots of ordinary people live in Schaumberg (and Marin, and other places people who haven't visited think are wealthy enclaves).

* Markos' Uncle was an Education Minister in El Salvador.

Markos said he was. I think its an open question who this uncle is and what his actual position was (Deputy?). More importantly, there is no reason to believe that this uncle was tied to death squads given the history of El Salvador because (1) Markos was apparently talking about the 1970s, (2) the government changed significantly in that period of time, and (3) there is no reason to believe that the Education Ministry was connected with Death Squads at that time. The fact Markos' family left El Salvador speaks volumes about their lack of dedication to the government that took over and was in power in the early 1980s.

Your suppositions are worthless without an accurate factual basis.


[ Parent ]
That means you think Dubya isn't an issue for Jeb Bush? (0.00 / 0)
And Dubya shouldn't be an issue a few years from now for Jeb's kid George P. Bush?

I couldn't disagree more strenuously. George P. Bush is going to carry the sins of his uncle Dubya... for damn good reason.


[ Parent ]
G.W. is an issue for Jeb because (2.33 / 3)
Jeb supports GW.

If George P. Bush grows up, renounces his father and uncle's politics, and runs for office as a liberal Democrat, then "no, he isn't going to carry the sins of his uncle."


[ Parent ]
Why doesn't MAMZ tell us his uncle's name? (0.00 / 0)
Why did MAMZ say he didn't come from a powerful family?

Why did MAMZ say he was an immigrant when he was born in Chicago?

Why doesn't MAMZ's family business stop subdividing the shores of the endangered Jaltepeque Estuary?

Why is the Jaltepeque Estuary the only such endangered estuary in El Salvador that hasn't received Government protected status?

When MAMZ said he didn't come from a powerful family, why didn't he mention that someone in his family was president of the national tourism board and was flying around Central America as a CAFTA proponent?

All told, how much money has MAMZ's "family business" received from the US treasury?

Isn't our tax money being spent in a way that increases pollution in a fragile and unique ecosystem?

Why is the manager of MAMZ family business part of a group that advocates privatizing El Salvador's water supply and its hospitals?

If MAMZ doesn't agree with these policies, then why does he freely avail himself of the benefits of this hotel/condo/subdivision complex when honeymooning in El Salvador?



"Only after we change that which seemed essential do we realize how natural the "new normal" really is and how inevitable it always was."


[ Parent ]
Why don't you quit with the "MAMZ" bullshit? (0.00 / 0)
It is an obvious aand transparent attempt to disparage Markos Moulitsas and it undercuts your credibility as an objective source of information.

Any actual reporter would use the name of the person they are talking about as that person uses it.

Photobucket


Lord of the Karmafishes


[ Parent ]
MAMZ's name is 32 keystrokes long. I use his initials, like JFK and MLK. (0.00 / 0)
I think that's completely appropriate.

"Only after we change that which seemed essential do we realize how natural the "new normal" really is and how inevitable it always was."

[ Parent ]
His name is Markos Moulitsas. (0.00 / 0)
Your usage of "MAMZ" is not out of convenience, but out of malice for your subject.

You have a clear and obvious bias against Moulitsas and this cast doubt on both your conclusions and intentions.

Photobucket


Lord of the Karmafishes


[ Parent ]
So my usage of afs is out of malice for myself? (0.00 / 0)
My usage of afs is not out of convenience, but a clear and obvious bias against myself, huh, karmafish?

[ Parent ]
JFK, RFK, LBJ, afs (0.00 / 0)
Karmafish, is my use of afs an obvious and transparant attempt by me to disparage myself?

Was JFK, RFK, LBJ all obvious and transparant to disparage John Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson?

Did any reporters refer to JFK, RFK, LBJ by their initials? Absolutely.


[ Parent ]
Irrelevance. (10.00 / 2)
Why doesn't MAMZ tell us his uncle's name?

Perhaps, because he doesn't want wack jobs bothering his relatives?

Why did MAMZ say he didn't come from a powerful family?

Perhaps, because his parents aren't powerful? I've sure never heard of them, and no one else in the blogsphere has either.

Why did MAMZ say he was an immigrant when he was born in Chicago?

Perhaps, because his parents did immigrate to the U.S. and he spent the formative years of his life in El Salvador?

Why doesn't MAMZ's family business stop subdividing the shores of the endangered Jaltepeque Estuary?

Perhaps, because they aren't subdividing the shores of the endangered Jaltepeque Estuary? Your evidence only suggests they are developing the beach front.

Why is the Jaltepeque Estuary the only such endangered estuary in El Salvador that hasn't received Government protected status?

Perhaps, because it is 30 minutes from the airport and the government has decided that the economic benefits warranted the environmental tradeoff, just like the U.S. did in Florida and numerous other places.

When MAMZ said he didn't come from a powerful family, why didn't he mention that someone in his family was president of the national tourism board and was flying around Central America as a CAFTA proponent?

Perhaps, because he was talking about the U.S.? Or, perhaps, because being the head of a tourist association does not equate to powerful in El Salvador. After all, who's ever heard of the people in charge of U.S. tourist associations?

All told, how much money has MAMZ's "family business" received from the US treasury?

There is no evidence they have received any. When did you stop beating your wife?

Isn't our tax money being spent in a way that increases pollution in a fragile and unique ecosystem?

I'm sure it is in a variety of spots in the U.S. There is no evidence that it is in El Salvador.

Why is the manager of MAMZ family business part of a group that advocates privatizing El Salvador's water supply and its hospitals?

Perhaps, because it is the big business lobby in El Salvador?

If MAMZ doesn't agree with these policies, then why does he freely avail himself of the benefits of this hotel/condo/subdivision complex when honeymooning in El Salvador?

Perhaps, because you don't have to agree with the politics of your family members to love them and accept their gifts? Perhaps, because he couldn't afford anything better? Perhaps, because staying at a hotel is not an endorsement of the hotel ownership's political positions?


[ Parent ]
This guy's poisonous hatred is just (4.50 / 2)
palpable, cityduck.

I don't know that I've ever seen anything quite like this.

Truly disgusting.

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Lord of the Karmafishes


[ Parent ]
This is about evaluating the veracity of statements of a political figure. (0.00 / 0)
He's said his family was not powerful. Now we know that he didn't tell the truth.

He said he didn't come from a wealthy family. Now we know that he didn't tell the truth.

He said that he was an immigrant. Now we know that he didn't tell the truth.

He said that he "motored through a flock of hundreds of pelicans" during his honeymoon at the Jaltapeque Suites Hotel. I believe that he "motored through a flock of hundreds of pelicans" because he has pictures to show that he was motoring around in ths fragile estuary. But here's my question. The estuary is enormous. Why didn't they go around the pelicans instead of motoring "through" them?

MAMZ wants to help pick the members of the US Congress and our next president. But, I don't trust his truthfulness and I don't trust his judgment.

With or without facts, I have a right to say that I don't trust his truthfulness and his judgment. So, I also certainly have a right to offer documented proof to the public of the facts that underlie my doubts.

Nobody has a right to be believed when the facts show that they are not telling the truth.

Nobody who is a public figure has a right to to try to "ban" facts into oblivion to avoid answering for their behavior or to avoid addressing the facts about their past that they have intentionally hidden from the public.

If the public thinks these facts are irrelevant, then that's their call to make, not yours.

"Only after we change that which seemed essential do we realize how natural the "new normal" really is and how inevitable it always was."


[ Parent ]
Their own website says their voraciously developing the beach. (0.00 / 0)
You allege that MAMZ doesn't want to tell us the name of his uncle who was Minister of Education, because "he doesn't want wack jobs bothering his relatives?" If his uncle is averse to publicity, why didn't he agree to be Minister of Education for an entire nation? Are all Americans "whack jobs"?

Since you KNOW that the Jaltepeque Suites Hotel is a "family hotel" but you DON'T know whether MAMZ's mother owns this hotel, why do you insist that it is NOT owned by MAMZ's mother. You are making an assumption that is not based on any facts that are on the table.

Has MAMZ ever said that he DOES NOT have an ownership interest in this family hotel that is operated by his mother and by someone else who shares the name ZÚÑIGA? I have never heard that MAMZ has disclaimed an ownership interest in this hotel conglomerate. And you and I have to admit that we just don't know the answer to that question one way or the other.

I spent three years in France. When I return to the United States, am I an immigrant from France? Of course not! MAMZ statement was NEVER true, no matter why he said it, and federal law (to which I linked) makes this clear. Anyone who is born in the United States is a US citizen until and unless he disclaims that citizenship. MAMZ was never an immigrant and ALWAYS a US citizen.

The evironmental groups are practically begging these businesses to stop "developing the beachfront."

This is what the website of Club Joya del Pacífico says:

"Desde los años 80's se viene desarrollando un complejo de casas en la famosa playa El Zapote, localizada en la Costa del Sol,departamento La Paz."

Translated: Since the 1980 we have been developing a complex of houses in the famous El Zapote, located on the Sun Coast, in the department of La Paz.

"Se han construido desde su inicio los complejos residenciales, Laguna Sur; Los Alisios; El Alba; Villa Oceánica y el Condominio Suites Jaltepeque todos en operación actualmente."

Translated: The following residential complexes have been built since that beginning: Laguna Sur; Los Alisios; El Alba; Villa Oceánica y el Condominio Suites Jaltepeque, all in operation at the present.

"En el año 2001, se inicia con el nuevo concepto de Club Privado y nace el ahora reconocido Club Joya del Pacifico. Este Club nace con la idea de brindar a sus socios un lugar de esparcimiento privado y exclusivo en uso de día así como la posibilidad para sus socios de poder disfrutar de estadías y de precios preferenciales de Club privado en alimentos y bebidas."

Translated: In 2001 [right after the infusion of dollars from overseas, and presumeably the United States], we started the new Private Club concept called Jewel of the Pacific. This club is born from the idea of offering our members a locale that's private and exclusive in its use in the daytime, as well as the possibility for the members to enjoy staying overnight with preferential prices offered by the private Club for food and drinks.

"Nace GRUPO Joya del Pacifico, como una marca corporativa en la cual se integra a Club Joya del Pacifico con un extensión territorial de 42,000 varas cuadradas frente al mar y el desarrollo futuro de su empresa hermana con mas de 380,000 varas cuadradas en su plan maestro."

Translated: Voilá, the Jewel of the Pacific Group, with a corporate trademark that integrates the Club Jewel of the Pacific with a grounds of 42,000 square "varas" at beachfront, and FUTURE DEVELOPMENT of its sister corporate with more than 380,000 "varas" [approx. = to square yards] in its master plan.

"Con esta integración, forma parte del Grupo el actual desarrollo en Condominio Villas Joyas del Pacifico que se encuentra operando y el futuro desarrollo de Town Houses y Apartamentos Joyas del Pacifico. Así mismo se integra al grupo propiedades de montaña en Jayaque donde se desarrollaran cabañas en el 2007/2008 para sus socios."

Along with this complex, also forming part of the Group is the Condominium Vilas Jewel of the Pacific, which is in operation, and the FUTURE DEVELOPMENT of the Jewel of the Pacific Town Houses and Apartments. And also integrated is the group of mountain properties in the Jayaque, where cabanas will be developed in 2007/2008 for its members.

80% of the beach is already gone as a result of these tourism interests' incessant construction activity. Now, these people are rapidly and conclusively subdividing all that is left of the beach, without any apparent regard for the health of the estuary itself.

They are already filthy rich to have all of this property, clubs, hotels and pools along the best beaches in El Salvador, but they are so greedy that they are ignoring environmental groups that are pleading for more controlled development along the banks of this imperiled estuary.

Instead of arguing these facts with me, based on your pure speculation about MAMZ's level of involvement, why don't you ASK MAMZ himself to explain this and then get back to me? Ask HIM what ownership interest he has, what ownership interest his mother has, and what ownership interest is dispersed among his other relatives.

"Only after we change that which seemed essential do we realize how natural the "new normal" really is and how inevitable it always was."


[ Parent ]
Have you actually emailed Markos and asked him (0.00 / 0)
any of these questions?

The very first thing a reporter might do, or so it seems to me, at least, is to alert his subject that he is writing a series of articles and that he would like to ask that subject some questions.

Your problem, of course, is that since you have already shown malice toward your subject you cannot expect him to cooperate with you.

Of all the various problems with this series of diaries, this may have been your very first mistake.

You have already completely alienated the very person who holds the information that you most need to come to any fair conclusions.

{But, then again, I do not see where you are trying to establish fair conclusions, anyway.}

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Lord of the Karmafishes


[ Parent ]
A "beach" is not an "estuary." (0.00 / 0)
Comprehend?

Development on a beach is not development "along the banks of an imperiled estuary."

Comprehend?

Your evidence is lacking. The burden is on you to come up with evidence to prove your slanderous speculation. The fact that Markos has wisely chosen to ignore the accusations of wack jobs instead of giving them the satisfaction of his attention is not evidence of anything. He is under no obligation to take notice of your accusations, whereas you are under every obligation to evidence a charge before making it.


[ Parent ]
Lots of beaches on estuaries (0.00 / 0)
"An estuary is a semi-enclosed coastal body of water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea.[1] Estuaries are often associated with high rates of biological productivity.

An estuary is typically the tidal mouth of a river (aestus is Latin for tide), and estuaries are often characterized by sedimentation or silt carried in from terrestrial runoff and, frequently, from offshore. They are made up of brackish water. Estuaries are more likely to occur on submerged coasts, where the sea level has risen in relation to the land; this process floods valleys to form rias and fjords. These can become estuaries if there is a stream or river flowing into them. Large estuaries, like Chesapeake Bay and Puget Sound often have many streams flowing into them and can have complex shapes. Estuaries are often given names like bay, sound, fjord, etc. The terms are not mutually exclusive. Where an enormous volume of river water enters the sea (as, for example, from the Amazon into the South Atlantic) its estuary could be considered to extend well beyond the coast...."

http://en.wikipedia....

Lots of beaches sitting on the shores of mouths of rivers.


[ Parent ]
I see you havent answered my questions (6.00 / 1)


[ Parent ]
Duck for Cover (11.00 / 1)
Just Yesterday there was a headline in the Chgo Suntimes..."Daley Pal linked to Mob Bombing"

Mayor Daley was outrage that Fred Bruno who has been arrested 5 times but never convicted has been accused during a trial here in Chicago of fire bombing two restaurants. Bruno is connected by relation to the Roti family. Fred Roti was the alderman of the downntown area in Chicago and rumoured to be connected to the mob as a made man. Fred Bruno is involved in waste mangament and had city contracts to move waste to landfills....he sold his waste management company recently for as much as 100 million dollars.

Now ...the investigators of Fred Bruno cannot prove that Mayor Daley permitted Fred Bruno to develop a waste management company worth 100 million dollars due to connection or even pay off's but it certainly does appear worth investigating...

City Duck you have to be too terribly naive to be a lawyer...an effective criminal lawyer in any case....

If you think it's a benign coincidence that Carlos Alberto Delgado Zuniga is head of Tourism in El Salvador and that he owns a hotel and apparently a tremendous amount of land around the hotel on which he's sellling property...that this unrelated to his position....and money and favors are not passing hands.....you don't understand how things work.

I am willing to bet he is in a conflict of interest situation here and money is passing hands...I have no proof...but that's what Francis Holland is looking into.

I live in Chicago...I have been to Schaumberg...it's a wealthy suburb...there are people who are not wealthy who live there...but it's a wealthy suburb...PERIOD. It's not working class.

Carlos Alberto Delgado Zuniga is clearly one of the wealthiest people in El Salvador and he exists most likely as a relative since he is listed, I believe as manager of Kos's FAMILY OWNED Hotel...

Kos said it's "Our Family Owned Hotel" ...."Our" means parthy mine, partly theirs....since his mother works there...she is part of the family ...she is therefore an OWNER of the Hotel...most likely with Carlos Alberto Delgado Zuniga....Kos is in effect saying He is a part owner since the hotel belongs to the people called "OUR" one of which is KOS. That's what the words mean...those are his words on his wedding website....it's not an interpretation....

Now you just don't want to see the handwriting on the wall....

Your Ducking the issue.

Stu Piddy....a free range human


[ Parent ]
That's the story, Stu, and it looks pretty damning to me. (3.00 / 1)
If MAMZ has anything to say that would make it less damning, I think he should come forward and enlighten us all.

I particularly want to know why he said he was not from a wealthy or powerful family when, in fact, his family owns something akin to El Salvador's equivalent of Miami Beach.

Now, Stu, they're going to tell us, "It's not ALL of Miami Beach!" But, how much of Miami Beach do you have to own before you're considered wealthy in the United States? Not much, I'll tell you that!

Where there's smoke, there's usually fire. In this case, I think we have evidence pointing to a whole damned forest fire.

"Only after we change that which seemed essential do we realize how natural the "new normal" really is and how inevitable it always was."


[ Parent ]
people...People...PEOPLE! (5.86 / 7)
If you want the Holland stuff to go away......IGNORE IT!

It only gets comments because everyone who hates it pays it attention and then makes comments to refute it, which only invites more speculative, unsubstantiated garbage to flow, which then leads to yet more refutations...blah, blah, blah.

If everyone that thinks it is crap would just leave it be, it would be Francis and Stu Piddy patting each other on the back while afs waited expectantly for someone rational to show up so he could tell them the sky is green.

Just leave them to themselves.


(Insert name here) is a right-wing fascist warmonger!


Francis, I have to say, (0.00 / 0)
while I find these diaries vile (mainly because they are filled with dishonest innuendo and obvious malice) I also find them interesting.

(Which, needless to say, is why I comment in them.)

So, I want to leave you this evening with one question:

You make much of the fact that Moulitsas seems to have contradicted himself by claiming that his family left El Salvador without much money and yet his family owns the Hotel Suites Jaltepeque.

How do you know that when Markos returned to the United States in 1980 that his immediate family had access to this “vast fortune” you claim they had? Are you privy to his mother and father’s financial situation in 1980? Can you even confirm that Carlos, the hotel manager, was financially flush in 1980?

If you cannot, you see, you have a big hole in your argument.

For you to prove, as you have claimed, that Moulitsas lied, you must demonstrate the finances of his immediate family in 1980. That of his mother and father.

So you need to answer that question.

Perhaps you already have. I find these diaries to be rather reader-unfriendly, so if you can provide the link that answers that question I would very much appreciate it.

But you realize, of course, that if you have not, or cannot, answer that question then a large part of your overall, scattershot, hope-some-shit-sticks-to-the-wall argument fails.

Cheers!

I will look forward to your reply.

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Lord of the Karmafishes


Karmafish, thanks for your vote of interest in these diaries and this topic. (1.00 / 1)
I'm very pleased that, as a prime defender of MAMZ here, you have offered this defense of MAMZ. You say"

"For you to prove, as you have claimed, that Moulitsas lied, you must demonstrate the finances of his immediate family in 1980. That of his mother and father."

Thank you for pointing out the ONLY remaining defense MAMZ has, so that I can prove that it is NOT a defense but is, rather, proof that he is a BIG LIAR.

Let's go to the quote we have from MAMZ, published on the ninth day of April of this year, in the year two thousand and seven and based on an interview that can only have occurred THIS YEAR. In this interview, based on the verb forms MAMZ uses, and the events to which he refers, he is clearly making claims about his family's wealth AT THE TIME HE STARTED DAILY KOS, which would have been in not earlier than the year 2000, right?

Well here is what Kos said in a year 2007 interview about his family's wealth and position, speaking specifically of the time period in which he started DailyKos and of the political and financial resources he had available for that purpose:

Y agrega: “En el mundo antes de internet, alguien como yo nunca hubiera tenido ese nivel de éxito. No tengo dinero. No vengo de familia famosa o poderosa. Era inmigrante en Estados Unidos (...) La tecnología me dio la oportunidad de crear una publicación con más de un millón de lectores diarios sin tener que tener mucho dinero. Los costes de lanzamiento eran cerca de $100”.

Translated: "He [MAMZ] adds: In the world before the Internet, someone like me never would have been able to reach this level of success."

"I don't have money." [Stated in the present tense of the verb "to be."] "I do not come from a famous or powerful family." [Stated again in the present tense of the verb "to be."] "I was an immigrant to the United States." [Utterly false, but stated in the past tense, which makes it crystal clear that his other statements, stated in the present, were with respect to the the time when he started DailyKos, NOT with respect to 1980.]

"Technology gave me the ability to start a publication with more than a million readers daily, without having to have much money. The costs of starting were around one hundred dollars." [This last paragraph makes it perfectly clear the temporal frame, the time frame, to which his is referring. He is saying that when he started DailyKos in 2000 or 2001, his family was not famous or powerful, AND he is saying that he is strongly implying that his family was so poor that he could not count on them for any financial help in starting DailyKos.]"

So, this proves conclusively that Kos was not referring to 1980 when he said that his family did not have any money and was not rich and powerful. He was referring to the year 2000 or 2001, and he was arguing that AT THAT TIME he started DailyKos with access to no more financial or political resources than a poor and humble immigrant would have.

That was a lie. Even at that time, his "family business" had immense land holdings on the Miami Beach of El Salvador, and was developing an enormous condominium/club/hotel complex, that had received five million dollars in foreign investment between 1997 and 2000.

"Only after we change that which seemed essential do we realize how natural the "new normal" really is and how inevitable it always was."


[ Parent ]
Ahh. Very good. (0.00 / 0)
So we are in agreement that you have not the slightest clue as to state of Moulitsas family finances in 1980, when they returned to the United States.

That was the question, not 2000.

We can therefore dispense of one brick in this amazing edifice of malicious deceit that you have constructed.

As for your claim that Moulitsas "lied" when he said he came to the US as an immigrant, this is yet another one of your spiteful assumptions.

The most that you can argue here is that he misspoke.

The difference between my take and your take on that statement is that I do not presume any intention to deceive on the part of Moulitsas.

His family left the US when he was three and returned in 1980, 16 or 17 years later, or thereabouts, yes?

From the perspective of a young man who grew up in El Salvador and who could only have had the vaguest memories of the US, claiming to be an immigrant to the US would be wholly justified from the experience of that person.

Is it technically correct? Nope.

But you have not demonstrated any intention to deceive on the part of Moulitsas.

You have demonstrated, however, your own negative bias toward the subject of your writings, which is why you are not to be trusted on this subject to begin with.

You presume negative intent on the part of Moulitsas because that is what you want, not because that is what the evidence suggests.

In any case, I have no time to play today. {Maybe later.}

Ta-ta.

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Lord of the Karmafishes


[ Parent ]
Karma Fish 1980 Kos Family (0.00 / 0)
Karma Fish...my diary on Marcos goes into circumstantial evidence that suggests Markos family was not poor....

After he returned from El Salvador the family went to Schaumberg Illinois...a wealthy suburb...I'm from Chicago it's about an hour away...I've been there...it's wealthy....it's in Dupage country...a notorious republican stronghold of people like Henry Hyde and Ray Krok of McDonlas and many other business tycoons from the right. So this is in 1980...

http://www.myleftwin...

The racial makeup of the village (Schaumberg) was 78.78% White, 3.35% African American, 0.10% Native American, 14.19% Asian, 0.06% Pacific Islander, 1.73% from other races, and 1.78% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 5.29% of the population.

Schaumberg is about 45 minutes to one hour from the Downtown Chicago by car and one of the wealthiest suburbs in America. With a median income of $60, 941.00. It is part of Dupage County ranked 19 out of 20 of America wealthiest counties with a median income for the county of over $70.000.00.
Markos says he like so many others could not have gotten the money to pay for college without the army.
From the American Prospect article “The Soldier in Me: 5/4/06
“It was January 1989, during my senior year in high school. My family was sitting at the dinner table when my mother turned to me: "I was talking to some mothers today, and their kids are all applying for colleges. When are you going to get to it?"
I stared back, "I already told you. I'm joining the Army."
Until that moment, my parents apparently thought my plans for military service were a form of youthful rebellion. Or stupidity. But that night my plans suddenly became real -- the start of a months-long battle to convince them that I knew what I was doing and would not be deterred.
Normally, I wouldn't care what my parents thought. I was a teenager. But at 17, I needed parental approval to enlist, a battle I eventually won. Six weeks shy of my 18th birthday, I reported to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, to train as an MLRS/LANCE Operations/Fire Direction Specialist, managing operations and logistics for a missile platoon.”

Moulitsas mentions that it was the army that allowed him to go to college, as his family could not have afforded to send him there.
http://www.dailykos....
I've often talked about my story -- how my Army service served as a springboard for my life. It gave me discipline, pride in myself and my country, strength, and self-confidence. Then, as if that wasn't enough, it allowed me to go to college despite coming from a family who never could've afforded that expense.

He came from a family that could not have afforded the expense of sending him to college, but nevertheless his family living in one of the world’s wealthiest suburbs in the United States had urged him to apply to colleges. All the other mothers of the high school he attended were developing their children’s college plans.
Markos refers to himself as a “war refugee” and being forced back into the United States due to civil war in El Salvador.?/blockquote>

Stu Piddy....a free range human


[ Parent ]