Month: March 2013

How Much Cash Did Jerome Armstrong Collect in the ‘MalaysiaGate’ Operation?

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Cashing in and Crashing the Gate: Markos Moulitsas
and Jerome Armstrong sign their book, April 2006

“At 1:11 AM, Monday March 21st, Bush signed into law an order that vacates the state of Florida from having jurisdiction over the case involving Terri Schiavo. Of course, Mercury is retrograde, so at first indication, it’s unlikely that this will stand. . . . In the chart, we find Jupiter exactly conjunct the MC, in Libra, and opposite Mercury in [Aries] at the IC, with both planets retrograde. Meanwhile Pluto is conjunct the ASC. . . .
“What’s notable about the Jupiter-Mercury oppositions of retrogrades in the law passed by Bush, is that they exactly T-square the Sun of the Republican Party and the USA chart. . . . The Republican Party does well when it deals with Neptunian issues  . . . but when it comes to issues surrounding Pluto, the sexual and the bodily emerge from shadows, and they go toward excess.”
— “Vis Numar” (Jerome Armstrong), March 2005

The lefties at Daily Kos made a front-page story out of the news, reported Friday by Rosie Gray of BuzzFeed, that consultant/blogger Josh Trevino got nearly $400,000 from Malaysian interests to orchestrate what Trevino defended as “a fairly standard PR operation.”

If taken at face-value, Trevino’s statement would mean that it’s “fairly standard” for shady foreigners to funnel $36,000 to Ben Domenech and $24,700 to Brad Jackson for favorable coverage. And so “Hunter” at DKos chortles with delight:

Every time we think we begin to understand what it is the conservative movement is going on about, yet another thing happens to remind us that no, there really aren’t any principles there at all — it really is just an astroturf operation from top to bottom. Lobbyists paying lobbyists paying lobbyists, all the way down. We’re terrified of majority-Muslim countries, unless their governments are paying us not to be.
Just think — all it would have taken during this whole period of time is just one rich guy willing to pay these conservative bloggers to change their minds, and they could have spent the last four years praising Barack Obama as the greatest president who ever lived. We could probably have gotten it for no more than $10,000 a pop.

Certainly, the punchline opportunities are irresistible. But before the progressive Kossacks pile on the schadenfreude, they ought to recognize their own involvement in this operation. A commenter yesterday called attention to a 2011 article by Ben Smith at Politico:

The financial arrangements that the Malaysian story alleges between Trevino, another blogger, and a Malaysian party aren’t possible to pin down, but after I posted the item, a source forwarded some 2008 correspondence between Trevino and a group of American political bloggers, from Ezra Klein to Mary Katharine Ham offering them a free “once-in-a-lifetime” Malaysian junket, paid for, he said in an email at the time, by business interests associated with Malaysian politics; the trip fell apart before he could fulfill a promise to specify the sponsors, but he mentioned in a May, 2008 email that he was “running” Malaysia Matters, which he described as educational and neutral. . . .
The Malaysia Matters site is now effectively down, but an archived “about” page says it was “sponsored by individuals who share an interest in Malaysia, and were willing to help bring Malaysia Matters to fruition.”
“Those working on this project include David All, Jerome Armstrong and Joshua Treviño,” the page says. “The three of us gave birth to this blog, but there are also others who have agreed to contribute along the way. While we might not always agree politically, we all have various interests in Malaysia that are reflected in this blog.”

Wait, did he say “Jerome Armstrong”? Founder of the progressive blog MyDD, who in 2003 co-founded the political consulting firm Armstrong Zuniga with Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas Zuniga? The same Jerome Armstrong who co-authored with Markos the 2006 book, Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics?

Oh, yes, that Jerome Armstrong — the Internet hustler who once offered such various online services as financial advice and astrology readings as “Vis Numar” — was also part of of the “Malaysia Matters” dot-com triumvirate.

Are we to suppose that Jerome Armstrong participated in this pay-for-play project out of the goodness of his heart? Was Jerome Armstrong motivated by altruistic philanthropic concern for human rights on the Malay peninsula?

Give me a freaking break: Jerome cashed a check, too.

But while Rosie Gray of BuzzFeed has reported the sums paid to, and distributed by, Josh Trevino, down to the last penny — precisely $389,724.70 over three years — and made a big deal about Trevino’s belated compliance with the Foreign Agent Registration Act, what do we know about Jerome Armstrong’s piece of the Malaysian action?

Very damned little.

How much was Jerome Armstrong paid to pimp for the Malaysian regime? We don’t know. Why don’t we know how much Jerome Armstrong was paid? Because, unlike Josh Trevino, Jerome apparently hasn’t filed a report with the Justice Department about it.

Lefties who imagine that consultant/blogger types like Jerome Armstrong are motivated entirely by fervent devotion to the progressive cause should have been disabused of such naïveté long ago.

Back in 2006, a progressive blogger in Ohio reported how Markos Moulitsas had originally supported Paul Hackett in the Democrat primary for the Ohio Senate race. But the campaign of Sherrod Brown had hired Jerome Armstrong as a consultant, and within 48 hours, Markos changed his tune and suggested that Hackett “stand down” rather than have a contested Democratic primary.

Just a coincidence, right?

Jerome Armstrong pretty much pioneered pay-to-play progressive blogging, so his willingess to join forces with Republican consultants David All and Josh Trevino in promoting the interests of the Malaysian regime shouldn’t really surprise anyone. But we don’t know how much Armstrong was paid, nor do we know whether Armstrong subcontracted any of his pro-Malaysia flack-work to other bloggers, as Trevino did.

Perhaps reporter Rosie Gray can get some answers to those questions from noted astrology expert Vis Numar.

Vis Numar sees all!

 

 

UPDATE: Linked by Bill Quick at Daily Pundit, who has been blogging long enough to remember the “Vis Numar”/”JeromeGate” kerfuffle of 2006. Bill praises my reporting, but this story was a piece of cake once two things happened:

  1. A commenter pointed out that Jerome Armstrong had been named as a “Malaysia Matters” participant; and
  2. I suddenly remembered “Vis Numar.”

Back in 2006, I was blogging to promote Donkey Cons (the book I co-authored with Lynn Vincent) when the “JeromeGate” story was broken by Dan Riehl, and I blogged about it quite extensively.

Many conservative bloggers seem to have forgotten that era, when the progressive Netroots were insurgents fighting to overthrow the eeee-vil Bush/Cheney/Halliburton regime, but I remember it well, as it was my first opportunity to engage in blogging.

The most important lesson I learned early was, “No blog is an island.” Blogging is fundamentally a collaborative effort, and if you are not aggregating — linking your readers to other bloggers and news sources — you aren’t really part of the community.

The hat-tip courtesy and the ethos of CWCID (“Credit where credit is due”) are absolutely essential to making the blogosphere a more valuable resource than traditional media.

Too many of bloggers, I fear, have either forgotten what can now, in 2013, be called the Old School team spirit of blogging as collaboration, or in the case of newcomes to the ‘sphere, never realized that such a spirit once existed. This isn’t about some kind of gooey feel-good altruism. It’s really a matter of understanding the (perhaps counter-intuitive) insight that generosity is more successful than selfishness.

The customer-service attitude — “How can I help you, sir?” — is simply good business. In the news business (and bloggers are certainly now part of that business) anyone who tries to hog up all the credit will eventually come to grief.

Excuse the unsolicited lecture, but to be praised for “reporting” — when all I was really doing was aggregating, after a tip from a commenter — seemed to require it. And I promise to try to keep my “thank you” speech short if I’m honored with an “investigative blogging” award at CPAC Blog Bash March 14, although there are a lot of people due hat-tips for their contributions there, too.

 


Wrong Litmus Test

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by Smitty

Sorry, Mickey:

You’d think the rule that should govern pundits is “if it’s a deal within the bounds of reason, and a net plus for the country, it’s good. If not, it’s not.”

No. It’s still “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. Not buying any squishy re-phrasings with ambiguous, who/whom “net plus for the country” verbiage. Liberty. It’s what we want for breakfast, and these Progressives can just get plowed for all I care.

via Instapundit

Is Progress A Bonfire?

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by Smitty

Ace blogged about this latest stage of bovine spongiform in-search-of-emphathy:

Feeling anxious about your labia? Just stick a cellphone camera between your legs, post the photo to the Internet, and invite strangers to discuss what you’re working with. That’s the theory behind the Large Labia Project, a submission-based Tumblr that encourages women to air their insecurities (and their vaginal selfies) in the spirit of “labia pride.”
Here’s how it works: Take a photo of your vagina. Share your feelings. (“Hey! I’m so self-conscious and feel insecure about showing my labia.”) Then shoot it over to 24-year-old moderator Emma, who will invariably heap praise on your submission.

Niedermeyer’s Dead Horse pointed out a similar site for boobies. I like to troll Ace’s posts as #OccupyResoluteDesk, and offered the following:

All right. The first one of you mungheads that submits my picture is totally going to the gulag.

The rest of the comments are predictable Ace fare. Read if you dare.

But step back and admire societal decay for a moment. By ‘decay’, I mean the trashing of the traditional objects such as family, women, and men begetting children that are born in liberty and raised to adulthood, so that they can marry, and society perpetuates. While paying only lip service to the labia site, and without waxing too evangelical about the topic, lest a man get lost in a sinkhole of bad subtextual humor, the more important question is: how do we laugh these people into growing up?

I’ll contend that the people out to degrade people by coaxing them into displaying their privates in public are related to the ones who foment academic inquisitions: “First and foremost, never assume that historical accuracy is any defense.” Now, wait just a godforsaken minute. Have we reached such a state of decay, of inversion, in the name of Progress that our academic and cultural leaders are actively retarding the growth of individuals?

It’s as though, in the quest for power over individuals that all notions of liberty, of classical liberal discourse, of rationality itself, are increasingly used as fuel to keep people in an infantile, state-dependent cocoon. Coaxing women to paste pictures of their naughty bits is seemingly part of an indoctrination process. Could there be some. . .abortion waiting in the wings? Maybe, maybe not.

And my point here is not to engage in fear mongering about what the Godless Commies are trying to do to our Precious Bodily Fluids. Quite the contrary. My hope is that people would step back away from the situation, take a breath, consider the historical trend here, and set about rejecting the silly, ahistorical, irrational course we’re on. We have to reject it personally, at the ballot box, and in dialog with neighbors to mature out of the rut.

Tell the girlfriend “You’d be twice as lovely with half the plaster.” Teach daughters that modesty is the most powerful form of feminine allure. When she’s old enough, support her academic interests in going to a school with actual education, not indoctrination. Also, that motherhood is a noble and vital profession, and to ignore the diabolical lies of the feminazis. These Progressives have burned our culture down to ash in their quest for power, and our task is to rise from those ashes, phoenix-like. Let us show that our cultural traditions, while not invulnerable to Commie assault, can outlast it.

via Insty and Insty

If Anyone Can Pull An Upset In The Mass. Senate Election In June, It’s A Navy SEAL

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by Smitty

The bad news is that, according to this, it does not appear that Sean Bielat is running for the June 25 special election for the Senate seat vacated by “Medal Chuckin'” John Kerry, who at least can differentiate between a yacht and an Olds Delmont 88, whether or not it takes considerable public support for him to figure out where to moor said yacht. So we’ve got that goin’ for us in our top diplomat over at the State Department.

The good news is that:

A former Navy SEAL Gabriel Gomez has gotten enough signatures of registered voters to compete in the upcoming Massachusetts Senate election


It gets better (emphasis mine):

The primary will be held on April 30. A special election is scheduled for June 25.
Gomez, who has never held elective office, positioned himself as an outsider, pointing to “a lot of unproductive noise and bickering” in Washington.
“I’m running because I refuse to be cynical about America or America’s future. Certainly people will say, ‘This can’t be fixed,'” Gomez said. “But sending career politicians to do the job would be the same old, same old. Our country is better than its politics.”
Gomez, who was born in Los Angeles to parents who moved from Colombia, speaks Spanish and English in the campaign video. In a brief biography, he describes growing up in “a grateful, first-generation American family,” which instilled in him a duty to give back to his country, prompting his decision to enter the military.
Gomez also highlighted his experience as a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, a Navy aircraft carrier pilot and Navy SEAL. He didn’t return phone messages left by The Associated Press.

  • Bi-lingual son of immigrants? Check.
  • Successful foray into business? Check.
  • Naval Academy, Aviator, AND SEAL? Check, check, CHECK!

 

Gabriel Gomez for U.S. Senate

We’ve got to find out if this much authenticity
will cause Elizabeth Warren to shatter. 

Follow him on Twitter.

UPDATE: In the comments, jsn2 points out some weaknesses (formatting mine):

Unfortunately Mr.Gomez is the antithesis of the type of person favored by the Massachusetts electorate. He’s not:

  • a womanizing drunk,
  • gay pedophile,
  • lying Elmer Fudd sounding homosexual with a gay pimp lover,
  • lying fake indian college professor, or
  • hypocritical medal chunking Pepe LePew Lurch looking moron.

His outstanding life achievements and personal history will be his downfall.

Furthermore, as a USNA grad, he can probably differentiate between an Oldsmobile and submarine.

Malaysians, and Other Foreigners I Might Be Able to Give a Damn About, If You Could Pay Me $389,724.70 to Care

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Bar Refaeli, a key element of Israel’s foreign-policy strategy

(CONTENT ADVISORY: This post contains strong language, generic xenophobia and brutal cynicism.)

After having briefly remarked — “Damn. Just . . . Damn.” — last night about this story, I’ve had a few conversations with friends, and taken time to reflect on the shocking news that Josh Trevino collected $389,724.70 over a three-year span from the government of Malaysia, “its ruling party, or interests closely aligned with either” to operate a sort of blogospheric pay-for-play P.R. racket.

The obvious response: King Abdul, call me.

We could do business, Your Highness. 

Could I suggest TheOtherKingAbdul.com? For the right price . . .

These so-called “human rights groups” claiming that your constitutional monarchy is actually a corrupt and brutal authoritarian regime?

Lies, all lies.

For a modest sum, perhaps $389,724.70, complete and slavishly favorable coverage of the government of Malaysia, “its ruling party, or interests closely aligned with either” could be arranged. Just say the word — and, of course, sign the check — and I’ll be all over it like flies buzzing around the bloated corpse of an “opposition leader” who met with an unfortunate machete accident, sources say.

This is the real lesson for students in the emerging field of “Blogging Ethics”: If you’re going to sell out to shady foreign interests, don’t sell out cheap. Also, spend time improving your money-laundering techniques so that, instead of “Malaysian kickbacks,” your extra income is reported as “bowling tournament prize.”

Normally, as a New Media consultant/professional bowler, I charge clients top dollar for that kind of advice. But for you, King Abdul, this first “strategy memo” is free — or at least, I’ll put it on your tab for now. Until the check clears.

 Basically, bloggers can be divided into two categories:

  1. Bloggers who would sell out to Malaysia for $389,724.70; and
  2. Bloggers who are never gonna get that kind of offer.

Say what you will about Josh Trevino and his Malaysian benefactors, they’ve solved the punchline shortage. And I’m sure the whole story will be told in Josh Trevino’s forthcoming tell-all memoir, How to Become Topic of the Day on MSNBC and Also the Subject of a Hilarious 10-Minute Parody Segment on The Colbert Report.

More seriously — but only slightly more seriously — the question must be asked: “Did this pay-for-play scheme actually do anything for the Malaysian regime?”

What percentage of Americans, or how many members of Congress, could find Kuala Lumpur on a map, assuming they even knew that Kuala Lumpur was the capital of Malaysia? (Which I didn’t, until I Googled it just now.) When was the last time you thought about Malaysia, if ever?

And if you, the political-news junkies who spend your weekends reading blogs, don’t know anything about Malaysia — much less care anything about Malaysia — exactly what harm was done by Josh Trevino hustling King Abdul’s buddies for $389,724.70 with the ridiculous promise that somebody might actually read any of that stuff? Such was the subject of an e-mail I sent to friends today:

This is just a fascinating multi-layered onion of a story.
Here’s my thing: Malaysia? Malaysia?
Was no one even the slightest bit suspicious when, out of a clear blue sky, a bunch of Republican pundits started offering themselves as experts on Malaysia?
The reason that this question strikes me so hard is that I’m someone who has spent the past five years of his life neck-deep in the conservative blogosphere and never once did I notice anybody of any consequence blogging about Malaysia. So the idea that the Malaysian regime would pay nearly $400,000 to Trevino in return for a PR operation that didn’t make a ripple in my consciousness . . . I dunno. The value-added of this particular pay-for-play deal might have made sense from the perspective of the client, but I just don’t see it.
Anyway, the sudden appearance of these Johnny-come-lately Malaysian experts in rightward blogworld should have triggered suspicions, and perhaps would have done so, except for the fact that NOBODY NOTICED THIS HIRED FLACK-WORK BECAUSE NOBODY IN AMERICA GIVES A DAMN ABOUT MALAYSIA.
If you told the average American that the president of Malaysia was a ruthless bloodthirsty Islamo-Marxist cannibal named Ceausescu Amin Mengistu, the typical American would respond: “Malaysia? Never heard of it. How ’bout that Lakers game last night, huh?”
Good luck trying to get Americans to care about foreign countries that we aren’t at war with. If it weren’t for Bar Refaeli, we’d probably ignore Israel, and Malaysia doesn’t have any international super-models.
Hell, nobody even cares about The Canadian Menace that has been looming on our northern border all these years.
But for $400,000, I’d certainly be willing to try to stir something up.
— RSM

Therefore, insofar as I have any right to be indignant about Josh Trevino’s Excellent Scheme, it’s that I lacked the shameless greed and/or marketing genius necessary to keep a straight face while pretending to give a flying fuck about a Third World country whose capital city sounds like a comical character in a Willy Wonka movie.

And, in case any authoritarian regimes with P.R. problems are reading this, I remind you of the Five Most Important Words in the English Language: Hit the freaking tip jar!




 

UPDATE: This left-wing blog headline is grossly inaccurate:

Former Third-World Nation
Hires Third-Rate Pundits

Malaysia is obviously still Third World, or otherwise they’d have famous international super-models. And, in a market-based economy, $389,724.70 is a helluva lot more than “third-rate” pay in the blogosphere.

By the way, what’s the going rate for punditry at Firedoglake? King Abdul might have some cash to spare.

UPDATE II: James Joyner’s headline:

Malaysia Buys Bloggers,
Forgets to Haggle Over Price

Dr. Joyner, how do you know they didn’t haggle? Are you privy to some inside knowledge of the bidding process? Those questions aside — and ignoring the silly “full disclosure,” as if every free beer is a credibility-destroying ethical compromise — Dr. Joyner’s bottom-line analysis parallels my own:

Why would the government of Malaysia pay out some half million dollars to Trevino and his band of merry contractors to crank out content about Malaysia and post them to readerships that couldn’t point out Malaysia on a map? Aren’t there actual Malaysia experts who would be able to write credibly on the matter who hold views sympathetic to the government?

However embarrassing these revelations may be, having the price become a matter of public record will help establish a market value for all future secretive pay-for-play operations. If you’re offered a dime less than $389,724.70 by an obscure authoritarian regime trying to buy some Internet publicity, you’re being insulted: Sub-Trevino wages.

Linked (or more accurately, juxtaposed) by Ed Driscoll.

 

CPAC 2014 Idea

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by Smitty

This year’s CPAC is a done deal, with the usual kerfuffles about groups that are too sexuality-centric (GOProud) and too controversial (Pamela Geller). I’d favor an improvement in the Rules of Engagement that supports bringing in more people with whom I don’t necessarily agree, as long as there are ground rules about how we all disagree agreeably. If you really think the Apollo moonshot was a hoax, OK, set up your table. Just don’t be disruptive. As an academic exercise, I’d love to hear a full exposition on how Sharia finance works, and think it a shame that anyone feels unwelcome.

Then again, I’m not an organizer for the event. Maybe a follow-on event, DPAC, could be staged for those deemed too exotic, replete with a talk from Chopra.

More seriously, there are guys like Reynolds, Jacobson, Althouse, and Volokh who would be both great to meet, and wonderful to hear. Specific topics of interest:

  • Have the Precious Bodily Fluids of the SCOTUS been terminally polluted?
  • Should the entire Department of Justice be cashiered?
  • If we started now, could we re-ratify the Constitution in 2037 for its 250th anniversary, legitimizing (some of) the Progressive drift over the last century, so that conservatives can relax?

via Mind Numbed Robot

Women: Can’t Live With Them, Can’t Live With ‘Em

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by Smitty

The title is about as negative as I ever get about women while having a conversation. It’s symmetric about the gender line, and I hope the ladies appropriate it as well. It relieves the very real tension about the gender divide in a joking way that doesn’t widen the gap.

All that is a lead-in to saying that Steven Crowder, again, is spot-on here:

When men get together, they moan about their wives. The commentary provided on marriage between groups of men, is typically one from a viewpoint that assumes marriage to be life’s greatest, most unfun mistake. Not only is it often as disingenuous as Joe Biden’s hairline, but it’s incredibly harmful.
Firstly, there may be some people out there who actually believe their wife to merely be the “old ball and chain.” To you I say… you are a loser. Not only are you a loser for dishonoring the woman who is now an extension of yourself, but you’re a loser for picking someone who you hate having to come home to every night. What kind of an idiot are you to marry a person that you think is an absolute moron?
These same people are shocked when I don’t chime in on their urinate-and-moan-fests regarding their old maids. Yeah, imagine that!

There are some amusing words, like Hausdrachen, that point to the universality of spousal complaints, but I’ll double down on Steven’s conclusion: grow up. Trashing other people in general, and one’s spouse in particular, is a sign of immaturity. That’s why, when I hear other men do that, I trot out this post’s title. It’s good to acknowledge what was said, and hint at a bit of empathy, without delving into sympathy. Because then we’re just perpetuating a bad thing.