Decision ‘08

Crashing The Stock Market: Kos Co-Author Paid Shill For Worthless Investments

My, my, my, it doesn’t get much sweeter than this:

Jerome Armstrong, the political strategist who followed a famous Internet fundraising effort for Howard Dean in 2004 with a book on “people-powered politics,” has a sordid past as a shill for a worthless dot-com stock. Armstrong, 42, touted a dubious Chinese software company, BluePoint, beginning in 1999, without disclosing that he accepted “below-market” shares in exchange for the glowing reports he posted on a site called Raging Bull, according to a 2003 civil suit that named him as a defendant.

“Armstrong posted over 80 times on the BluePoint message board located on the Raging Bull Web site in the first three weeks [it traded],” reads the complaint, filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

At no point in any of the 80 posts did Armstrong disclose he was paid for the service, the suit alleged. In fact, The Post has uncovered hundreds of Armstrong posts from 1999 to 2003, many supporting now virtually or entirely worthless stocks.

Armstrong denied to The Post that he did anything wrong and said the SEC made a mistake in charging him. “This was a long time ago and I settled the case without admitting or denying guilt, and I paid no fine,” said Armstrong, who refused to comment further.

Armstrong signed off on a settlement of the charges on Dec. 16, 2003, barring him from touting securities. In addition, Armstrong agreed never to deny any of the SEC charges. It was not immediately known if his statement to The Post denying guilt would violate the settlement agreement.

Considered an authority on political blogging and ‘Net campaigning, Armstrong’s MyDD.com is a trendsetter in liberal circles.

A frequent subject of glowing media profiles on the growing role of the Internet in campaigning, Armstrong now directs Internet strategy for 2008 presidential hopeful Mark Warner.

Credibility is getting harder and harder to come by in the progressive world - Markos was paid for shilling for Dean; Armstrong, who has a past as a scam artist, now works for Warner; Atrios is bought and paid for by George Soros. It’s a brave new world, all right, this Nutroots® thing - but it smells an awful lot like good old-fashioned payola (hat tip to the Commissar)…

17 Responses to “Crashing The Stock Market: Kos Co-Author Paid Shill For Worthless Investments”

1 mtl Says:
June 18th, 2006 at 9:53 pm
Somebody had that story ready to go for a long time.

When he made his commitment to Warner, and vice versa, here comes the story.

A net guy would never have sat on this. Somebody, not net centered, btu accutely aware of the skeletons in Armstrong’s closet, just pulled a ‘gilooly’. (I’ll have to check with nancy kerigan for the spelling).

Can’t wait for Kos to put on the skates.
2 topsecretk9 Says:
June 19th, 2006 at 12:19 am
Wow, their are like 40 different angles of this story that directly smack hypocrisy in the left-o-sphere’s face…the payola, the pajama media smears they fling, the overkill pats on the back for digging up plagiarized movie reviews of Ben Demeneche (sp) and that also happened to be wicked and ugly to get there, the money in the freezer bribes, the “fibbing” to the reporter otherwise known as spin damage control they say only Republicans do, the we are the party of goodness and all thing right, and on and on and on…
3 Flopping Aces Says:
June 19th, 2006 at 12:33 am
KOS The Money Hungry Mercenary

This idiot keeps digging himself a hole doesn’t he? Markos Moulitsas, the original Kos Blogger (derogatory term meaning dumbass), was interviewed on CNN (surprise surprise) and said the following:
KURTZ: Now as you know, “National Review’s…
4 The Commissar Says:
June 19th, 2006 at 6:08 am
I need to learn how to do the “Registered TM” symbol for “Kulture of Korruption.”
5 dmac Says:
June 19th, 2006 at 7:12 am
First we got the “outing” of Armando as a lawyer representing the evil Wal - Mart, then Soros has his insider trading conviction upheld in France, and now this…what a bunch of hacks.
6 Mark Says:
June 19th, 2006 at 7:14 am
Commissar, you missed it - we had a whole thread once on how to the registered symbol - it was quite exciting…
7 Mark Says:
June 19th, 2006 at 7:16 am
topsecretk9, you said it…
8 megapotamus Says:
June 19th, 2006 at 8:53 am
Yeah, the Armando outing was the one I thought of immediately. Look, the Kossacks are like any other political purist (an oxymoron if ever there were) movement. Ultimately the MORE vitriolic, MORE rabid, MORE violent will always squeeze out those less so. Who is more ideologically pure than Ted Kocszinski? This is the ultimate fate of our more stability-challenged Democrat friends: ever greater paranoia as more and more of their neighbors are swept up in the cabal that runs the conspiracy of the day; ever greater isolation and despair. Of course for the majority of voting Democrats, the event will be witnessed rather than experienced and a wondering shake of the head and walking away from the nutty cousin at the dinner table will be what they recall. What they will not recall in years after is the first time they declined to go to the polls for the Dems. Nor will they remember the first Republican they voted for.
9 mikebdot Says:
June 19th, 2006 at 9:27 am
hold alt then use the keypad and type 0174 and then let go of alt. ®

You can use the character map under ‘accessories’ to find the keypad code for a number of different items…

The only on topic comment I have is that credibility is overrated. Logical arguments being debated on merits is difficult to come by. Very few human beings I know have credibility worthy enough to prevent independent double checking of facts, especially those that run blogs.
10 dmac Says:
June 19th, 2006 at 10:14 am
“The only on topic comment I have is that credibility is overrated.”

If that’s true, Mike, then all the caterwauling about Bush by the left should cease immediately. The only thing they’ve got these days is to scream about his “lying” and “misleading” the country prior to the start of the war, so if credibility is overrated, then what’s good for the goose…can’t have it both ways here.
11 mikebdot Says:
June 19th, 2006 at 12:57 pm
dmac: That is something I totally agree with. If the Bush-bashing is heavy somewhere because of ‘lying’ or ‘misleading’ I will typically not visit the site again. Or, if it’s a community site, like kos, I’ll only read certain posts.
12 dmac Says:
June 19th, 2006 at 1:23 pm
Not to change the subject, but how was the honeymoon? Hope it was great - too bad you had to come back to the furnace here in the Midwest. Blech.
13 Donkey Cons Says:
June 19th, 2006 at 4:41 pm
Kos pay-for-play scam

Y’know what’s funny? The Left always claims to be more sophisticated, more “nuanced” than the rest of us. They see the hidden truth about 9/11, Iraq, Plame, etc. And then they get bamboozled by a bunch of paid hacks.
14 mikebdot Says:
June 20th, 2006 at 7:20 am
dmac: Wedding is Saturday. The talk a few weeks ago was about the shower. I’ll let you know about the honeymoon after the 4th of July…
15 Decision ‘08 » Blog Archive » There Are Posts That Ridicule… Says:
June 21st, 2006 at 12:42 pm
[…] You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your ownsite. […]
16 Flopping Aces » Blog Archive » KOS The Money Hungry Mercenary Says:
November 5th, 2006 at 12:17 am
[…] Decision ‘08 Bookmark to: Filed in: The Iraqi War, Moonbats, Afghanistan | 4 Comments » I’m pretty sure if you look up “nancy-boy” in any dictionary, you’ll see Kos’ picture right next to it. […]
17 Buying Penny Stocks Says:
August 7th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
It ain’t nothing but the classic “pump-and-dump” scam, just simply done on a more elaborate scale.