Markos Moulitsas: The jig is up
Dave has written numerous articles of certain individuals behind the outings at the Daily Kos. He publicly called out the names of these people.
Markos Moulitsas had every opportunity to ‘clean house’ at the Daily Kos, but he’s busy hiding underneath his desk. Now we must move to the next step. What is this next step? We won’t say, but this will be extremely embarrassing for him.
Of course this can change, IF he offers an apology to his Daily Kos users AND rid his site of Kos Kops.
Since I’m a generous person, he has until the weekend to post an apology on this blog. Our e-mail address is available. If we don’t here anything by Monday, we will begin our next step.
If I was Moulitsas, I would take this very seriously.
Markos, like Fingerit and many others, underestimate the intelligence of honest bloggers. Let's face it. The few of us are rarities. I have been "troll busting" for about two or three years. There are fake troll busters. There are folks who go after usernames. I started to hit paydirt when I realised that it is the annoying usernames who are the front defense for the real people behind the astroturfing.
The reason Dave was targeted for estrangement was because he went after real names. He went after Hannity and Lieberman. When he became aware that Daily Kos was being scammed, he figured out the real names. He then did what any good person would do. He went to the Kos admins with the complaints. When they turned him away, he then realised that the fish truly does rot from the head down.
I told ye I was checking out MajorFlaw's "work" at Democratic Underground. The key is to see that the world of astroturfing goes beyond any one domain. The FSZ appears to be controlled opposition. They banned Dave and now try to diminish his accomplishments of the last few months. When he needed their help the most to vet through finds, they stabbed him in the back. Why?
The fact that Fingerit was pulling the same crap at DU must wake ye up to the fact that DKos is but one tentacle of the octopus. We do need research on DKos. Please don't take me the wrong way. We need to work together. We need to connect dots. No man or woman is an island. There is light at the end of the tunnel!
This is what I have found so far. Fingerit was a moderator at DU. I found one thread that he locked. He appears to have had inside connections. He seems to have signed on around 2004 and made a few thousand posts in one year and became a moderator.
I found a post by someone named Wilms who said MF {Fingerit} had been involved with a report put together by VoteTrustUSA. That is an arm of the Verified Voting Foundation which used to have Andy Stephenson and John Gideon as top members.
I found a bunch of threads where MF was close to Crazy Guggenheim, an associate of Ben Burch. Now a lot of these names might not mean much to folks, but the same names keep popping up.
When I was bounced from Kos the last month or so, I was curious why Flaw was so protective of Larisa Alexandrovna. Isn't a claim of DailyKos that no tinfoil is allowed? Alexandrovna is the Queen of tinfoil.
Explain this. Velvet Revolution was established by Brad Friedman and Brett Kimberlin. It was registered on November 12th, 2004. Brad wrote on December 6th of that year that he began to cover election integrity on November 3rd, 2004. So you're gonna tell me that nine days after BradFriedmanBlog started blogging on EI, he co-founded an election integrity website with a convicted terrorist and suspected murderer of Julia Scyphers? That in early December 2004, it was hard work and luck that enabled him to get the Clint Curtis exclusives? By the way, was it ever proven that Clint Curtis' dog was shot?
{continued}
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Ok, it's late here, I'm gonna get back to the stuff ye are more familiar with.
I have started to look through that 463 page pdf of the UGOGs. It is absolutely mind blowing. I've gotten through about the first 27 pages. This is what I see.
This did not appear to be some hobby. This smelled of a paid job. The reasons they were found out are simple. They were idiots! They underestimated the intelligence of a guy like Dave and overestimated their own prowess. They never expected to be found.
They knew it was possible. But they figured the only thing they were jeopardising were their usernames. That makes me think they have plenty of other sock puppets. It makes me think they didn't say everything in those 463 pages. They even admitted that they should save some stuff for emails, and that as soon as anyone decided something should be deleted, it would be "nuked" asap.
Another stupid mistake of MF was the result of his ego. He seemed to have some kind of long term goal of the place to be ultimately accepted by Kos staff and even seen as a necessity to keep the place honest, whatever that meant.
It appears that things got rolling in late September with plenty of meta-talk about controlling DKos. And how stupid could Fingerit be to not simply find a forum where he could hide the place. Apparently soapblox does not allow their forums to be hidden, something to do with the ads.
I doubt Fingerit was being a cheapskate. I believe he wanted the software that resembles Kos and FSZ, because for a guy who never wrote diaries, he envisioned himself as becoming a big name. As the Kossacks annoyingly say, fail!
I'll just outline some observations from the first pages I have looked at from the pdf.
Hopefully Antoinette will be able to see what Dave had on his computer. One just needs to ignore his personal things and see if he had stuff saved that he was waiting to publish. Make no mistake about it, Dave was attempting to become a great American leader. He also had gravitas. He had soul, something Fingerit and many others like Bouldin lack.
*** They were there a lot planning and scheming. This seemed well beyond a hobby. It was an extension of what they had already admitted to be doing for years.
*** It seemed something changed with the rating system during the primaries. Like only 5 donuts to a Trusted User, and other things I am probably unaware of. They seemed to be figuring out a long term strategy to control most of the "free speech and association," to literally gatekeep.
*** Think about that. These are lawyers, political consultants and also apparently a predator who can fix backs. These weren't college kids practice writing. These weren't anything I have ever witnessed. These are paid trolls, imho. I can't believe my eyes after reading only 27 pages! The proof is very damaging, and it's from their own astroturfing mouths. We should all chip in what we can and put this thing together for Dave, for us, for humanity.
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The UGOGs
*** They started the first week of September
ugog: "It is helpful to post the names, links and appropriate comments for any miscreant you come across--even those who clearly won't last long. I suspect that many of our trolls are the product of a handful of particularly motivated lost souls. After awhile we should be able to recognize their style and this site lets us organize our data better."
Translation: "When we are busted, this will make our usernames look good. By then all the good stuff will be deleted."
ugog= MajorFlaw= Fingerit
Condo= Bottles? = Lachow?
tecampbell= ???
dadanation= ???
trashablanca= ???
tecampbell: "Sorry I haven't been on much lately folks... here or on dkos. I suspect things will get worse for a few weeks while I try to balance work, medical issues, and campaign responsibilities (I went and signed up as a regional org... a glutton for punishment). I'm taking at least 2 weeks off before the election (and a half a week after) to help campaign."
Political consultant? Someone telling the guys he wouldn't be available too much for the vigilante moderating?
WTF is going on here? This is nuts.
ugog: "I'd like to start threads on particularly troublesome members using their names only as the title. Makes finding them later easier. BTW, if nobody objects I'd like to call them "threads" here rather than "diaries." The stated purpose of this site is (or at least will be whenever I get around to writing it) to provide backup for the folks who do the dirty work of keeping the kos relatively honest. However feel free to post what you want. Cross post your diaries from the kos or from your personal blog if ya feel like it. Start a discussion about a topic that you find interesting. While I'm not trying to compete with the kos there are no artificial limits to what we can do with this space. We're small enough now that Recing and promoting threads won't be an issue for awhile."
Unreal.
condo: "there was just a diary posted and pretty quickly deleted by user Timothy L Smith, 85219, where he said there was a site he referred to as "TFSZ," which he called the successor to "glorious" PFF. Anybody got anything...?"
condo: "despite the pretty li'l "for admin eyes only" upper right, you can log off and still enter this diary and read the comments. Be nice to have "open" diaries and "closed" diaries, for us - like I think you had at DU."
ugog: "1. At DU there was a private moderator forum, unseen by the masses. I don't see an option for doing that here but if you find a way--let me know. I would have made the entire site private if I could as we aren't trying to solicit bidness or reach outsiders. 2. If anything gets out that shouldn't just let me know and I'll delete it immediately. No questions asked."
condo: "I'm thinking as we do what we do - our discussions will remain readable by any and all. doesn't matter right now, but it might matter someday...."
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condo: "...things have a way of being found by those with time for not much but to calculate your batting average on saying fuck, as an example, so it seems that this all may as well be private, if possible, unless and until a need appears for it to be otherwise."
ugog: Were it possible to make this private I would do so. I'm guessing that it isn't possible because soapblox makes its money from the banner (?) ads at the top and thus privacy wouldn't serve them well. There are things which should be discussed in private and this isn't the place for that--that's why Al Gore invented email. Most if not all we do here can withstand scrutiny should it happen. I don't have anything particularly different to say here rather than there and we aren't hiding who we are. If someone is sloppy, condo, and something bad gets out just let me know and I'll nuke it. Seems to be common for these free (as in no charge) forums not to have a privacy option.... We all f*** up from time to time. One o' the porpoises of this joint is to cover each other's backs, no? Kinda like troll alley but without the trolls"
VolvoDrivingLiberal : "i forgot about google. go ahead and nuke my previous comment... but if we do get uncovered i have no qualms about participating. it is providing a badly needed service to the Orange monster."
Wow. Who's VolvoDrivingLiberal?
ugog: "That should have done it. Lemme know if it didn't take. If we do it the right way this will be something that kos and admins will appreciate rather than resent. Just mho. BTW, in the future if you want something nuked pls provide a link just to make clear which comment or diary you want removed. BTW (part deux) Don't you as admin have the power to do so yourself?"
Wow, everyone has admins powers. They were clearing watching what they said.
No wonder Dave was so passionate about finding this stuff out.
trashablanca: "Looks like it's all hunky dory logging on from home. I for one want to say up front that I will never divulge anything said here anywhere else, not on DK, except emails to those here. I keep my word as my bond."
I'm up to page 22. This is nuts.
I want to get through a few more pages. A couple admins were mentioned. Whole convoluted strategies were gone over. How is this not an astroturfing ring?
trashablance: "Troll Rating Tao
Some thoughts on troll rating. I have developed a system to take advantage of my five daily hydrates...."
I can't believe how in-depth they get into it. The link to the pdf is somewhere to be found on this website. I could try to find it for folks. I'm definitely not gonna copy and paste 463 pages.
ugog: "When I post a decent comment with a d0nut folks tend to show up and cover me, allowing me to recycle. It's rare these days for me to run out of d0nuts. I also keep an eye on the d0nuts I drop and if it appears that a comment isn't gonna get hidden despite my best efforts I pick it up.
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ugog: "One of the things we could do here is a d0nut bank. If I'm gonna log off for a bit while you will be sticking around I can cover (replace) whatever d0nuts you dropped thus giving you additional d0nuts. It won't do a lot with such a small (albeit extremely good looking) group but eventually that is something which would act as a multiplier."
trashablanca: "Thanks. I've long been curious to hear about other TU's strategies. But even in a hidden thread, it's kind of uncomfortable to discuss, as so many TU's have such crappy attitudes toward keeping the site troll-free."
ugog: "My feeling exactly. In my mind this little site is merely an extension of the discussions we and a few others have been having at the tail end of hidden comments for a couple of years now. As condo has noted, DU had a private forum for those doing the dirty bidness of-sausage making- moderation and the kos is sorely lacking same. And there are far too many TUs. (sausage making was supposed to be crossed out but I guess we can't do that here?)"
Condo was at Democratic Underground too? I think Ben Burch was a moderator there also. Ben Burch is a strange one. Past archives show him to be a "libertarian" into a form of sexual perversion. He wrote about it at DU. I'm not making it out. He also was one of the few internet names I heard of who someone {Violet Blue} asked for a restraining order. I plan on filing a police report myself for a cyberstalker. Maybe these people feel the internet is a wild, wild west and no one is gonna call their big bad wolf huffing and puffing bully con jobs. Dave did. I'm not afraid.
*** They talked about the "bad" trusted users, how to get others to donut, how to get comments hidden in bulk, a bit of meta on whether there truly is an autoban....
ugog: "My position is that the ability to do moderation is a skill. Not everyone can separate themselves from their personal agenda and apply the rules fairly and consistently. Quite a few folks who have no interest in doing so. They wouldn't let just anyone do the tech work--why is the mod work any different?"
Translation: "When we come out into the open, we will be hailed by the peasant bloggers. We will control their ratings through our magnificance. This is going exactly as planned. {evil laugh}"
condo: "yep, I agree with most everything here. my method is very similar to ugog's, I mean M. Flaw - back when I was a functional TU. I could help hide many comments a day. My signature move, The String of Pearls, only really came to fruition once... where I engaged a troll to get a string of comments, which could then be hidden. once it worked like a charm - back in the days when, with something like 32 HCs in a shortish time and you'd be gone. it was when they reduced TRs to 5/day that I had to learn to do with less, and I hounded a number of trolls off by posting on top of their posts for days or weeks, keeping them getting hiddens and no mojo by appending..."
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So Barbara Morrill is at their service?
trashablanca: "Admins are banning by hand at a good clip lately. Barb nuked one for me this am. I usually go to Barb and sometimes Scout, b/c I know and like em, for banhammer. Unless it's about randgrithr or another pet troll, I usually get a positive response. btw, I don't mention their names on DK, I just use admin, don't want to wear out my welcome..."
Scout? Is that the Jenny lady? I'd say Jenny something, but I have too much respect for Susan Something.
I need shut eye. I hope this wasn't too much. It just all kind of blows me away. I've caught a few trolls over the years but nothing like this. Dave Weintraub was a genius.
ugog: "Understood on the last part. Far as I'm concerned what goes on here is as confidential as email although there are potentially more eyes which can see it. But I meant what I said about the autoban literally. I do not believe it exists nor that it ever did. People get nuked at various points in their trolldom. Some get it right away and that must be a manual ban. Some long timers get it under circumstances that make an autoban mathematically difficult to believe. It looks like every ban is manual and autoban is merely a way for admins not to have to explain why and when they decide to nuke someone manually. Could you tell me why you believe that there actually is such a thing as an autoban?"
Then they get into more esoteric strategies. Unbelievable.
Barb, Scout. Wow.
And finally, Michael Bouldin will never live down what he did. You never ever speak badly of the dead. Especially not one of your progressive allies. These guys know this UGOG thing was corrupt. They knew about it. One would have to be blind to ignore it. Dave didn't do one thing wrong.
I wrote all of this for newbies and fence-sitters. To them I have one message. Do not buy into any convoluted rabbit role about usernames this and that. Go to the meat of the proof. Only cognitive dissonance will prevent anyone from starting to connect dots. They are everywhere.
From Michael Rivero to Markos Zuniga to Bev Harris to the Democratic Underground, on an on there are millions of dots that show that more likely than not, psychological operations are being conducted all over the internet. Some of it is of the useful idiot variety. Some folks are greedy. I don't think this is CIA or tinfoil.
The oppression is in the instituions. The reason Dave became a target was because he had leadership potential. There is no CIA about this. If anything, some of what we see on the internet resembles the FBI cointelpro. It is illegal for the CIA to get involved.
But definitely yeah, freedom of speech and association is being tampered with all over the internet. No doubt in my mind.
Peace out.
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My first post here.
How did Dave die? What caused it?
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Dave died from a heart condition, natural causes. But he was only 37, and this MajorFlaw dude is from the same state, so a bunch of people were thinking foul play shouldn't be ruled out.
Sometimes there are just strange coincidences in this world.
He died a few days after {MajorFlaw}Fingerit and {Bottles}Lachow were banned from the Daily Kos. Dave was the only guy willing to out real names and directly confront the admins there.
Now there is revisionist history going on saying Dave was obsessed and had mental issues, but right there above from the PDF it becomes clear that Barbara Morrill was banning users on request from the UGOGs.
The strangest part to me is how Kos and probably DU have a way too disproportionate number of lawyers and political consultants running their joints.
I guess at least we small time bloggers now know how some "succeed" in the blogosphere while others are bullied to the fringes.
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Thanks for the information guys. I'm putting together a file and need to sort this out. Send more tips.
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Hi Antoinette,
Here is the pdf address:
http://www.freespeechzoneblog.com/upload/UGOG%20-%20Usual%20Gang%20of%20Grownups.pdf
I am new to all this like yourself. I find the following very alarming:
*** that the autoban might be a myth, but that this group apparently could go to Barbara Morrill and Scout Finch? for what they call the hammerban.
*** that Kos is dominated by lawyers and consultants.
*** that Fingerit was also perverting freedom of speech and association at DU
*** that Michael Bouldin {MBNYC at Kos} has written such horrible, mean things about Dave.
Bouldin runs something called the Daily Gotham and maybe the Culture Kitchen, both of which have been off-line for many days now. When this happens, it is usually safe to say that there is scrubbing and pruning going on.
I have just saved a page out of cache from Bouldin's blog entry titled Today in butt-ugly.
He has a big picture of Dave. Then beneath he wrote, "Oh, horrendous - what a disgusting fat pig, right? With the drooping, open mouth that hints of imbecility, no less? Who can this person be? Stay tuned."
11/26/08
I'm back going through that pdf looking for Bouldin comments. I'm up to Sept. 9th. These UGOGs were in there a lot- plotting, scheming, coordinating their evil activities.
Now I will admit I've been on the net a lot the last three years. I admit to being unemployed and living off of a trust. I am not going hungry and don't have many responsibilities.
My question is why would an attorney like Fingerit be devoting so much time to this, if it's just a hobby? Doesn't he have cases to work onand consultant jobs to take care of?
If anyone wants to see what I've been up to for this kind of stuff Dave got into, go to my section on astroturfing. It's called being an amateur internet sleuth.
All people like myself and Dave do is go through open source material. We are educated and understand academic rules. We simply are the types looking for the truth no matter where it leads. We hate hypocrisy and the manipulation of politics on the internet.
I see a strange quote by Fingerit. Is he still a vigilante moderator at DU?
"This is very similar to what I did at DU. They had a daily "Moderator Availability Thread" which had been used as a sorta sign in sheet and for nothing else. I kinda took it over and made the "MAT"s my own. There's even a CD for "MATs vol 1". Knew who I was talking to there just as I know who I'm talking with here. If I ever felt as comfortable there as I do here 'twould be easy to move this over there."
If he felt as comfortable there as at UGOG, he would move the insidious operations to the private room at DU?
Also, there's this thread from here:
http://davefromqueens.com/2008/11/30/private-kostapo-conversations-exposed.aspx
But the problem is that the FSZ links have been scrubbed. I think there must be a lot of evidence stored on Dave's computer.
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I see around the time the UGOGs got going in early Sept., respected members such as Number5 and DaveFromQueens started to push back against MajorFlaw and the Kos Kops.
Sept 12th at UGOG, Fingerit started to focus in on Dave.
Number5 proved how bad Flaw was with the language. I remember seeing a post from Dave proving how BraveHeart{?} made an incredible number of posts in a short period of time.
The astroturfers want us to stay in the realm of these anonymous usernames. Dave became a threat because he was simply not going to allow this crap to continue any longer and he figured out real names and those led him to the Kos admins.
Dave was effectively leading the charge against MajorFlaw.
I've got to stop for now. I'm up to page 62 of the pdf and the date is Sept.12th.
Good lurkers, please help fill the pieces in so Daily Kos doesn't get away with their lies about Dave. This is not some esoteric, nerdy obsession with metaphysics and blogwars. We are talking nothing short of the perversion of political exchange on the internet.
Dave Weintraub was a hero and would want us to finish the job exposing these cheaters.
One can even post anonymously here. Tell your story. Help to solve this riddle. I have not one single doubt that Daily Kos is corrupt to the core, nor that Dave was cyberstalked. He put a lot of time and passion into trying to make this a better world.
He then uncovered major corruption involving the blogosphere. The cheaters' achilles heels are that they underestimate that the few of us who speak out are in this battle for the long run. Let's hammer the nail in on these cheaters.
Or just do nothing and think of all this as entertainment. But it isn't. This is real life, and real names are behind the corrupting of freedom of speech and association on the internet. There is power in numbers. People like Dave and Number5, even a nobody like myself, deserve for the troops to arrive. Do not sit back and expect the few to be able to solve this. Every voice counts. That's what Dave was all about, and that's what he fought for each day of his life. There are true progressives like Dave, and then there are these cheaters.
Fake progressives are just as damaging to democracy as Hannity, Bush, Cheney et al. Who do you think took impeachment off the table? Why are we still in Iraq? It's because the left has been become co-opted. True peaceniks and progressives are ridiculed and driven away. Hey, if you think psychological operations sounds like tinfoil, well think of astroturfing, or if you don't like that word, think of greed, war, and a cultural wasteland that America has turned into.
They feared Dave's potential. They like to marginalise people like him before they can develop. Just looking at the Bush mask thing, the ESPN investigation, his attacks on hypocrisy, how he figured out the extent of the Kos scam to a far greater extent than ever done before, yes, Dave was on a historical path to greatness, all for the greater good.
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We should all keep Dave's memory in mind.
We all know that the people Dave was exposing and fighting against were lower than low.
But as he passed away just a short few days ago, we should also reflect on his humanity and all the other positive things that Dave was trying to accomplish through his political involvement and his writing.
That is my view.
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I totally agree. That's why I've tried to keep these types of posts on this one thread.
One thing that has motivated me to look into this specific story was the fact that Dave had so many of those other great accomplishments that had nothing to do with exposing the cointelpro-like activities.
It would be nice to hear more about those accomplishments. I think Dave could have ended up being a Senator or who knows what. But I also think the stuff uncovering astroturfing is relatively unknown about by most people.
I mean no disrespect by my posts. I've been trying to help newbies and fence-sitters get a grasp of the truth, that this was no run of the mill blog war among anonymous usernames, and that without Dave, the truth would probably have remained hidden.
An analogy would be to look at the book Citizen K by Mark Singer. The astroturf is that Brett Kimberlin has been some kind of persecuted hippie. But if one takes the time to find out the truth, they will ask themselves if this is the kind of person we want representing the Election Integrity movement.
Or as Dave eloquently asked, is Markos Zuniga the type of "progressive" we want as the face of the netroots. I believe all angles of Dave's work should be continued. I believe he would want us to try to set the record straight as regards to the UGOGs.
Dave loved Daily Kos so much, that he went through all the proper channels to get the admins to take a good look at Fingerit's activities. I do not believe Dave would have felt the story was over just because the anonymous usernames such as MajorFlaw and Bottles were banned.
There is this concept of sock puppets. I have created a zombie account at Kos, which I probably won't even use. But it's from the same ip of the one I used before. That means having MajorFlaw and Bottles banned doesn't mean squat or that Fingerit and Lachow have actually been banned.
Below I will link to a Kos thread where Dave and a few others confronted MajorFlaw and then four admins. The result was that those few were admonished, while MajorFlaw was not investigated. That thread was from over a half year ago. The only reason MajorFlaw was banned, imho, is because he posted real life info about a username Browneyes, and it actually seemed like a convenient, scripted banning at that.
MajorFlaw was never banned for gaming the moderating system. The admins who allowed him to continue even after being shown the light are still at the top of the Kos food chain. That, in a nutshell, is why the struggle continues.
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Correction. The diary linked to below was written by Dave on Sept. 24th, 2008, approximately five months ago.
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I must stop reading as I have a personal tragedy to attend to. My niece had a full blown paranoid schizophrenic attack and was almost killed on the four lane. I had police all over the place to get her and take her to emergency. The only trouble is that I believe these hallucinations have so much reality to them that they have become the canaries in the coal mine of our culture. Her phantasies include:pollution;cutting down of the trees; the rainforest; UFO's; the grey people; food poisoning and on and on. When she is creaming all this stuff it sounds nonsense if you are just paying attention to the emotional part of the outburst.
Has anyone read the White Hotel? I believe that real poetic treatise in it was a clairvoyant prophecy. And then Doris Lessing's Four Gated City (last one I think) on the madness part.
Dave was not mad at all. As Lery would have said, "He was unsane." Sanity is our status quo sheeple.
Anyway I am with you. And so is my hard drive, all 100 pages of them and most of it now hidden.
I'll be back. And I will be emailing Susan.something again. We were both lovers of Dave's courage and work. We need an autopsy. Ricin or that poison I can't remember the name of right now that stops all your autonomic functions. It could have been purposeful.
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I'm sorry about your niece. I agree with your ideas too about how societal problems can exacerbate those at emotional disadvantages.
I worked a bit with special need students. One teacher was explaining to me how new problems were creeping in, such as with inappropriate behaviour rarely seen in the past.
The talk of ufos and food poisoning make me think she was perhaps reading a bunch of conspiro-tainment.
I think we should think in terms of months and years rather than days. Antoinette seems to have steadied the ship for Dave's non-trollbusting areas.
Maybe a bunch of us could write parts of a paper, then we mush it together and then spread it far and wide into the blogosphere. I have read enough of the pdf to believe that MajorFlaw was being paid for his activities. I also think the internet could be a cul-de-sac to pin him down. We might have to work in "real life" to get to the bottom of this.
For example, I noticed someone post at DU that Flaw was involved with something called VoteTrustUSA. I have had suspicions for quite a while about that group, with don't hate me, but Andy Stephenson, and especially with his friend Ben Burch and many associated with them.
Not sure, but I think MajorFlaw might have been involved with the politics of lever voting machines in New York.
The problem also might not be that we need to do much more digging. The problem could be the media itself. It takes a lot of effort to even get a reporter's interest. That is why this could take months at least.
As for an autopsy, I am starting to agree with you. He may have died of natural causes, but Dave was really the only threat to certain individuals living in his home state.
Didn't Dave even challenge some of these people to meet him in person? I know this is gonna sound like tinfoil, and my interest in "chemtrails" probably doesn't help, but after reading how MajorFlaw worked the Democratic Underground, how one day I checked the UGOG times, and they were there the whole day, it appeared to be a full-time job for them. I believe that pdf proves that the internet is rigged.
Dave was clearly to my right politically, but I could see a lot of myself in him. And I'm not saying that I have accomplished anywhere near what he did. But I think in time we could have been good friends. I think Dave was actually the ideal conservative, if that makes any sense.
Take care. Thanks for the response. If Antoinette wants to share my email with yourselves, that's ok with me.
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I am personally 100% sure they are being paid. Unless one has a private income they cannot spend that much time doing what they have been doing.
I have done a screenplay on Victor Herman's time in the Soviet Union. Forty years to get home, twice as long as Ulysses. In analyzing his story it appears that KGB was constantly alerting the kidnappings of any citizens or foreigners that give off individualistic vibes. Chomsky talks about this in his book on the media, so I don't know why anyone expects better of them. Any potential I.F. Stones have been weeded out long ago. The educational system works exactly the same way. It feels like conspiracy but it isn't. It is just so ingrained in the social behavior of westerners that any difference is noticed and therefore suspicious. In my small rural neon red town you can observe it so easily. Not until you dress everyday by putting on any old thing do they relax around you. Any attempt to chose your dress is immediately suspicious.
But I am getting off the track as usual. And I am thinking curare. Such a minute amount will stop all autonomic processes. It would look like a heart attack and quack like a heart attack so who would think otherwise. I have a feeling his family was not sympathetic to his obsessions. Not ever.
And after carefully reading Altemeyer's The Authoritarians I have no illusions about that psychological makeup. And clearly the koscops stopped being subtle a long time ago (altho I have examples of that) and simply used standard KGB linguistics as perfectly described by Solzhenitsyn.
And how do I popst diaries? One mor time so I can get it. Dave asked me to do so.
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As an internet friend once put it, the dark side is saying so you figured a lot out, but no one is listening, and no one cares.
That is their achilles heel. They underestimate what a few determined people can accomplish.
I'm also no longer scared to look like tinfoil. Dave had enemies. The timing was suspicious. They're gonna label us as tinfoil? We might as well give them something to work with.
I am a hippie wannabe type. I like chilling out. It isn't in Fingerit's psyche and lifestyle to be doing this for free. Us? Yeah, you know it.
We are the silent majority who realise the internet is full of propaganda.
We are the Generation X & Y, peaceniks, beatniks and "real and better" Democrats.
Sorry with MyLeftWing. I read your confronting of Michael Shriver. Excellent, Smithers.
Though I don't understand why they banned you. Dadanation should have been too then. The double standards are the worst.
Check out this tag abuse by the Kos Kops. Fingerit deleted Larisa Alexandrovna from the tags. Alexandrovna changed them to conspiracy theory and stalking. She hates me because I exposed her lies about Brett Kimberlin. All she had to do was retract.
http://mynetimages.com/237be971.jpg
Number5 tried his best.
Did MajorFlaw out Bottles?
Dave was Rambo. God bless him.
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Prepostericity,
Thanks. I am on the case. For the long haul.
Can't promise any break thru in the short run.
The beat goes on.
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I was working on a project to "save" much of the Dave material before Antoinette showed up and said she was continuing.
The pdf is an ipaper at my site http://metawar.wordpress.com/the-ugos-material/
and it is hosted at scrib http://www.scribd.com/doc/12738071/How-Daily-Kos-Works
you can digg it here http://digg.com/political_opinion/Inner_Workings_of_Daily_Kos
I am tryingto get my Abobe working and will break the doc down into smaller parts for more web freindly access
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You don't own the copyright to Dave's work. As you'll note from the bottom of this page, he reserved all rights to his work. Please get authorization from the executor of his estate before republishing his writings and violating his copyright.
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I help start this site with Dave and we both had access to running it. Both of us put time and money into this blog. He wanted me to post articles on it, as you see this was a joint effort. Dave and I had plans to grow this site and I had promised him that I would help him. Dave was a fighter and he would have been sorely disappointed if we didn't continue the fight. Dave was a soldier for truth and we won't leave our man behind.
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Then you wouldn't want to see his copyright violated by those intent on republishing his writings without the express permission of his estate, would you?
Have you taken a moment to read the post to which mine was appended? It pertains to republishing his work, not to new work on this blog created since Dave's death.
Anyone wishing to use Dave's work now must respect the copyright he affixed to it.
It was his intent as the copyright notice on this and every other page of his blog attests. His work remains his lawful property even unto death and thence the property of his estate.
Those who want to make use of work Dave created in his all too short life need to obtain permission to do so. I doubt the family will object, and in any event, it is a measure of respect every writer owes to another and should expect themselves from every other writer.
As for your own writings, Antoinette, I hope you will respect your work enough to establish your own copyright. Some here -- and many elsewhere -- do not understand what that means or why it is important and will freely rip you off your work if you don't simply state that you are the creative force behind it as is recognized by the laws of our nation.
You own what you make, as did Dave.
My respects and good wishes to you.
--Marilyn
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At first I thought Marilyn may be overreacting, but then I looked closer at the webpage, and metawarrior appears to be disingenuous.
At the website in question:
"What was Dave doing all this? Was he a liar? Was he nuts?"
Not only is he using bad grammar, he is making Dave look bad. He also refers to the UGOGs as UGOS.
I agree with Marylin, that this isn't passing the stink test.
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Antoinette,
I think you should be aware that there are plenty of wolves in sheep clothing. One such person appears to be Kestrel9000 who made a recent diary at Kos praising both FSZ and DailyKos. He also posted a picture from his home with a confederate flag in the background.
I do not trust Jack's Smirking Revenge or 99% of the posters at FSZ. Jack on one archived thread gave Fingerit credibility as an accomplished attorney. Jack has deleted so much from the FSZ archives making it much more difficult to figure out the truth. In fact, he seems to be doing the UGOGs a big time favour by going out of his way to astroturf that Dave was the problem. Now we see this metawarrior posting the same kind of thoughts.
I believe we should soldier on. I've been looking at that pdf very closely, and it appears that Fingerit and Lachow were on a payroll. That means they were doing something akin to modern day cointelpro.
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I just knew it! I spent the winter of 85-86 in Paris and on Sunday nights the expat community all met at someone's apartment called Jim (last name I can't remember) where many visitors from the soviet bloc would also gather. It was kind of a pot luck dinner made by these visitors staying with Jim for a few days or weeks. He asked you on your first visit to please sign his guest book and there was a space for your birthday. I thought why does he want that and asked him. So I can send birthday cards to you was the answer. A friend of mine studying Russian and Polish and spending time in those countries laughingly told me later that Jim was CIA. Oh no, I said, not that nice funny guy. What makes you think that? He said he had seen plenty of them and could spot them as well as the KGB. He reminded me of the KGB when the Russian Peace people came to Philly and camped out in Fairmount Park. They were all so nice, playing their guitars, being so friendly. My friend asked me if I had met any KGB. No I said they were all really nice and fun. Again he laughed at me. Now I can see it all. And my past denial led me to readily observe the behavior in majorflaw. No denial there for me.
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Right wooing left is the circumscribing of progressive ideals into the status quo.
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I also have been able to see plenty of proof that the DailyKos admins were fully aware of the situation yet decided to side with Fingerit and Lachow over Dave and the few other normal people.
Barbara Morrill, Matt Taylor{name?}, Michael Bouldin, TECampbell, even Kos himself can be proven to have been involved. Also Clawson and probably many more can be proven to have been involved in the "community moderation" scam.
I think what Fingerit and Lachow were doing has been going on for years, since whenever the netroots with Kos and Dem. Underground took off in popularity.
I believe the bad guys are still painting this a certain way, i.e. throwing Dave under the bus, because the stakes are very high. I'm sorry to throw a word like cointelpro around, but this whole situation reeks of dishonest attorneys, political consultants, status quo Democrats and Republicans, astroturfing, and yes, rogue FBI/NSA type black-op intelligence.
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According to Alexa.com, Daily Kos is resembling the stock market-on the decline. Posters like Fingerit, Lachow and other cast of characters are destroying Kos each day. People are abandoning it because of these Kos Kops. Those who abandoned Kos are looking for another place to post. This is where I step in. Like Dave, I do have a job that keeps me busy. I need everyone's help in posting updates. Dave and I were a team. With him gone, it's just me for now. As for DK, the main players have been exposed for who they really are. Yes, they are trying to demonize Dave, but his work speaks volumns.
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Can you keep it running? Can anyone get Dave's hard drive?
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Fingerit had a problem with progressives and real life activists like DaveFromQueens.
I've seen a number of threads where this majorly flawed individual showed support for both John McCain and Sarah Palin. How's that being progressive?
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/9/24/95440/7959/933/572657
I hate to link to Kos, but this thread is where the proverbial dung hit the fan, and the admins were given the opportunity to correct the problem. That they didn't seems to show probable cause that Kos admins such as Barbara Morrill were working in tandem with Fingerit and Lachow.
Dave admitted in his diary that he was making some over-generalizations and stereotypes. But his main point was to show where some of the worst rightwing hypocrites have gotten their starts, e.g. Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity.
So why would any progressive attack the post like Fingerit did? Why do people like Fingerit have such a problem with soulful activists like Dave? Why was Dave considered by the Kos Kops to pose such a threat to the Daily Kos? Why was Fingerit defending people like O'Reilly and Hannity?
In that thread, anyone can see that Dave and the other good people were starting to effectively fight back against the cointelpro-like activities. Check out how eloquent Dave was. Then ask yourselves why the admins including Morrill and Clawson chastized the good posters while downplaying their concerns about the cointelpro-like trolling.
I'll wrap this up with a quote from Randgrithr, because I think it summed up MajorFlaw in a nutshell.
"If this creature does not suffer from mental illness then he's cointelpro. He stalks people and trolls them for purely subjective reasons, and if he's doing so with impunity on this site then this site has a serious liability - which would appear to include YOU [Barbara Morrill].
There's no excuse for his behavior here. None.
Either address THAT or expect me not to take you any kind of seriously."
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I read this one at the time and wanted to tell Dave that he was pissing in the wind at them. The same administrators did me in in exactly the same way. I can understand why they might have been after Dave because I think they are working for someone or something. What I do not understand is why me? I am in no position of power at all. Maybe my words are though. I fought them for a long time but not effectively as in this example at dkos. I think this is their way of finding new people to target as anyone who protects someone they are targeting comes into their hierarchy of priorities to be banned. For what? It has to be a sinister reason.
Today I emailed someone well known about this and asked them to look into it. To research it. It stinks of something deep.
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Dave was the #1 trollbuster at Daily Kos. Him and the others were making the astroturfers' work much more difficult.
This story will eventually be well-known.
http://mynetimages.com/dc3f1579.jpg
http://mynetimages.com/a233a358.jpg
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I refuse to link to FSZ or Kos ever again. Yet, there is a new Kos diary by Kestrel9000 that folks might want to locate. To do so with any Kos username, simply type in the name.dailykos.com.
I'm just sensing more and more that FSZ is controlled opposition; That Dave and others have been correct in thinking that the Kos business model is to get as many page clicks as possible; That the astroturf has advanced to saying that all conflicts have been pretty much resolved; That beyond being a cash cow, the Daily Kos is actively pursuing a right woos left agenda.
On that new thread, the following false memes continue to be spread:
*** Dave was rightfully banned from FSZ.
*** The problems at Kos are over because the two bad guys, MajorFlaw and Bottles, have been banned.
*** Both FSZ and Kos are great communities, the former a fun place to let off some steam with the latter remaining the King of the blogosphere.
*** Dave, MajorFlaw, and Bottles were involved in an enigmatic blog war that is not important for anyone to try to figure out.
*** Nothing to see here, move along.
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Someone else figured some of this out - older history.
The top four posts follow a narrative of dkos complicity in oppressing a progressive voice:
http://revolutionredux.wordpress.com/2008/10/05/
Connect the dots - evidence that dkos is working as one arm of a many tentacled animal:
http://revolutionredux.wordpress.com/2008/10/22/open-letter-to-daily-kos-firedoglake-docudharma-unclaimed-territory-and-other-faux-communities/
This was no lightweight bloggger. Yet I can't find a single link to the work by any progressive type - none, whatsoever on dkos.
http://revolutionredux.wordpress.com/2008/10/15/health-care-reform-without-the-caregivers/
http://revolutionredux.wordpress.com/2008/10/17/festivus/
http://revolutionredux.wordpress.com/2008/10/21/where-to-start-americas-health-reformation/
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Thanks. So Buffy Orpington appears to be a real person and yet another progressive who was abused and discarded by the Daily Kos.
Real progressives aren't wanted in the blogosphere. If they can be tweaked a certain way by "Kos Kops", then they are allowed to remain.
It could take a while, but I believe the truth will win out eventually.
I've uploaded a lot of screenshots from the UGOG pdf and from some of the Kos threads, some MajorFlaw posts.
I think he can definitely now be linked to the disinfo crowd that has been turning the Election Integrity Movement into tinfoil.
The truth is definitely out there. Right now I can think of a bunch of names who I feel are appropriate targets for exposure. And this has nothing to do with reinventing wheels. Dave did so much heavy lifting. A lot of us are now up to date, but we are scattered.
Barbara Morrill, Michael Bouldin, Lloyd Lachow, Michael Fingerit, and Markos Zuniga are on my radar. They have each given us plenty of fodder to show that a rigged and gamed internet is truth not tinfoil.
Bouldin has to be one of the meanest people I have ever read. I've saved his post from Daily Gotham which he titled Today in Butt-Ugly History, or something close to that. He put up a picture of Dave. What a lowdown rotten creep. It is justice that he has been proven to be a UGOG.
We've got that Long Island diary Dave did where Morrill and the Admins were siding with MajorFlaw and the Kos Kops.
Bouldin will never live down that he is a Kos Kop. Say he runs for election or anything, someone will have to drop a dime on him. I for one am sick and tired of fake progressives.
As for the Buffy lady, it'd be nice to read her original diary that inspired the groupthink posse to stalk her. Because at the links you provided, she said it was just to let folks know that she was losing the internet and would not be able to blog for a while.
I emailed every Kos admin when they went after me. They committed all types of tag, rating, and ad hominem abuse. Not one admin lifted a finger to do the right thing.
In short, the Daily Kos is evil.
Thankfully, Dave got the job done. In time, we the sincere will win this thing.
And I'm sorry if it seems I am trying to capitalize on this situation. I'm not. We just need more people stepping forward. If that is done, I won't feel the need to hog the page so much. My aim is true.
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tigana and stonemason are two people that we need. I last commented with them on MLW.
So the internet is to follow the path outlined by Chomsky in his Understanding Media book. I think that's the name. It will police out all the potentially troublemaking voices just like TV and the newspapers.
I have always thought they got rid of Jack Paar on the Tonight Show not long after he had Fidel and his brother on it when they came to the UN to open trade with the US after they won their revolution. Movies of Batista's wife's shoes the way we saw Imelda years later.
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The Buffy thing was strange. I think I came to dkos in the middle of that. She was sounding desperate and wanting money and disappeared so I am hazy on it. I remember thinking and feeling at the time that something was not right. But I don't think she was innocent either. IMHO.
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You're off on the wrong path with the Orpington saga, Prepostericity. It was an isolated event that does show markos's indifferent management style, as well as the busybody hand-wringer types who interfered with the legitimate people who were reluctantly responding to what they thought could have been a real suicide call-for-help. It spiraled way out of control thanks to markos. People still to this day have differing opinions of that event-but I think it's useless as an example of the politically persecuted members of dailykos. There are so many others that are better examples. Buffy is a very good reporter and writer - the people initially who were compelled to help her were well-intentioned, good people. I'll leave it at that. Is the correct word "stalked" because people were zealously trying to find her when they thought she could harm herself, invading her privacy in their panic...no. All could have been prevented by Markos stepping in sooner. He let it go for days, 3 I think before he had them take it offline.
The problems with dailykos have been going on forever, and so many have written about it, Preposterosity. It all begins and ends with Markos. He chooses the frontpagers (and Hunter and ct) who oversee the goings-on there. The worst of the koskops imo were just an inevitible and lucky-for-markos element that came along and worked for him, for free, just like he likes it.
Dave came in guns blazing, once his eyes were opened by his own very atrocious persecution there. It happens a lot. People see things a different way once it happens to them personally. What was really unusual about Dave is he had the ability, determination and the unique combination of really special characteristics and lifestyle situations to fight them and expose them for real. The way an activist does. He turned a lot of people off along the way because he took so many risks and he made a lot of, oh, I'll call them social mistakes early on, one of which was thinking he was the first to discover all this and to interpret it the way he did. Once he got past that, he started to really rock and roll. But a lot of petty, cowardly people could not get past feeling their tippytoes trampled on by Dave's forceful and righteous campaign. Babies.
Dailykos's expiration has been moved up thanks to Dave, and you can see the toxins and panic being flung hither and thither. FSZ is looking like dailykos now without the good qualities. It's been taken over by kosauthoritarians who lined it up as a life raft for themselves when they finally noticed their Titanic sinking, and some of the most destructive old-fashioned internet trolls this side of 1995 (unless of course they are indeed misinfo types, same results so it's hard to know). The unmindful 24-yr-old teenage owner hasn't noticed yet.
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This is helping a lot. Yes FSZ definitely feels like dkos now in tone without the d0nuts. When I arrived Dave was just getting it and I was so glad to see him there and comment to him as I had been watching him at dkos for a long time. So I saw when the idiots went after him and fought them some but maybe not enough. I went to Dave's site pretty fast and was devastated when he died. So I am glad certain people I like and respect are here and I expect more will come in time. What happens when the scum come. Can we get rid of them. I am no longer a 100% tolerant liberal.
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Thanks for the response.
Without Buffy's original diary, it seems impossible to know for sure. I believe her after looking at her website.
Fingerit, Lachow, and Bouldin are the ones to go after. Plus, do we know who Trashablanca is? I've seen a picture of him floating on the internet.
Bouldin is a creep. Check this out:
http://mynetimages.com/8f8f9b15.jpg
http://mynetimages.com/e2a0bc83.jpg
http://mynetimages.com/0a158e61.jpg
Proof Bouldin was a UGOG:
http://mynetimages.com/3b31e189.jpg
http://mynetimages.com/7349a820.jpg
http://mynetimages.com/c7aac41e.jpg
http://mynetimages.com/c1fe34dc.jpg
http://mynetimages.com/f1183139.jpg
http://mynetimages.com/5c923d78.jpg
From a Kos thread outing him:
http://mynetimages.com/403f65b3.jpg
Bottles/Lachow isn't Lauren S.
Maybe Lauren S. is Fingerit?
http://mynetimages.com/112fff98.jpg
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The goons at Democratic Underground are talking trash about me.
http://democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5067515#5067597
Larisa Alexandrovna Psyop
"As for her detractors, they are gnats, buzzing around her head. For them, it is all sport, a game, a chance to maybe count coup. Generally, they cannot come close.
She hasn't been around for a while. She was getting savaged here and the mods dropped the ball on it, as rare an occurence as that might be. Or at least that was my opinion of the matter. I look forward to her return. We are poorer without her contributions. Just as we are poorer for others who have been savaged for blood sport here, and have left or contribute much less than they did. Good people all, many have names you would instantly recognize, too."
"and that psycho poster who was savaging her here (and if you don't believe what a psycho he was, imagine a message board where every post is by the same poster who is also the owner and sole mod. Better yet go to allaircraftarenotinvolved.com AT YOUR OWN RISK)
Well, the psycho followed her to Kos where a mod quickly shut the bastard down and the Kos family quickly closed ranks upon him."
"Apparently, the knucklehead has moved onto savaging someone else with false and misleading statements.
What is sad is the longtime DU'ers who jumped right in with him and had their dirty way."
"Ugh! I didn't know there was a time when she was being savaged by DU. Glad I missed THAT!
I almost don't ant to know, but WHY? What could possibly have brought that on?
When I hear of the DU Community acting like that, it is troubling."
"Over the McConnell Planecrash.
Lala does good journalistic work. That is a given. We at World News Trust know less-than-good journalistic work intimately, because at one time, Jason Leopold was a contributor to the site, the full story of which will never see the light of day, but trust me when I tell you: it's a ripping yarn. So we are in a unique position to tell good from not-so-good(I am being so goddamned diplomatic here. it hurts).
I have blocked out some of the, shall we say, "more distasteful" details of Lala's savaging, but suffice to say, some people around here have real hardons."
"I have read Larissa A at several other places and am very impressed
and admire her much..
I have not been at DU for very long, and did not realise that LaLa was her handle.
We need more like her.
I am so sick and bitter with the way our country has gone for the last 30 years.
I try not to let it get at me. From the time I turned 18 and joined the navy I had to cope with rpigs. Starting with serving under RonnyRaygun..and being outed as gay within 9 months....
Larrisa is one of those brave souls that speaks out for all of us that get trodden on."
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Prepostericity,
"They have each given us plenty of fodder to show that a rigged and gamed internet is truth not tinfoil."
Typo ... or did I miss the context ...?
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I was thinking fodder.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fodder
Maybe it wasn't the best word to use as the definition could be positive or negative.
"1: something fed to domestic animals ; especially : coarse food for cattle, horses, or sheep
2: inferior or readily available material used to supply a heavy demand
I was referring to the pdf. There's plenty in there showing this wasn't just some hobby, that Kos higher-ups were involved, and this guy was also some form of mole at Democratic Underground.
Maybe nuggets would have been a better word. I've never quite been the same since living in Ireland. :)
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Maybe I see what you mean, how the sentence was badly worded. Which isn't Irelnd's fault.
I think the internet is rigged in places and most definitely gamed. I think the pdf demonstrates this fact.
It is wrong for democratic processes to be perverted on the internet. Freedoms of speech and association are being crushed.
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All of this needs to go mainstream. Ad who is there to do it except us.
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