A Spy In The House Of Blogpac

[Ronbrynaert]

I've been working on three stories for the past week. Two of the stories deal with my 50 States series on election irregularities. The third story is about another subject that I've written about a lot since November 3rd. Yep, a story about that guy (call it story #3). I began it before the "ethics" controversy, and I've been working on it non-stop (with little work continued on the other two stories) ever since last Friday.

But sometimes your stories choose you.

On the many threads about the "affair" across the blogosphere, I have posted comments and, even, accusations which have been largely ignored or ridiculed. Whatever. I write for me, and my audience. I'm a liberal and a Democrat, but my party never comes first. If I see hypocrisy on our side, you can bet that I'll attack it. My readership isn't as large as the bigger names, but I appreciate profoundly every single hit I get here.

On those threads, I've been largely alone. For whatever reasons, the left side of the blogosphere has chosen to defend one of their own, rather than stand up for what they believe in. But in my surfing, I discovered another blogger who also has taken a stand. Another blogger who also thinks what happened was wrong.

So I checked out the cat's blog and it threw me for a loop. It had to be a joke. So I left a comment, pretty much saying so. And that, I thought, would be the end of it.

I have three counters on my blog. They don't tell me too much, but they tell me something about who's coming to my website. I received a hit on my website from that comment I left. The comment had been added to an older post, so I assume (sue me...I'm an assumptive blogger) that the only person who would check up on me would be the blogger himself. And that was the only hit I got from my comment.

Taking on the Administration is one thing. Taking on the people who are supposed to be allies on your side is another. But I'm working very hard to find out who I took on now.

The hit on my website originated from the Pentagon (Hi, guys, if you bookmarked me and are still reading this...get the fuck out of Iraq!).

I'm still working on this story. This outing of a blogger. A blogger who claims to be a "new democrat." A blogger who may have ten to twenty blogs on the Internet. A blogger who gets most of his hits from the right wing sites that link to him (but only on the sly). A blogger who is a bigger threat than story #3.

Getting back to story #3. Just as I think it's wrong for bloggers to accept money (overtly or under the table) from politicians and their organizations, I also think it's wrong for bloggers to commit to a movement without doing research.

I'm speaking about Blogpac. I haven't been asked to join, and I sincerely doubt that I will be. The ones who run it know how I hate them for their timidity in blogging about election reform. Yes, I consider myself an activist blogger, too, but I would like to rally people with words not political action committees which would rob me of my objectivity.

But I ask my friends, the ones who blog that have signed up for the movement, one question. Who's bankrolling Blogpac? That's what I'd like to know. Shouldn't you, too?

Oh...and Blogpac bloggers, just so you know, one of your two hundred bloggers happens to be the guy who fronts for the right wing and might even work for the Pentagon. Then again, he might only be a teenager whose words reach the Pentagon through the links that he gets in earnest from the right. Regardless, he's not one of us, that's for sure.

More details as I dig them up later.

http://whyareweback.blogspot.com

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Ronbrynaert]

2. UMMMMM

Ummm...before I holler back insults...maybe you should reread what I wrote.

I'm not speaking of Kos or Armstrong or anyone on the top of the roster for blogpac...im speaking of a ten day old blog which is linking to the social security campaign.

So there.

[Ronbrynaert]

4. Okay

I just posted who it is on my blog.

So that I don't get trolled by the people who are supposed to be on my side.

I think this story that concerns them more than anyone else. So, go ahead, tell the activist blogger, because I'm banned from posting there. As much as we disagree, I'm sure he will be pleased with what I dug up about one of his 200 blogger signer-ons.

[ebayfool]

8. I don't think so, read the links referred to -

they do show up at sitemeter as rightwingers. Freaky little s*it, too!

[Ronbrynaert]

12. Thanks but...

I can handle myself. The deleted comment wasn't that offensive. Thanks for looking out for me, though, DU Moderator. You know I don't live under any bridges.

[seasidelib]

3. ROFL

I'm a newbie.. and it's not rocket science to figure where you're coming from. Don't even go there!

[Ronbrynaert]

5. First off

I'll go wherever I want.

Second off...it's not rocket science...it's reading comprehension that you need to learn.

Story #3 is, obviously, Kos, and not about him being paid by the right, ferchrissakes.

Story #4 is about http://new-democrat.blogspot.com who has signed on to Blogpac's http://www.thereisnocrisis.com/node/1110

Even Kos will appreciate what I've dug up. So find something new to do rather than attacking people who have the guts to criticize the great Markos.

[madfloridian]

6. Did you post this at Kos?

If true, it would be good discussion there.

[Ronbrynaert]

7. Someone else will have to post it

I'm banned from there. There's a post on my blog about why.

[AntiCoup2K4]

9. So who IS this "new Democrat" you refer to?

Maybe I'm missing part of the story, but one thing is obvious, and that is that the blogger you refer to is a clueless Freeper Asshole.

Case in point:

Is Bush more of a Democrat than Howard Dean and his anti-war Deaniacs? Yes he is. George Bush is a true John F Kennedy Democrat. Where as Howard Dean and the anti-war left are the Nixon’s of our times.

George Bush a Democrat? George Bush = JFK?? Howard Dean = NIXON???

So who is this clown you're talking about?

[Ronbrynaert]

11. I'm still working this

I believe I'm on the right trail...I've connected him to a number of other blogs that he's maintained...read his comments across the blogosphere...

I'm close...bear with me.

[Old and In the Way]

10. Well, this is the Republican MO, isn't it?

Co-opt our name and distort the message. I fully expect to see new blogs starting up, whose primary function will be to bash the Democratic Party. It will be 3 flavors "the Party's too Left", "the Party's too Centrist" or "the Party's too Right". Content is secondary....the purpose will be to bash Democratic Party 24/7 from all directions. Republican Ops will seed the links and freep the hitcounters to give them undeserved visibility. In the process, Democrats will get so disgusted/depressed by all the self-criticism, they'll stop reading blogs.

I have no doubts that this will be a strategy in the next 2 years. They know the power of liberal/progressive blogs and they will need to undermine this media as their #1 priority going forward.

Luckily, we have a well-established list of bloggers who can police this stuff and help educate the public to this phenomena....assuming these newbies don't get trapped in the spiders web first.

And maybe a few creative Democrats will return the favor and start weblogs designed to exploit their political fissures and crack the monolythic groupthink that permeates thier politics today.

On edit: I think it's a very important issue and might be a good way to differentiate yourself in blogworld. We really need someone who is paying attention to pretenders and exposing them as frauds. Having a place where a person can get a "second opinion" about a site's veracity would be a good thing and provide a valuable service to the progressive/liberal/Democratic internet community.

[Ronbrynaert]

13. Ha

I can't say I haven't thought before about starting a right wing type blog...in order to be a spy in the house of freepers...but that ain't my style...i loved the bush site by the yes men, though...i sent that link to a few right wing blogs to see if it would fool them.

But...yeah...this is just the same kind of tactic that the right's used for years...going back to howard hunt, and well beforehand.

[Tigress DEM]

22. Now anything legal for the movement but...

If I had to sign into a right wing blog, I think I wouldn't be able to keep from puking all over myself and that isn't an effective way to blog. <g>

[Ronbrynaert]

23. Ha...No...it isn't

But I think they have a new name for that: South Park Republican.

[Ronbrynaert]

14. New Democrat or Freeper

A blog was born on January 10th, 2005. A blog called "The New Democrat" at this url: http://new-democrat.blogspot.com. According to Ricky, the blogger in charge, the blog was started because "the Democratic Party has been hijacked by loony extreme leftist fringe groups, like MoveOn.org, the Anti-War movement, the anti-gun groups, Planned Parenthood, Michael Moore, George Soros, PETA and the militant homosexual/lesbian lobby."

Ricky's second post on The New Democrat was entitled "Congressional Democrats' Racist Policy." He surmises: "Both black and white Democrats in the Senate and the House don’t want to see any conservative members of minorities appointed by a Republican president, because they fear losing their loyal base in black and Latino communities." At the end of the post, Ricky claims that it was Republican bloggers who led the way to force Trent Lott out after his infamous comments. Lott might have been forced out of his leadership role, but that's about the only thing that's true about the entire article.

Ricky's next post was against Howard Dean's pursuit of the D.N.C. chair. While he toned down his rhetoric a little bit against Mr. Dean, Ricky aimed at Terry McAulliffe's jugular: "Hey, Terry, quit while you're ahead. Before us angry Democrats come to the DNC headquarters and throw you out of the window."

Now I've had my diffences in the past and the present with those that consider themselves "new" democrats or moderates. But even Mr. Centrist himself, Al From, the CEO of the Democratic Leadership Council ("We've got to repudiate, you know, the most strident and insulting anti-American voices out there sometimes on our party's left... We can't have our party identified by Michael Moore and Hollywood as our cultural values." Read "No More Moore" by Matt Taibbi), would never, ever go that far (off the left side of the sphere) and say anything as poisonous as any of that.

But somebody's reading this blog. Somebody, indeed. In just ten days, the blog has garnered 9,457 hits (as I write). But even though Ricky has posted comments with links to his blog on nearly every big time left-leaning blog of note (and all those who wrote about the Kos-Trippi Affair), if you check out his counter (link) you'll see he gets the vast majority of his hits from the right side of the blogosphere.

Some questions to ponder. How did Ricky become such a major blog player in only ten days? Who does he know? What blogs link to him? What blogs has he blogged at before? What aliases has he used in the past?

More to come.

[ChiciB1]

15. WOO-HOO... I'm So Interested, But

I'm so stupid! I never heard about this before!! Guess I'll stay tuned. I'm a Liberal Democrat from the late 60's & 70's so I have some deep roots!

Thanks for the post because this is how the RW REPUKES do their work! I've read stuff at many sites that make my head spin because there are some pretty dumb people out there who do NO RESEARCH and believe anything this administration SPEWS!

The Boy King is a MONSTER!

[Ronbrynaert]

16. Who Links To The Mole?

As I write this, The New Democrat blog has now been hit by 9,710 surfers. Pretty damn good, for a blog that's only eleven days old. I started my blog in September of 2003, but I didn't really get going until August of 2004. I'm psyched to be a large mammal in the blogosphere (according to Truth Laid Bear), but none of my hits have come easy, as the biggest of the bloggers in our hemisphere hardly ever link to newbies. And since new left-leaning blogs startup at an astonishingly high rate every day, you can't really fault them.

I've never tried to get a link from a right wing blog (no matter what Ala might tell ya), but I seriously doubt that the Instapundits and Little Green Footballs on the right side of the blogosphere pass out links to just anyone.

So who the hell is this Ricky? More importantly, who the hell does he know? Where in the roster of man-behind-the-man-behind-the-man-behind-the-man does he stand?

Ricky likes to link whore. A lot of us bloggers do it from time-to-time but Ricky seems to have taken the self-promoting practice to an amazing level. On January 10th, 2004, Ricky paid a visit to the conservative blog, Cheese And Crackers. Responding to a post by blogger Jordan Golson which contained only a link to "Tsunami Videos", Ricky - the "new democrat" - left this comment with his link: "Great Job! This proves beyond doubt George Bush caused the Tsunami." A weak attempt at satire, no doubt, but keep it in mind when you read my next post which will showcase Ricky's sense of humour.

According to Technorati, the first blog to link to The New Democrat was Knight of The Mind. Steve (or SDH) blogs out of Alexandria, Virginia. His job: "I work for the US Army as an Operations Research Analyst." The link to Ricky's blog is smack-dab in the middle of such Websites as Free Republic, Michelle Malkin, and Crush Kerry. Again, according to Blogger's best friend Technorati, Steve linked to Ricky nine-and-a-half days ago. Perhaps, Steve discovered Ricky's blog by utilizing his skills in analysing and researching.

On January 13, someone using the handle lindsayslover left a comment with a link to T.N.D. at Little Green Footballs: "Hmmm, remember he said screw the dead American "mercenaries", they were doing it for the money? Well I guess the blogosphere has its own money hungry mercenaries. Live and let die." I believe this comment is very revealing, because - from what I've turned up so far and guessed at - Ricky's hate affair with Kos dates back, at least, to the time when Kos made those infamous comments in regards to Fallujah.

On January 15, Ricky struck gold. He received high words of praise and, of course, links at two conservative blogs: Wizbang & Pajama Pundits. One of the biggest of the right-leaning bloggers, Kevin from Wizbang wrote, "Democrats are advised to pay no attention to anything this man has to say! Embrace George Soros' billions and leave Michael Moore in charge of your message. Move along, nothing to see there..." Not long after that, Donna B. from Pajama Pundits, a considerably less known blog, trackbacked to Wizbang after writing an effusive post which used Ricky's words in the title: "It's an old, worn out vision of America."

Continued at: htt://www.whyareweback.blogspot.com

[Ronbrynaert]

17. More on the Mole

In her post, Donna B. declared that "The New Democrat is calling for a revolution in the Democratic Party to replace its "old worn out vision" spouted by the "looney leftists" of the party. He defines that wing of the party as the one belonging to Ted Kennedy, Maxine Waters, and Barbara Boxer, bought by George Soros and touted by Michael Moore. Finding this blog (via Wizbang) shortly after my brother finally admitted that Michael Moore "may" have had a role in costing Kerry the election gives me hope that the Democratic Party isn't dead yet."

On January 19, Andrew Sullivan linked to Ricky (Trippi On Kos), without mentioning the name of his blog: "An interesting take on the bloggers-for-hire issue. Trippi paid the bloggers for the Dean campaign. He ought to know what went on." There isn't any take on that post, just a transcript for a podcast that I haven't been able to hear on my computer, unfortunately. But if the transcript is true, then I can't understand why Kos, himself, would've linked to it a few days ago. Until I hear it for myself, I'll assume it's another one of Ricky's lies. Also on January 19, Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit threw Ricky a bone-link, through use of the same sly strategy: "JOE TRIPPI on the Kos/Teachout affair."

Ricky seems to have hit every single blog on the Internet - right, left, whatever - that weighed in on the Kos-Trippi Affair. Here's Ricky telling us what's what at Pandagon on January 14th: "I think all of you Deaniacs, including Kos, Pandas and Atrios are a bunch of tools. You lost us the election with your anti-war tripe. Apart from that, instead of whining, you need to read the Dow Jones article like Rush Limbaugh does: Quote: Ms. Teachout's posting shook the confidence of many people in the blogosphere, as many bloggers like to call the online community. Bloggers have been quick to criticize the unspoken biases of mainstream media, and they helped expose the questionable documents used by CBS News in a report about President Bush's National Guard experience.---In other words, journalists are taking revenge on bloggers for destroying their credibility. That's what this article is about. Bloggers are untrustworthy. And bloggers on the extreme left are more untrustworthy than bloggers on the right. For a very simple reason. The ones on the extreme left, like Kos and Atrios eat out of the Democratic candidates' pocket. Free Republic and even Green Footballs are paid for by donations." Something that bleeds inside of me tells me that no Democrat would ever advise another Democrat to do anything "like Rush Limbaugh does." But maybe that's just me and my paranoia blogging.

On January 15, Ricky left this comment at Burnt Orange Report: "The mainstream media isn't interested in that. They want to cut bloggers back to size, after the Rathergate scandal and the fiiring of 4 MSM journalists. Or does anybody think they like us for having done that? We, bloggers showed MSM journalists to be untrustworthy. They are repaying us the favor. This story ain't gonna die untill they kill this idea that bloggers are a substitute for MSM." Actually "us" bloggers proved that the documents in Rathergate were not necessarily forgeries and that, even still, the gist of what they said was true. It's "them" other bloggers that Ricky obviously belongs to. I really hate when these guys can't keep their propaganda straight.

January 15th was a busy day for the Rickster. He also left comment/links on left-leaning blogs such as Steve Gilliard's News Blog, among others. But, luckily, I don't think he had much success in fooling too many liberals, because, as of now, I'm the only one that's linked to him.

More To Come. Ricky's Other Blogs Revealed.

http://www.whyareweback.blogspot.com

[John_H]

18. A mountain out of a "mole" hill?

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be shocked about. The rethugs setting up a fake Dem blog to astroturf Social Security? I'm surprised they did such a transparently awful job of it. Even less shocking, sadly, is that we haven't done the same thing to them.

[Ronbrynaert]

20. Need something to be shocked about:

This is just the start of what I've dug up...this guys been active for a few years...and...who knows...he might be playing both sides of the blogosphere.

But I think you should keep in mind what the first blogger that linked to him does for a living.

There's also the chance that he's just insane...we'll find out...i've been learning more every day.

[charlie]

19. Haw!

This guy's a hoot! If they're not in on it (and I'll bet some of them are), the rightwing bloggers who link to him are dumbasses if they don't see that he's one of their own.

George Bush is a "real" Democrat. Ronnie Reagan's deficit spending shows GeeDub's fiscal excesses are smart policy. Republicans purged Fundie zealots from the party years ago. Rightwing media bias is a myth, liberals have a lock on it. Democrats are criminal-coddling, unpatriotic, racist, tyrant lovers.

Seems to me he'll scorn anyone left of Tom Delay as a "loonie leftist."

We've got a few New Democrat DLCers on this board. They'd be hopping mad if they saw what this idiot's up to.

[Ronbrynaert]

21. At the very least

When this story breaks bigger...they're going to look awful stupid for linking to him.

They're going to have to divulge what they know about Ricky.