Shill to Hack (Kos co-author exposed)

New York Post ^ | June 18, 2006 | RODDY BOYD

[veronica]

CELEBRATED LIB STRATEGIST HAS SHADY MARKET PAST

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.

[kcvl]

According to the Washington Post, "one of the Democratic Party's most experienced Internet specialists formally signed on" with Mark Warner's Forward Together PAC. Jerome Armstrong, who "served as a key member of Howard Dean's Internet team in 2004, will be Warner's Internet Director." [2]

[PJ-Comix]

I just posted another DUFU edition featuring KOmmieland a few minutes ago.

[PJ-Comix]

Wasn't Armstrong the one who organized and promoted Warner's Stratosphere party with the ice sculptures, free sushi and booze, and, above all, the CHOCOLOATE FOUNTAIN?

[alecqss]

Hyping worthless stock or worthless politicians... rules of attraction, I guess.

[kcvl]

That would be him.

Warner has employed Jerome Armstrong, a close friend, co-author and mentor of Marcos Moulitsas Zúniga, the proprietor of Daily Kos.

[Mo1]

later read

[The Old Hoosier]

Yeah -- stick to "Motley Fool". :-)

"Boo-yah, skeedaddy!"

[bvw]

Stocks and touting them should be a free market, with free speech -- subject only to the laws of slander, libel and fraud.

[bpjam]

Actually, yes there are. If you have an interest in a company and are acting on its behalf, your statements are subject to SEC rules regardless public utterances and forward looking statements. Look at any 10Q and you see an entire paragraph at the bottom of boilerplate legalese trying to exonerate the issuers of mistakenly making a 'forward looking statement'. These message board stock pumpers routinely make false claims which are legally claims made BY the company who is regulated by the SEC.

And you can do time for it. Oh Yeah. A few more people in jail would shut up a whole bunch of other ones.

[PghBaldy]

These things really hurt small investors. The Daily Kos "people" should be appalled at this, if they had any ethics.

[jwh_Denver]

"If you have an interest in a company and are acting on its behalf, your statements are subject to SEC rules"

Thanks for the correction. Do paid bashers fall under this law also or another SEC law?

[operation clinton cleanup]

The Post has uncovered hundreds of Armstrong posts from 1999 to 2003, many supporting now virtually or entirely worthless stocks.

How Enronesque. Bet he had a thing or two to say about Ken Lay's ethics.

[muawiyah]

Are we to be surprised that Soros would hire somebody other than a criminal to work for him?

[Doctor Raoul]

Jerome Armstrong is no diferent than Ken Lay. He should be locked up for the rest of his life.

[StAnDeliver]

bookmark for SCHADENFREUDE!

[bpjam]

You could theoretically trash another company without violating SEC laws BUT you would very likely be sued by the company being trashed under a variety of tort claims including unfair business practices, intentional interference with a business relationship and conspiracy to defraud. And the public exposure of a campaign like that would pretty much destroy whomever was behind the campaign.

The only place where this kind of thing goes on without any kind of repurcussions is in the currency trading industry. People like George Soros spend millions of dollars trying to get reporters to write stories about how horrible the US dollar is doing while Soros is shorting it. The short sellers are just as likely as the stock pumpers to be trying to manipulate the market. Bad news is actually more believable than good news in getting people to act. Investors will frequently wait to act on good news but they will jump over any hurdle to get out of an investment which appears to be tanking. So people like Soros are always betting on the losers instead of the winners since its easier to influence the outcome.

[HighWheeler]

"The Post has uncovered hundreds of Armstrong posts from 1999 to 2003, many supporting now virtually or entirely worthless stocks."



And now his posts support an entirely worthless political party.

[Atchafalaya]

Can we kick his ass?