It is a well-known fact that I am both a political activist and a part-time political consultant. Not every candidate or campaign I write for pays me, I still engage in a lot of volunteer efforts. However, we all know about the duplicity of “Meg County”… it looks like that duplicity is going to cost us all something if the FPPC gets its way.
On my home blog – www.rightondaily.com – I posted a story about a piece that should be hitting the Sacramento Bee soon.
In politics, self-righteous pompous arrogance has consequences – as does hypocrisy.
There is a story that involves me that pops up occasionally about when I was thrown off of the Red County Blog for being paid to blog for Steve Poizner. The part that is seldom-told is that 1) I told Red County about my relationship with Poizner’s campaign, and 2) four days before I was expelled, they had taken the first $20,000 of what ended up being $110,000 from Meg Whitman’s Governor Campaign. (They claim that was for advertising – I’d love to get 1/10th of that from a campaign – any takers?)
I also remind people that it was Meg Whitman that attempted to hire me – I got the gig with Poizner because I refused to betray him without warning him. He decided to match the offer I had from Whitman – before I was thrown under the bus because of the negative press.
Now the issue is causing the FPPC to attempt to regulate blogging. The obvious issue is that violates the first amendment and the second is that the regulation is unenforceable.
I was called by a Sacramento Bee reporter relating to a newly proposed regulation requiring public disclosure by bloggers if they are being paid by campaigns.
I am Les Baugh’s general consultant – he is not paying me to blog. So, would I have to disclose that?
As an example, what would happen if Steve Frank called me up and asked me to do some more independent contracting on behalf of some of his clients? No campaign is paying me – do I have to disclose? What do I have to disclose?
What if I wrote a blog lighting up a candidate who is a nimrod, then the opponent called me and bought an ad on the blog? What about my ads that I put up that aren’t paid for? What about my right to kick the crap out of candidates I disdain? People could get really really confused and I could be turned in to a criminal by the FPPC for exercising my right to free speech.
The intent of this regulation is bad enough – but this would not be an issue had it not been for Chip Hanlon of Red County and his self-righteous hypocrisy.
Jon Fleischman gets paid by campaigns and he rarely, if ever discloses it. (Sources tell me.) He gets paid frequently by Dave Gilliard (or Gilliard’s interests). The irony is that Mr. Gilliard may well have been behind the call from the Bee to my cell phone today as Mr. Gilliard has a proven affinity for floating stories to local media outlets. Gilliard’s nexus would be that several of his clients are frequent victims of this blog.
Almost every “major” blogger I know gets paid one way or another.Here is a story that the Bee reporter I spoke with wrote that appeared in a Bellingham Washington paper – and should likely appear in the Sacramento Bee soon. (A portion of this came in to people’s email boxes as a Capitol Alert this evening)
I love the quotes that the reporter gave me in the story:
“A lot of people out there that pilloried me and talked about what I dirtbag I was, they’ve all been on the take for years,” Park said.
Aaron F. Park aka Sgt. York should never have to disclose who he blogs for because he only ever blogs about himself.
Ja ja ja ja
huh …?
just laughin’ like a Mexican, is all.
“Laugh Like a Mexican” — was that Los Bangles?
“Laugh Like a Mexican” — was that Los Bangles?……. Hmmmmm
Can’t you tell that it is bigoted remark by Gröfaz about Mexicans?….. Golem?
Aaron, you continue being dishonest about your role as a paid Poizner blogger vis-a-vis Red County.
While you acknowledge that you were being paid to use your position as a Red County contributor to promote Poizner and attack Whitman, what you fail to acknowledge is that you had been doing so for many months before you informed us — despite the fact that Red County required our contributors to disclose such relationships in their posts.
Furthermore, durng those months, on several occasions commenters accused you of being paid by Poizner – accusations which you publicly and untruthfully denied.
When you finally disclosed to us that you had been on the Poizner payroll for months, you said you didn’t want to adhere to our disclosure policy because the Poizner campaign would stop paying you.
Finally, giving you the heave-ho had nothing to do with the Whitman campaign buying advertising on Red County (keep in mind that there is nothing unusual about campaigns advertising on blogs). In fact, I had submitted an advertising package to the Poizner campaign a few months BEFORE I ever approached the Whitman campaign, but could never get a response — no wonder, since (unbeknownst to me) the Poizner campaign was already buying advertising on Red County in the form of secretly paying you to blog for them.
I agree with you that the FPPC’s proposal is silly and dangerous. But when it comes to your booting from Red County, please stop painting yourself as the victim and attempting to burnish your reputaton by tarring me and other.
It is always interesting to see Matt Cunningham commenting about Ethics – convniced he is right while cashing $110K for Meg Whitman.
Mr. Cunningham – you forfeited the moral high ground with the sale of your blog. The rest of the hair-splitting nuance is fodder for a courtroom – similar to the ones that Chip Hanlon has been finding himself in lately.
You lost on this one badly – you should probably discontinue trying to explain yourself, it makes you look worse. IT is similar to the situation where you exposed the names of sex abuse victims in order to protect people you were/are close to.
Just stop. You’re hurting us all, not just yourself. No one alive will believe that the $20k check you got on 12/2 had nothing to do with my expulsion on 12/6.
It’s OK, as long as the checks are cashing, you will pay your bills and be able to retire conscience-free somewhere.
Blah, blah, blah. Ratcheting up the volume of your self-righteousness doesn’t make it any less counterfeit.
Bottom line, Aaron: you lied. You lied to your readers. You lied to us. And you continue to perpetuate the lie, whle tossing in untrue, unsubstantiated allegations that the Whitman campaign actually cared enough about your over-the-toop flailing to demand your ouster.
If you had simply disclosed your relationship with the Poizner campaign from the get-go so that readers could make their own judgments, you could have continued posting on Red County. You were the author of your ouster. Stop blaming others for the consequences of your choices.
And your attempt to equate your actions with Red County accepting paid advertising is absurd.
Sorry, Matt – your lecture is like a whore telling someone else they are immoral. Too late for that – you were bought 15 years ago. Trying to put the blame on me for your political prostitution is yet another reason why the ocgop is in steady decline and Meg County with it. But the check cashed from Whitman, didn’t it?
“The ocgop is in steady decline”? Please, tell me more!
At least Aaron has a strategy: keep lying, and lie boldly!
Everything I wrote above is a absolutely true. And you have been reduced to fabricating weird lies about me in order to obfuscate the stubborn fact that your ouster from Red County is entirely your own fault, as is this FPPC action insofar as it is driven by what happened with you.
Quit while your behind, Aaron.
The master of half truths complaining about a “liar.”
Classico.
Wow. Moral preening from a nutjob who knows all about dealing out half-truths. And untruths.
Thanks to FFFF everybody now knows the full truth about you: a sanctimonious, hypocritical pustule who makes his living off do-nothing government contracts handed out by political grifters.
Seems to me that everyone reading a blog should just assume that a position is being advocated for by the poster and that there may be some monetary compensation or other reason for advocating. Probably is more transparent to come out and say it, but does not seem like the government should force it upon the blogger/poster/admin.
I guess it used to be “buyer beware” but now it is also “reader beware”…
Exactly. I always assumed Jerbal was on somebody’s payroll; or wanted to be on it.
Well, well. The truth is you don’t really care one way or another about the truth. You just parcel and package information in a way that suits whatever your agenda or target du jour happens to be, and post it. I know from firsthand experience you have no compunction about publishing untruths and half-truths, and so have no doubt the same holds true of screeds you direct at others.
Probably time for you to get back to obsessing about the vanity recall election you’re bankrolling. You should borrow the U.S. Army’s former marketing slogan and re-name your IE committee as “Army of One.” It would be more accurate than the current moniker.
The truth is you positioned yourself as some sort of conservative arbiter. In fact you subsist off of whatever little bones the big ‘pugs toss onto the floor from the big boy’s table. Ackerman, Lewis, Pringle. Don’t you ever get sick of yourself? Everyone else does.
Jubal. What a joke.
“The truth is you positioned yourself as some sort of conservative arbiter.”
That’s a falsity you, and Allan Bartlett and other Bushala hangers-on use to rationalize your venomous personal attacks. I never positioned myself as any such thing. I started a blog reporting on inside political stuff and adding my analysis and opinion, which was conservative because my politics are conservative. OC Blog/Red County, thanks to the hard work of myself and a talented blogpen, became very influential and developed a large readership of the politically-interested across the spectrum, because we provided reliable information they could trust — regardless of whether they agreed with our opinions. But I never claimed to be some ultimate authority of who is and isn’t conservative. That’s a myth you push, like your weird fantasies about me, Dick Ackerman, John Lewis and others.
You and FFFF anon bloggers, on the other hand, explicitly set yourselves up as arbiters of who is and isn’t conservative. Allan Bartlett loudly anoints himself as some sort of conservative arbiter, and you all regularly pat yourselves and the back for it. None of you are, in reality, any such thing. The lot of you apply one standard for your political friends, and a different standard for yourselves and your political friends.
At the end of the day, arguing with you and Allan and the other remoras who trail in your wake is pointless. In my experience, you’ll simply say whatever you think is necessary to advance your agenda, regardless of whether or not it is true. Frankly, judging from the things you write abut me and others, you seem to have difficulty separating reality from fantasy.
While I’ve derived some satisfaction from trading punches with you, it’s been about as productive as talking to a wall. I’ll leave you to return your attention to your vanity recall.
And you give your friends a hall pass for things for which you would flay your enemies. Big bank account aside, you’re basically just a hack pushing an agenda, not some crusader for truth.
Hack? Coming from you? Whenever you decide to remove your tongue from Kurt Pringle or John Lewis’s cloaca you may redeem some credibility labeling any other human being a hack. But that won’t happen. It’s not in your nature.
By the way, are you still sucking off that OCTA teat Pringle got you? Or was it Campbell.
I have to laugh at how rapidly you descend into rabid, juvenile insult-hurling and name-calling. Always a sign of someone with the superior argument.
Now get thee back to your fantasyland where the political universe is secretly controlled by “Pugs,” with only Tony Bushala and his merry men to stand in the way!
You have some strange and disturbing fantasies, Tony. I recommend seeking professional help.
No that was you Matt, who went to the name calling first, April 20th at around 11pm……”Wow. Moral preening from a nutjob who knows all about dealing out half-truths. And untruths.”
Oh and there was also the “hack” comment but who’s really counting.
I’m always amazed at how hypocritical the arguments are from the red side. The second they are confronted with a sound argument they explode into personal insults. They always pivot to the same bottom level.
Actually, Greg Ridge, if you’ll notice, Aaron and Tony, unsurprisingly, kicked off the personal attacks on this thread.
Hey Matt….Hows that Orange Park Acres “grass roots” gig working out for ya?
I haven’t been following the details. Since we’ve never met or anything , and it seems like you know me, I just thought I’d ask.
Weren’t you on the Planning commission there? Are the residents really behind your efforts or is it just more “astro turf” brought(bought) to you by your local friendly developer?
Well if that’s to be the way it is, then bloggers can’t go around pretending, or actually saying, that they’re journalists.
Well I sure don’t get paid by anyone to write what I think. I guess by Aaron’s definition I’m “not a serious blogger.” i think me and Greg are MORE serious bloggers than these one who get paid – Jubal, Fleischman, Park.
I did get Julio Perez to pay me $100 to put up his ad thru the June primary. He got his money’s worth – I created the ad too! I probably would have done it anyway even if he couldn’t afford $100, because I want him to win.
If Tom Daly wanted to pay me a lot to put up an ad, that would have been a hard choice, since I don’t want him to win. But that’s the closest I come to getting paid.
By the way everyone click on the Google Ads when you think of it! I do get a little money for that, and it costs me a little to run this blog.
Vern – i am not paid every time i blog, i do still have several volunteer efforts. As u know – i email you when i have a conflict.
Back to the serious blogger issue – everyone that blogs with passion is serious. Some sell their opinion, some like me get approached by candidates i am alreay supporting to help, others advocate as volunteers
All have a role.
Whats wrong with making a little money? Do they put the words in your mouths?
Will you all really sell yourselves to blog for people that you thoroughly distrust?
Has anyone noticed how much money runs through Sacramento’s , lobbyists, politicians, and “consultants”?
This is a non -issue…… It’s what PR firms do everyday when they buy freelance journalists and place stories in local glossies.
Well, I must be quaint then.
You know (we’ve discussed it) that there was some mysterious group recently that wanted to pay me $250 a story to write about a certain topic. I was very clear with them that I would mention in my first sentence that I was being paid, and also that I would write whatever I determined I thought was true, and it might not be what they want. They said, sure, of course … and now I think it’s fallen through. Oh well…
Well, but you already got something of value from the offer.
You got to write, in all honesty, that last paragraph.
Ashamed the Jerbal is still fighting about his charade. Jerbal is and always has been ia paid shill. Pathetic, sad, week.
The California Fair Political Practices Commission’s (FPPC) rumored blogger regulations would face major hurdles. The FPPC is considering imposing campaign disclosure requirements on websites offering paid political ads and/or paid political commentary. The proposed rules would seem unlikely to withstand constitutional challenge for the following reasons:
- The rules would likely fail either for being overinclusive (by attempting to sweep in all “paid political content” from all sources, including traditional media) or underinclusive (by excluding some “paid political content”, such as traditional media).
- The rules would likely fail for identity/viewpoint discrimination by including some speakers (alternative media) but not others (traditional media).
- The rules would likely fail for acting as a prior restraint that chills political speech through a costly enforcement threat that also serves as a weapon against anonymous political dissent.
In the final analysis, the proposed rules appear less an attempt to expand into new media than an attempt to regulate all forms of political expression.
Hey didn’t you used to blog here? Where’d you go? Come back and write something, we need more righties.
Mr. Park is lying when he suggests that Meg Whitman tried to hire him. I am the one whom he believes offered him a job. I did not and he knows this. The fact that he makes such assertions should tell you all you need to know about his professional integrity.
The establishment is trying to protect itself once again. Matt couldn’t win the debate so here comes another one.