A calm way to react to this:
When the wingnuts chant their talking points like a bunch of tambourine-beaters at the airport, they want to be paid for their efforts. And Pajamas Media was set up to do just that. They received by some accounts $7 million dollars to subsidize 70 right wing bloggers, and if you look at their sites there are no ads, many don’t even identify their affiliation with a logo. Look at some full-on loon like the Confederate Yankee who earns his/her 800 hits a day by having seizures over Google’s attempts to mock Christmas with Jesus butt plugs. The General will easily draw twenty times the traffic with his rapier-witted takedown, but the Confederate Yankee probably earns a lot more money than the General. These illiterate zeros are being paid out of principal, not out of any ad revenues. They are all Armstrong Williams.
***In the past year alone many fine voices on the left have stopped blogging because they could no longer spare the time, had to go tend to their lives and finances. You won’t have to worry about that with the Pajamas Media crowd. Even the most dilatory, the most insultingly stupid amongst them will continue to be subsidized and probably make more than Digby. More than Billmon. All that noise about the free market, natural selection and survival of the fittest is just so much racket.
So the next time you hear us bitching about Pajamas Media, the incursion of right wing money into the blogosphere or the compromised voices of the “liberals” they’ve bought, remember that it’s just another attempt to control the message. They’re not our “counterparts on the right,” they’re paid operatives.
If you can come up with a calm, reasoned response for me, let me know, because everything I have to say is just going t0 come out with a snarl.
I am now officially sick and tired of being insulted by people I used to respect for doing nothing but choosing a steadier stream of revenue for my personal website than I had a couple months ago. I’m an ‘illiterate zero.’ I’m on ‘wingnut welfare.’ I’m a ‘paid operative.’ I am being paid to ‘spew lies.’ What the hell is wrong with these people?
Jay
What the hell is wrong with these people?
It’s simply John. Jealousy will make people say and do strange things.
Stormy70
Oooh, scary. Sounds like sour grapes to me. Poor leftist bloggers, they have to actually go to work and stuff. Does this mean you can retire on your crazy Pajama money now? Are you rich?
Jane Finch
I’m beginning to think that you troll the internets looking for this stuff. Otherwise, why in heavens name would you be at firedoglake, a blog that even I, I confirmed commie, find just a little too rabid?
All I have to say about PJM is that my mind boggles when I see that freak The Manolo’s quote apropos of absolutely nothing featured prominently on your site.
jg
I see ads and a PJ logo here so I don’t think he’s talking about you.
Are there people without ads or a PJ logo getting paid to blog?
demimondian
Jane’s got a good point, you know, John. I’m shocked, shocked to find out that firedoglake doesn’t like your politics.
And you care *why*? Darrell doesn’t seem to like me, to gauge from his posting history — should I care?
demimondian
Let me be a bit clearer, since my last posting came off snarkier than I wanted.
If you were a left-wing blogger, wouldn’t you be bitter if right wing (and center/center-right) voices suddenly got a vast infusion of money, as PJM just did? Given the history of Richard Mellon Scafie and the like, would you not suspect that they were getting money from his noise machine?
Hell, John, if you hadn’t impressed me as personally honest, I’d ask the same fucking questions. (And please forget I just said something nice about you. It won’t happen again. I promise.) Shouldn’t they be bitchy? Seems only reasonable to me.
Mike S
That line right there proves that he’s not talking about you.
It is an interesting point about how they would be making money. If there is no stream of incoming funds other than contributions it stands to reason that the majority of the blogs are being paid to toe the party line.
Jeff G
Just thought I’d let you know that I spoke to my new toothbrush again today, just as my masters at Pajamas instructed me too.
Pooh
John,
I’ve been critical of PJM myself, but from an operational rather than an ideological standpoint. I think PJM is rightist because Roger and Charles are, and the people they know/like tend to be also. FDL’s take seems, well, Tin Foil-Hatty to me. That being said, some things appear to have been done so poorly as to make one question whether profit was really the underlying motive. (I’m not one of those, I never posit malice where mere incompetence would suffice. I’m not speaking of you, rather the braintrust. The launch was, IMO not ready for prime time…)
FWIW, I think you do your own efforts a dissersive when you react intemperately to the criticism of PJM. Some of it is warranted, some of it is over the top. But you dignify the shrill comments by responding in kind.
I think PJM would be best served by not responding and letting the quality of sites like this one and Volokh shine through.
SayUncle
Maybe they draw more cash because their permalinks work right?
Grotesqueticle
Hell, just ignore ’em. We need more sane voices from your side of the great divide.
Sojourner
I guess the only way people are willing to write all this right-wing bullshit is if they get paid to do it.
Pb
John Cole,
Maybe they’re just confused and misguided because they don’t see where all the money is going and yet for some strange reason assume the worst–that this is like something Jack Abramoff or Tom Delay or Jeff Gannon or Bill Frist or Duke Cunningham or John Thune or… well, someone corrupt person or group related to the GOP might do–good ol’ guilt by (or perhaps funnelled through an?) association.
I’m going to posit two different hypothetical financial scenarios here:
The Armstrong Williams scenario:
$7 million dollars from Pajamas Media / 70 bloggers = $100,000.00/blogger!
The likely scenario:
$7 million dollars for Pajamas Media + 70 bloggers = $0.00/blogger!
No doubt the truth lies somewhere in between, but I’m betting it’s a lot closer to that second scenario…
Gary Sugar
I assumed that all bloggers had day jobs.
ppGaz
You are none of those things.
But we’re sometimes judged by the company we keep.
I’ve said this before to frustrated righties in here, but they never seem to get it: What did you think was going to happen when you guys decided to declare war on half of your own country? Did you think people would carry you around on their shoulders? When you live in a culture that succeeds by eating its own fellow citizens, you are suprised to find out that something is biting you on the ass?
Spare me the faux surprise and outrage, please.
Kevin K.
John, you’re taking this far too seriously (since you weren’t singled out in her post).
Look on the bright side, you could be David Corn. Or Goldstein’s oatmeal.
Kathy K
Pb – after looking it over, I made that same bet.
I wasn’t jealous – just uninterested in joining myself. I’m not blogging much right now and didn’t think I had much to offer (unlike John).
I was hoping they’d do more with blogs that do local reporting (there are quite a few – especially outside the US) and less with the partisan stuff.
They COULD make big money, I believe, if they offered their own news (via local bloggers), or even local takes on international news. And with that kind of money backing them, they could pick up a lot of bloggers in a lot of places. I’d like an alternative news wire – especially one that could offer people on the spot who LIVE there and understand the nuances.
Personally, I think firedoglake is jealous (as the first respondent said). But I’m not all that impressed with PJM either.
John Cole
I was actually there seeing what she had to say about Rove/Plame- it had been a while and I was thinking about doing a Plame update, so I was checking Just One Minute and Firedoglake to see if anything knew had happened.
I don’t care if they dont like my politics, I am tired of being called a paid shill and a liar.
And like it or not, even though I am not mentioned by name in that post, I am one of the 70, so she is talking about me.
Jason
I think that many people outside Pajama’s Media view this endeavor as the LGF comments section with a $7 million dollar bullhorn fairly or not.
As a slightly left of center blog consumer I view Pajama’s Media as a group of conservative bloggers plus ‘token’ David Corn, kind of a right wing Huffington Post. It may succeed and only time will tell, like the Iraq situation I would rather see it succeed than fail but I have my doubts about both.
John, if you are going to get upset every time somebody criticizes PJM then you are going to be pissed off an awful lot. I think you made a good decision in going with PJM money wise. But my advice would be that ignoring the critics looks a lot better than getting upset every time you read something critical about this new endeavor you are a part of.
Kathy K
” I’d like an alternative news wire – especially one that could offer people on the spot who LIVE there and understand the nuances.”
Just a disclaimer – I DON’T mean I want to hear only what the left would consider ‘right wing’ news. Or what the right would consider ‘left wing’ news. I want both. I’ll make up my own damned mind – but only if I have all the information.
Doug
If it’s not true, then just say “not true” which seems like a calm, yet sufficient, response (if, indeed, any response is necessary.) If there is truth, then there is a “lay with dogs, get fleas” aspect to PJM.
I’ve spent absolutely no time on the subject and never heard of Firedoglake before you posted that. So I’m going to figure whatever you have to say on the subject is the truth.
Barbar
John,
Liberals would wet themselves if you were really representative of the conservative blogosphere. (Out of happiness, of course.) And I really don’t think FDL was talking about you. I think FDL is jealous, but she’s also frustrated — honestly, a lot of the people under the Pajamas Media umbrella are stupid talentless hacks.
Being associated with these assorted nutjobs is the price you pay for the steadier stream of revenue, right? You knew that before. I wouldn’t worry about it.
Gold Star for Robot Boy
Right there with ya, JC.
FDL used to be a great clearinghouse for everything Plame. Used to be.
But recently, I’ve more than once reared back with revulsion from her posts. (And I don’t consider myself a right-winger – what are Goldwater Republicans considered these days, anyway?)
My advice: Blow her off.
James C.
A number of sites have been publicizing firedoglake’s post, including TBogg, atrios and that Vanity Fair writer that always seems to be channelling the late comedian, Paul Lynde.
Richard Bottoms
Here’s a calm response.
You are not a shill, but is obvious the right knows how to support those who are. Stating the obvious, that there are shills doesn’t make you one.
Recognizing the full court press the right has been able to make for years on talk radio it is not a surprise to anyone on my side of the fence, that dropping 7 million bucks to shape the echo chamber of blogs to their needs is money well spent for the GOP.
Why get all bent out of shape about wingers seeing the value ofpaying shills and non-shills alike to ding the left.
That you occasionally say mean things about El Presidente is of little consequnce to them since it is clear you are never going to abandon them not matter how many stupid GOP tricks you point out. Thus you are a net plus most times and a break even proposition the rest.
You’re never going to vote Democrat or tell someone else to it seems safe to say, so where exactly is the downside to PJ Media by supporting you?
Kevin K.
…that Vanity Fair writer that always seems to be channelling the late comedian, Paul Lynde.
Christopher Hitchens? Nope, wait, sorry, he’s channeling Foster Brooks.
Ancient Purple
Clearly, John, FDL is not talking about you. It is fairly clear in the blogosphere that you are an independent, yet conservative, writer/thinker.
Sadly, some of the wastes of human flesh that are part of the PJM orgy cannot even come close to being anything more than Bush mouthpieces or people who never met a neocon idea they didn’t adore and worship.
Unfortunately, you get sandwiched in between it all because you made your own decision to join PMJ. More power to you, but, honestly, you can’t cry because someone points out the fact that PMJ does have a few clowns posing as serious bloggers.
demimondian
Are you a paid shill? Do you expect to get pressure from PJM to shade your content one way or another? If the answer is no, then you’re certainly not a paid shill. For my part, given that Marshall Whitman wets his antlers at the PJM trough, and he’s already funded by DLC, I don’t think it will.
stickler
Then, here’s a tip: don’t do business with paid shills and liars. Or do a better job getting paid for the shilling.
Confederate Yankee
As an irrational right wing hack (and now apparently, a “Christian Fundie” for the one of maybe a half-dozen posts in over 900 that I wrote marginally touching Christianity), I vote for the Armstrong Willams option… or at least I will, as soon as Charles and Roger tell me that I can.
By the way, do I get get extra now that I’m a fundie instead of a regular wingnut?
Tulkinghorn
Unfortunately, for conservatism and for the country generally, lots of right wing money has been used to pay off and corrupt the media in the last few years.
I don’t know anything about the venture capital that just found its way to Pajamas Media. If it is from a questionable source, you may have sold your reputation for integrity for a mess of pottage.
If you don’t know for a fact that the money is clean, don’t waste your time being angry at Jane. The powers that be in the Republican party are unrepentantly crooked and sepcialize in secret dirty tricks — associate yourself with them at your peril.
demimondian
You betcha — instant double Karma Stamps on Wednesday at Piggly Wiggly, for instance.
Mason
Okay.. all of you folks who claim Firedoglake is not talking about John: Please explain to me exactly who she IS talking about?
Pb
Confederate Yankee,
Wait… so that just makes you a wannabe shill for now? How sad. Then again, I don’t think it really works if everybody knows when you’re on the dole–so keep it on the dl from now on. Cheers! :)
P.S. I wouldn’t turn down the $100,000 either–heck, for money like that, maybe I’d even start blogging!
John Cole
I thought this was a pretty fair reaction.
CaseyL
FDL was referring to the actual site and its posters, not to anyone who advertises/links to them.
And if she’s ‘jealous,’ it’s not on her own account. As she points out in that post, some of the best, most thoughful, most passionately pro-American values blogs (e.g., Digby and Arthur Silber, to name two) are constantly having to plead for contributions in order to keep going. She’s enraged – and I don’t blame her – that there doesn’t seem to be any foundation, think tank or slush fund for lefty bloggers, but there are sugar daddies galore funding RW hacks (and NO I’M NOT CALLING JOHN A RW HACK).
Add to that the sheer frustration of watching OSM/PJM take that VC and use it to fund a soap opera of lousy business planning, unintentionally hilarious branding miscues, internal blood feuds, in-group cliquishness, and (from what I hear) lousy content… and it’s easy to see why FDL would get seriously pissed off.
My take on John’s PJM ad was, and remains: Good for him. Take the money and run.
ppGaz
But, this is the blahsphere. “Shrill” in the blahsphere means “I strongly disagree with it, yet there it is, boldly stated, probably more than once.”
Modifiers must be decoded into their non-blahsphere meanings.
ImJohnGalt
I think it’s only fair to note that Digby, for only the first time that I can recall, suggested that people donate to him and many other bloggers took up his cause. From my understanding, he was somewhat embarassed having to ask, but people responded con gusto.
kl
Somebody looks crosseyed at pp and it’s a “declaration of war.” Just relax, Methuselah.
Adina Levin
Taking VC isn’t a joke. The VC want their money back times 10-100 — it’s not just like payola salary.
So there are a few possibilities:
1) the business model won’t pan out, and PJM will be just another dot com
2) PJM will make enough money on ads, they’ll be proven to be shrewd businesscritters
3) PJM won’t make enough money on ads, and they will be forced to take payola to make ends meet.
4) PJM is already taking payola to make ends meet and isn’t telling anyone (!)
It’s true that the left doesn’t nurture it’s opinion crew as well as the right (which seems to be what peeves FDL off the most). That’s really only relevant right now if the case is #4.
Geek, Esq.
JC:
You almost qualify as one of PJM’s token liberals. I highly doubt that folks bashing PJM and its principals think anything other than that you think for yourself, and blog what you think.
The suspicions come from the following:
1) The numerous payola scandals–Armstrong Williams, Gallagher, even someone at the Cato Institute. Not to mention JimmyJeff GannonGuckert and outfits like gopnews, newsmax, and worldnutsdaily; and
2) What appears to be an egregiously bad business model that drew a huge chunk of change from undisclosed investors.
Now, if this were 1999 I could understand someone throwing such money at PJM. But this is ex post bubble burst.
So, to recap, you have a really bad business model for a rightwing blog/media venture that draws millions from secret investors.
Now, I can’t blame bloggers for taking this money. You’re not risking any capital. Moreover, it doesn’t make sense to accuse the bona fide wingnuts of being on the take–they were bona fide wingnuts long before PJM was around.
In short, there is a great deal to be suspicious of regarding Simon and Johnson, but individual bloggers can’t be blamed for getting a little extra gravy.
Gary Sugar
There is a larger issue. Liberals have always believed that economic inequality is a threat to democracy if the rich can buy influence. Whether rightly or wrongly, we think we see that happening. Through my liberal eyes, rich corporations and right-wing billionaires are getting away with buying the government, partly through paying for mountains of conservative opinion media.
Pooh
John Said
Sorry, that was a more general statement. I actually discovered this blog though your comments on another blog, and was confused. I remember thinking “that John Cole seems a sensible guy. Unless you criticise PJM.” And I thought that was strange (because I didn’t know your blog was PJM). I mean we all have our hot buttons, and I suppose getting called a shill can get old fast.
That being said, A) you are getting paid to blog. At a certain point, who cares what they have to say about that? B) Much of the criticism is well founded – yet the response has often been attack-doggish, though not neccesarily from you. C) If you know you aren’t being a shill, then the FDL piece is simply incorrect factually as applied to you. D) The FDL piece is typical blogospheric self-importance – $7 mil. is REALLY going to change everything. Talk about aggressive ROI projections…Like we really have any influence?
demimondian
So, please, help me out here. A big corporation is paying Boatloads of Big Daddy Warbucks Bucks for the…what…few thousand eyes are BJ?
Is it just me, or is there something vaguely puzzling about that image?
Andrei
You have seen this list, right? I mean… for Pajamas Media to claim they are about a free flow of information and ideas and to be as biased and slanted as this list seems like they are asking to have people pick fights with them.
And since when does Michele Malkin qualify as being an outsider with regard to the MSM? How the heck is she remotely qualified as a “pajama person?”
demimondian
Hey, Andrei. You associate with people from OSF, right? Doesn’t that include Eric S. Raymond, a man who’s made his life stealing from other people, starting with The Hackers Dictionary? God, what a bunch of hypocritical wankers you are.
Do I really believe that? No — there’s enough GPL’ed software out there with my name on the copyright line that it wouldn’t make much sense, now would it? But it’s the same kind of guilt by association which you’re using, dude.
Cool it.
ppGaz
“pp” is half the country?
Do ever read the paper, you creepy stalking little fuck?
ppGaz
On every social issue I know about, John is just about more liberal than I am. How liberal would he have to be to “qualify?”
Andrei
Uh… no I don’t. But nice try.
And I’m sorry, I have no sympathy for those in PJM with regard to the critcism they are now getting. Part of being in with a collective is that when the collective gets slammed and criticized, guess what? You are part of that problem. And when the collective does well, you also do well.
Don’t like the criticism? Then fight back against it or leave the collective. But it’s largely a sink or swim as a team.
If Cole doesn’t want to be associated with the asshats at Little Green Footballs or someone as moronic as Malkin, then he can simply not take PJM’s money and surivive on his own, or maybe even start his own version of PJM, which by the way can be created for $7,000 instead of $7M. I’m sure he’d just fine and better for it.
ppGaz
Duh!
To coin a phrase.
Andrei
To clarify my point for Dem: I’m one of those people who make for profit software. Generally regarded as “the evil man” by most anarchist hackers, and that’s fine by me. I get paid damn good money for what I do and at heart and I make no apologies for wanting to get paid. I’m one of the fiscally conservative, socially liberal types that I think makes up the larger majority of most urban populations in the U.S. I can appreciate what the OSF is trying to do, and have on occasion written things with an eye towards OSF issues, but I design software for profit, pure and simple. I don’t hang out with people in the movement as I have little in common with so many of them.
Nowhere on my web site do I have a placard reading “Proud member of the OSF.” On BJ though, there is now a placard designating Balloon-Juice as part of a larger collective of PJM. So, that means Cole will now have to deal with issues about when people in PJM are slammed, and he’ll have to deal with them in his own way. But he chose to be in PJM, and for that, I have little sympathy.
And the last sentence of my line above should read: “I’m sure he’d be just fine and the better for it.”
kl
Interesting non sequitur.
Settle down.
ppGaz
Apparently you’ve mistaken me for a colloidal suspension.
kl
Must be.
demimondian
Fine — Cole can take the slings and arrows that PJM deserves and move on. That’s not the same as giving a list of names and talking about how the contents of that list (which certainly are biased, but I didn’t think that PJM made any claims otherwise) somehow justify epithets like “wingnut welfare” or “paid to spew lies”.
Are the folks in PJM paid to spew lies? That strikes me as a pretty tenuous statement. I’d guess that LGF and Malkin could be said to do that, but most of these folk appear to me to be honestly stating what they believe.
At best, what you did was pursue a non-sequitor. Don’t go self-righteous when someone calls you on that.
(For what it’s worth, I’m not terribly sympathetic to OSF or FSF. I released code written while I was on public grants under GPL because I strongly believe that the people who pay me deserve the results of my work, not because I’m a fan of Dick Stallman. But people who work at Microsoft get pretty sensitive about unfair claims, you know?)
demimondian
That’s some kind of sauce you’ve got there.
ppGaz
.
The plot thickens.
demimondian
Careful, here — our suspicions are gelling fast.
Pooh
yech…
demimondian
Whassamatter, Pooh? Don’t like mayonnaise?
Just asking…
HH
Never underestimate the left’s ability to paint with as broad a brush with the most vicious, unwarranted attack possible.
Kimmitt
John, whether or not you are receiving money from PJM, do you really think that the purpose of PJM *isn’t* to jam right-wing noise machine money into the blog arena? It’s clumsy and stupid now, but they’re just getting the kinks out.
I mean, yeah, take the money from the dumb rich guys and enjoy doing what you were going to do anyways. Just don’t be particularly suprised when the money dries up as the rich guys get a better sense over time where to put it.
tbrosz
Two words: George Soros.
And he’s just one. The Left isn’t exactly short on sugar daddies, either.
Bruce from Missouri
Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas, John.
Given the history of modern republicanism, it is an entirely fair assumption that FDL makes.
It may be incorrect, or maybe you’re just not reliable enough to be in the inner circle.
Maggie45
John, just ignore them( I know, it’s really easy for ME to say that), especially that Althouse woman, who BTW stated the other day on another site for the umpteen-millionth time that Roger L Simon hung up on her. I have no idea anymore what she says on *her* site since I stopped going there after those ridiculous attacks on Jeff G. And you for that matter.
Zifnab
The left isn’t somehow deprived of sugar daddies, and there are a number of budding lefty-Rush Limbaughs in the works I’m sure.
The whole hate on PJM is, to be fair, largely sour grapes. If it was a left-wing money organ spewing cash into the blogsphere, the left-wing blogsphere would praise them as venture capitalists of truth and angels of social reform. Even if the money was going to fuel as many left-wing wackjobs as Kossacks and left of center moderates.
That said, John, you can’t deny that if you were a self-labeled “Liberal”, PJM wouldn’t have picked you up. What’s more, if you didn’t have an intelligent thought in your head but still managed to put finger to keybutton and fill the web with right wing propoganda PJM would have been happy to hand you large fistfuls of cash.
This, in the end, isn’t about Balloon-Juice, it’s about the haves and the have-nots. FDL is just venting what many people in and out of the blogsphere are thinking: the media – in every form – can be bought and sold. You can’t turn on AM radio without having your ears filled with Right-Wing vitrol – pure, irrational, uncompromising, shilled-out, hate. More and more it feels that television and newspaper is going the same as FOX News swells while CNN dicks around, the Big Three crash and burn, and PBS gets gutted from the inside out.
People are afraid. They’re afraid the GOP is going to buy out the blogsphere. They’re afraid one day they’ll log onto their computers and DailyKos will be gone while RedState reins supreme. They’re afraid that one day they’ll wake up and all they’ll be able to hear is Right-Wing Propaganda spewing like bile from every electronic media source. That their friends and their families and their children will get polluted by politics they totally disagree with.
So they lash out and cry foul whenever they see their fears rearing ugly heads. Leftwing propaganda dying out while rightwing propaganda thrives and grows.
It’s scary.
stickler
Okay, here’s a way to dispel the healthy suspicion about PJM being a Richard Mellon Scaife sock puppet farm: they could tell the public where the $7 mil came from.
John Cole
I guess, Stickler, you could fault them for not personally emailing you where the money came from, but it most certainly is not a secret.
And if you bother to look, he has only donated money to Democrats Joe Lieberman and Jane Harman, acording to open secrets. Probably part of his secret plan to later flood the internet with republican talking points- you know- plausible deniability and all that.
ppGaz
The media have always been about being bought and sold. Have you been to the Hearst Castle?
I have no beef with John making money from BJ, he has worked hard to build it. Working hard and making money, that’s the American way. Good on him.
It’s just the “shocked — shocked!” that a righty blog enterprise would be eligible for some strong criticism thing that leaves me underwhelmed.
Rightwing politics and its attendants right now can best be described as a machine. Good or bad, love it or hate it, it’s a machine.
Do the machine’s moving parts believe that only sweetness and light should flow from this activity? Do these hatemongers think that they are going to get a lotta love for doing what they do?
Hell, pour on the bile, AFAIC. I put most of the rightwing noise operation in the same class of likeability as flies and anthrax. Pile it on. Nothing is too rotten to say it about today’s Right. I’d rather take Satan in as a boarder than have to put up with the Right of today.
Shit, I’d rather take in the guy Satan wouldn’t HAVE as a roommate than put up with today’s Right.
stickler
My ego is actually large enough that I do fault them for that. It’s not like it would have taken them very long to send a little note.
Pooh
ick
The Other Steve
I find it fascinating that wingnuts keep talkinga bout George Soros, when he’s just about the first person to make a massive commitment on the left to do the same thing which the right has been consistently doing for oh about 30 years now.
To paraphrase James Carville. 100 guys will give $1 billion to Republican think tanks, 1 guy with give $20 million to a Democratic think tank… and the media will say “See, they both do it.”
I don’t know enough about PJM’s money scheme to comment on it, but you gotta admit it certainly reaks of a plot to influence opinion.
Andrei
I think you missed the part in their mission statement where they state:
Emphasis mine.
Oh yeah… they forgot to say “the conservative ones of us at least.” But since they leave that part out, I guess, technically you are correct. They make no claims about being one sided. But their blog list speaks for itself.
If they are cheap shots, I’m sure Cole is a man enough to fight back for himself without needing you to get his back.
And as far as I’m concerned, there are a good number of names on that list that do deserve those slings and arrows tossed at them. Again, it’s Cole’s decision to choose what company he keeps, and I’m sorry, but no way in hell I’d allow my name be kept in the same company even in a semi-professional manner with the likes of LGF, Malkin or a few other names in that list.
But to each his own.
Paul L.
Just 1 guy on the left giving money to left-wing think tanks Other Steve?
I guess you/Carville forgot the fact that almost every foundation (Ford/Tides/Pew) gives money to left-wing think tanks.
the left has been consistently doing that for oh about 30 years now.
neil
It is a little suspicious that PJM runs exclusively ads for itself.
OCSteve
George Soros anyone? Oliver Willis? Atrios? Media Matters? Kos “consulting” for the Democrats? Yglesias and Drum are essentially paid to blog by lefty publications….
Another Jeff
You’re missing the point, OC. It’s not paid partisan hacks that bother the moonbats. It’s paid partisan hacks on the other side that bother them.
The really funny thing about it is that they don’t even realize how ungodly hypocritical they look with their selective outrage. They really believe they’re on the side of the angels.
Jim Allen
Come on, John — you went from a stand-alone sub shop to a Subway franchise. Doesn’t matter how independent you are, how you treat your employees, how fresh your ingredients are, or what you put in your special sauce, The logo over the door may say “John Cole’s Subway” but you’re going be recognized as part of the corporation now. If they get slammed because someone is using fatty cold cuts and limp lettuce, you all get slammed. Welcome to the collective.
Paddy O'Shea
Can you imagine people saying awful stuff like that on a blog? I tell ya, it’s the end of everything we’ve loved and held dear lo these many troubled days.
I can see why a shadowy group of rightwing political operatives obviously flush with somebody else’s dough might want to help prop up a bunch of so-called conservative blogs with a little folding money. If ever there was a group of agenda-identified ideologues that needed the help, it’s that absurd claque of Loon Liddy, Crack Baby Limbaugh and Man Coulter wannabes that constitute “conservative” blogging.
Let’s face it, when it comes to quality of reporting and real credibility in the world at large, there are many centrist and left web persuasions that easily have it all over the “Rightwing Nuthouse’s” of this world.
(JC: Balloon Juice is centrist, right?)
BTW: Anybody noticed that Snoop George’s numbers are heading south again @ Rasmussen? He’s losing more than a point a day since 12/23. http://www.rasmussen.com
OCSteve
That’s what I find amazing. Express outrage that your opponent is doing something with no proof or even substantial argument – and it turns out your side actually does that exact thing, but better and more of it.
The biggest blog voices on the left actually are paid hacks – but let’s gin up some outrage because 70 (68 discounting the token lefties) libertarian/conservative bloggers select a different ad revenue scheme.
searp
The whole point of Internet media is that the cost of entry is so low that it is inherently democratic. To me it is incredibly stupid to invest $7,000,000.00 in something that can be done for $7,000.00, but I am not a VC.
I don’t see any shilling by John Cole, if I did I wouldn’t read balloon-juice.
Bob In Pacifica
As far as politics go, the farther to the left you go, the less likely you’re going to make money. That’s just the nature of the world.
As far as being a paid shill, well, the last year or so has shown that there are plenty of paid shills out there, and not only the illegal stuff directly from the administration. For the last three decades the Mellon-Scaife axis has been paying people to repeat what they think. We have MSM outlets repeated their company line instead of reporting news, or worse, sitting on news stories for years in order to allow, say illegal wiretaps to continue unabated.
Balloon Juice tends to nuance its statements. John Cole’s libertarianism tends to trump party-line Republicanism. That doesn’t mean he may not buy one of those wingnut memes, just as those of us on the left don’t sometimes get swept up in one of our side’s takes on current events.
That’s the good thing about Balloon Juice. It’s where thoughtful people across the spectrum duke it out.
As far as making money from blogging, there is advertising revenue for a website and then there is money being paid to contributors by an owner of a website who made his money someplace else. Who pays the piper calls the tune.
p.lukasiak
“wingnut welfare” is an accurate description of John’s association with PJM….
The fact that John does not consistently adhere to the LGF/Malkin/Assrocket orthodoxy doesn’t mean he isn’t on wingnut welfare — it just makes him a welfare cheat.
You’re a whore, John, pure and simple. You (like David Corn) are trading your reputation and integrity for cash, and you are being offered cash to “legitimize” the insane ravings of some VERY nasty and racist scumbags who PJM is subsidizing.
Associating with the likes of Malkin and LGF for cash doesn’t elevate them, it simply degrades you.
Stop bitching about the choices you made, and accept responsibility for what you are doing —
but who am I kidding? “Personal responsibility” is something for conservatives to insist that OTHER people take…. not for conservatives themselves.
Zifnab
Listen, I love this site and I enjoy haunting the forums here as much as the next guy, but the truth is that p.lukasiak isn’t far from the truth. You can’t take money from the devil and yet divorce yourself from sin. PJM has their hooks in you one way or another.
What’s more, I honestly don’t care how many Democratic shillers or shillies are out there. It seems that the idea “Two wrongs don’t make a right” is so easily lost in politics. Like children, pundits cry out over how voter fraud, political hackery, Swift Boating for Truth, and every other legal/financial/political dirty trick is ok when one party is doing it so long as you can find evidence that another party is doing it as well.
PJM is an organization involved in the payed endorsement of liars and the lies that they tell. That they are partisan lies makes the pay-off for them no less sinister. If John continues to accept money from PJM, then he marries himself to this system.
You can call him a modern day Blogger Hood, robbing from the ignorant and giving to the intellegent. Or you can call him a practicalist, feeding from the dinner table that god gave him. Anyone who calls him “bought” clearly hasn’t checked the receipt – PJM clearly isn’t getting the type of hackery it has come to expect. But that doesn’t change where the money comes from.
OCSteve
Malkin and Charles. Boo! Punching bags for the left side of the sphere. Their big crimes?
Malkin refuses to toe the line as a female minority. What should be a two-fer for the left is instead a poke in their eye. For this she gets some of the foulest hate mail since the conception of the Internet.
Charles’s crime? He highlights and links to the actual words of those who wish harm to America. Typically without commentary, or just a snarky line or two. He’s no more responsible for his comments section than John is responsible for what passes for constructive conversation in here some days. I don’t visit his comments section because I know it’s the rightwing version of DU. But his main page is a must read every single day. No one else in the sphere is compiling the actual words and deeds of our enemies the way Charles is.
Frankly John – you should be proud to be connected to those two, cash or not.
John S.
Ewww.
I think the last person on Earth John wants to be connected to is Michelle ‘Interment Camp’ Malkin. Those with integrity usually shy away from the company of those without.
mojo
Why be concerned by the opinions of morons?
Kimmitt
It’s better to think of it as a trial run or shakedown cruise. 7 mil is pocket change for these guys.
BumperStickerist
Jay-zus –
I’ll believe the conspiracy theories when Charles Johnson posts brief conversations with his Shimano gear shift and other inanimate objects, Goldstein posts about nano-technology, Reynolds takes up bike riding, and John Cole starts posting about Palestinian red folders and Arafish.
Or if PJM starts holding some of the money in escrow so that they have leverage over the blogger.
Or, lastly, if it turns out that Allahpundit is the bastard son of Richard Mellon Scaife and is collecting $500 per ‘hatip’ that appears on a blog from some rightwing think tank.
Another Jeff
You’re right, you don’t care how many on the left do it. That’s why the selective outrage of you and most of the other left-wing circle-jerkers here is laughed at by anyone with a brain.
You mention election fraud. Now, when you lefties get your panties in a bunch about so-called Republican fraud in FL in 2000 and OH in 2004, and a Republican then points out all the crap that Demcrats pull in Philly, and Chicago, and Milwaukee, and St Louis, nobody is saying that it makes these alledged but not proven allegations about Republicans ok.
It’s merely pointing out that you’re frauds and hypocrites for not giving a flying fuck when your side does it.
p.lukasiak
btw… I just sent the below to Allstate…
and will send similar emails to every national advertiser I see on this site that I MIGHT otherwise patronize….
Dave_Violence
Money for blogging. LOTS of money for blogging…
I prefer my bloggers to be experts in their day-jobs filed (lawyers, engineers, scientists, etc.) while blogging is an “expensive” hobby. If it’s the other way around, eh, it’s like listening to a lawyer who considers himself an expert in some sort of furturistic technology that would make – maybe – his iPod hold a billion billion songs, instead of, say, advances in geotechnical engineering…
Another Jeff
Wow, I’m sure Allstate is quaking in their boots that they might lose out on insuring Kinkos boy’s ’88 Yugo, and perhaps a renters policy on his efficiency.
did you also tell them that you don’t approve of them using advertising that features an actor who used torture in Season 2, covered up a murder in Season 3, and authorized an illegal raid on the Chinese Consulate in Season 4?
John Cole
Yawn.
Larry
The ideological battle will be fought on the fields of commerce.
When I buy from B&N instead of Amazon, I fund Comcast.
When I drive past WalMart to Costco, I pay Big Oil.
And it’s paid thru my Bank of the West account.
Goddammit……..
Davebo
p.lukasiak,
You’ve got the right idea. And Madison Ave. may be a bit slow but it always gets it right in the end.
Corporate America simply can’t afford to be associated with the comments section of LGF and trust me, they won’t for long.
Then it’s just a matter of time. If, when PJM’s only advertisers are folks selling T-Shirts with guns on them, they still manage to maintain their blog payroll, we’ll know something is up.
Davebo
A good reason to stay in Academia John.
Sojourner
Hey dumb ass. Fix the voting process and everyone benefits.
Duh.
Jimmie
Apparently I don’t understand the problem here. PJM didn’t put out a sign that said “Conservatives Only” and its membership roll certainly bears that out. As I recall things when they first put out the word, PJM was willing to accept all comers, regardless of their political affiliation and size.
Additionally, I find it incredibly interesting that fdl has nothing but ire toward PJM bloggers but can’t seem to generate the same sort of white-hot anger toward the folks on her side of the blogosphere who have been paid to blog. I recall the Media Matters group having two such bloggers on their payroll and I daresay that those bloggers make enough so that they don’t have to worry quite so much about that 40-hour job.
It seems awfully easy to toss the word “shill” around, as if being paid to write was something brand-spanking new and offensive to the very idea of being an independent thinker. At the very least it seems pretty naive to get torqued up about that and at worst, it’s just disingenuous bullshit.
John S.
I’m not disputing the validity of your post, but I do find it interesting that on your blog, you have practically the entrie PJM roster in your blog roll, not to mention PJM itself.
Given that, I don’t find the tone of your comment – or your defense of PJM – at all surprising.
Jim Allen
Re: “Wow, I’m sure Allstate is quaking in their boots that they might lose out on insuring Kinkos boy’s ‘88 Yugo, and perhaps a renters policy on his efficiency.”
Hey, it worked for Bill O’Reilly, didn’t it? I mean he single-handedly saved Christmas from Big Business and brought the entire nation of France to its knees.
Pooh
He also lowered gas prices don’t ya know…
Another Jeff
Hey dumbass, it’s kinda hard to do that when all people like you do is scream “DIEBOLD” and then ignore everything else because it benefits you.
Steve S
This is a clear example of what is wrong with the right today.
When they think that non-profit groups concerned with arts, public opinion, and government transparency are left wing groups. It’s like they have simply lost any regard for what we as citizens of the US might have in common.
Steve S
Unfortunately for most Republicans… “everything else” refers to “people voting for Democrats”.
I remember the battle over the 1993 Motor Voter act. I still can’t believe you guys were whining about making it easier for people to register to vote.
Sojourner
Once again, fixing the voting problem benefits EVERYONE. I don’t understand why that’s such a difficult concept for you to understand.
As to ignoring other things that benefit us… what might those be? I’ve seen precious little being done to fix the problem, although I heard some interesting things about North Carolina this morning on C-Span.
Another Jeff
Actually, Steve S, it refers to the bullshit that happens in Philly and a million other places during every election that you don’t give a shit about because it benefits Democrats.
Sojourner
Ah the willful ignorance of the right. Repeating the same charge 1000 times makes it true, Right, Jeff?
kl
You’ll discover how much more complicated the world is when you graduate from high school.
I’m sure there’ll be another national security leak soon, and his poll numbers will go back up.
Call up Mapes, Paulie! Maybe she can do a story about it for 60 Minutes. Whoops.
kl
Yeah, Cole’s as fake as Bush’s plastic Thanksgiving turkey!
Another Jeff
That’s brilliant. Deny the obvious, but then accuse someone else of willful ignorance.
I was reading your comments and thinking i was missing something, giving you the benefit of the doubt that nobody could be as dumb as you seem, but apparently you are.
So, on Planet Sojourner, Republican corruption in Florida and Ohio? TRUE! Democratic corruption in PHilly? Just a nasty rumor by mean Republicans!
Paul L.
Yes, how dare I criticize the foundations for supporting left-wing causes like PEW ASTROTURFING CAMPAIGN FINANCE “REFORM”
http://instapundit.com/archives/021911.php
http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2005/03/buying_campaign.html
You are a hypocrite because you are complaining about the funding of right-wing non-profit groups concerned with public opinion and government transparency. But when I point out the funding of left-wing think tanks you get all self-righteous.
I guess that by your definition of “concerned with … public opinion, and government transparency” Judicial Watch is a left wing group.
Tim Fuller
Rightwing content will not self generate and has no way of producing income. I read this blog and think that this particular author is sincere, but the vast majority of rightwing hoolignaism is just paid for slime.
I think the person who said you are being judged by the company you keep is spot on.
Selling you soul to the Devil is always a crap shoot. You obviously think you got your money’s worth.
Enjoy.
Paul L.
How do you explain Rush Limbaugh and his talk radio clones?
Oh right, the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy and their digital brownshirts.
There appears to be a market for content not provided by the mainstream media.
Paddy O'Shea
I would like to humbly suggest that the Pajamas Media folks rework their logo from the cozy PJ suit pictured above to the more appropriate commode.
Because after reading some of the rightwing lunacy on this thread it seems to me that a toilet would much more accurately represent what it is they’re flushing their money down.
p.lukasiak
So, on Planet Sojourner, Republican corruption in Florida and Ohio? TRUE! Democratic corruption in PHilly? Just a nasty rumor by mean Republicans!
I live in Philly. The Democratic Party in the city is corrupt. But its corruption is not about election fraud — the story you refer to is really little more than an urban myth.
Basically, someone the “scandal” was that someone forgot to zero out the numbers from the previous election on one polling place’s voting machine — as a result, the vote totals were much higher than the number of voters for that polling district. When this came to light, the results were immediately adjusted to reflect the true vote totals. End of story.
What the wingnuts don’t understand is that it doesn’t really matter if our voting rolls are up to date. We live in high density rowhomes — and the people who work the polls pretty much know everybody in the neighborhood. Dead people don’t get to vote, even if their names are still on the books, because the poll workers know that they died — they probably attended the viewing and/or funeral.
Nevertheless, you will constantly hear about the precinct in Philly where there were more votes than registered voters, or about the one dead guy in Florida who voted in the 2000 election (in that case, the dead guy’s son had the same name and address, says he voted, but the records don’t indicate that he showed up at the polls. In other words, it was a simple clerical mistake of no consequence — but the GOP still taks about “dead people voting in the Florida election…)
Richard Bennett
The left has Soros, Hollywood, labor unions and academia, the right has churches, a few eccentric millionaires like Moon and Scaife, talk radio and PJ Media.
It seems to me that neither side has exclusive rights to the “poor me, I’m such a victim” franchise. There is certainly a lot more money funding lefty bloggers than righty bloggers, by a very large margin.
The fiedoglake post is idiotic. PJ Media is certainly an ill-conceived joke, but the balance of power in the blogosphere tilts strongly to the left and one crazy Likudnik more or less isn’t going to change that.
Another Jeff
I live in Philly too, p. And with the exception of four years at Penn State (ok, four and a half) I have my whole life. And i didn’t mention one particular Philly scandal, so your point is moot. Nice strawman, though.
It happens every election and you know it. I really don’t think you live here if you think the Democratic party doesn’t commit election fraud.
Why were there cries of voter intimidation in last years election BEFORE IT EVEN HAPPENED? Because they knew the Republican party was gonna send operatives down to certain precincts, and Democrats know if they poison the well and talk about “intimidation”, particularly in black neighborhoods, that they could preempt any challenges as Republican racism.
Pooh
Oh come on, people, enough with the “selling your soul to the devil” crap. A little perspective here, please. Yeah Malkin and LGF are piles of gibbering insanity, but so are half of you/(me?). Until we see a change of authorial voice, at worst, John is guilty of bad business judgment (and who are we to say? PJM could be a better deal than blogads for him.)
But John, you should also try to develop a little thicker skin, what can FDL really do to hurt you aside from toss verbal bomblets? If you know your content isn’t changing, fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke.
Sojourner
At what point have I ever claimed that corruption is only on one side?
To the contrary, I have argued that cleaning up the voting system would benefit EVERYONE.
What a jack ass.
Dale
This is nothing new. The right has been deeply dependent on money from people like Moon since the 80’s when they first asked their messiah to join them in turning the nation right and theocratic. The ‘new’ right had to ask Moon because they could NOT do it without him. The American people would have never followed their agenda unless they were deceived and they had to have help for that. Moon brags about using the Washington Times and his many “activities” to “influence” our country. Conservatives have helped him reach his goals. He’s now raking in the black ministers thanks to the Republicans and their Faith Based Vote Buying scheme.
Why do rightwingers talk about U.S. citizen Soros spending 30 million one election cycle when they have happily been on the receiving end of BILLIONS from NON-citizen Moon who has a stated goal to turn the nation into a rightwing theoland? He calls what he is doing/done the “natural subjugation of the American government and population.” Moon has outspent Scaife bringing us politically where we are. He is your savior, he has been leading you but you are blind to it.
I mean hypocrisy isn’t near close enough term.
John you strike me as another McCain. An abused spouse who complains to the family about the beatings but when the time comes to sign the divorce papers you can’t get away. So the beatings our nation suffers continue.
Fact is the republican party has become a criminal enterprise that is dragging the nation further into a death spiral by the day.
So John, how much ARE they paying you to get into the propaganda slop pit with Maulkin and LGF?
Billmon
“I am being paid to ‘spew lies.’ What the hell is wrong with these people?”
Don’t worry, John — We know you would do it for free.