Rand Paul Campaign: Staffer Accused Of Trolling Daily Kos Impersonated

The whole thing may have been a hoax:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/08/rand-paul-campaign-staffe_n_708965.html



The email address Kos claimed as proof, didn't originate from where he claimed it did:



A twisted tale based only on the word of a blogger, and just as happened with Shirley Sherrod, the person accused was not given a chance to respond before he was tried and convicted and all kinds of other speculations spread like wildfire around the internet.

In updates at the link Kos is sticking to his story, but hasn't explained the incorrect source of the email he used as 'proof'.

Tom Kubica, Paul's aide, adamantly denies he ever posted on Daily Kos.

I'd say the ball is in Kos' court. He either needs to provide more than an incorrect email as proof of such serious allegations, or apologize imho.

Poeple are so quick to jump to comclusions, aren't they?


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x7576286

I remember that story too. People should be very careful before they jump to conclusions. I am learning that Karl Rove was not the only dirty trickster around, and why even Democrats seemed to admire him.

Seems in that world, Rove is a figure to be admired. No wonder people become cynical.

So, was it a Dem pretending to be a Libertarian pretending to be a Dem?

ie your last paragraph.

And a new respect for dirty tricksters! It's hard on a brain like mine to try to figure out who would benefit from a Dem pretending to a Libertarian pretending to be a Dem? Maybe I'm just tired ~

to sow discord in the what-otherwise-would-be-loyal Democratic ranks!

Doesn't it?

but it's Hamsher.

Just sayin'

Thanks for the exposé of the "exposé". :hi:

Actually this is standard old cointelpro stuff. And since it is standard and well known, anyone from organized opposition to some bored 12-yo who finds it an amusing diversion.

To see whether a ploy like this is organized I look at who takes it up and broadcasts it, and how much it's repeated.

After all the lectures and innuendo too. The truth still isn't known.

I wonder if all the Troll Hunters on DU will apologize for pointing their fingers at everyone but themselves and their ideological clones?

Mea Culpa thread.

fucking chance.

I know

Just on account of being busy, but I think I'll pretend it's because of my high moral character.

Because of my high moral character! Lol!

Actually I think I made a few comments in one of the threads, and then I ran. I was afraid of being accused of being a commie or something. I wasn't sure what opinion I was supposed to have, is really what I meant .. :hi:

accused someone of being a troll with an agenda. Apologies, if they come, are usually buried deep in a very long thread, missed by almost everyone. Kos is not the most reliable source for these things. Which is why I watched all this yesterday and wondered, remembering how certain they were on other occasions too.

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in the posters leaping to the defense of a Paul staffer. You are all welcome to my ignore list.

Did you forget your sarcasm tag? I'm not sure you are serious so I'll ask. If the story was not true are you saying we should not speak about that and let the lie stand?

Forget the question if you really were just kidding ....

that I have total respect for, and DU'ers who have incredible integrity and principles and values!

Please do put me on your ignore list..it will be a badge of honor I will wear proudly!

Understand this though, there will be but a very small minority of people you will be able to read! Enjoy your little group!

I can't even really believe I just read this shit here.

Unrec for being so quick to jump to the defense of someone who is more likely than not NOT ON YOUR SIDE. What fresh hell has infested this place?

whether or not someone is rightfully or wrongfully being accused of something. If someone is accused of murder eg, should it matter whether they are politically on my side?

There was a kneejerk reaction to this without hearing both sides and it was for the worst of reasons. It was about politics. Just like Shirley Sherrod. It didn't matter whether either one was actually guilty of what they were accused of. I would hope that we don't judge people based on anything other than the facts.

I have seen people wrongfully accused of things on blogs before. And even a Republican, or a Libertarian, deserves the chance to respond. I would think that goes without saying. And the extension of that reaction was an ugly McCarthy-like demand that people practically swear that they are not 'commies' or be driven out of the party. It was very disturbing even though I barely skimmed the threads it was clear that something very ugly was going on.

:crazy: :eyes: :crazy: :eyes:

You keep going out of your way to defend and support someone who is more than likely a Republican troll but please have the common sense if not the decency to leave Shirley Sherrod out of this idiocy. You're just making yourself look stupid.

REACTION! Do you understand the difference between 'issues' and 'reaction'?

I don't care whether someone is a Republican or not. I want to know the facts. And to whom do I 'look stupid'? If it is to anyone who doesn't care about the truth, then I would be proud of their disapproval. I am very confident that those whose opinions I respect most definitely agree that ethical people do not jump to conclusions without taking the time to get the facts.

And I am almost certain that having suffered the same kind of kneejerk reaction, Shirley Sherrod would agree and would not care, as I do not, whether the person was a Republican or a Democrat.

You confuse demanding proof with 'defending'. You cannot convict or defend someone without knowing the facts unless your are a person of low morals can you?

to stand for equal justice for everyone regardless of their politics. This is exactly what was demonstrated by this non-news as many people fell all over themselves to yell 'gotcha' without waiting to see whether they had the facts or not. Mob rule, it's bad when the other side does it, it's even worse when our side does. At least they make no pretense of being fairminded.

:rofl:

It's confusing, isn't it, I mean of it WAS the staffer, what did he expect to accomplish? One guy on a site as big as DK isn't going to have much of an impact anyhow. And if it wasn't him, then what was the purpose of someone pretending to be him and who would have an interest in doing that?

HAHA! What a fool! :D

Otoh, that does seem more like a Dem probably did it, one of those Dems who hate the Liberal wing of the party and decided to 'kill two birds with one stone'.

I hope the truth is uncovered. Dirty tricks like this just drive people away from politics.

but it kinda has a Jerry Springer Show feel to it. :D

I'm more interested in Rand's professional history as an ophthalmologist, the details of how he supposedly became qualified to treat other human beings. After all, he is a byproduct of Ayn Rand.

I assume he claims to be a fully licensed ophthalmologist, so I guess I'll have to take his word for it. :D

Paul's campaign is arguing that someone pretended to be a Paul aide, went to Kos, and for some time posted to undermine a Democrat to help Paul's fundraising, but that person wasn't connected to his campaign. That person was clearly helping Paul, whether Paul knew about it or not, so it's safe to assume it wasn't a Democrat. So who would fake that? Is he arguing that Kos or some other Democrat deliberately sabotaged a Democratic candidate's campaign just so they could make a fake accusation? I guess it's possible, but it seems like a complicated scheme with no real benefit. It could be some random hoaxster, I suppose. Or it could be an actual Paul supporter who used a fake name. Those make less sense, but are possible.

Kos says at the link that his signup process verifies the email address because it sends a link to the email address that requires a person to click on a link before they can post. Huffpost admits they've seen that email address, it's different than the one in question that got routed through Massachusets, and that it seems to belong to Kubica. Paul's only defense of that, so far, is that he's never seen Kubica using that address. I guess that could be a setup, too--huffpost doesn't go into enough detail to really judge.

Or it could be that Paul was caught tampering with a campaign using fraud and possibly opening his campaign to federal investigation, an embarrassing scandal, and possibly serious consequences even beyond those. Remember when Bush's team tried to frame Gore's team for stealing debate tapes? The person who mailed the tapes actually went to prison over it (although her boss, who probably ordered the whole thing, got away with it). Fraud and election tampering charges can get serious. So, Paul would have a reason to lie and to forge email addresses.

I'm not convinced yet that Rand Paul's camp is telling the truth. I'm not convinced they aren't, either, so I'm waiting to hear more.

their stories, it's hard to know who is telling the truth. But then as you say, there could be serious consequences for a staffer playing dirty tricks like that and with so little to gain from what he supposedly did, why do it? Did he become a star poster who was frequently on the rec list? Even that wouldn't do much for Paul's campaign.

Otoh, what is to be gained by a Dem pretending to him, then 'getting caught'? It does make the campaign look bad, so that's a good thing from the Dem pov. But again, wouldn't that be fraud also?

I think it should be easy to prove. Checking the computer of the staffer eg. Anyone posting on DK for any length of time, would have to have evidence of that on their computer. Shouldn't be hard to check out.

I didn'y mean it wouldn't be worth it for Paul, just not for Kos.

If Paul is using his staffers on message boards where his opponent is trying to drum up money, he can suppress a lot of donations, and maybe even votes. The reward would easily be worth the risk, since he doesn't figure he'll get caught. The Republicans have long had such schemes, and I'm sure the Democrats do, too. They used to be pretty basic--they just mailed talking points to their web rings and had activists post those points everywhere they could. I remember back in 2000, before DU, going around to a dozen of my favorite sites, and you could watch the talking points start arriving in the morning--same words, same format, sometimes. Some of them just cut and pasted the text from their emails. It's all gotten more sophisticated now, but I have no doubt it's still done.

The only other thing that makes sense, aside from Kos just making it up to get attention, is a random hoaxster who likes Paul, but then the email to Paul's web site doesn't make sense. Not that the letter makes sense, anyway.

Weird. I love it. This is why politics is my favorite sport. :)

amateur 'double secret-agent man'.

Swamp Rat made a good point above, that no matter who it was, either way it harms Paul's campaign. So if that was the intended result, then doesn't it make sense it would be a Dem who was responsible, a clever Dem?

Either that or Paul's campaign are remarkably stupid people.

As far as Kos doing it for attention, lol, not an outrageous though by any means. It would surprise if it wasn't maybe, his friend and co-founder, Armstrong, the DK 'blogfather' who was caught pushing stocks on a financial board several years ago, but did not reveal that he was being paid to do so. He was charged with fraud and convicted, and he made a deal with the Feds. Freepers were all over it, Red State etc. because a Dem, not just any Dem, but the co-founder of DK, was caught faking who he was on another board. He claimed he was innocent, but pled guilty and promised to explain the whole thing after the case ended. But he never did. Also used to run an astology site. Imo, a con-artist, but the Party likes him and they don't seem to mind his criminal record.

I'm just recalling that because they always had operatives roaming the threads of DK. They did not reveal that until after they were ready to reveal their real purpose, which was not to be a Liberal Blog, but more of an online Campaign Head-quarters and only acted like a progressive blog while they were building and needed liberals to fill the board with. Until they didn't need them anymore. It's been fascinating to watch that blog, not to participate, just watch.

I could definitely see Armstrong doing something like this as he has done it before, for money.

Yes, politics is fun ~ a 'contact sport' someone once called it :-)

First, he tried to disguise who he was, and succeeded for a while. The idea that some liberal would be that patient at sticking to his message while waiting for a busy board wizard to randomly discover the couple of clues he planted and expose him so he could spring the trap is pretty weak. It's possible, but that doesn't sound like a random prankster, the more I think about it. His posts definitely hurt the Democrat for far too long.

He stayed under cover for at least a week, based on the dates that Kos posted, and I don't know how much longer, always subtly (how many activists are subtle) undermining the Dem, never coming out and bashing him.

I'm thinking it was either someone trying to hurt the Democrats (whether they worked for Paul or just supported him), or it was someone trying to promote Kos or trying to create "proof" that there were paid operatives on these boards. That could be someone at Kos, or Kos, or someone independently, but they would almost have to be in league with Kos to be sure to get caught, or at least know the system enough to know what clues to drop so they'd pick it up.

At this point, I''ll wait for the book. I'm wasting way too much life thinking about it. :)

LOL

made me feel awful due to the fact that it didn't tale long for us to devour our own with horrible personal attacks and accusations. Yesterday was a real eye opener for me and not in a good way. It was a real 'Lord of the Flies' day and it was disturbing. This whole thing doesn't make any sense to me. Who gained anything from it other than sowing the seeds of doubt amongst ourselves. :-(

left, but what struck me was there was almost a swarm of people salivating over getting people here banned based on nothing but allegations.

It was McCarthyistic with these kind of statements from DUers to people they had apparently identified as 'the enemy':

'If you say that you are holding the Party's feet to the fire, YOU'RE A TRAITOR TO THE PARTY!

'Do you or do you not swear that you will never again criticize the Party'

As you say, it was like 'lord of the flies'. Made me feel very bad also.

same folks here...

:rofl:

I thought he was kidding. I never heard of anyone putting everyone on ignore before :rofl:

So, yeah, I think he was serious about putting all the professional leftists on the thread on ignore..

interested in defending my positions and especially when people disagree with me, it really helps to strengthen your arguments.

What's the point of being on a discussion board if you don't want to 'discuss'? Lol, makes zero sense for a 'sensible pragmatic centrist, I mean! Very funny! :-)

I was having an identity crisis.

be happy to know that they don't have to suspect their fellow DUers anymore?

Accusation was that long-time "left" (whatever that means) posters are not actually people, but are accounts shared by a group of people. Who have met IRL, marched together, visited one another, etc. It is ridiculous. Good grief, many LT posters don't even post here any more because of stuff like this.

Sounds like some people need to get away from their keyboards for a while :eyes:

I was like :wtf:

We are not real people? :rofl:

crap..shame shit , just another day!

The people who post that crap just project what they are doing onto others!

I've joined wonderful Duers for dinners, gone to conventions/caucuses and protests, meet up for the F-911 movie, and even hosted Duers in my home. :rofl: That's a fantastic CT. You'd think my tortured syntax and creative spelling would be a dead give away that I'm no pro. But - am I *real*? Really real? I'd better turn on the black light and reflect on this Pink Floyd poster for a while. :D

Did I send you the new password to my account?

:rofl:

On edit - I mentioned something from a locked thread - so I'm going to delete what I said. I don't want to get this thread locked because of my post.

troublemaker

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

Not the "professional leftists", it was the "sensible and pragmatic centrists" who were witch smelling and pointing fingers.

My reaction was a bit different than yours, I thought the whole thing was hilarious, especially when someone posted a pic of Sean Connery in a David Vitteresque outfit.

round of pointless shit-stirring.

Not a Smart Thing to do to an immortal dude who carries a sword. :silly:

Most of those horrible/bizarre posts directed at me are now deleted, but wow. They were just stunning. :hug:

on your avatar/sig line, whatever it is.

Love it.

Recently saw Coffee & Cigarettes.

Friggin' funny in a Steven Wright kind of way.

:hi:

genius

"Let's blame it on...on...WAIT...let's blame it on internet identity theft! Yeh! That's the ticket! Now, how can we do that..let's get busy fellas!"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/08/rand-paul-campaign-staffe_n_708965.html



"Otoh, that does seem more like a Dem probably did it, one of those Dems who hate the Liberal wing of the party and decided to 'kill two birds with one stone'." :tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat:

I don't care to know who's paid to post or not paid to post really. As I've said before, Obvious troll is Obvious. But the anti-Dem conspiracy theory is a bit over the top.

Since you missed it, here it is again straight out of the OP, just for you:



I really wish people would read the OP before they post.

That's all I meant. Lots of folks skip clicking on links and just read the OP itself.

were about.

The updates were at the top of the article, easy to see when you click the link. I always clikc links.

I posted the paragraphs which gave the most information as it is a short article so I could not post much of it. And I gave a summary of the updates since they didn't say very much other than both are sticking to their stories. Sorry you seem to find something wrong with that. I didn't see much of importance in the updates, just a repeat of what they both said to begin with.

Well, besides the crazy CT :tinfoilhat:?

I merely said it wasn't inclusive so I posted it. And I only included the link again out of habit.

Sorry you seem to find something wrong with that.

:shrug:

include it. And now we are having a silly discussion over nothing. I gave you the link, I paraphrased it in the OP. What more did you want? I mean I've seen OPs with one line, no link, and a question mark.

I think most people probably did click the link and knew about it even before this silly conversation.

Why am I having this conversation? YOU started it! :rofl:

:eyes: :eyes: :eyes:

Could you repost the link in a reply to this pot, please?

of the article. I think it's still working but if not, I'll repost it in response to your comment.

I see a link to a Politico post, but no link to DKOS. The Politico link does not link to DKOS.

by the other commenter which he pointed out I had not posted in the OP. I pointed out that I had summarized it and that it was available in the link.

It is a portion. There is no link to the statement from the Daily Kos.

a link to the story from HuffPo. If you have a link to the full statement, then please post it.

It was posted on DKOS yesterday.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/9/8/900185/-KY-Sen:-More-on-that-Rand-Paul-concern-troll-saga

Here is a portion:

Paul's story is that his ID was stolen basically. Since I'm not technical enough to know whether or not that can be done, I really cannot say one or the other. However, I do have a friend who is a computer expert, programmer etc and will ask him.

Paul could offer to allow a tech person to look at this computer. His IP number should be easily traced to his computer if he was posting on DK.

Sad that people feel the need to play these tricks to win and all they do is turn people off the whole process.

For now, it looks like Kos has the advantage in this but the aide is still denying it. We'll see if he can provide any more proof that he was not the person posting on DK.

facts are good.

Sid

:rofl:

couldn't agree with you more!

kos must have been feeling ignored.

he doesn't get the attention he feels is owed! nt

...find any traitors hiding under the beds at DU?

Yesterday was NOT a Proud Day in the history of DU.
A new LOW was established.

Everyone but them, that is. And the way to identify a suspect was to 'watch what they say'! Pretty spooky.

They've been here, unrec'ing this thread as if burying it means no one would learn that the whole thing may have been a hoax.

wouldn't want to kick this thread and keep it visible...

I just suggested they should be tombstoned on the first offense of the professional leftist tactic of equating Democrats and Republicans and other splinterist tactics, and still do.

What you are supposed to do is alert on any post that you think breaks the rules.

Should you be tombstoned for breaking the rules?

Or is that only for professional leftists?

They could be sincere or not. The fact of the matter is, these rules appear in the DU rules:



One has to wonder why someone from the Rand Paul campaign appears to think that using this tactic will hurt the Democrats. Whether someone uses the same professional leftist tactics from the right or left, sincerely or insincerely, doesn't really come into play.

I suspect you would be alerting nearly constantly if that were so.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy_Who_Cried_Wolf

Why not? I come here to talk to Democrats.

"I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat."

you must be alerting to accuse someone of not being a Democrat. How many times each day do you alert, and how many of these pretend Democrats have been uncovered after your alerts? I come here to talk to Democrats also. So I'd like to know how many Republicans you have exposed and if any of them are still here?

the answer is nothing. Which is another reason why people might be willing to believe he did not do it.

than what your fellow DUers are doing you wouldn't be running around asking for people to be kicked off the site. That is no way to get Democrats elected in the Fall.

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and I doubt there's any chance of democrats voting for Republicans. So the whole thing makes no sense. I agree, I don't see how it is supposed to work.

I'd rather not defend the (predictable) denial of the accused when there's still evidence that Kos was right and he's standing by all of it.

Off with their heads..

/Queen of Hearts

of progressive is. Kos opposes abortion eg, he is a former Reagan Democrat and once stated when in college that he feared gays in the military because he didn't want them 'looking at me in my underwear'. He has banned more progressives from his site, and has had huge exoduses by women, very small % of women and minorities from the site, than most other boards combined.

But hey, you're free to form your own opinion of what is progressive. People do it all the time. I actually think, airc, that it upsets kos to be called 'liberal'.

He has described himself as a 'Libertarian Democrat' and welcomes Libertarians on the site, in fact they seem to be more welcome than liberals. Most progressives know that DK is far from being a progressive site.

the anti-prog pogroms (progroms?) are pretty famous over there. or, infamous.

damn, it's been a long day. f'n righteous thread. thank you Sabrina!

at best. I tried it for about a month and haven't been back since. Your post explains why.

I seriously distrust both parties in this dust-up and I think they are all lying or distorting.

is that Kos used to be open about being a Libertarian and actually welcomed Ron Paul. He, kos, has a habit of changing positions on important matters sometimes overnight. So I never regarded him as a reliable on anything.

This I believe is the true kos Markos Moulitsas: The Case for the Libertarian Democrat trying to sell Democrats on Libertarianism. So to see him in a 'fight' with Ron Paul's son sort of made me laugh. If anything Paul's politics are much closer to Kos' than say, Ted Kennedy's. And he hates Kucinich with a passion.

All of this and more made me laugh when I saw the above post claim kos was a progressive. Simply not true. Nor has he tried to hide it or his disdain for 'liberals'.

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even though Rand Paul allowed his name to be used on the masthead of a virulently racist paper. Methinks Mr. Paul is not to careful with the embarrassing details.

This jury member needs lots more evidence from Mr. Paul and Mr. Kubica.

people *here* based upon frenzied accusations and witch hunts against people one disagrees with. I think there are paid trolls of all flavors here and all over the internet - this is nothing new. But calls for purging people just because one may disagree with them with is creepy. This is what happened yesterday.

For the record -I think Rand Paul is a liar and a moran.

early. I'd go back to the threads occasionally and just see more toxic waste. Really sad stuff.

"Creepy" is mild.

That's the point. And, that "sounds" snarky when I read it, and I didn't mean it that way.

also. At this point I would would have to go with an aquittal absent more evidence from the prosecution. That wrong email address cannot be overcome.

A simple solution however would be to look at Mr. Paul's computer history. If he was posting on Daily Kos it would be easy to see. If he was not he would have no problem with anyone looking at it.

More evidence is needed--I wonder if either side will be presenting some?

Regardless, yesterday on DU was horrible--accusations galore from both sides and no evidence, just toxic emotion. Not what I come to DU for. :scared:

This shit is getting old, big time.

Let the games begin! :rofl:

This Kos diary spells it all out, and is very compelling.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/9/9/900308/-Thomas-Kubicas-undeniable-Huey-Long-connections-%28updated%29

Sid

Evidence
Thomas Kubica's undeniable Huey Long connections (updated)

snip

In order to nail down Kubica's story, we first must find him online. The cache of his LinkedIn profile shows a Facebook profile link. That link is now defunct; however, searching for the link itself (the URL written as text on webpages) reveals this reply in a post written by a Dr. hfn.

The post by Dr. hfn is noteworthy in that it specifically mentions that it is "my homepage"; that is, Kubica's homepage is Dr. hfn's. Furthermore, if you look at this post, MRoCkEd quotes Dr. hfn but the blockquote shows "Originally posted by tkubic46". Therefore, Dr. hfn was once tkubic46. As seen in this off-site post detailing his request for sponsorship, Thomas Kubica is tkubic46, a conservative college student doing work in North Carolina and Kentucky. If you poke around ronpaulforums.com's Google caches, you can find many many private messages asking for the support of community from the person who is now Dr. hfn. Finally, in some posts Dr. hfn places the tomkbert gmail account as a way to contact him.

Thomas Kubica is Dr. hfn/tkubic46.

To connect Dr. hfn to the petition required a bit of creative googling and my good friend Reddit. A poster with the convenient name of tkubic46 had two submissions: a 10-month old entry on a female high school runner with the last name Kubica and a 4-month old entry leading to a ronpaulforums.com page that has been deleted. The deletion is not surprising, as posts by Dr. hfn that are months or years old were edited or deleted completely earlier today, as seen in the top post ("Last edited today" despite being written in Feb '09). It seems that most of the public work of Thomas Kubica is gone, even on other sites like campaignforliberty.com, which had a link to Thomas Kubica (aka Son of Liberty) that is now broken, with comments archived in Google by him deleted from the live version.

much more...

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/9/9/900308/-Thomas-Kubicas-undeniable-Huey-Long-connections-%28updated%29

It seems Mr. Kubica and 'friends' are busy scrubbing away, thank goodness for Google cache it seems!

depending on the ISP and if a proxy is being used. Also, it's not unheard of for people to travel. I've traveled and checked/sent emails from out of state locations--doesn't mean I live there.

Rand Paul ~ one commenter on a discussion board isn't going to change too many minds.

I try to point out their destructive messages whenever I can.