Armando Meltdown

As some predicted, it didn't take long for Armando of dkos to completely meltdown and go scurrying off to his corner with his blanket and cry. He was recently exposed as a corporate attorney for Wal-Mart pushing their agenda on the front pages of Dailykos. He had early protested in his typically profane ridden way about requests for front pagers to offer some disclosure - now that reluctance is obvious.

Well then (11+ / 0-)
You know who KOS is right? He knows who WE are.

And he feels comfortable publishing us.

So how the f uck is it your business then.

Do you trust kos or not is the question isn't it?

Here's the solution, don't read us. Leave. Now.

by Armando on Tue Mar 28, 2006 at 10:23:49 AM EDT

I wouldn't normally weigh into this garbage but the hypocrisy got to me. Today Armando wrote a piece at his own blog and in it he had this to say

But it was no secret that I wished to insure that my personal information was not published. And it is an instant bannable offense at daily kos to reveal personal information.

Really ? A bannable offense ? I guess only when it suits. kos himself did his little hit piece on the front page here, and the poster of the hit piece he links to is still writing at dkos, in fact Armando himself even weighs into it too.

The animosity and the roots of this issue can be found here where I confronted kos on his flip flop on Hackett and the whole payola he and Armstrong had going on. The payola is still on going, this time with Mark Warner - for a DLC candidate like Warner to get so much love from the supposedly DLC hating kos and Armstrong is well, funny until you consider the money involved. I may have been one of the first to notice, but certainly not the last.

I am left wondering if kos knew who Armando really was and what his professional agenda might be.

My only real regret from all this is that I didn't break the story when the Armando oppo was leaked to me in an effort to shop it around. I guess at the time I didn't see much relevance to it and Ohio, and I'm not a big enough traffic whore to just put it out there - but for those interested check the extended section

This is strictly off the record, but I thought this might interest you.

"Armando" or Armando Llorens-Sar has been described as a "top lieutenant" to daily kos creator Markos Moulitsas ZFAniga. Last year, while Zuniga took some time off to write his book, he appointed to Llorens-Sar to fill in for him as the "frontpage" author of of the site. Llorens-Sar is still a regular contributor and is still listed as one of the site's 12 authors. http://www.dailykos.com/contactus

The problem is that Daily Kos's has never disclosed that Llorens-Sar is a corporate attorney for a firm, McConnell-Valdes, that boasts on its web site of serving not only corporations, but over half of the largest 100 corporations in the United States. Many of these corporations are perenial members of the "worst corporations" lists put out by progressive groups. This firm defends corporations in law suits for everything
imaginable, including environmental, product liability, and discrimination.
The firm even has a lobbying department for, well, corporate special interests.

Of special interest to me is that McConnell-Valdes -- and Llorens-Sar specifically -- represented Walmart during a fierce legal battle to prevent Walmart from opening stores in Puerto Rico. (Source: Puerto Rico Opposes Walmart, Amigo http://www.global-competition.com/headlnes/headlnes.htm )

There are several instances, including his articles urging support of the Supreme Court's Kelo v. City of New London decision, where Llorens-Sar took the position of most large corporations, but failed to disclose that he is attorney that almost exclusively represents large corporations. Before his pro-Kelo arguments, the entire Kos community was almost in uniformly in opposition to Kelo because of fears that it would further empower large corporations. Here are few from excerpts from Armando on Kelo:

*"Consider their reaction to the Kelo case, a decision much *
*misunderstood* * by the Left. While the disdain from the Left was based on the belief that the Kelo decision created an opportunity for corporations to take advantage of the "little guy," the Right saw it a question of economic rights, indeed, as ** Jack
Balkin* *described it, the creation of substantive due process protection for economic rights."*
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/3/132924/683

*"For example, in the discussions I've seen of the Kelo case on eminent domain, the frame of the discussion was not whether the decision is correct as a matter of Constitutional law, and I must say that, to me, there is little doubt the majority is correct, but rather on whether it helps big corporations. That simply is not the correct way to evaluate a court decision. That is what the Save Terri Schiavo people wanted."*
**
*"I believe that the Majority properly applied existing jurisprudence in a principled AND properly progressive way."*
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/6/25/163924/738
Also of interest is that these Kelo articles in question was during the time that Armando was "filling in" for Markos and was posting his articles in a official capacity as temporary head of dkos.

Anyway, I hope you use this. Here are some additional source links:
http://slata.stanford.edu/ConferenceArchive/law_and_technology_2005/speakers.htm
http://mcconnellvaldes.lawoffice.com/CM/Custom/TOCOurClients.asp
http://www.majorityreportradio.com/weblog/archives/2005_01.php
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId3D4978243

Thanks