The Daily Kos

chimpburgers · Dec 12, 2015

The Daily Kos is a progressive website created by Markos Moulitsas back in 2002 and for the past few years, the quality of the website and articles has declined significantly and @Jaimas explained in one of the threads here about how one of the individuals closely involved with the site was caught lying and being in denial about it. Hopefully he can provide more details about it because I don't remember which thread it was, but I did like his take on it a lot.

It is a haven for misleading junk SJW articles like this or this by the self-proclaimed citizen journalist and doxxer Margaret Pless, who I am starting to think could be someone worth talking about on her own if she keeps going this path. She is also on Twitter and some other sites.

I'm no Brianna Wu expert nor do I follow that thread often, but I am sure there has to be some kind of spin to this article because one of the very first comments at the bottom goes like this:

If it was true, I still find this reaction from her to be kinda telling.

You can find more "diaries" from site contributors via the following link. I am sure there's also some pretty lulzy stuff you can find in here.

http://www.dailykos.com/diaries

I found this one by going through a couple of pages.

It's by a woman by the name of Sterling Waters and you can find the diary here.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/...ts-in-America-who-are-Male-Compared-to-Female

I am sure there's a lot more where that came from. One of the articles I was going to link here I also posted in the SJWs thread and it was by SJW YouTuber Kevin Logan, someone who has been mocked quite a lot on YouTube for the kinds of dumb shit that he writes and talks about. He seriously called that article "Taking Back Atheism from the Bigots" and it was really dumb all around but it's been taken down so I can't link it here anymore.

There is also this blog that was dedicated to talking about the other kinds of shit that the founder of The Daily Kos has pulled before. I don't know how much of this is accurate but it was one of the first things I was able to find in a Google search.

http://truth-about-kos.blogspot.com/

AnOminous · Dec 12, 2015

dollarhuviya said:
idlediletante

Dumb bitch misspells her own handle.

chimpburgers · Dec 12, 2015

AnOminous said:
Dumb bitch misspells her own handle.

I just noticed. There's more bullshit on her actual blog like this long spergy article about Sargon of Akkad and others.

Jaimas · Dec 13, 2015

Ages ago, DailyKos actually had a point, and for a goddamned long time, Dems flocked to the site. It was known for billing itself as a "reality based community," and was generally known for its open discussions. Yeah, you had sperging now and then, but it wasn't really the sort of shit you'd see super often.

Things started to change around 2009, when the site started to get an infestation of Social Justice Warriors, at which point we started to get threads that were openly racist and sexist (whilst trying to change the Overton Window so that only one race and gender could be guilty of sexism and racism, of course). They got in the door because the rest of the userbase was tolerant, and didn't have any reason to think these people meant ill. Even I didn't pick up on this, and I really should have, seeing that it's exactly what the fuck happened in the right with their crazies.

As time went on, that quickly changed as these people started to gain more and more control in the community. It wasn't long at all before so much as disagreeing with one of them was enough to catch a flurry of hide-rates, and by 2012, the community had such a large infestation of the damned things that it had become just as intolerant and aggressive as the Tea Party followers we used to mock.

Credit where credit's due, we survived longer than the fucking Huffington Post did.

Long story short, though: We had become what we hated. Our community was full of proud-to-be-brainwashed dolts who embraced bad information and would ignore facts that were inconvenient. Intelligent discussion became less-important than marching in lockstep, and by 2013, our loudest shreds of the userbase were indistinguishable from being a left-wing version of Redstate, only impossibly with even less dignity. We now had posts openly declaring that it's okay to be racist and sexist as long as you hated whitey enough. The alarmist content on the site ramped up, too - suddenly everything was a crisis and now every single thing that happened was something to be terrified over.

Calling this out was frowned upon, if not outright discouraged by people who would harass and brigade your comments. It's like we suddenly had Reddit's notorious SRS in our backyards. This is when I started to ratchet down my own showings, only to periodically pop out, drop a few comments, then fuck off. The atmosphere had changed as well; from one where people were engaged and trying to help from where people were terrified of being seen as problematic and self-censoring, often under threats from Social Justice Warriors.

Key to my departing DK entirely, however, were shitheads like this odious motherfucker:

Margaret Pless, shown here trying to turn Gregory Elliot, a man literally on trial for disagreeing with feminists, most notably a woman who knowingly lied in order to get this case to trial (and who's gotten him prevented from using the Internet for three years), and who just turned him crowdfunding his own legal defense into an misogynistic monster who is making mad bank by cyberstalking and cyberharassing women.

Every single fucking thing Pless writes is like this, and she's the perfect example of what DailyKos is now. A virulent asshole, completely bereft of remorse and openly willing to sink to any depth to push an agenda. This shit's a pretty gentle example of her work; the worst ones are when she blames Gamergate for mass shootings.

She has zero shame.

Pless struggles to get double-digit likes with each post now, but there's literally nothing you can do to stop people like her from lying openly with every single thing she and her associates write. Even if you outright disprove anything they say, prepare yourself for a barrage of the most entitled, idiotic, insane responses you will ever see, as they proudly declare they didn't read your post and don't need evidence to substantiate claims. They carry themselves like religious fundamentalists.

Sadly, this sort of activity has spread, to the point where you now have site Admins openly clickbaiting with stories that are complete fucking fabrications. It's driven the veteran userbase away in droves and the only ones that haven't fled are either sniping away in internet guerilla war ( :jace:

) or have chugged the Kool-Aid and are now part of the same clique of true believers.

They do not tolerate dissent and indeed, do not brook any distance whatsoever from the narrative. Indeed, if you dare question or criticize, you are likely to be treated as an accessory to wrongthink and threatened outright that if you don't toe the line, they'll push to have you suspended or banned. Let's just say that Cenk Ugyur's incandescent idiocy didn't happen in a vacuum here.

ActualKiwi · Dec 13, 2015

@dollarhuviya So seems like that Sterling Waters has some pretty serious man-hate going on? Do we have any more details on her particular brand of crazy, or is she just a standard rad-fem?

chimpburgers · Dec 13, 2015

ActualKiwi said:
@dollarhuviya So seems like that Sterling Waters has some pretty serious man-hate going on? Do we have any more details on her particular brand of crazy, or is she just a standard rad-fem?

I haven't looked into her much yet. I only saw that one really dumb post from her but if you find any more interesting shit from her, feel free to post it.

ActualKiwi · Dec 13, 2015

dollarhuviya said:
I haven't looked into her much yet. I only saw that one really dumb post from her but if you find any more interesting shit from her, feel free to post it.

One of her "diaries" goes on about corporates pushing the image of bad guys onto children via star wars merch.. *sigh*

Not sure if she has cohesive beliefs and ideas or just spouts random stuff at this point.

JU 199 · Dec 13, 2015

Ah, the daily kos. One of my favorite personal cows

An article about Jace before the reveal

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/...Mother-s-Prius-en-route-to-Brianna-Wu-s-House

Content Warning: a lot of unintelligible high-pitched swearing and whining.

Yesterday afternoon, #gamergate proponent and mentally unstable YouTube personality Jace Connors sent Brianna Wu avideo of himself screaming unintelligibly at a flipped-over Prius on the side of the highway, trying to kick in its windshield.

Connors had been "street racing" en route to Wu's residence, with at least one firearm in the car. As a result of his aggressive driving Connors flew off the road, flipped the Prius and filmed this meltdown video.

Connors has a history of unstable behavior as documented in his Youtube Channel, like this one, where he talks about sending a friend to Israel on a mission to save Tupac Shakur, who was murdered in 1996.

Connors was in contact with #gamergate big names King of Pol and Ralph Retort as recently as yesterday.

Some think this is a troll video. Wu believes that Connors meant to shoot her if he had made it to Boston.

I think that this video is genuine despite its over-the-top rage and conspiratorial allegations. Jace Connors is certainly unstable enough to do such a thing; and who would crash a car on a busy highway as a joke? So whether or not Jace's authentic-sounding video freak out could possibly be construed as satire is beside the point.

Additionally, Connors is hardly a safe driver: he was He was sending messages via Skype in his car at 2pm on Friday, enlisting help for his upcoming trip to Wu's residence.

The video itself was filmed in the mid-to-late afternoon, consistent with the timestamps in the Skype messages. It's a blessing that the car skidded on the ice and stranded Connors without anybody getting seriously injured.

As of 2pm Saturday Brianna Wu said she was in contact with law enforcement re: the unstable gunman currently threatening (and acting) to kill her.

Edit: fixed an image link.

ActualKiwi · Dec 13, 2015

Ass Manager 3000 said:
Ah, the daily kos. One of my favorite personal cows

An article about Jace before the reveal

View attachment 62948
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/...Mother-s-Prius-en-route-to-Brianna-Wu-s-House

View attachment 62949

I don't get how some of the people in the second article seem to think "tire spin" is a wanted thing in street racing..quite the opposite, generally, tire spin is lost time and acceleration..

The first story though...Jace is one paranoid sonovabitch isn't he?

JU 199 · Dec 13, 2015

ActualKiwi said:
The first story though...Jace is one paranoid sonovabitch isn't he?

Isn't he just, the commander was violent too!

(from the same article about jace )

AnOminous · Dec 13, 2015

Ass Manager 3000 said:
Ah, the daily kos. One of my favorite personal cows

An article about Jace before the reveal

View attachment 62948
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/...Mother-s-Prius-en-route-to-Brianna-Wu-s-House

Also the repulsive Margaret Pless.

Ass Manager 3000 said:
Isn't he just, the commander was violent too!

(from the same article about jace )
View attachment 62951

As everyone knows, Jace not only didn't have a gun but even his knife was a clearly fake plastic replica.

:jaceknife:

JU 199 · Dec 13, 2015

A follow up article after the reveal

Nearly a month after I reported on the manic YouTube personality "Jace Connors" wrecking his car en route to Brianna Wu's house, the self-declared Commander and Former Future Marine famous for making delusional videos now claims he really is Jan Rankowski, and that his numerous deranged YouTube videos were some kind of sleeper-cell sketch comedy routine to prank #gamergate. Also, Rankowski says he just happened to wreck his Prius and film a screeching meltdown about it; and his persecutory delusion that Brianna Wu had sent snipers after him was like, satire, or something.

As Rankowski claimed to Buzzfeed, his comedic intent was to satirize “the over-the-top, super-hyper-macho armed GamerGater” by posting countless delusional videos with knives, starting a year and a half before #gamergate was even conceived of. Rankowski went on to claim he's a part of Million Dollar Extreme, a shoestring, millenial YouTube production company which shares Rankowski's 'mature' sense of humor.

Now, facing harassment from #gamergate and legal consequences from Brianna Wu, Rankowski claims it was just a prank that got out of hand, and that #gamergate knew he was kidding:

“They realized I was making fun of them with those videos,” Rankowski said. “I started it as a joke, but it’s become far too real and I wish I could take it all back.”

Click to expand...

According to Rankowsky/Connors, he ad-libbed the screeching meltdown next to his wrecked car, and also the subsequent interview he did with #gamergate talking heads King of Pol and The Ralph Retort; and also anything else he said or did which could be perceived as a threat to Wu's life.

We're actually supposed to believe that Rankowsky was was doing some kind of comedy long con, like an episode of "Punk'd", except that instead of misleading someone for an hour you do it for two years running, without Ashton Kutcher ever letting the audience in on the joke.

Essentially, Rankowsky pretended to be a mentally-ill gamer dude, and it was up to the audience to discern that he was an over-the-top troll whose weapons were Airsoft and whose knives were "plastic-looking". Joseph Bernstein, reporting for Buzzfeed, basically gave Rankowsky a pass with regards to his 'comedy'; spending about half his article length tsk-tsking anyone who took this fellow seriously.

It was as if every shitty thing on the internet — every crummy and déclassé opinion, hobby, and identity — converged on one man. It was almost too bad to be true.
And of course, in our age of the viral hoax, it was.Connors/Rankowsky claimed to Buzzfeed that this sociopathic game of his stopped being funny when real #gamergate vigilantes from 8chan and Kiwi Farm traced the Jace Connors "character" back to his actual identity and started sending pizzas to his house and calling his high school (i.e. the standard baphomet treatment.)
Joesph Bernstein, ate Rankowski's story up uncritically.

However, I can't find any evidence that Rankowski/Connors/"The Commander" worked for Million Dollar Extreme. He doesn't seem to appear in any of their 100+ uploads or appear on their Facebook or Youtube About pages under any name. They've linked to Rankowsky's live stream since the story broke on Buzzfeed, but never explictly state Rankoswky was working for them or take responsibility for this project/prank/long con of his. Since MDE has no contact email I tweeted them for a clarification. At press time, MDE wrote back:

Buzzfeed, The Verge, Ars Technica and several other sites have picked up the story, seemingly agreeing Rankowski is a "gamergate troll", "parody character", or "trolling sketch comedian", whose actions amounted to nothing more than a "terrible hoax." The Portland Press Herald simply called it a "controversial gamergate video", before sympathetically seguing to Rankowski's history of Asperger's Syndrome and childhood desire to be a filmmaker.

4/5 of the articles I just mentioned were written by men, by the way. The Sams, Josephs, Chrises, and Rays of the world seem eager to tell me that this Jan Rankowski guy is just not a big deal.

Brianna Wu, the means to the end of Rankowski's alleged "prank" on #gamergate, commented to Jezebel yesterday:

"If this person thinks they can throw up their hands and say, 'Woah, woah this is just a joke, people, I'm sorry,' this isn't Grand Theft Auto. You can't threaten to murder people and think there are no consequences and you can take it back. My suggestion to him is to lawyer up."

Click to expand...

Edit: MDE responded to my tweet just after I went to press. Their comments were enlightening, by which I mean they told me to mind my own business.

Edit 2: The good folks on Reddit have found MDE videos in which Jan appears (skip to 4:2 andmentions of him on the MDE Facebook. How this legitimizes Jace as some kind of troll prankster is still unclear.

The poll (keep in mind, this was after he was outed)

chimpburgers · Dec 13, 2015

Ass Manager 3000 said:
A follow up article after the reveal

View attachment 62985

The poll (keep in mind, this was after he was outed)

View attachment 62986

I can't even describe how great this is. Lol.

JU 199 · Dec 18, 2015

In this thread, kosaks complain about website changes
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/...n-More-Than-a-Month-Why-Isn-t-DK-5-Any-Better

While I’m cranky, I’m really writing this out of love. The love I have for Daily Kos, the people who inhabit its pages, and the solidarity I feel here among kindred spirits. I’m writing because I’m spending far less time here than I normally do because the problems I experience have been overwhelming. I’m writing because I’d love to spend more time writing stories, letting people know what’s going on, and even writing comments, but it’s just too damn hard now.

@Jaimas What do you think man?

Shokew · Dec 18, 2015

*Sigh* Oh dear - this news site... I would read their articles quite a lot. Too bad the only real draw were the comments - some seemed like they knew what they were talking about; and most didn't. Not to mention the extreme left bias of the articles themselves. Yeah... No.

Just hearing that SJWs have infested the site long before catching wind of it only worsens things for me.

It's hard to find good news that isn't biased these days, ain't it? *Sigh*

chimpburgers · Dec 18, 2015

Ass Manager 3000 said:
In this thread, kosaks complain about website changes
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/...n-More-Than-a-Month-Why-Isn-t-DK-5-Any-Better

View attachment 63794

View attachment 63795

View attachment 63796

View attachment 63797

View attachment 63798

@Jaimas What do you think man?

Thanks for bumping the thread. I was worried it had died already, but this is pretty fucking significant to me.

Jaimas · Dec 18, 2015

Ass Manager 3000 said:
In this thread, kosaks complain about website changes
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/...n-More-Than-a-Month-Why-Isn-t-DK-5-Any-Better

View attachment 63794

View attachment 63795

View attachment 63796

View attachment 63797

View attachment 63798

@Jaimas What do you think man?

Kos has been an insufferable faggot for almost a decade, and almost everyone in the old guard who remembers when the site wasn't a bag of dicks wrapped in Social Justice minge openly recognizes it. Remember how the chans used to treat their admin staff, as someone to be respected only if they'd earned it? That was how DailyKos was when it was good. People called Kos out for being a shit constantly.

I remember back in 2008, he did this faggotry where he was shrieking about the need to back Hillary after it became mathematically impossible for her to win the nomination. He also did a lengthy DISABLE ADBLOCK IF YOU SUPPORT DKOS thing that was mocked about as heavily as DSP's beloved "IF YOU USE ADBLOCK YOU ARE LITERALLY STEALING FROM ME" nonsense was.

Good times.

Nowadays of course he's synonymous with open clickbaiting and lies as readily as Pless and friends. Here he is claiming a Breitbart reporter was arrested (they weren't), and ignoring that the individual arrested was a DailyKos user:

Lie moar, asshole.

Fact is, Kos was an SJW before such terms were known to us. As such, DailyKos is suffering the same thing that happens to any site entirely occupied by Social Justice lunacy: It loses its entrenched userbase, and subsequently, money along with it. These sites are not profitable. Nobody wants progressive stack media that bitches endlessly about the same shit - Dems don't want it, Repubs don't want it, and you're hard-pressed to find someone of value who does want it.

A friend recently informed me that DailyKos has been locking down attempts to get Sanders in over Clinton, despite the fact that he has about three times the support which wouldn't surprise me if it was true because the mainstream press is already doing that. Fact is, DailyKos signed its own death warrant by jumping on the Social Justice bandwagon and once the train crashes we'll be able to harvest more salt than is probably healthy for beast or man.

JU 199 · Dec 18, 2015

Jaimas said:
Kos has been an insufferable faggot for almost a decade, and almost everyone in the old guard who remembers when the site wasn't a bag of dicks wrapped in Social Justice minge openly recognizes it. Remember how the chans used to treat their admin staff, as someone to be respected only if they'd earned it? That was how DailyKos was when it was good. People called Kos out for being a shit constantly.

I remember back in 2008, he did this faggotry where he was shrieking about the need to back Hillary after it became mathematically impossible for her to win the nomination. He also did a lengthy DISABLE ADBLOCK IF YOU SUPPORT DKOS thing that was mocked about as heavily as DSP's beloved "IF YOU USE ADBLOCK YOU ARE LITERALLY STEALING FROM ME" nonsense was.

Good times.

Nowadays of course he's synonymous with open clickbaiting and lies as readily as Pless and friends. Here he is claiming a Breitbart reporter was arrested (they weren't), and ignoring that the individual arrested was a DailyKos user:

Lie moar, asshole.

Fact is, Kos was an SJW before such terms were known to us. As such, DailyKos is suffering the same thing that happens to any site entirely occupied by Social Justice lunacy: It loses its entrenched userbase, and subsequently, money along with it. These sites are not profitable. Nobody wants progressive stack media that bitches endlessly about the same shit - Dems don't want it, Repubs don't want it, and you're hard-pressed to find someone of value who does want it.

A friend recently informed me that DailyKos has been locking down attempts to get Sanders in over Clinton, despite the fact that he has about three times the support which wouldn't surprise me if it was true because the mainstream press is already doing that. Fact is, DailyKos signed its own death warrant by jumping on the Social Justice bandwagon and once the train crashes we'll be able to harvest more salt than is probably healthy for beast or man.

Yeah the whole site is tainted with salt and I'm sure when it sinks we'll get some tasty drama. Markos is such a notorious shit, even people who don't regular Dk, its competitors or the political opposition know about him. It's amazing.

found this gem-

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/...r-old-s-observations-on-the-Republican-debate

Yes, this is really an article.

"Mama, are these people trying to destroy the country?" (I promise that I did not say anything to invoke this reaction. My partner may or may not have yelled something to that effect as I turned the debate on).

My 5 year old daughter decided to sit through the Republican debate for some unknown reason. I transcribed her observations verbatim and present them here for your enjoyment.

"Mama, are these people trying to destroy the country?" (I promise that I did not say anything to invoke this reaction. My partner may or may not have yelled something to that effect as I turned the debate on).

On Ted Cruz: "I like that guy's face. It's beautiful."

On Marco Rubio: "why are his eyes so fierce mama? He looks angry."

On Scott Walker: "why does he look just like the guy with angry eyes?"

On Ben Carson: "Is that plane his? Is he President Reagan?" (The only President in her lifetime is African American so this makes sense to her.)

On Trump: "His face is too scary. His hair is too scary and his eyes are too fierce."

On Rand Paul: "He looks too silly!"

On Huckabee: "He's scary too".

"Why are they all so scary?"

On Ted Cruz: "now he looks like he's going to cry".

On Ted Cruz: "now he IS crying. Was he born like that?"

On Ben Carson: "He is a beautiful brown. I like him."

On Jeb!: "His hair is too pointy that way. Flat and pointy. How does he do that?" (gestures to the left)

On Scott Walker: "Who is he angry at? No one should be that angry. Why do so many of them look just alike?"

On Fiorina: "she's the prettiest. Is she married to the African American man? I like her hair. She has earrings and pink sparkling lipstick... But still her eyes are fierce."

On Kaisich: "Uh... Uh... Why is he shiny? I like a lot of 'em, but not that guy."

On Christie "His mouth is too small for his face. He might be nice. But maybe not."

Then "hee haw, hee haw." (I didn't know she knew the animal symbols for the parties, and then to associate the animal with the sound-- Very interesting punditry on her part.)

Finally, she said "I like President Obama best. He's my president."

And there you have it... A child's eye view of the debate.

Update: My daughter is awake this morning and enjoyed reading your comments. She said that she had another observation to add about Ben Carson. She said, "Mama, I don't remember exactly what he said, but he said a nice thing in a nice way when everyone else was so mean." I asked if it was about vaccines, and she said, "No, that was just silly."

Comments 261 / 261 Recommend 358