Remember when folks were "up-in-arms" after learning that the Bush administration paid prominent political commentator Armstrong Williams $240,000 to promote 'No Child Left Behind' legislation? It turns out that a handful of liberal bloggers pulled in some decent cash this past year from various political campaigns as consultants, while maintaining their "independent" blogs. Case in point: Jerome Armstrong (MyDD) made $115,000+ from Sherrod Brown (over 15 months) and $65,000 from Mark Warner (over 12 months). Turns out Armstrong admitted this week that he has been writing on his blog under various aliases -- including 'Scott Shields.' 'Shields' received payments from the Robert Menendez campaign.
posted by ericb on Dec 8, 2006 - 57 comments

It's an interesting week in British politics (and not just because of Hutton). On Tuesday evening, British MP (and noted blogger) Tom Watson raised the subject of RFID tags in a House of Commons debate (text here) - as a result of being alerted to the threat to civil liberties by fellow bloggers. Indeed, he even talked about his website in the chamber. Can blogs continue to affect British democracy? Quite possibly...
posted by ascullion on Jan 28, 2004 - 0 comments