Mike Stark is an American reporter, blogger, political activist, computer programmer/developer, and graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law. His work often appears at StarkReports.com, The Huffington Post , Daily Kos and several other group-blogs. He was a panelist at the 2006 and 2007 Yearly Kos conventions. [1] [2] [3]
Mike Stark briefly worked for Matrix Intermedia Corporation (circa 2002) as a back-end developer for a proprietary content management system under the guidance of Alan Evans, Brenda Meltz-Helm, and Jeremy Bailey. Mr. Stark left the company later that same year to pursue his goal of obtaining a Juris Doctor degree.
Using his former blog, CallingAllWingnuts.com, as an organizing tool, Stark recruited a team of individuals willing to volunteer time calling into various conservative radio shows. [4] The first call-in campaign was directed at Bill O'Reilly's Radio Factor. It was a response to O'Reilly's creation of a petition on his website that called for the replacement of Keith Olbermann and cancellation of his show, Countdown with Keith Olbermann . Stark encouraged callers to tell O'Reilly how much they enjoyed Olbermann's television show. Over the course of the week, approximately 15 callers that Stark recruited were put on the air with O'Reilly.[ citation needed ] As they mentioned Olbermann's name, they were disconnected by the host, with O'Reilly threatening to send the number to "Fox security" to contact "local authorities" if they say anything "obscene or untoward." [5]
In August 2006, in the immediate aftermath of George Allen's macaca incident, Stark attended a Chamber of Commerce luncheon in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Senator Allen was the featured speaker. At the conclusion of the Senator's speech, Stark approached the Senator and asked, "Senator Allen, given what's been in the news, some of the law students are wondering... have you ever used the word 'nigger'?"
Allen responded, "What? No..."
Stark pressed, "Never in your life?"
Allen replied, "No... No."
Stark continued, "Well, can you explain the confederate flag and the noose you kept in your office?"
Eventually Allen's staff had Stark ejected from the hotel premises and the rest of the Senator's campaign events scheduled for that day were canceled.
Stark posted the audio of the exchange at his blog.
Two months later, on October 31, 2006, Stark attended another campaign rally and asked Allen about the senator's arrest record and prevailing rumors of prior spousal abuse. A widely seen video that aired on national news programs showed Allen's campaign staffers wrestling Stark to the ground after Stark asked the Senator, "Senator Allen: did you spit on your first wife?" [6] Later that day Stark filed a complaint with the local police department, [7] [8] which served search warrants to local TV stations who had recorded the incident. [9] After review, the commonwealth's attorney decided not to charge anyone, but noted that Stark had the right to bring evidence before a magistrate. [10] Through April 2007, Stark has not chosen to do so.
Several days later, Stark was briefly detained and handcuffed, but not arrested, at another Allen rally after an Allen supporter claimed Stark pushed him to the ground. [11]
"Wingnuts" is a neologism referring to far-right conservatives. Allen's campaign noted that the Calling All Wingnuts blog is subtitled Kickin' ass on the lyin' side: A never-ending battle against stupid, ugly, deceitful and corrupt right-wing water carriers. [12]
Stark has also drawn attention for his support of anonymous blogger Spocko in his efforts to bring what he called "violent commentary" on San Francisco area radio station KSFO to the attention of its advertisers. [13] In an interview on CNN's Reliable Sources on the topic in January 2007, Stark described himself as a "champion of the First Amendment.
In the summer of 2007, Bill O'Reilly sent a film crew to confront JetBlue CEO David Barger outside his apartment regarding JetBlue's sponsorship of the YearlyKos convention. O'Reilly drew criticism for approaching a private citizen at his home.
Stark responded by confronting O'Reilly outside his home. He distributed copies of O'Reilly's sexual harassment lawsuit to O'Reilly's neighbors, and put up signs that read "Bill O'Reilly: LIAR", "Bill O'Reilly: PERVERT", and "Bill O'Reilly: CAN'T BE TRUSTED WITH YOUR DAUGHTERS" in his neighborhood. Later that morning, Stark approached the television and radio show host as he retrieved his newspaper. A journalist that accompanied Stark took pictures and video. [14] Stark's action drew both praise and criticism in the blogging world, and earned him the title of "Worser Person in the World" on Olbermann's TV show. [15]
In October 2018, Stark was arrested and charged with battery after assaulting the campaign manager, Kristin Davison, of Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt, who at the time was running for Governor. Stark was accused of grabbing Davison's arm and twisting it behind her back as she yelled "Stop hurting me!" Stark was working for the liberal super PAC American Bridge 21st Century at the time. [16] Earlier that year, Stark had been charged with assault for allegedly using his body to push a top aide, Heather Swift, to the United States Department of the Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke outside a congressional hearing. Stark and American Bridge denied the assault. However, Stark spent a night in jail over the incident.
In 2017, Stark was arrested during an incident at a parade in Fairfax County, Virginia. The video of the violent arrest spread quickly online. Stark was trying to confront then-Republican gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie at the October 2017 parade. In February 2018, Stark was initially found guilty of misdemeanor disorderly conduct and fined $500. A charge of fleeing police was dismissed. Stark appealed his municipal court conviction, and, in exchange for agreeing to forgo litigation against the county, police, or any of its subsidiaries, all charges were dismissed. [17]
Keith Theodore Olbermann is an American sports and political commentator and writer. Olbermann spent the first 20 years of his career in sports journalism. He was a sports correspondent for CNN and for local TV and radio stations in the 1980s, winning the Best Sportscaster award from the California Associated Press three times. He co-hosted ESPN's SportsCenter from 1992 to 1997. From 1998 to 2001, he was a producer and anchor for Fox Sports Net and a host for Fox Sports' coverage of Major League Baseball.
Daily Kos is a group blog and internet forum focused on the U.S. Democratic Party and progressive liberal American politics. The site publishes blog posts, polls, election and campaign fundraising data, and is considered an example of "netroots" activism.
Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, often known by his username and former military nickname "Kos", is an American blogger who is the founder and publisher of Daily Kos, a blog focusing on liberal and Democratic Party politics in the United States. He co-founded SB Nation, a collection of sports blogs, which is now a part of Vox Media.
Following a crackdown on Iranian media beginning in 2000, many Iranians turned to weblogging to provide and find political news. The first Persian language blog is thought to have been created by Hossein Derakhshan,, in 2001. Derakhshan also provided readers with a simple instruction manual in Persian on how to start a blog. In 2004, a census of blogs around the world by the NITLE found 64,000 Persian language blogs. In that year the Islamic government also began to arrest and charge bloggers as political dissidents and by 2005 dozens of bloggers had been arrested.
Countdown with Keith Olbermann is a weekday podcast that originated as an hour-long weeknight news and political commentary program hosted by Keith Olbermann that aired on MSNBC from 2003 to 2011 and on Current TV from 2011 to 2012. The show presented five selected news stories of the day, with commentary by Olbermann and interviews of guests. At the start of Countdown, Olbermann told television columnist Lisa de Moraes:
Our charge for the immediate future is to stay out of the way of the news. ... News is the news. We will not be screwing around with it. ... As times improve and the war [in Iraq] ends we will begin to introduce more and more elements familiar to my style.
MyDD was the first large collaborative politically progressive American politics blog. It was established by Jerome Armstrong in 2001. Its name was originally short for "My Due Diligence." In 2005, MyDD was profiled in Campaigns and Elections magazine, crediting the site with being "the first major liberal blog." In January 2006, the name was changed to "My Direct Democracy" as part of a site redesign, with the new tagline "Direct Democracy for People-Powered Politics."
Andrew John Clyde Landeryou is an Australian former political blogger. He is the widower of Victorian Senator Kimberley Kitching.
Netroots is a term coined in 2002 by Jerome Armstrong to describe political activism organized through blogs and other online media, including wikis and social network services. The word is a portmanteau of Internet and grassroots, reflecting the technological innovations that set netroots techniques apart from other forms of political participation. In the United States, the term is used mainly in left-leaning circles.
Brian Jay Sussman is an American conservative talk radio host and former meteorologist in the San Francisco Bay Area who was most recently at San Francisco radio station KSFO.
KSFO is a commercial radio station in San Francisco, California. It is owned by Cumulus Media and airs a talk radio format. The station's studios and offices are on Battery Street in San Francisco, along with five other Bay Area Cumulus stations.
Firedoglake was an American collaborative blog that described itself as a "leading progressive news site, online community, and action organization". Established by film producer Jane Hamsher in 2004, Firedoglake served as a platform for Hamsher, other writers and commenters to engage in debate and activism. Hamsher shut down Firedoglake on August 1, 2015, citing health reasons, and announced that all posts would be archived at the Shadowproof website, which was launched that year by former staff members. Shadowproof describes itself as "a press organization driven to expose systemic abuses of power in business and government while developing a model for independent journalism that supports a diverse range of young freelance writers and contributors."
Melanie Morgan is an American radio personality, formerly with KSFO in San Francisco, where her husband, Jack Swanson, was VP of News and Programming. She was laid off from KSFO due to budget cutbacks and declining ad revenue, returned to host the morning show, then once more left the station as of July 10, 2013. She has also previously worked as a reporter for KGO-TV in San Francisco. She is the Chairman of Move America Forward, a non-partisan, non-profit, charitable organization that supports the U.S. armed forces and their missions in the War on Terrorism. She is known for her advocacy on behalf of the American military, defense of the War on Terror and criticism of American liberals.
Political repression of cyber-dissidents is the oppression or persecution of people for expressing their political views on the Internet.
Protein Wisdom is a libertarian weblog created by former academic and sometime fiction writer Jeff Goldstein—a self-described classical liberal.
American political commentator Bill O'Reilly regularly expresses his points of view on a wide variety of political, social, and moral issues. He has personally labeled his political philosophy traditionalism. The O'Reilly Factor, since its inception on the Fox News Channel in 1996, has been the primary outlet of his opinions. O'Reilly started his own radio program, The Radio Factor, a few years later. He has also written several non-fiction books detailing some of his beliefs. O'Reilly generally leans to the right on most issues, most notably the Bush administration's War on Terror, but breaks from the conservative and Republican majority on such issues as the global warming controversy, gun control, gay marriage and the death penalty.
Edward Morrissey is an American conservative blogger, columnist, motivational speaker, and talk show host. He goes by the nickname Captain Ed and he lives in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota. He wrote his original blog, "Captain's Quarters", from October 2003 to February 2008. He now works full-time as a blogger for Hot Air. and writes a column for The Week. He also participates in Bloggingheads.tv
Michael Rogers is an American fundraiser, blogger and gay rights activist. He is vice chairman of Raw Story Media, Inc., co-owner of Alternet Media, and founder and Director of Netroots Connect. He is also known for his work in reporting on closeted gay politicians who are anti-gay. He was the subject of the 2009 American documentary film Outrage.
On June 11, 2007, Larry Craig, a Republican United States Senator from Idaho, was arrested for lewd conduct in a men's restroom at the Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport. On August 8, Craig entered a guilty plea to a lesser charge of disorderly conduct.
The controversies of the 2006 United States Senate election in Virginia involved both Republican incumbent senator George Allen and Democratic opponent Jim Webb. However, a majority of these controversies negatively impacted Allen and are believed to have contributed to his defeat in the November election.