I filed a story this morning on Watching the Watchers about blogger Jerome Armstrong settling his stock-tout suit with the SEC:
Influential liberal blogger Jerome Armstrong, the founder of MyDD and an originator of the netroots movement, has agreed to pay $29,000 in fines and penalties to settle a 2003 SEC suit accusing him of touting a stock on Internet message boards without disclosing his financial interest in the company.
Some of my fellow liberals threw me under the bus for digging into the allegations last year, but it's the kind of ethical transgression we'd be all too happy to expose against someone with an "R" next to his name. Shilling stocks without disclosing your interest in the companies is a big deal.
The Twenty First Century Democrats, a group that gave Armstrong the Wellstone Award for Political Organizing in April, appear to agree. The group has removed all references to Armstrong from its web site, including his photo and the announcement of his award, which was cached by Google July 20.
