Matt Drudge is reporting that Jerome Armstrong, who co-authored a book with Markos Moulitsis of Daily Kos, has been fined nearly $30,000 for illegal stock touting.

If that is all there was to this story, you could simply chalk it up as one more example of lefitist hypocrisy. But the background to this tale includes Armstrong's beginnings as an astrologer who predicted the stock market as well as political races based on the pseudo-science while touting specific stocks without disclosing the fact that the companies whose stocks he was pushing were paying him to do so.

This leading light of the netroots is either a blithering idiot who believes in astrology or a monumental fake who took people's money for "readings" all the while knowing he was conning them.

For some good background on this unbelievable story involving one of the most powerful voices of the netroots, Dan Riehl has the story from last year as well as thoughts on the current controversy.