Billmon

Billmon is the pseudonym of an American blogger who wrote commentary on various political and economic issues of the day from a left-wing perspective. His blog was called Whiskey Bar.[1]

Career as a blogger

Billmon was one of the earliest participants at DailyKos. His own blog, Whiskey Bar, came into being in the aftermath of the American invasion of Iraq in the spring of 2003. The actual name of the blog Whiskey Bar is taken from a line from Bertolt Brecht's "Alabama Song," quoted at the top of the blog.[2]

In the following 12 months, Billmon established himself as one of the leading bloggers on the left. He wrote extended pieces on domestic politics, the Iraq war, and the US economy. Billmon's previous incarnation as a financial journalist gave him a distinct advantage when he posted on economic matters, as this was an area not well-covered by most political bloggers. The 2003 Koufax Awards gave Billmon more recognition in the blogosphere and are named after Sandy Koufax, a famous baseball player and a left-handed pitcher. In 2003, Billmon won three Koufax awards, for Best Writing, Best Post and Best New Blog. His writing was described by the judges as "clear, concise, insightful".[3] Billmon's own response to this description was as follows: "Clear? I'd like to think so. Insightful? Is always in the eye of the beholder. Concise? Not even close."

Managing the comments on his increasingly popular site became more difficult as they continued to grow in number, and at the end of June 2004 Billmon announced that he would be closing them down.

Billmon continued posting his analysis and comments, with some periods of inactivity, over the following two and a half years.

On December 28, 2006, Billmon stopped blogging at The Whiskey Bar,[4] and the URL www.billmon.org became unavailable. In late April 2007, a more or less complete copy of Whiskey Bar re-surfaced, but was down again by October 2007. On July 31, 2008, Billmon returned to Daily Kos to post a diary entry in regard to John McCain's presidential campaign entitled "The Great White Hope," and has posted sporadically on DailyKos since then, also maintaining a Twitter account.

As of December 31, 2016, Billmon has deactivated his Twitter account.

Another blog now serves as base for Billmon's followers: Moon of Alabama.

gollark: How exciting, arbitrary Discord number obtained!
gollark: No alts? Troubling. I may have to remove my 14 backup accounts.
gollark: I would assume that if you're fairly young you're more likely to die while awake and doing things, but it sounds like maybe you should try and get actual mental health support about this?
gollark: I have not.
gollark: Not really, I just won't get one for ages.

References
  1. Rubin, Daniel "Blinq | As blogger burns out, his fame fades, too." The Philadelphia Inquirer. Knight Ridder Tribune Business News(wire service). Washington: Apr 15, 2006. pg. 1. http://search.proquest.com/docview/465712245
  2. Bernhard. "About Moon Of Alabama". Retrieved 2012-03-06.
  3. "October is Koufax Pledge Drive month" Wampum: Feb 23, 2005. https://web.archive.org/web/20080918081701/http://wampum.wabanaki.net/archives/000785.html
  4. Rubin, Daniel "Blinq | At Whiskey Bar, was it last call?" The Philadelphia Inquirer. Knight Ridder Tribune Business News (wire service). Washington: Jan 3, 2007. pg. 1. http://search.proquest.com/docview/459612073
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