PatrickPretty.com

Tag: conspiracy theories

  • RECOMMENDED READING: Anti-Defamation League Outlines Activities Of ‘Sovereign Citizen Groups’; Report Notes Instances Of ‘Bogus Liens’ Filed Against Public Officials, Including Former President Bill Clinton

    EDITOR’S NOTE: If you’ve been following the odd developments and conspiracy theories associated with the AdSurfDaily and Gold Quest International cases, we recommend you read this August 2010 report (see link below) by the Anti-Defamation League. The report notes various threats made against law enforcement, along with frauds and scams linked to the so called “Sovereign Citizen Movement.”

    Both ASD and GQI are known to have so-called “sovereigns” among their membership ranks. Bizarre court pleadings have surfaced in both cases.

    The ADL report specifically references Michael Howard Reed, shown in records to have been a harassing presence in the GQI Ponzi case brought by the SEC in May 2008. On Friday, federal prosecutors filed a forfeiture complaint that alleged ASD had a tie to E-Bullion, a shuttered digital-currency business. Other records show E-Bullion also had a tie to GQI.

    Friday’s filing marked the first time that E-Bullion’s name had surfaced in the ASD case. The reference is important because E-Bullion now has been linked to multiple alleged fraud schemes. E-Bullion founder James Fayed was charged in California in 2008 with operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business. He also was charged with murdering his estranged wife, who sought to cooperate with prosecutors in the E-Bullion investigation.

    Among the calling cards of the sovereign movement are bizarre court pleadings and vexatious litigation described as “paper terrorism.” The so-called sovereigns have sought to derail investigations and hamstring investigators and public officials by making them parties to lawsuits or subjecting them to threats of litigation or the filing of bogus liens against personal property, ADL reports.

    Bogus liens filed against public servants in the performance of their duties is a “major problem,” ADL says.

    One such lien even was filed against former President Bill Clinton, ADL reports.

    “Many sovereign citizens have engaged in a variety of scams and frauds, some of them raking in millions of dollars, while countless more sovereign citizens have engaged in acts of harassment, retaliation, and intimidation against public officials, law enforcement officers, and private citizens,” ADL says.

    “As it evolved, the sovereign citizen movement developed an ideology centered on a massive conspiracy theory,” ADL says. “Though different sovereign theorists all have their own varying versions of this conspiracy, including exactly when it started and how it manifested itself, the theories all share the belief that many years ago an insidious conspiracy infiltrated the U.S. government and subverted it, slowly replacing parts of the original, legitimate government (often referred to by sovereigns as the ‘de jure’ government) with an illegitimate, tyrannical government (the ‘de facto’ government).

    “As a result, sovereign citizens believe that today there are really two governments: the ‘illegitimate’ government that everyone else thinks is genuine and the original government that existed before the conspiracy allegedly infiltrated it.”

    Read the ADL report.

  • An AdSurfDaily Imponderable: ‘Ad-Packs’ As Currency

    All sorts of incongruities dot the AdSurfDaily landscape. Perhaps none is odder than this:

    Some ASD members say currency issued by the U.S. government is fraudulent, that the Federal Reserve is a fraud, that Federal Reserve Notes are a sham and not “money” because gold and silver coins are the only real money — and yet they seem to have no problem at all with the concept of “ad-packs” as currency.

    Andy Bowdoin was not paying them in silver and gold — and they nevertheless were happy to receive their money, which they incongruously claim elsewhere to be Unconstitutional.

    “Ad-packs” always have made news, but perhaps particularly when prosecutors revealed ASD was paying certain employees in “ad-packs.” There was no hue and cry from the Federal Reserve conspiracy theorists, even though “ad-packs” aren’t backed by silver and gold and have no street value, Constitutional or otherwise.

    They are not redeemable at, say, the neighborhood kid’s sidewalk Kool-Aid stand.

    A kid might take a silver coin or a gold coin — but he or she ain’t gonna take no stinkin’ “ad-packs.” You gotta show a kid the money, not a theory. Any money that spends at the Mall will do.

    Did you know a man who was paying employees in “ad-packs” any kid running a Kool-Aid stand would reject as unacceptably risky got an award from the President of the United States for business acumen? If not, consult the literature of ASD promoters, who helped a lie on the institution of the Presidency go viral because a trusting widow in Florida with $10,000 in her bank account meant they might score a commission of $1,000.

    No one raised a ruckus about Bowdoin treating “ad-packs” as currency — and the Federal Reserve conspiracy theorists presumably did not renounce the paper profits showing in their back offices because Bowdoin had not set aside a like amount in gold and silver to back his “ad-pack” notes.

    If  paper money not backed by gold is a conspiracy, how could electronic “ad-packs” not backed by gold not also be one? Their value might not survive even a strong thunderstorm.

    Call it the Bowdoin Standard.