Ya gotta hand it to the lads at Rocker and Gradient. After stalling the Overstock suit against them for two years, and getting slapped by every court that heard their flaccid concoction of fanciful silliness, the firms are now taking a different approach.
See, before, it was all about preserving the country and our freedoms for Grandma, and the children, and puppies and apple pie. When that failed, the gears had to shift, and now it is that Patrick, who has never sold a share of his company's stock that I know of, is an evil mastermind who was trying to create a short squeeze, presumably by buying large quantities of his own stock (which then failed to materialize, as the shares were just being printed out of thin air by Wall Street and presumably certain hedge funds...).
Why was he doing this? Dunno. Usually you would try to create a short squeeze, if such a thing could be achieved, because you planned to sell at the inflated price. But that didn't happen, did it? Huh. Well, maybe it is because Patrick is a racist scheming stock manipulator with a jones to manipulate for no financial benefit? Maybe that will stick? Why not? If the free speech thing fell flat, what are they supposed to do next? Just go, "Hey, ya got us!" and roll over and pay a fortune, waiting for the criminal charges to be filed against you for what is obviously criminal stock manipulation to the downside? Not likely. No, expensive attorneys will always come up with ways to argue a completely different reality, and in this week's edition of the Twilight Zone, our favorite compromised reporter, Carol, breathlessly repeats the now debunked free speech argument from the Rocker/Gradient side, and then launches into a spirited yarn that rivals Iraq having nukes they can launch in 45 minutes for sheer silliness.
Can't wait to see the complaint. Is it free speech, or is it stock manipulation by the company? Depends upon which day it is, apparently. Mondays it's civil liberties, Tuesdays it's evil Patrick.....what's next? The Easter Bunny is really Himmler, who has engineered global warming in a master plan to alter the rotation of the earth, thereby making his desert junkyard into priceless beachfront property? Why not?
And so it goes. It long ago stopped being about brazen criminality, and now is all about how compromised the system is that is supposed to report the truth. Apparently if you have the juice, you can get the SEC to dance for you, you can get to trade on inside info as a daily practice, you can get 40 and 50% returns with nobody raising an eyebrow......
Shades of Milken. Boesky would be proud.