Debunking - Saviors of Saviors of Earth

2012 is bullshit

2009-08-06T20:57:02.020Z

Can't figure out how to embed this video here so hopefully this link works

http://www.wisevid.com/view_video.php?viewkey=vvi25d8tgpb32wb61616#

The IIG $50,000 Challenge - Thanks to Trudy from SOE for this great find

2009-08-01T10:02:34.748Z

I found this post from Trudy on SOE an it's a really good find. Thank you, Trudy!

http://iigwest.com/challenge.html

Simone has no clue about James Randi and what his foundation stands for. Simone even goes as far as to recommend a website that has nothing in common with the IIG or JREF challenges. I'm really thankful to Trudy for posting something like this on SOE. If people, like Brad, really want to prove their abilities then they should take the challenge. It would greatly advance not only their cause but scientific understanding as well.

Alex Collier debunked...on SOE of all places

2009-07-18T07:02:48.637Z

How long do you give it?

2009-03-26T20:30:08.551Z

Brad and Kerry? Never met before, but getting married in June?
(Soon as their respective divorces come through)

Come on people... gotta be a sweepstake opportunity here!
No bids under 5 minutes please!
(That's all reserved for me ha ha!!!)

Federal Trade Commission's plan to change rules on ad endorsements, testimonials worries marketers

2009-03-23T23:06:39.984Z

Federal Trade Commission's plan to change rules on ad endorsements, testimonials worries marketers

Consumers lured by advertisements promising rock-hard abs, sparkling white teeth and bulging bank accounts soon may get a reality check.
Updated guidelines on ad endorsements and testimonials under final review by the Federal Trade Commission—and widely expected to be adopted—would end marketers' ability to talk up the extreme benefits of products while carrying disclaimers like "results not typical" or "individual results may vary."

Instead, companies would be allowed to tout extreme results only if they also spelled out typical outcomes.

"For a good part of the last decade, we have noticed a problem, particularly with consumer testimonials," said Richard Cleland, assistant director of the FTC's division of advertising practices. "The use of consumer testimonials had become almost a safe harbor for companies as long as they threw in some sort of disclaimer about results not being typical."

The changes are sending shudders through companies that worry about their ability to motivate consumers to buy their products if they can't sell the sizzle.

"There would never be another Jared," said Julie Coons, president and chief executive of the marketing trade group Electronic Retailing Association, referring to Jared Fogle, who became Subway's spokesman after losing 245 pounds eating the chain's sandwiches and exercising. "We're all going to have to regroup" if the proposals stand.

Fogle's story is highlighted on Subway's Web site, accompanied by an asterisk and the text, "Their results are not typical. Your loss, if any, will vary."

"This is not something we are prepared to comment on at this point," a spokesman for Subway said of the proposed guidelines.

The tougher rules, the first update to the guidelines since 1980, are designed to make it easier for consumers to judge the credibility of marketers' claims. The changes would affect all forms of advertising and marketing, including blogs and company Web sites. The FTC could bring legal action against firms that don't comply.

The final guidelines are expected to be issued later this year.

The revisions have drawn sharp criticism from product manufacturers, advertising agencies and trade groups who say it is the "aspirational" theme of their ads that motivates consumers to purchase their goods. Show less than the ultimate achievement, they say, and consumers are less likely to buy.

What's more, they say, it's impossible to determine typical results for many personal-care products because of unique physiological characteristics among humans and the varying levels of effort put into any endeavor.

"A lightbulb, I can give you a typical result," said Jonathan Gelfand, general counsel for Product Partners LLC, which sells fitness programs, gear and nutritional supplements under the "Beach Body" brand.

"Showing what people start and end with and saying very prominently, 'Results may vary,' that is as true as you can make it," Gelfand said. "If we can't show a picture and give results, what are we going to do?"

He added, "Someone who can't fit in an airline seat is not going to pick up the phone for a 10-pound weight change."

A spokeswoman for weight-loss program provider Jenny Craig Inc.—whose celebrity endorsers have included Kirstie Alley, Valerie Bertinelli and most recently Phylicia Rashad—said it would be premature to comment on the guidelines.

Competitor NutriSystem Inc., which has been touted by Marie Osmond and whose Web site showcases a woman who lost 40 pounds, did not respond to calls for comment.

The Federal Trade Commission is reviewing new guidelines to product endorsements. They include:

•Consumer testimonials would have to be substantiated and ads would have to include generally expected results. Endorsers, not just advertisers, could be held liable for deceptive claims. "You'd have to say not only is it extreme, but how extreme is it," the FTC's Richard Cleland said.

•Celebrities who talk up a product in an interview must disclose if they are getting paid for the promotion. Celebrities who endorse products would have to disclose if they have an ownership interest.

•Expert endorsers, like doctors, must have experience in the product area they are endorsing. If they don't, the limits of their expertise must be stated. For instance, an ophthalmologist identified only as a doctor could not be portrayed as an expert physician endorsing a hearing aid.

•Bloggers who get free products and then endorse them on their blogs would have to make it clear they got the products free.

—Mary Ellen Podmolik

Pesky skeptics accuse Prince Charles of 'outright quackery' over detox food supplement

2009-03-10T16:33:05.103Z

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1160916/Prince-Charles-accused-outright-quackery-detox-food-supplement.html

A leading scientist has accused the Prince of Wales of endangering public health and promoting 'outright quackery' with a new Duchy product.

Professor Edzard Ernst branded the £10 detox tincture 'a dangerous waste of money' and said Charles was misleading people and ignoring science.

The leading academic, who is professor of complementary medicine at Peninsula Medical School in Exeter, said detox went against the 'tablet of medical history' and there was no evidence such products worked.

The body was more than capable of detoxing itself, he said, adding that the Prince was financially exploiting 'a gullible public in a time of financial hardship'.

The tincture, which is part of the Duchy Herbals range of products, is on sale via the Duchy website and in selected Boots stores and Waitrose.

The website says the tincture, which contains dandelion and artichoke, is 'a food supplement to help eliminate toxins and aid digestion'.

It goes on: 'Duchy Herbals Detox Tincture is made from extracts of artichoke and dandelion, cleansing and purifying herbs to help support the body's natural elimination and detoxification processes, and help maintain healthy digestion.

'Duchy Herbals Detox Tincture can be taken as part of a regular detox program.'

The website says globe artichoke 'is a well known vegetable that can be used in a variety of different dishes, and is also a well known digestive aid'.

It adds that dandelion 'can be found growing throughout the English countryside and is easily recognised by its vibrant yellow flowers.

'Dandelion leaves can be included in salads, the dried roots can be used as a coffee substitute, and it is also used to flavour herb beers and soft drinks.'

People are advised to take the tincture twice a day as a 2.5ml dose in a glass of water.

'It is important to follow a varied and balanced diet and a healthy lifestyle,' the website adds.

'Food supplements should not be used as a substitute.'

Prof Ernst said there was no evidence that detox programmes worked and accused the Prince of presiding over 'Dodgy Originals'.

He said all that would be needed would be to prove that detox products work but no such studies existed.

A study might simply involve taking blood samples from volunteers and testing whether a toxin is eliminated from the body faster than normal.

'We as humans are not poisoning ourselves with waste products,' he added.

'The concept of these products is wrong and there is no evidence they work.

'The body has a powerful mechanism to deal with itself and there's no evidence that dandelion or artichoke will improve these functions.

'If a patient has a diseased kidney and cannot eliminate toxins via their kidney, then they need serious medical help.

'Products like this are a dangerous waste of money.

'Charles is exploiting people during hard times.'

Prof Ernst said the word 'detox' also undermined the treatment of people with drug addiction, when getting them off drugs represented a 'real detox'.

He added: 'It also gives a bad name to the respectable side of herbal medicine, which has a lot of good in it.

'By making these claims for detox products, I feel this good is being endangered.

'If people are led to believe they can overindulge on food and drink and put that all right with a Duchy detox tincture, then that, to me, is endangering public health.

'It is almost cynical to put such a product on the market.'

Prof Ernst said the Prince should know better, adding: 'He has a very long-standing interest in the field and has all sorts of advisors.

'He could have read what scientists have written about the issue of detox.

'It would take a normal citizen about two milliseconds to find that information.'

Last year, Prof Ernst said he would award £10,000 to the first person who could show that another area of complementary medicine, homeopathy, actually worked.

He invited people to prove that homeopathy was better than a placebo in a scientifically controlled trial.

'After one year, nobody has taken me up on the offer and we are now hoping to increase it,' he said.

'We hope to increase the offer to 100,000 US dollars - not using money from the pharmaceutical industry as some people think - and take it internationally.'

Prof Ernst said detox was based on the notion that toxins damage the body by accumulating and 'overloading' the system.

'A whole industry thus supplies consumers with products that promise to eliminate poisonous substances from the body,' he said.

'But the pathophysiology of 'detox' is non-existent.

'As a therapeutic approach detox is implausible, unproven and dangerous.'

Prof Ernst said the Prince and his advisors 'seem to deliberately ignore science and prefer to rely on 'make believe' and superstition.

'Prince Charles contributes to the ill health of the nation by pretending we can all over-indulge, then take his tincture and be fine again.

'Under the banner of holistic and integrative healthcare he thus promotes a 'quick fix' and outright quackery.'

THE NESARA FILES — Part 1

2009-02-21T15:10:38.320Z

Snared by a cybercult queen

The News Tribune/July 19, 2004
By Sean Robinson

Shaini Goodwin lies like a lover, and people pay to listen.

Her whispers promise the irresistible: peace, wealth and forgiven credit card debt.

She is a star only the Internet could create - queen of a cybercult, architect of a conspiracy theory built on the ruins of deceit. Every day, typing at a computer or speaking on the phone, she lures disciples to a bewitching creed, and pumps new life into a dead scam that suckered thousands.

Her words are soft and sharp, insistent and insolent, understanding and unyielding. From her South Sound double-wide, she peddles a myth that blends old grift, New Age sermon and political activism into a mixture one historian of confidence games calls "magnificent."

Most of her readers don't know who she is. On the Internet, she writes under an increasingly famous pseudonym: Dove of Oneness.

Hello, Dear Friends and White Knights.

The greeting heads every report she writes. Each ends with the same pleasant farewell:

Blessings and love, Dove of Oneness.

She says she does not lie, that she does not lead a cult, that she is simply a political activist on a spiritual mission, trying to make the world a better place.

"A lot of people who are on spiritual missions ask for help," she says. "People pledge their lives to make a difference in the world. You cannot live a normal life and do what I do."

At Dove's decree, thousands of her followers send letters, postcards and e-mails to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Pentagon, Congress and the halls of international justice. They wave banners, pass out fliers and hold demonstrations on three continents, demanding announcement of a secret law that doesn't exist, anticipating the delivery of easy fortunes that never come.

Some have been conned before. They are being conned again, but telling them is useless. They ignore weary government officials who repeatedly say there is no secret law to announce. They scorn experts in fraud and high finance who tell them they're chasing shadows.

Instead, they put their trust in Goodwin, 57, who has declared bankruptcy at least once, owes the IRS $12,000 and lives in her ailing mother's mobile home in Shelton.

Her latest venture might be more profitable. She sells false hope.

It's not a crime. It's a corporation. Goodwin never mentions it to her followers, but she has a Washington state business license, granted in 2002 for a $20 fee. Her corporate category - computer services. Her corporate name - Dove. Her corporate address - a hole-in-the-wall mail drop in Olympia.

This is where her followers send money, addressed to her Internet persona. Now and then, she asks for "gifts" to cover the costs of her daily "Dove Reports." For those who send such indulgences, she provides explicit instructions:

"Please address your envelope EXACTLY as above or your envelope may not be delivered," she writes. "Also, please REPLY to this message telling me you are sending me a financial gift. You may make checks or money orders payable to 'Dove.'"

It's legal. No law prevents her from waving a cardboard sign on the shoulder of the information highway. The money comes - how much, only Goodwin knows, and she isn't telling. She says she asks for money only when she really needs it. If she lives high, she hides it well. The mobile home is no mansion.

But money isn't the only gift she receives. She also harvests something equally precious: believers.

The secret law

Four weeks ago, as filmmaker Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" opened across the nation, Goodwin's acolytes stood by theater doors, handing out sheets of paper headed with a mysterious acronym - NESARA.

The word appears on purple fliers stacked on a shelf outside an Olympia cafe; on banners unfurled weekly at the World Court in The Netherlands; on signs carried by demonstrators in Texas, Chicago and South America; scrawled in the sand on beaches in Australia; and on the sides of rolling billboards in Washington, D.C.

It stands for the secret law, the one Dove claims Congress passed four years ago. The one that abolishes income taxes, forgives mortgages, zeroes out credit cards and declares peace.

The media can't talk about it, she says. Only Dove knows the truth about NESARA, and as she solemnly explains, it's dangerous information. That's why she has a secret identity.

"Hardly anyone knows my name," she says. "I'm the Deep Throat of the Northwest."

She shows up on radio occasionally, giving interviews to late-night talk show hosts across America who chat about crop circles, UFOs and conspiracy theories. In those broadcasts, she claims connections with highly placed sources among leaders of government and high finance, and knowledge of a war between the forces of good and evil over the secret NESARA law.

She has embroidered the saga for the last four years, writing more than 1,000 Internet reports, recording hundreds of "voice reports" on a Seattle telephone line, giving interviews on radio stations from Alaska to Vermont.

She claims more than 15,000 subscribers to her reports, and 300,000 readers worldwide. Between 5,000 and 10,000 of them are in Western Washington. The numbers cannot be verified, but her online presence suggests an international following. Her reports are translated into Dutch, Korean, German, French and Spanish, and published on Web sites based in America, Canada and Europe.

Her long-running tale is a curtain - a veil that covers a con. She waves the so-called secret law like a winning lottery ticket, telling her followers its provisions will grant them the wealth they were once promised by an Illinois grifter.

The scam that started it all

The grifter is Clyde Hood, a retired electrician from Mattoon, Ill. He's serving a 14-year sentence in federal prison for mail fraud, wire fraud and money laundering.

A decade ago, Hood created an investment fraud scam called Omega. Dove almost never mentions Omega these days, but without it, her celebrity and her cybercult might not exist.

Omega robbed thousands of people, including South Sound residents, of at least $12.5 million. That was the traceable part. Federal attorneys and investigators who prosecuted Hood and 18 co-conspirators think the real number was greater - at least $20 million, perhaps $50 million.

In 1994, Hood started telling a story to Midwestern churchgoers. He said he'd worked for Fortune 500 companies, been in the investment business for 15 or 16 years, owned a foreign bank. He had become an expert in offshore trading, European high-yield investment programs and prime bank notes. He could do a $250 million deal in the morning and again in the afternoon, four times a week.

"I'm the only one with control," he said. "I'm the only one with the collateral account, I'm the one with the fiduciary bank. There are only seven or eight people in the world that can do all this."

With a nod to his Christian audience, he said a vision from God came to him during a business trip in Hong Kong: It told him to help the little people, and do a big trade for humanitarian causes. For that, he had formed a company called Omega Trust and Trading Ltd. He was offering hardworking people a chance to reap their share of "the Lord's storehouse."

They could buy Omega "units" for $100 apiece. Under Hood's supervision, each unit would "roll" for 275 days, with a 50-to-1 return. Investors could let it "roll" again, for another 275 days, again at 50 to 1. After that, they could do one more roll, but that was all.

For onlookers, the math wasn't too hard to figure. In less than three years, $100 could become $12.5 million.

Hood sealed the deal by sending investors an official-looking document called a "private party loan agreement." They even got receipts.

Thousands of people fell for his pitch. Later, he admitted it was bull.

"Did you get a vision, an actual vision from the Lord?" a federal prosecutor asked Hood in 2001.

"No," he said. "I did not."

"Have you ever worked for a Fortune 500 company as a trader?" the prosecutor asked later.

"No," Hood said.

"What is Omega?"

"It's a scam."

The loan agreements were worthless. "Prime bank notes" didn't exist. Hood didn't own a bank and had no experience in finance - just a few financial terms picked up from wealthy friends, and the knowledge that others had engineered the same swindle.

"There's other programs similar, and I just picked up on it and thought I had something I could work," he said in court testimony.

Omega lured suckers from all 50 states and a few foreign countries. Dove was one of them. She says she bought two units in 1998 after learning about the program through a friend in the town of Rainier.

She says she began publishing Internet reports in November 1999. In those early writings, she called herself an Omega investor, still waiting for her "prosperity deliveries" like everyone else. She named Hood and his allies and described her contacts with them.

The Omega pitch spread by word of mouth, through relatives and friends. Hood and four confederates created a network of phone lines in 17 area codes. Omega investors could hear phony, prerecorded "updates" from Hood, explaining Omega's status, and why promised fortunes weren't being delivered.

It worked for six years. From 1994 to 2000, Hood got by with excuses.

"Omega has been interrupted due to some unforeseen financial conflicts," he said in a June 3, 1996, phone message, typical of his style. "These situations or those situations should be completed on June 17, 1996. And the banks then will continue to process your checks and credit cards."

Scores of similar messages explained more delays. The deliveries, always a few weeks or months away, never came.

Meanwhile, the money for new Omega units poured in. Hood's four "coordinators," a handful of allies who collected money for Omega shares, piled cash, cashier's checks and money orders into cardboard boxes. The biggest producers collected between $60,000 and $100,000 per week.

They laundered the money through banks in Texas, California, Illinois and the United Arab Emirates, then spent it on themselves. Hood bought a fleet of classic cars, and handed out interest-free loans to friends and family members who bought houses and businesses.

The messenger

Washington was an Omega stronghold. Only California and Texas ranked higher in the list of documented victims. Within the state, the majority of victims lived in and around Yelm.

"It proliferated throughout this entire town," said resident Emily French, whose mother gave $1,100 to Omega.

"It was just by word of mouth," said Rainier resident Frances Motyer, who lost $4,500. "Some friends of ours told us, and when we turned around to talk to other people about it, they already knew."

The victims didn't always fit the stereotype of elderly shut-ins wooed by smooth-talking grifters. Joseph Dispenza, a chiropractor from Rainier, gave $11,700 to Omega. He thought it sounded legitimate.

A Seattle-based tax attorney with a Yelm address gave Omega $280,000, the largest documented restitution claim filed in the Omega case.

Her name is Ruth Sparrow, and she works for Garvey Schubert Barer, a Seattle law firm. Her biography on the firm's Web site states she spent 14 years in the tax department of a Philadelphia law firm and describes her as having "significant experience in federal income tax matters concerning corporations, partnerships and individuals in business and real estate transactions."

Sparrow refused to discuss Omega when reached by The News Tribune.

Ramtha

As he gathered Omega's threads, Esteban "Steve" Sanchez, the assistant U.S. attorney in Urbana, Ill., who prosecuted the case, noticed the Yelm connection. He realized several victims were linked to JZ Knight, the ethereal New Age guru who claims to "channel" the spirit of a 40,000-year-old warrior called Ramtha.

"I cannot tell you what, if any, direct relationship there was between this person in Yelm, Washington, and Clyde Hood," Sanchez said of Knight. "We knew that there were people associated with her that apparently had invested in Omega, but that was not an angle that we wanted to pursue, because apparently it's very difficult to pursue that angle."

Omega was an open secret at Knight's Ramtha School of Enlightenment, four former students say. They asked not to be named, citing the fear of legal retaliation from Knight, who requires students to sign nondisclosure agreements.

"That's how I became involved in it, was through the school," one student said. "I was involved in it and practically everybody else I knew at the school was involved in it. There were tons of people involved in this on just a cash basis. People were sending in cash - cash with no paperwork, no receipt, no nothing. People were promised their money was going to come in before the next snowfall."

The students say Knight never endorsed or promoted Omega. Some recall her telling students to cultivate an "abundance mentality" if the promised fortunes ever came.

Knight did not respond directly to requests for comment from The News Tribune. Greg Simmons, a Ramtha school spokesman, acknowledged Omega was discussed informally among students at the school. When asked whether Knight lost money in Omega, Simmons would not comment.

In the late 1990s, as Omega reached its peak, Shaini Goodwin was living near Yelm, in a gated community called Clearwood.

She had taken classes at the Ramtha school in the late 1980s and later claimed to be a kind of channeler herself, according to those who know her. She sprinkles her daily Dove reports with frequent references to the "Ascended Masters" and "the Illuminati," common figures in New Age teachings.

Dove's mission

In her early Internet messages as Dove, she claimed access to secret information.

"Two new pieces of info suggest that important strides forward are being made," she wrote March 20, 2000. "You are well advised to GET READY. I have personally been reprogramming my old ideas about prosperity so that I am ready to wisely steward this great abundance."

The News Tribune interviewed 12 Omega victims, including current and former Washington residents. Most said they had heard of Dove through her Internet reports. A few remember Goodwin. None recalls her selling Omega units, and Goodwin says she never sold any. Sanchez found no evidence of it, though he didn't know Dove's real name.

She rose as Omega fell. By 1999, Hood's prerecorded excuses were growing more desperate. The feds were on his trail, and he knew it.

His explanations got spooky: The government was interfering with the deal, and "numerous individuals and entities" wanted to see the program fail.

When investors complained or discussed the delays in the chat rooms, he attacked them for spreading rumors, and warned them that they were jeopardizing Omega and their fortunes.

The conspiracy talk played like a dream with Omega followers. They knew about secrecy. They sent money wrapped in aluminum foil and used private mail carriers, believing the government would have more trouble tracking it. Clyde and the others had warned them the government and other powerful interests would try to get in the way. Now it was happening.

The loose network of Hood's allies, hangers-on and true believers fed the rumor mill. Messages preaching patience filled the chat rooms and the boards. Everyone just needed to stay calm, to remember the program would fund.

One key source of soothing messages was Dove, who wrote with a distinctive voice and gradually gained a following.

"I know that I am receiving information because the divine power behind getting Omega to us all wants the group prayers to continue," she wrote in a message posted July 17, 2000. "So I have been given the mission of passing on as much information as I can without jeopardizing the safety of the processes for our benefit."

Many Omega-related bulletin boards and chat rooms have shut down since the Omega trials, but a few fragments survive. The messages reveal a mishmash of anxious victims and wannabe con artists hitching a ride on the Omega idea.

Some posters headlined messages with obvious come-ons ("I WAS PAID TODAY ... THIS IS HOT"). Others tried the sober approach ("TAKE A SERIOUS LOOK AT THIS PROGRAM, HAS TREMENDOUS BENEFITS AND POTENTIAL"). Some offered plaintive stories of sick relatives, spouses and children.

Some of the messengers weren't working for Hood. He didn't collect money from them and had no way of knowing what they were doing. During the Omega trials, he talked about his freelance imitators.

"So some people could hear of Omega, go out and try to copy what you were doing?" a judge asked.

"Yes," Hood said.

"And then that money, you have no idea what happened to it?"

"No. Do not."

The News Tribune tried to interview Hood, but he didn't answer letters or phone messages. His prison counselor in Michigan said he didn't want to talk.

'The dark agenda'

In the summer of 2000, as investigators closed in on Hood, Goodwin reported new plots on the Internet boards.

As Dove, she cited information from unnamed sources, and described secret struggles among the world's financial elites. Beginning sentences with "I have been told," she said a major European bank had come to Omega's rescue, but a major U.S. bank was fighting the program "with every trick and delay possible."

U.S. Supreme Court justices were on Omega's side. An important judge from the East Coast was fighting on their behalf. A group she called the White Knights was waging war against powerful enemies she began to call "the dark agenda."

Between such ominous reports, she called for group prayers and positive thinking. She wrote lengthy instructions that explained how to handle large sums of money when they arrived. She talked about how she would spend her own money once she received it: She would give large gifts to humanitarian causes.

Periodically, she reported "confirmations" - people who had received their money in sprinkles in one part of the country or another. The names couldn't be revealed, for privacy reasons, she said.

Over and over, she told Omega investors that prosperity deliveries would arrive any day. She and others sometimes referred to Omega in a kind of typewritten code, mixing numbers and numerals, calling it "O" or "the big O." On July 26, 2000, she said members of "the big pr0gram" could expect deliveries by July 31. On Aug, 4, she said deliveries were imminent. On Aug. 7, she said deliveries were scheduled for the end of the week.

Soon, she was pitching an "e-group." Readers could subscribe for free and get regular updates from her.

Omega investors, hungry for any information, devoured her messages. She quickly claimed more than 1,000 subscribers. Her reports started showing up more frequently.

Speculation about her identity fizzed. "Who was she?" other writers asked. A few flamed her on the bulletin boards. She fired back in regal fashion.

"My main sources include very important people whose responsibilities require their presence in the most secret and most important activities of this country and all the major countries in the world," she wrote. "My personal relationships to some key people have caused me to be chosen to be the spokesperson to the lenders."

The parade queen

The real story was less glamorous.

She was born Candace Darlene Goodwin on May 4, 1947, and grew up in McCleary, a small town east of Aberdeen in Grays Harbor County.

The oldest of four children, she was dark-eyed and pretty. In 1962 she was crowned queen of the annual McCleary Bear Festival. The photo made the front page of the now-defunct Elma Chronicle.

Candy Goodwin attended Elma High School, and graduated in 1965. She studied French and made good grades. She joined the pep club. Her high school classmates liked her, and she had lots of friends.

"Very outgoing, vivacious, good sense of humor - I picture her smiling," said classmate Karen Olson, whose maiden name was Basset.

After graduation, Goodwin married but later divorced. There weren't any children. She moved on alone. Boyfriends came and went.

For a few years in the mid-1970s, she lived in Minnesota and worked for a computer company. She came back to Washington and, in 1980, landed a job with the state Department of Social and Health Services as a computer specialist. For the next decade, she bounced between state employment and private business, sometimes living with relatives.

She tried to freelance as a computer consultant, but didn't do well. She got interested in New Age philosophy. JoAnn Witt, Goodwin's aunt, says Candy always was "a little different."

In March 1988, she linked up with a Delaware corporation called EAN Corp., and asked family and friends to invest $1,000 in start-up money. She bought a new truck in early 1989 and listed her corporate salary as $5,000 a month on the loan application.

Delaware state records show EAN didn't make a dime. Goodwin says the company's owner deceived her and stopped paying her salary. On July 16, 1989, Goodwin filed for bankruptcy in Tacoma.

She erased more than $20,000 in maxed-out credit cards, kept the truck and went back to state employment for three years as a computer information consultant.

In 1992, she resigned, moved to Port Angeles, and eventually changed her name from Candace to Shaini. Goodwin says she left her job because a concussion from a car accident made working too difficult.

In 1995, an ex-boyfriend named Larry Tipton sought a protection order against Goodwin in Clallam County and accused her of harassment - peeking in his windows, calling him repeatedly and appearing in places where he could not avoid her. Goodwin disputed the claims. She says Tipton was depressed and suicidal and that she was just trying to keep an eye on him. A judge granted the restraining order.

Tipton hasn't spoken to Goodwin in several years. He said he did not know about her Dove pseudonym or her Internet celebrity.

"She's a wonderful, vivacious woman, but her views are a little bit out there," he says. "She's very bright - she'll tie you in knots. If you want to meet a character, meet Shaini."

In 1997, the IRS filed a lien against Goodwin, seeking $12,000 in unpaid taxes dating from 1991 to 1994. The agency does not lift liens until the debt is repaid in full. As of June, Thurston County court records show the lien remains active.

Goodwin says she was audited in the early 1990s and says she thinks she paid those bills. She told The News Tribune she hadn't seen the lien and gives it no credence. She says the IRS is an illegal organization and its actions have nothing to do with her "work." She says she has never mentioned her bankruptcy to her readers because it's "irrelevant."

The messenger

In August 2000, federal investigators smashed Omega. Steve Sanchez filed indictments against Hood and 18 co-conspirators, charging multiple counts of wire fraud, mail fraud and conspiracy.

On Aug. 29, the day after the indictments were announced, Dove posted a message:

"Tonight we were told by a very high intelligence agency source that this whole thing in Illinois 'has been staged' to try to stop funding! However, this case in Illinois TOTALLY LACKS any ability to stop funding. It's almost a comedy, because the whole case will disappear instantly - VERY SOON."

She added a warning to worried Omega investors seeking information about the case.

"STAY AWAY FROM THE WEBSITE that has information on this case!!!" she wrote. "You will be tracked if you go to that website. And, absolutely avoid filling out any complaints - you could lose your funding if you do that!"

The case didn't disappear.

Sanchez won 18 convictions. The sole exception was Michael Kodosky, one of Hood's key lieutenants. He died before his trial began, from complications related to diabetes. Before his death, Kodosky entered a guilty plea.

Dove claims Omega's enemies, including the government, killed Kodosky with slow-acting poison. In her reports, she scoffed at the "Urbana soap opera."

She claimed Omega wasn't the only program affected by battles among the financial elites. At least 50 more "prosperity programs" were in play. Soon, all of them would be triggered by the announcement of a secret law passed by Congress. She called it NESARA - an acronym for the National Economic Stabilization and Recovery Act.

The law forgave debt and eliminated taxes. It changed the banking system and shifted the backing for the nation's currency, she claimed. New, colorful bills printed by the U.S. Mint were proof. But no members of Congress could admit the law's existence, she said. They were bound to secrecy by a gag order from the U.S. Supreme Court, and violations were punishable by death. Group prayers were needed to hasten the law's announcement.

She had taken Hood's idea and transformed it. Omega no longer was a simple investment, but an article of faith. She no longer was the messenger for one failed prosperity program, but scores. She made it clear she was the only voice, the designated messenger, for every one of them. She made it clear she was the only one who knew the truth about NESARA.

The man who created NESARA

The claim shocked Harvey Barnard, 62, an engineer, consultant and teacher from Louisiana who wrote NESARA 13 years ago during an academic daydream.

While fooling around with mathematical formulas applied to economics, he decided the American economy was fundamentally unstable. So he came up with new formulas, translated them into legal language and wrote a bill.

"It was just an exercise to see if I could do it," he says.

Barnard printed 1,000 copies and sent them to every member of Congress. At first, he figured the idea was so obvious, he'd have to wait about a week for the bill to pass. Unfortunately, no one was interested in saving the economy. He still pitches the idea, and provides copies of his bill on his Web site. But no one has ever sponsored it.

The rumors from Dove suggested otherwise - that the law had been secretly passed. Dove started referring to NESARA by name, and directing readers to Barnard's Web site. The hits jumped and people started e-mailing questions. Barnard was pleased by the interest, but puzzled by claims that NESARA had passed.

At first, he replied to messages with gentle debunking. He pointed readers to official records of congressional actions, and asked them to look for themselves. NESARA hadn't been introduced, let alone passed. It was unlikely, he said, that every member of Congress, thousands of aides and the media would conspire to keep such a thing secret.

"If you believe any of that, you might also want to start looking for ocean front property in Nebraska," he wrote.

Indifferent to Barnard's message, Dove charged ahead, giving more details about what NESARA would accomplish, including forgiveness of mortgage and credit card debt. Subscriptions to her e-group rose above 2,000.

Barnard did some more research, discovered the clusters of Omega bulletin boards and read news stories about the case. He realized people were attaching his brainchild to a scam.

Part of him wondered whether this was a deliberate disinformation campaign to discredit his idea. The other part wondered if these rumors came from somebody wearing a tinfoil hat.

"Two different explanations," he says. "The simpler one is probably more nearly correct."

Again, he responded to the streams of questions, this time with a tougher tone.

"Many people who write to us seem to believe we are somehow connected with various financial schemes," he wrote. "At least some people are representing or claiming such an idea. We cannot vouch for the validity of those schemes, nor do we care to investigate."

To rumors of debt forgiveness, Barnard responded with specifics. That wasn't how his bill worked. True, it would change certain banking laws, but no loans would be forgiven.

"We really do not know how to dispel such rumors other than refute them, but you can help by not forwarding the rumors to others," he wrote.

When people relayed Barnard's messages to Dove, she dismissed them. It was obvious that the NESARA people couldn't discuss what was happening. They weren't talking to her high-level sources. On April 8, 2001, she explained it all.

"WHY would the people at the NESARA website commit 'TREASON punishable by DEATH' by telling anyone who writes them that NESARA secretly passed in March, 2000?" she wrote. "Leave the NESARA people alone - you are showing your ignorance by asking them to commit TREASON."

Confessions

On April 10, 2001, Clyde Hood crumbled. In the Illinois federal court, he pleaded guilty to mail fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. He agreed to testify against his co-conspirators.

The chat rooms and bulletin boards buzzed. Dove and other Omega supporters posted hundreds of messages that suggested the program would still pay.

On April 13, 2001, Dove hinted that Hood's guilty pleas were part of a conspiracy to deny investors their money. His confessions were a sham; the anti-Omega cartel was forcing him to lie, to prevent the announcement of the secret law.

"CH knows the whole Illinois court thing is just a smoke-screen, " she wrote, and added a sinister explanation:

"So, WHO benefits from the smoke-screen?" she asked. "Well, WHO wants the 'general populace' to believe these programs don't exist? WHO puts out this fraudulent info? The top world bankers, who have controlled our money system through the Fed, are the ones who want the general populace to believe these programs don't exist. Why? To keep these programs just for the 'RICH,' who have always had access to these huge money makers."

Her reports generated comments and fierce debates about the quality of her claimed sources. Other Omega supporters began to criticize her, saying she was jeopardizing their fortunes.

On April 14, she again took aim at fact-checking skeptics who couldn't understand why Barnard and the NESARA Web site kept saying the law hadn't been passed.

"QUIT bothering the people at NESARA - and quit sending me emails about how YOU 'think' you got the truth about the SECRET law," she wrote. "It's ridiculous for you to think you can just send an email and get the truth about a SECRET law. Congress has been under a STRICT GAG ORDER about this secret law. So, Quit Wasting my time sending me emails on this."

In the summer of 2001, Hood began to sing. During two trials of Omega conspirators, he spilled it all - how he had devised the scheme, how he knew it would never pay, the private mail carriers, the laundered money, the phony update lines, the stories of government interference dreamed up to dupe investors.

"I didn't really realize how big a liar I was," he said.

Meanwhile, federal attorneys in Illinois tried to help Omega victims get their money back. The antique cars, property and other assets bought with Omega money were seized and sold. Victims were encouraged to file restitution claims.

The attorneys ran into a problem. Many investors refused to file, refused to even talk to government investigators. The problem was the Internet, and the never-ending stream of rumors led by Dove and others that urged Omega victims to clam up.

"All this miscommunication, all this misinformation," Sanchez said. "Everybody kept saying, 'I'm told that it's gonna pay tomorrow, so I'm not talking to you.' No matter how hard we tried to persuade people that the information being put out there was erroneous, people didn't want to believe it. We fought for a long time to find somebody who did not distrust the government - somebody who believed that they had been defrauded."

Hood's former attorney, Douglas McNabb, received phone calls and e-mails from Omega investors for months after the trials ended. They wanted the truth - the real truth.

McNabb told them that Hood said Omega was a scam. He had testified to it in open court.

The callers politely said they understood. They figured Clyde had to say that, just to cut his exposure. But when would Omega pay?

"Some of these people, they just really, really believe it," McNabb said. "That's why these people are so susceptible to being victimized again."

It's true, according to experts: For some reason, being defrauded affects the victim like a drug.

"A very well-known phenomenon," says Andreas Schroeder, co-chairman of the creative writing department at the University of British Columbia and author of several books on scam artists and confidence games.

"People who have been suckered once are your very best bet to be suckered again. You'd think they'd be the last people willing to be conned. Nope. It's almost as if you're genetically prone to believing that kind of stuff. Once you've gone one step of the way, there's no reverse - it's only forward."

Fame

On Sept. 11, 2001, hours after planes hijacked by terrorists struck the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Dove posted the message that made her a star.

"The three targets today were ALL connected to NESARA and the banking changes. I just learned that at 9:00 a.m. in New York this morning, there was an IMPORTANT banking activity set to be activated in the IMF international banking computer center in the World Trade Center!" she wrote. "This was obviously WHY the World Trade Center was attacked TODAY at just before and after 9:00 a.m.! ... The orders for these plane attacks came from U.S. citizens who are trying to stop our deliveries/funding and NESARA."

The impact on the Internet was electric. Here was a new rumor to chew. Almost immediately, Dove's message appeared on every Omega bulletin board, and leapfrogged to other sites devoted to conspiracy theory.

In Illinois, assistant U.S. attorney Sanchez, who had continued to follow the doings of the Omeganites, read the message and turned away.

"Once I saw that, I said I'm not going to follow this anymore," he says.

From Louisiana, Harvey Barnard posted an angry message on his NESARA Web site.

"Pure idiocy," he wrote. "Such stories would be humorous if the tragedies of that infamous Tuesday had not happened. We find all such rumor-mongering to be despicable, and the nature of such messages is mindlessness at its worst."

Again, Dove waved off the criticism.

"What would you expect them to say?" she wrote.

With one stroke, Dove mixed con, conspiracy, terrorism, faith, finance and politics. Within a month, her e-group gained more than 1,000 subscribers.

"Brilliant," says Schroeder, the scam historian. "That's cunning. That is definitely magnificent."

Sidebar: Anatomy of a Conspiracy Theory

Shaini Goodwin, who calls herself Dove of Oneness, is the architect of a conspiracy theory that grew out of a financial scam. Here it is, in a nutshell:

"In 1998, she puts money into Omega, an investment fraud scheme that runs from 1994 to 2000 and robs victims of $20 million.

"Omega's ringleader, Clyde Hood, confesses his crimes in 2001, and admits Omega is a scam.

"Goodwin writes Internet reports as "Dove," says Hood's confession is a lie and that Omega is real. She claims a secret law called NESARA - the National Economic Security and Reformation Act - will unlock the wealth held in Omega and other "prosperity programs."

"Dove's reports claim Congress secretly passed NESARA in 2000 but that leaders cannot reveal its existence because violating a U.S. Supreme Court gag order on NESARA is punishable by death.

"Dove claims the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, the East Coast sniper shootings and the Iraq war are diversions planned and plotted by the Bush administration to prevent NESARA's announcement.

"According to Dove, once NESARA is announced, banking rules will change and "mass deliveries" from more than 60 "prosperity programs," including Omega, will arrive.

References:
Link to the original article
Dove of Oneness / NESARA website

THE NESARA FILES — Part 2

2009-02-21T15:04:23.171Z

An annoyed Dove gives her proof of NESARA's existence

The News Tribune/July 19, 2004
By Sean Robinson

In real life, Shaini Goodwin hates attention.

As the worldwide spokeswoman for a conspiracy theory that includes the promise of vast wealth, she can't be too careful. That's why she writes her Internet reports under a pseudonym: Dove of Oneness. It's a matter of privacy and security. She doesn't want strangers walking up to her at the store in downtown Shelton and asking for money.

"We don't have bodyguards," she said. "Who knows what kind of screwballs are out here?"

The News Tribune interviewed Goodwin on Thursday at her ailing mother's mobile home in Shelton, where she's been living for the last two years. It's a quiet, shady lot, surrounded by pleasantly scruffy shrubs and pillars of Douglas fir.

Goodwin greeted a reporter and a photographer with a smile, offered chairs on her deck and served glasses of water with lemon wedges. She showed off her gleaming laptop computer - the virtual microphone for her worldwide reports - and pointed to her overstuffed e-mail inbox, packed with thousands of messages from supporters.

She sat down and began to frown as she read a draft of the series published Sunday and today. It called her "queen of a cybercult," described her elaborate tale of a supposed secret law passed by Congress and unraveled her ties to a proven financial scam.

Goodwin didn't like the draft. She said she doesn't lie, but everybody else does: Congress, government officials and those who deny the existence of NESARA, the National Economic Security and Reformation Act.

"A cult?" she said. "All we do is ask people if they want to give some time to go and pass out fliers. It's totally voluntary. I took on NESARA out of my heart."

It's about world peace, she said. She admitted asking for donations from readers. She said she didn't want to, but she had to - NESARA was too important.

She cried over the death of her beloved dog, and how she couldn't afford medicine to keep it alive.

She scoffed at statements in the series linking NESARA to scams, including an investment fraud called Omega that robbed people of $20 million in the mid-1990s. Goodwin's reports say NESARA will unlock the wealth promised by such "prosperity programs." During the interview, she downplayed those claims.

"I rarely write about the prosperity programs," she said. "Maybe three or four times a year."

It's closer to once a week. Her 2004 reports shows she mentioned the prosperity programs 23 times between Jan. 19 and June 24, including a specific reference to the long-lost Omega millions on May 20.

As she pored over the draft, bursts of derision popped like firecrackers.

"You just think the world is so free and easy," she said.

Reading denials of NESARA by government officials, she shook her head knowingly.

"That is what they have to say," she said.

With growing irritation, she started talking about "confirmations" from her readers - people who have heard mysterious mentions of NESARA. She would prove it, she said, even if it meant revealing a few secret sources.

"You haven't done your due diligence," she said. She picked up her telephone and punched a number in the Netherlands. NESARA supporters in that country, spurred by Dove's reports, hold weekly demonstrations at the International Court of Justice, believing the judges are holding secret hearings on the secret law.

Holding the phone like a walkie-talkie, Goodwin spoke. The earpiece volume was high enough to hear.

"Hello?"

"Hello, Nel?" Goodwin said.

"Yes?"

"This is Dove."

"Yes, Dove."

Goodwin explained the situation. A reporter was asking questions, and needed to hear Nel's story of a NESARA confirmation.

"Yes, Dove, I will," Nel said.

Nel told her story. An ambassador and a judge driving past the demonstrators had given them the thumbs-up sign.

Dove took back the phone, and continued reading the draft.

"You are so off," she said, looking up. "It's about world peace. That's what we care about. It's not about money."

After a few more paragraphs, she raised her head again.

"You're just sick," she said. "This world's gonna blow up if we don't get peace."

She read a reference to Harvey Barnard, the retired engineer from Louisiana who wrote a proposed bill called NESARA 14 years ago as an academic experiment, only to watch Dove co-opt it.

"That is a scam," she said, pointing to Barnard's name. "This idiot works for George W. Bush Sr."

She punched in another telephone number.

"You need a lesson about what's real in this world," she said.

She said she was calling Rama, a friend who would explain a supposed NESARA confirmation from Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif).

"Hello?" a slow voice said.

"Hello, Rama?"

"Yes?"

"This is Dove."

"Hello, Dove."

"I want you to talk to this reporter," she said, explaining that a Tacoma newspaper was interviewing her. He needed to tell his Boxer story - the NESARA confirmation.

"What?"

Rama wasn't getting it.

"A newspaper in Tacoma, Washington!" Goodwin barked at the phone. "They're writing a horrible story in the Tacoma Tribune, and it's full of crap."

She handed over the receiver.

Rama wouldn't give his real name. Slowly, he said he couldn't reveal his sources. He wanted to explain what he knew about NESARA, but the information went very high.

"Thirty-eight levels above the president," he said. He wouldn't say any more.

Goodwin took the phone receiver back and said goodbye.

"Rama's a scaredy cat," she said.

Almost immediately the phone rang. It was Rama, calling back to apologize. Slowly, he said he was sorry he couldn't cooperate with that reporter, but he'd gotten a bad vibration, kind of an Illuminati vibration, and -

"He's just a little boy in Tacoma," Goodwin said, cutting in. "He doesn't know anything."

Her eyes lifted from the phone, and her gaze narrowed.

"I don't think you're Illuminati," she said, staring hard. "I think you're really dumb. And you better get smart."

References:
Link to original article
Dove of Oneness / NESARA website

THE NESARA FILES — Part 3

2009-02-21T15:01:59.313Z

Dove battles "the dark agenda"

Shaini Goodwin says those who question her word risk the loss of their prosperity. She swears that those who deny the existence of the secret law NESARA are lying. She claims those who debunk her claims are tools of the CIA and other powerful forces. Still, her following is growing.

The News Tribune/July 19, 2004
By Sean Robinson

It's not easy keeping secrets. Sometimes Shaini Goodwin, aka "Dove of Oneness," wishes she didn't know so many.

Life would be simpler.

She wouldn't have to flood the Internet with reports that draw thousands of readers around the world. She wouldn't have to write about a secret law called NESARA - the National Economic Security and Reformation Act.

Sometimes, she says, she wishes she'd never heard of NESARA. She claims Congress secretly passed it in 2000. The supposed law forgives mortgage and credit card debt, abolishes the IRS and declares peace - but she says a U.S. Supreme Court gag order prevents anyone from revealing it, under pain of death.

Goodwin says the gag order doesn't apply to her, because she isn't an "official person." Her self-appointed mission - revealing the truth about NESARA - forces her to write reports from her mobile home in Shelton, explaining that the Bush administration plotted the 9/11 attacks and the East Coast sniper slayings to prevent NESARA's announcement.

The knowledge is a heavy burden. Without it, she wouldn't have to fend off critics who scoff at her claims, call her the leader of a cybercult and charge that she links NESARA to the wealth promised by a financial scam. She wouldn't have to call for demonstrations around the world, or ask her 15,000 readers for donations, sent to a mail drop in an Olympia strip mall.

It's a price she's willing to pay for the peace she says NESARA will bring.

"NESARA is the most important thing on the planet," she says.

Goodwin claims a powerful group called "White Knights" is fighting a secret war against "the Illuminati" over the secret law. Her regular updates cite secret sources from the highest levels of government and finance around the world.

She links her conspiracy theory to a proven con. Goodwin says NESARA will unlock the wealth allegedly held in more than 50 "prosperity programs." They include an investment fraud called Omega, run by a convicted con artist named Clyde Hood of Mattoon, Ill. In the mid-1990s the scheme robbed thousands of people of more than $20 million and led to the convictions of 18 conspirators for wire fraud, mail fraud and money laundering.

Followers throughout the world believe Goodwin's reports, subscribe to her Internet "e-group" and wave banners for her cause. They ignore government officials who tell them there is no secret law to announce, that Congress never passed it, that there is no gag order.

Goodwin dismisses critics and naysayers as tools of what she calls "the dark agenda." The Omega convictions were a sham, she says - a government plot to deprive people of their money. She says she is practicing political activism, that she tells the truth, that she doesn't lead a cult.

Her followers don't know she has registered a business to make collection of donations easier, that she has declared bankruptcy at least once, or that she owes the IRS $12,000. Most don't even know her name, or that she's a 57-year-old former parade queen from McCleary.

The Scheherazade factor

Goodwin didn't make the pieces of her Byzantine puzzle.

Omega came from Hood, a retired Illinois electrician who created the investment fraud scheme in 1994. New Age jargon provided Goodwin's rhetoric. The conspiracy theories were rusty boilerplate, covered by "The Da Vinci Code" author Dan Brown and others, volleyed around thousands of Internet sites. And the NESARA idea belonged to Harvey Barnard, a retired engineer in Louisiana who drafted a model bill 13 years ago as an academic exercise.

But the synthesis was Dove's, and that's what catches the trained eye of Andreas Schroeder, co-chairman of the creative writing department at the University of British Columbia, and author of several books on scam artists and confidence games.

Dove built a bridge from one scam to another, shifting from Omega's unofficial chronicler to the keeper of the secret law. Schroeder likens the NESARA story to a famous con from the 1920s: the Drake Legacy.

For more than a decade, Oscar Hartzell, an Illinois farmer, convinced thousands of people that he controlled the $100 billion estate of Sir Francis Drake, the 16th-century pirate.

Hartzell went to London to make the con look good. He stayed there, sending letters to suckers back home that described his negotiations with the British government and the royal family, and the need for more public support and money to seal the deal.

He spent his days at the post office and his nights on liquor and women. He was convicted of fraud in 1934 and died nine years later. Before his trial, Hartzell's believers raised more than $68,000 for his defense.

His method was as old as deceit. Richard Rayner, author of "Drake's Fortune," a book on the scam, calls it "the Scheherazade factor," invoking the princess of the Arabian Nights who saved her life with stories.

Like Hartzell, Dove writes letters describing government plots too tangled to unravel. Like him, she denounces critics and skeptics. Like him, she urges her supporters to campaign for the unreal.

It keeps them distracted, Schroeder says. The best con artists turn passive victims into active supporters.

"You're told to spend a tremendous amount of effort to get in on the fight and defend yourself," he says. "Join up with a bunch of other like-minded people to defend the enterprise. It keeps you busy, it keeps you involved, and because you're chorusing, the din you create overwhelms anything that might be coming in through the other ear."

Misinformation

On Nov. 29, 2001, Dove instructed victims of the Omega scam not to file restitution claims seeking the return of their money.

"Since the whole court thing in Illinois was always part of the dark agenda opposition trying to brainwash program members, if you fill out that questionnaire, you are probably signing away your rights to your prosperity," she wrote.

In the same message she mentioned another Internet poster, Jennifer Lee, a California woman who adopted Dove's methods but lacked her panache. Lee's messages, also available on the Internet, are delivered by phone and quote liberally from Dove's writings. Lee frequently asks her readers to send money - "donations" - to pay for her expenses.

In her Nov. 29 message, Dove endorsed Lee's requests for donations, but distanced herself from such pleas.

"My own policy is to do my service of providing truth WITHOUT asking the Dove e-group members to donate money to help me," she wrote. Her e-group subscriber list climbed above 5,000.

Collectively, 355 Omega victims from 41 states and three countries filed restitution claims seeking more than $1.69 million.

Esteban "Steve" Sanchez, the assistant U.S. attorney in Illinois who prosecuted the Omega case, was disappointed. He knew the scam's victims numbered in the thousands.

It was the Scheherazade factor, the unshakable faith of Omega investors, the rough magic of the con, nurtured by Dove. The victims weren't talking - not in Illinois, and not in Yelm, where Goodwin then lived. Many Omega "investors" were clustered in the Thurston County city and surrounding communities.

Dove was hindering the restitution effort; it was a pain, but Sanchez and his attorneys chose not to chase her. They already had 19 criminal cases to prosecute.

"The misinformation was more of a thorn in our sides, as opposed to an evidentiary, crime-solving thing," he said. "We couldn't figure out that she was taking any money. She was just misinforming people. That may be an issue of the First Amendment. She's not forcing the listeners to believe what she says. These people are adults."

Louise Gilman, then a Yelm resident, invested $4,500 in Omega. She knew several others in the community who gave as much or more. As soon as she heard of the court case and the restitution program, she filed a claim. She knew others in Yelm who didn't.

"So many people did not put in for a refund," said Gilman, who now lives in Oregon. "They thought the government was trying to get in on it. We didn't know anybody who went in for restitutions. There's so many lessons to be learned for people here - the truth really needs to be told. I have to say that the government protected us."

On Dec. 23, 2001, Dove posted a report shredding Barnard, the original author of the NESARA bill. His Web site was a sham, she said. Bush administration goons had taken control of it. Her opponents, including Barnard, were "dark agenda stooges."

Eventually Dove would change the name of the secret law, but preserve Barnard's acronym. Instead of the National Economic Stabilization and Recovery Act, it became the National Economic Security and Reformation Act.

Barnard had written the NESARA proposal, nursed it for years and inched it toward the door of respectability, even getting an occasional sniff from politicians with a libertarian bent.

Now the idea no longer belonged to him.

He has taken to calling Goodwin's reports "Dove droppings."

Back in business

On Jan. 24, 2002, Shaini Goodwin got her business license. The corporate address appeared in her Internet reports, and she began to ask for donations to cover her expenses, which ranged from an overdue electric bill to replacement of a dying computer.

She says it was the hardest thing she's ever done. She had been writing reports for two years and never asked for money, but there was no alternative.

If she didn't, she says, "I probably would have to get a regular job, and I wouldn't be able to help NESARA."

She would repeat her request once every three to four months for the next two years. Only a few readers respond, she says - about 100 out of more than 15,000.

Goodwin has never mentioned the business license to her readers. She told The News Tribune she doesn't see the need.

"The Dove business is strictly to have a bank account," Goodwin says. "That's the only reason that it's there. I had to get a business license to open a checking account with the name of 'Dove.'"

In subsequent 2002 reports, she urged readers to send e-mails to Congress, demanding the announcement of NESARA. She claimed the Bush administration planned the 9/11 attacks to prevent it. Her subscriber list topped the 6,000 mark.

On April 11, she started a phone line: a Seattle number where supporters could call for "updates." The NESARA announcement was imminent, "on the brink," and the White Knights were taking new steps to eradicate the dark agenda. She claimed 7,600 subscribers.

"Oh, by the way," snorts Jay Adkisson, a scam-cracking asset protection attorney from California, "we're having trouble paying our phone bill - please send some money in."

Adkisson edits Quatloos.com, an irreverent Web site dedicated to exposing financial scams and frauds. (The word "quatloos" is a pop-culture joke, a reference to sci-fi currency from an old "Star Trek" episode.) Adkisson appears as an occasional guest expert on network news shows such as ABC's "20/20," and he has testified on investment fraud before the U.S. Senate Finance Committee.

The Quatloos site includes a lengthy history of the Omega scam and excerpts from Dove's reports. Adkisson scoffs at them ("the voice of the clinically insane," he says), but his words include a hint of grudging admiration.

"A very subtle scam: Keep me alive for information because this information impacts you," he says. "Well, the fact is, it doesn't impact anybody. It's bogus. It's just a way to grift money from people who want to believe that their long-forgotten Omega shares are gonna pay out some day."

Dove calls Quatloos "a CIA disinformation Web site" and says she has confirmed it with a Secret Service agent she won't name.

Along with Adkisson, Dove attracted other observers - hunters who make a hobby of researching scams. One goes by the Internet handle "goose." He followed Omega for years and had friends who invested in it. When Dove's reports began to appear, he kept an eye on her.

"I give her credit for being able to combine this stuff in an amazingly confusing way," he says. "Dove has pulled some really hurtful things together and built a story, which she continues to spread, and which, in turn, only causes more hurt for those who hang on to her every word.

"People have been completely ruined because of these programs that Dove promotes," the man known as goose says. "Dove has had ample opportunity to see the hurt people have suffered. Does she stop? Never. She goes on and on."

In June 2002, Goodwin asked for donations again.

"My PC needs some expensive repair work done in the NEXT FEW DAYS so I can keep doing the Dove Reports, and due to unforeseen expenses in our household, I need your assistance with these repair costs," she wrote.

She complained that the NESARA announcement had been delayed until July 4 and chided the White Knights for taking so long. She urged supporters to send e-mails to the World Court in the Netherlands, where she claimed judges were assembling for secret hearings on the NESARA issue.

She swept critics aside, announcing that those who spoke against the secret law were being "monitored" and would forfeit their prosperity. In August, she said homemaking empress Martha Stewart, under suspicion for financial crimes, was being framed because she supported NESARA.

On Oct. 1, she asked for money again. On Oct. 2, she advised a supporter facing mortgage foreclosure to call the bank, inform whomever answered that NESARA was being announced and explain that banks that continued to pursue foreclosures would be charged with obstruction of justice.

On Oct. 15, two weeks after the East Coast sniper shootings ended with the arrest of former Tacoma resident John Allen Muhammad, Dove's daily report called the slayings a dark agenda operation carried out by federal agents.

"I'm told that some of the reported shootings and deaths are NOT true, but that local police officials and others have been willing stooges to help out in this CIA operation," she wrote.

Her claimed subscriptions rose: 8,000, then 9,000, then 10,000.

The numbers are impossible to verify; the Internet is a graveyard of unreliable statistics, easily rigged and twisted. But her news group at the Yahoo Web site, which she has since abandoned, listed similar membership numbers before she moved her reports to a new site. She showed her e-mail inbox to The News Tribune during an interview Thursday. It included 1,763 new (or unread) messages.

Whatever her true number of readers, her fame was growing. Her reports began to appear on multiple "mirror" Web sites, including the Internet home of the Principality of Camside in Australia, a "fake nation" created by a handful of anti-government secessionists who say the Australian government is illegal.

Dove started giving radio interviews. They included a two-day guest appearance in February 2003 with Cameron Steele, host of a Seattle-based program called "Contact Radio." Steele invited Dove after receiving requests to bring her on, he said. Her appearance drew record interest: More than 100 people signed up for the show's e-mail list after the interview.

"She makes good radio," he said.

During the interview, Steele didn't ask about Omega, though he heard rumors of Dove's ties to the old scam.

That wasn't the topic of the show, he told The News Tribune. The topic was NESARA. Steele isn't sure he buys the business about passage of the secret law, but he thinks it's quite an idea.

"Maybe this whole thing with Dove is there just to define what we want with our lives," he said. "To remind us we need to investigate more."

Dove's appearance on Steele's show was sponsored by Stephen Heuer, a California business owner who sells natural goods and organic products. When he bought the airtime, Heuer knew nothing about Omega or Dove's connection to it. He had spoken with her after hearing about NESARA from an acquaintance. The conversation left him spellbound.

"I just found that what she said was so compelling and so positive and so much what we needed, that if there was anything I could do to support its coming to fruition, I would do that," he said. "I'd like to think it's a Santa Claus story come true."

Too good to be true

Though soliciting donations in exchange for phony information might sound fishy, it isn't illegal. State and federal law enforcement authorities say no law prohibits Dove from asking for gifts, even if they fund conspiracy theories.

"She has her First Amendment right to say things," said Jeff Scobba, an investigator with the U.S. Postal Service in Seattle. "As long as she's saying it's a gift or a donation to her cause, I don't think there's anything illegal with asking for money.

"I think it would be foolish to send her money."

Dove hasn't generated any complaints to the state attorney general or the U.S. Attorney's Office in Seattle. No public sources show how much money she makes from her state-registered business, or whether she pays obligatory taxes. The state Department of Revenue does not disclose such information about individual businesses, said spokesman Mike Gowrylow, who added he hadn't heard of Dove before The News Tribune asked about her.

"If we become aware of any kind of suspected tax evasion, we investigate it," he said. "I'm sure we don't catch every little bit of it, and we're not aware of everything."

In early 2003, Dove orchestrated a letter-writing campaign to the U.S. Supreme Court, urging her fans to send postcards ("NESARA now!") and NESARA fliers, which readers could download for free.

Her followers responded dutifully. Hundreds of postcards arrived. No one paid much attention.

"If correspondence doesn't relate to a specific court case or require a response, it's disposed of," said Kathy Arberg, spokeswoman for the court.

No proof

On her Web site, Dove describes several ways to prove NESARA's reality. None can be verified, though she says public denials simply prove how secret it is.

In some of her reports, she claims Congress passed the bill March 9, 2000, and that President Clinton signed it on Sept. 10 of that year. Records of congressional actions for March 9 show no NESARA vote. Records of Clinton's official actions Sept. 10 don't include a NESARA bill-signing.

Goodwin now says Clinton signed the bill sometime in October 2000.

Repeated questions from NESARA believers have forced the Department of the Treasury to issue a statement on its Web site, couched in inoffensive but direct terms.

"The NESARA proposal has not yet been introduced in the Congress, nor is it part of any current law," the statement reads. "The Treasury Department is not authorized, under our political system of checks and balances, to execute or administer any part of NESARA, without the force of law as approved by Congress."

Dove claims some financial experts know about NESARA and will discuss it if asked.

Matt Philichi, an investment broker with the Tacoma branch of Morgan Stanley, burst out laughing when he heard the story of the secret law.

"That's the silliest thing I've ever heard of," he said. "There's absolutely no way that all this information is going to float out of Yelm, Washington, and miss all the other cities in the world. It sounds like the typical scam. If there was something in this that we could present to our clients to help them and make them like us more - you know we'd be all over it. There's not one firm out there that would keep it a secret."

Occasionally, Dove names U.S. Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) as a NESARA supporter. Paul's libertarian views on the economy make him "a bit of a lightning rod for conspiracy theorists," says his spokesman, Jeff Deist.

Deist says the same thing to every NESARA supporter who calls: NESARA has never been introduced in Congress, and Paul never voted on it.

Dove says members of the national media are under a gag order, and cannot discuss the secret NESARA law. She says she learned about the gag order from "a New York journalist." She will not give his name.

When pressed for other evidence by The News Tribune, Dove cited "confirmations" of NESARA in the form of messages from her supporters.

She provided 95 pages of printed e-mails. Many of the messages were duplicated three and four times from the same individual. The pile included 18 messages referencing NESARA. In them, supporters speak of colored currency and vague hints from unnamed bank tellers and managers. Most of the anecdotes describe conversations with friends of friends.

At Dove's request, one of her supporters, Dan Onerheim of Iowa, spoke to The News Tribune and described the experience he called a "confirmation."

"A few months back," Onerheim said, he was talking to a certified public accountant who mentioned "a lot of changes coming into effect monetarily." He said the man mentioned NESARA.

The News Tribune asked for the man's name. "Al," Onerheim said.

The last name? He didn't know.

The man's location?

"I think he was out of Phoenix," Onerheim said.

A second supporter, Herb McKirgan of Oregon, told The News Tribune he heard U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) confirm NESARA's existence during a recent speech.

McKirgan said he mentioned NESARA activities to Kucinich, who allegedly named the law and said it was "very important."

Andy Juniewicz, senior communications adviser to Kucinich's presidential campaign, dismissed the story and criticized Dove's occasional use of Kucinich's name.

"Her claim is pure fiction," he said. The congressman would not have corroborated the existence of a law that doesn't exist. It's important that she stop using his name as corroboration for her claims."

During her interview with The News Tribune on Thursday, Dove called another supporter, this time in the Netherlands, a woman named Nel DeBest who participates in NESARA demonstrations at the World Court. DeBest also reported a "confirmation" of the secret law - she says an ambassador driving by the demonstrators in a car gave the thumbs-up sign. So did one of the World Court judges, she said.

At times in the last two years, hundreds of daily e-mails from NESARA followers have gummed up the World Court's computers. Local police recently told the demonstrators to stop planting their signs in the flower beds.

The activists are peaceful, friendly and persistent, says Boris Heim, one of the court's information officers.

"We have just told them we have nothing to do with them and can't help them in any way," he says. "You see obviously that they don't have quite a grip really on what's happening. They look at you in a bizarre way. They're not listening."

Heim feels sorry for them. It amazes him that they believe Dove's words.

"It's just pointless," he says. "It's like asking the president of France to abolish the death penalty in New Zealand. It doesn't make any sense. If you talk about this to any normal human being with a functioning brain, he will understand that the International Court cannot erase the taxes of the world."

Court employees used to respond to NESARA e-mails with a form letter: "The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has nothing to do with any alleged 'Nesara' proceedings, as mentioned in your e-mail and on certain Internet sites," it said. They don't bother to respond anymore. It does no good.

Edith Cole, a 69-year-old Rochester, Thurston County, resident, waved a NESARA banner at the World Court when she visited the Netherlands earlier this year. In February, she passed out NESARA fliers at a Puyallup gun show.

Cole doesn't send Dove money, but she reads her reports regularly. She didn't invest in Omega and says she doesn't know about Dove's connection to it.

"I'm under the impression that she's a caregiver, that she does humanitarian work," Cole said. "I've talked to Dove directly. She's very passionate for what she's doing. She totally believes in it. I do, too."

A rush from influence

Photos of the World Court demonstrations appear on Dove's Web site, along with others of NESARA demonstrations in Seattle, Texas and South America. The numbers are growing, and Dove feeds the energy. Recently, she gave herself a new title: Worldwide NESARA Take Action Team Director.

Though her means are modest, Dove's influence and worldwide network of supporters reflect an occasional pattern that surfaces in "impostor" scams - and provide a partial explanation of what Goodwin gains by her efforts.

"It's definitely not always money," says Schroeder, the fraud historian. "Beyond a certain point, it's the ability to influence a whole lot of people at the snap of their fingers. Influence, being the spider at the center of the web that can get everybody excited by plucking this string. That's as big a rush and as good a reason as making a million bucks."

The scam hunter known as goose can't decide whether Dove writes for money or attention, whether she believes her reports or puts on a good show. Either way, it bothers him.

"A lot of people have newsletters, and people either pay for them or their newsletters are supported by donations. There's really nothing illegal about that," he says. "But the thing is, Omega has been declared, by the court and in Illinois, a scam. You can't talk about funding without connecting it to something that's been called a scam, something that's been declared illegal by the courts. In that sense you're holding out hope of a declared scam. There's the legal question and then there's the moral, ethical question."

Hearing the story of Dove, Sanchez, who prosecuted the Omega conspirators in Illinois, feels a pulse of fury.

"It is so offensive to me when people victimize victims, kick somebody when they're down," he says. "This is what she's done, and it's not right. One could argue that she's done more damage than Clyde Hood."

The cybercult

In Redmond lives a man who wishes he'd never heard of Dove. Because of her reports, he can't talk to his sister anymore. Fearing he will lose all contact with her, the man asked The News Tribune not to publish his name. Call him John.

John's sister lives in California. Her husband controls all communication to their household. The husband was an Omega investor who tried to pull his relatives into the program. Now the husband is a Dove believer.

"He's an incredible supporter, to the point where if you mention that it might not be on the up-and-up, he gets angered," John says. "It doesn't matter what you say - these people want to believe. They want to believe what's being fed to them."

He has tried to talk to the husband, to reason with him. It doesn't work. They can't talk anymore; the husband says John is part of the dark agenda. What started as a dubious get-rich-quick scheme has become something else, something addictive.

"There is definitely a walking path between multilevel marketing and this stuff - a doorway drug," John says. "This is really a cult. It's a cybercult."

The News Tribune reached John's brother-in-law last month and asked whether he would talk about his support of Omega and NESARA.

"Take my number off your list and forget you ever met me," the man said, and hung up.

"This goofy NESARA stuff, it is a cybercult," said Adkisson, the scam-busting California attorney. "You've got a big pool of proven suckers - a big pool of people who were dumb enough to buy into these prosperity programs in the first place. There's a really bizarre, extremist political strain through this whole deal. You have to wonder, what's the end game?"

The trucks

Through winter and spring of this year, Dove trimmed NESARA like a Christmas tree. The secret law would bring even more benefits, she said: a cure for cancer, 90 percent price reductions at the store, increased Social Security payments ($3,000 a month), a ban on Navy sonar tests that kill whales, and prosecution for uninsured drivers.

She asked for money on Feb. 4. Petitions to the World Court were working, she said in March. Judges had agreed to hold a hearing on the NESARA announcement, now scheduled for April.

On April Fool's Day, at the end of a long report, she pushed for another postcard campaign to a familiar target: The Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon. To fire up the troops, she added a teaser:

"I'm working on another BIG action which will encourage these high-level officers to get NESARA announced immediately," she wrote.

For the next few days, she dropped hints about "the secret BIG thing," calling it "a very unusual activity which will give NESARA's announcement a BIG boost forward."

On April 7, the big thing arrived. Four billboard trucks appeared in Washington, D.C., and drove around Capitol Hill for a few weeks. The signs they carried called for the announcement of NESARA. The chrome-style logo and graphics were taken from Dove's Web site.

In a report posted April 7, Dove cheered. Photos of the trucks soon appeared on her site.

"At last, OUR VOICES are being heard in D.C. in a BIG way," she wrote. "It makes me smile every time I see these beautiful NESARA mobile billboards."

She told The News Tribune the trucks were paid for by a woman - "a well-to-do NESARA supporter" she would not identify.

A Maryland-based company called Drive-By Ads owns the billboard trucks. Owner James Miller said he didn't know anything about NESARA when the job came in. It was just another campaign. A big one, though; he had to call in extra drivers. Each truck rents for $600 per day, and vinyl signs run between $1,200 and $1,400 apiece.

The trucks ran for three weeks. Miller won't say who paid for them.

"Sometimes I'm leery on calls I get for the NESARA group," he said. "Some people are for it, and some people are against it. I'm just the messenger."

On April 22, a few days after the trucks appeared, Dove posted her latest request for donations.

"Next week I must pay for some large communications expenses and other expenses and I'm asking those of you who are able to send financial contributions to fund the many actions I'm leading for the benefit of all of us to move NESARA into announcement immediately," she wrote.

She gave the Olympia address and mailbox number along with the usual precise instructions: "Please address your envelope EXACTLY as above or your envelope may not be delivered. Also, please REPLY to this message telling me you are sending me a financial gift. You may make checks or money orders payable to 'Dove.'"

The Secret Law According to Dove

Despite facts to the contrary, Dove of Oneness insists Congress passed a secret law in 2000. Here's what her Web site says the secret NESARA law does:

"Forgives credit card, mortgage and other bank debt.

"Abolishes the IRS, creates a flat-rate sales tax.

"Initiates the U.S. Treasury Bank System, which absorbs the Federal Reserve and new precious metals backed U.S. Treasury currency.

"Restores constitutional law.

"Requires resignations of current administration to be replaced by NESARA president and vice president designates until new elections within 120 days.

"Requires the president designate to declare "peace," enabling international banking improvements to proceed; ends "U.S. aggressive military actions immediately, and many more improvements."

References:
Link to original article
Dove of Oneness / NESARA website

THE NESARA FILES — Part 4

2009-02-21T14:57:06.183Z

Some lucrative ‘New Age hooey’

The News Tribune, Tacoma/June 19, 2006
By Sean Robinson

Peddling conspiracy theory pays off for Shaini Goodwin, aka “Dove of Oneness” – but the Dark Agenda hounds her steps.

A complaint lodged with the state attorney general’s consumer protection division accuses Goodwin, a Shelton resident who leads a worldwide Internet conspiracy cult, of scamming at least $10,000 from a 64-year-old woman in San Francisco.

“I think she is running a huge scam based on some New Age hooey that convinces gullible people to give money to bring about some financial world peace fantasy,” the woman’s daughter wrote about Goodwin in the April 11 complaint.

Family members of the woman spoke to The News Tribune about the complaint, asking that their names not be used. They said the $10,000 reflects a fraction of the amount their mother has given to Goodwin over the past several years.

“It’s in the hundreds of thousands,” the woman’s daughter said.

The daughter provided a copy of the complaint, and said she has also spoken to the FBI about Goodwin’s activities. Records show the complaint was registered with the attorney general’s office in Vancouver, Wash.

Another family member has called the state Department of Revenue, questioning whether Goodwin has paid her state business taxes. A spokesman for the agency confirmed the account, but said he did not know whether the agency is pursuing the complaint.

Goodwin did not respond to requests for comment this week. She lives in a double-wide mobile home, and posts weekly “Dove reports” on her Web site, www.nesara.us.

The reports detail her efforts to hasten the announcement of a supposed secret law passed by Congress, but never revealed to the public.

She asks readers for donations to support her activities, listing as her address a mail drop in Lacey. She has registered her business with the state, creating the obligation to pay business taxes on the income it generates.

According to Goodwin, the Bush administration and agents of “the Dark Agenda” plotted the Sept. 11 terror attacks to prevent the secret law’s announcement. The law supposedly declares peace and releases vast sums of wealth to people who have invested their money in proven financial cons.

Goodwin’s readers span the globe. Her followers have papered the U.S. Supreme Court with postcards, harangued the Pentagon and other federal agencies with e-mails and carried protest signs outside the World Court in the Netherlands.

In early 2004, a group of billboard trucks advertising the secret law circled Washington, D.C., for a few weeks.

The money for the truck campaign – about $40,000 – came from the San Francisco resident, according to her relatives.

The News Tribune profiled Goodwin in 2004. The series (www.thenewstribune.com/news/projects/dove) detailed the history of her rise to prominence on the Internet, and exposed her ties to a financial fraud called Omega that bilked at least $20 million from unwitting investors throughout the United States.

Federal prosecutors in Illinois charged and convicted architects of the Omega scheme. Goodwin has denied active participation in the Omega fraud. She said she invested money like many others, but did not sell shares in the investment scam. Authorities never charged her with a crime.

After The News Tribune series appeared, Goodwin threatened to sue the newspaper. To date, no suit has been filed. She posted a lengthy rebuttal of the articles, claiming the newspaper was affiliated with the CIA. It isn’t. In the last year, she has re-stitched the details of her conspiracy theory, claiming she has traveled throughout the nation and abroad, meeting with high-level sources who know about the secret law.

She claims she has tried to recruit singers Willie Nelson and Bruce Springsteen to her cause.

“I thought surely Bruce Springsteen – composer and singer of ‘Born in the USA’ – would be willing to help if he knew the truth,” she wrote in a report posted Feb. 11, 2006. “A few months later, I learned that Bruce was being ‘briefed’ by certain high-ranking Pentagon officers who were feeding Bruce lies.”

In May, Goodwin posted a report claiming the U.S. Treasury was selling high-level Treasury bills to investors with more than $100 million tied to Asian currency.

Goodwin urged her readers to buy in, saying it would hasten the secret law’s announcement.

“It’s not true – this is something that does not exist,” said Jennifer Zuccarelli, spokeswoman for the agency. “That is absolutely false.”

Family members of the San Francisco woman say they have tried to convince her Goodwin’s reports are fiction – to no avail.

The woman’s daughter said filing the complaint was a last resort to stop her mother from giving Goodwin any more money.

“Dove recently called and asked her for quite a big chunk of cash and was able to talk her into it,” the daughter said. “She’s found a gravy train, and she’s not going to go away easily.”

The state Department of Revenue investigates businesses that haven’t paid their taxes.

Mike Gowrylow, spokesman for the agency, said he could not confirm whether an investigation of Goodwin is taking place.

He added that claims of financial fraud might require intervention from other agencies.

“If somebody’s getting ripped off, that’s something that somebody ought to look into,” he said. “It’s kind of beyond our mandate to investigate whether somebody’s cheating somebody. Our job is to make sure whether the business is paying their taxes.”

The News Tribune has learned that Goodwin recently approached a financial expert in Olympia, seeking investment advice. She also made a tentative offer to buy real estate in the area, according to three sources familiar with the transaction. The property owner, suspicious, declined to do business with Goodwin.

The News Tribune tried to reach Goodwin via e-mail, and left a message at her home in Shelton. She was not home Thursday, but she left a note on her door addressed to FedEx.

“Dear Fed Ex,” the note said. “Please leave delivery on table under canopy and place rock on top of envelope. Thank you, Shaini Goodwin.”

References
Link to original article
Link to Dove of Oneness/NESARA website