Beck-backed gold fraud?

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 17:05:00 +0000

If you’ve ever listened to conservative talk radio, you’ve probably heard of Goldline, the precious metal seller endorsed by Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and others. But critics allege that Goldline is misleading its consumers, much like the talkers they sponsor.

The company’s business model was built on systemically swindling and scaring its mostly elderly clientele into purchasing overpriced gold coins, prosecutors in California alleged, leading the company to settle for $4.5 million in refunds to its customer. The city attorney in Santa Monica, where the company is based, brought 19 criminal fraud charges against the company that were later dropped, but a Los Angeles judge last year instructed the company to foot the bill for a court-appointed monitor, who was tasked with ensuring the company revealed its price markups and stopped misleading consumers.

Down with gay-healing quacks!

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 21:24:00 +0000

It's really hard to gain ground for acceptance and equality when so many people still think there's a reverse switch on human sexual orientation. It's just too helpful to bigots to believe that gay people are somehow misguided, or they're just being stubborn in their refusal to pair off with an appropriately opposite sex partner. That they can be talked into a whole other identity like it's a timeshare in Boca.

That's why it's significant that earlier this fall, California became the first state to ban gay "conversion" therapy on minors, because, as Gov. Jerry Brown explained, they have "driven young people to depression and suicide… These practices have no basis in science or medicine, and they will now be relegated to the dustbin of quackery."

And that's why what's unfolding in New Jersey right now represents a similar blow against the absurd – and ridiculously lucrative -- industry of "healing" gay men and women. In a groundbreaking suit the Southern Poverty Law Center filed on their behalf Tuesday, four New Jersey men and two of their mothers charged a gay counseling group with deceptive practices under the Consumer Fraud Act. SPLC attorney Samuel Wolfe said Tuesday, "This is the first time that plaintiffs have sought to hold conversion therapists liable in a court of law."

Salon.com > Consumer Fraud

Beck-backed gold fraud?

Down with gay-healing quacks!