I think the arrival of Michael K. Botts, Esq. as Stephen Barrett’s attorney in the Doctor’s Data v Barrett, Federal lawsuit is significant.
It is a flat-out desperation move. Simply, Stephen Barrett could not afford to hire a law firm to Defend. So someone is providing an attorney of their choice – not someone Barrett would pick – Michael K. Botts, who is not a litigator but an intellectual property and patent attorney.
Why would someone pick Botts when he is not a litigator? Because Botts is, himself, a quackbuster. He is close to being an insider, and he is, clearly, a zealot. You will find his name interspersed through quackbuster documents going back as far as 1986. For instance, below is a reference to the so-called
The Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine
and Aberrant Medical Practices
Publisher: Paul Kurtz
Editor in Chief: Wallace I. Sampson, MD, FACP, Clinical Professor of Medicine, Stanford University
Managing Editor: Meghann French
Science Editor: Saul Green, PhD
Associate Editors: Barry Beyerstein, PhD, Timothy Gorski, MD, Steven Novella, MD
Senior Editor: Michael K. Botts, Esq.
Pay close attention to the fact that, in typical quackbuster attention to detail (sarcasm intended), two of the people currently listed are DEAD (Barry Beyerstein and Saul Green), and have been dead for quite a while. However, I’d bet their current work is just about as good now as when they were alive.
So, why does Barrett have to use an attorney who has limited litigation experience?
My guess is that (1) Stephen Barrett could not get his homeowner’s insurance policy to pay for a second Defense (he was previously sued in Pennsylvania), (2) He could not raise serious money from his so-called support network, (3) He has been abandoned by the old quackbuster soldiers, (4) He could not get any advocacy group, like Public Citizen, to come to his aid.
I’m guessing he fell back on his Puppet Master with a simple device – “if they get me they will get YOU…”
So, suddenly, Stephen Barrett has a questionable attorney he can’t really afford, a guy who is a known zealot. It makes sense if you look, once again, at the inset above.
There is a name that ALWAYS plays an important role in Barrett, and other quackbuster and skeptic (pseudo-skeptic) activities. Who? Paul Kurtz, the owner of Prometheus Press, the Skeptical Enquirer Magazine, the originator of CSICOP, and the publisher of too-many-to-name-here anti-AltMed publications – and, of course, a whole host of sexual deviance publications including, according to an article I’ll show you below, a big bunch of pro-pedophile stuff.
Paul Kurtz – I think he is the Money Man, the guy who, in my opinion, when, and if, he tells Barrett to jump, Barrett responds with “How high Sir?” as he leaps into the air. I think Kurtz is the guy who is writing the checks to Michael K. Botts, Esq. We know for sure that Kurtz is the guy who publishes Barrett’s crappy books, providing Barrett, and other quackpots, with an income, and who makes money publishing Barrett’s crappy books.
Paul Kurtz – Barrett, and the entire US “skeptic” community’s “Puppet Master…”
So, What does this mean?
So, what do I think will happen now? Instead of a “legal” Defense, they’re going to use a two part strategy:
(1) Delay, delay, delay – for the last thing the quackbusters want is to have Barrett (a) examined by a Psychiatrist, (b) forced into a two or three day video taped Deposition. (c) or to have the NCAHF board members Deposed, (d) or to have Paul Kurtz, Terry Polevoy, Orac the Nipple Ripper, Steve Novella, William London, or Paul Lee Deposed.
Any of the above would create a disaster for them.
(2) They will instigate a “screaming” Defense, similar to the tactic Victor Herbert used to use. Botts, I’d guess, is a zealot who will scream out, in writing, the quackbuster message in Barrett’s Official Response.
Why? Once the Response message is on file then the public relations campaign to destroy Doctor’s Data Laboratory, and the Doctors that have used their services, will begin in earnest. Barrett, and his Puppet Master, will call on all of their resources, all at once, in an effort to win.
But, will this work?
Nope. They’ve tried this before, and each time it has backfired.
This time, I’d bet, it will backfire even more.
What is their Public Relations tactic going to be?
This is easy. Once Botts files something, anything, the so-called support network (insert the word “co-conspirators” here) will write comments on their blogs, based on what Botts writes in those Court Documents, about the case. Since they are all linked together in a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) move (insert the term “civil conspiracy” here), they will be using their existing structure to dominate the internet search engines and Wikipedia, with their destructive, defamatory, version of the lawsuit.
Then they will send out Press Releases referring to the comments from alleged “scientific groups” (co-conspirators) that can supposedly be found on the first pages of search engines like Google. Then, once some 85 IQ reporter writes a story, then they can refer other reporters to that story, blah, blah, blah.
Simple? Yes. And, it is what they are doing right now – so it would seem that it should work, for they think, the North American Health Freedom Movement is too dumb to counter it.
It might have worked three years ago. Now, all it is going to get is that the blog owners and writers involved will simply be added on to the lawsuit in a “Second Amended Complaint.”
My guess is that Doctor’s Data’s law firm, Augustine, Kern, and Levens, is quietly sitting there like a cat outside of a mouse hole. A pleasant, playful lunch will be along in a minute.
It will be a shock, I think, for individual members of the quackpot Farm Team (the bloggers, and the commenters on those blogs) to realize that after that guy that showed up at their place of work this morning, with the Court Summons, they now have 21 days, themselves, to lawyer up (mortgaging the house, selling the car, pawning the dog’s jewelry), individually, and Respond.
After the first one gets served there will be panic in the quackpot ranks.
So, What’s this “Puppet Master” Stuff?
It’s been right here in front of us all this time. There is someone running Barrett. Someone who prefers not to be seen for obvious reasons. Let us start with some simple, sensible, assumptions:
(1) Stephen Barrett does NOT run those websites. He couldn’t hold a full-time job during most of his professional career. He couldn’t even pass the test to become a Psychiatrist. For a long period of time he had a guy named Paul Lee, PT from Denmark, editing the sites. Lee has disappeared from sight. So who actually runs those websites?
(2) Barrett is not running the quackbuster operation. He is not that bright, and that will show up quickly when we see the two days of video-taped Deposition he will be forced into, posted on the internet.. Barrett has deep-seated psychological problems. They’ll show up in a Court ordered Psychiatric examination. Barrett is a front-man.
(3) There are two parts to the internet component of the quackwatch, etc., operation: (a) the actual misinformation articles, but more importantly (b) The SEO component which floats the scum to the top of the septic tank. Barrett has no training in SEO. It is being done by a professional. Professionals get paid a lot of money. So, who’s paying?
I had two separate analysis done, by SEO experts, of how Stephen Barrett, and the pseudoskeptics float to the top of the search engines. It is not by accident. It is planned and executed. How they do it makes them co-conspirators. Co-conspiracy is actionable.
This lawsuit, Doctor’s Data v Barrett, is just starting to get interesting.
Stay tuned.
Tim Bolen – Consumer Advocate