Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
The Worldnutdaily has fallen for a fraud, publishing an article that is little more than an infomercial for a private military company run by a con man and a liar.
They should have done a little research, like we did at the Michigan Messenger last year when we discovered that the founder of the company, Barrett Moore, had faked his military credentials and had a long history of fraud that got him sued by practically everyone he'd ever been in business with.
On the Sovereign Deed website and in his bio, Moore claimed to have "served as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Army, specializing in issues related to the non-proliferation of biological weapons and related weapons of mass destruction." In fact, Moore spent a year in ROTC at DePauw University, never completed it and was discharged without ever even going through basic training.
When we revealed that fact, we got a rather amusing response. His attorney claimed that the work he did was so top secret that it wouldn't be found in the usual databases and that's why the Pentagon said they couldn't find it. When we sent that statement to a public affairs officer at the Pentagon he laughed and said, "I hear that all the time." Moore immediately threatened to sue us. He never did, of course, because he knew he would lose. In fact, he later admitted that he had exaggerated his virtually non-existent military credentials.
We also reported that he had been convicted of fraud in a business scam in Australia in the early 90s and had been sued for fraud several times by business partners in the United States. Sovereign Deed is a fraud, plain and simple, and so is Moore.
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So it fits in with everything else the Nut publishes, pure unfiltered bullshit.
Posted by: Bourgeois_Rage | June 5, 2009 9:57 AM
Posted by: Eric | June 5, 2009 9:59 AM
No byline for the story. I reads like WND just reprinted a press release wholesale.
Posted by: Ferrous Patella | June 5, 2009 9:59 AM
The article states:
"The company is currently building a national response center at a regional airport
in Pellston, Mich."
Is that still going on?
Posted by: Taz | June 5, 2009 10:13 AM
Taz-
Not that we've been able to find. Local officials say it isn't happening and there's nothing going on at the airport.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | June 5, 2009 10:18 AM
"Who ya gonna call when disaster strikes?"
Really, now. How seriously are we going to take an article when the title's obvious response is "Ghostbusters!"?
Posted by: nedlum | June 5, 2009 11:28 AM
That's what they'd like you to think. It's top secret.
Posted by: hissatsu | June 5, 2009 11:35 AM
Perhaps the "topsecretuber facility" is on AmWay's corporate campus.
Posted by: democommie | June 5, 2009 11:55 AM
If would be fascinating to see what WND would say if you were to notify them of your own research, Ed. I guess there's little doubt that they would dismiss it as irrelevant somehow, but you never know...
Posted by: tacitus | June 5, 2009 1:04 PM
Wingnutdaily is a perfect example of the modern conservative movement. They exist in a world of fantasy. What makes something "true" is not whether it has empirical support, but if it agrees with their ideological positions.
Hmm, where has that happened before?
Posted by: existentialdrift | June 5, 2009 1:58 PM
We should also note how taxpayers were saved the expense of subsidizing this operation, which most likely would have happened if it were not for the Michigan Messenger. Even the local press was taken in until the Messenger started its investigative reporting.
Ed - I was going to note the contributions by Eartha Melzer, but wanted to validate that it was her leading this effort prior to posting her name. However, the Messenger story you link to in this blog post has links that do not go where I believe they were intended, e.g., one link goes to an error page and another link goes to the "About the Messenger" page rather than the story referred to in the staff report.
Posted by: Michael Heath | June 5, 2009 2:08 PM
I wouldn't be surprised if Moore becomes a contributor to Joe Farah's "G2 Bulletin," if that's still around.
Posted by: Jon Lester | June 5, 2009 2:52 PM
It should be noted that Worldnutdaily is now practically alone in posting information on the legal challenges relative to President Obamas' birth certificate.
Posted by: SLC | June 5, 2009 3:27 PM
Ed,
how do you come across this stuff? Do you actually read everything that is published on WND?
Posted by: lukas | June 5, 2009 3:51 PM
Does Hal "The Late Great Planet Earth" Lindsey still "contribute" to WND?
Posted by: Raging Bee | June 5, 2009 4:52 PM
Speaking of legal challenges by the birfers, how is Alan Keyes' lawsuit going?
Posted by: Raging Bee | June 5, 2009 4:54 PM
Of course, if Moore's work really were so top-secret that the Pentagon couldn't confirm he'd even been in the army, he definitely isn't supposed to be telling us about it.
Posted by: Ace of Sevens | June 5, 2009 8:46 PM
Yeah, Moore couldn't talk about it if the Pentagon couldn't. I doubt there's anything that secret in the military-I don't think the military even handles nonproliferation beyond the actual interception. Even if he had that training, teaching it to civilians would probably be leaking classified information(treason).
If WND ever got its hands on a real military trainer, that would be very dangerous. Military training + Birther mindset + nonstop conservative paranoia since Obama took office = organized armed resistance to the government. That's really scary.
Posted by: Matt | June 11, 2009 6:57 PM
Even if he had that training, teaching it to civilians would probably be leaking classified information(treason).
Just leaking classified information isn't necessarily treason. Walker for example, was convicted of espionage, not treason, he plea bargained a lesser sentence for his son. These idiots were the reason I had to have a Top Secret clearance, today the same job requires only a Confidential or Secret, was a major PITA.
Posted by: dogmeatIB | June 11, 2009 7:18 PM