You’re at a restaurant with friends. You finish your meal. And you offer to pay the bill.
But when you try to pay with your debit card, you can’t.
The machine just bleeps and rejects it.
You try your credit card. The same thing happens.
Embarrassed, you call your bank. You ask the woman at the end of the line what happened.
In a measured tone, she tells you your bank flagged a tweet you sent out (“It was too controversial”). You also made a political donation to the wrong candidate (“He’s too extreme”).
“Oh,” she continues, “we’ll be freezing your funds for six months. Please contact us after 180 days for instructions on how to make a withdrawal.”
But that’s what happened recently to U.S. citizen William Sabatini.
He lives in Los Angeles. He’s a political street artist who describes himself as a “right-leaning 1960s-style liberal.” And he goes by the moniker Sabo.
Except it wasn’t a bank that blacklisted him and froze his funds. It was Silicon Valley payments company PayPal.
Sabo says PayPal banned him… and is withholding his funds for six months… all because of his work.
He relentlessly attacks the Democratic Party. And he calls leftism a “mental disorder.”
He also satirizes Silicon Valley tycoons.
Sabo is the guy who put up posters around San Francisco like the one below…
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A Sabo poster of Google CEO Sundar Pichai flashing a wad of cash
He also took a swipe at Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer with this poster…
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Sabo takes aim at Mark Zuckerberg and Chuck Schumer
And he lampooned Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg by comparing him to Alfred E. Neuman of Mad Magazine fame.
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Sabo’s poster of Mayor Pete as Alfred E. Neuman
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Sabo has taken shots at just about every liberal cause you can think of.
A lot of people don’t. It’s in-your-face. And it’s meant to rile up strong emotions.
That doesn’t mean it’s PayPal’s – or anyone else’s – job to censor him.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is a nonprofit that defends free speech online. And it’s right when it calls out what PayPal is doing as an assault on free speech…
When financial institutions and payment intermediaries shut down accounts or inhibit transactions, it can have serious ramifications for free expression online.
Websites, whether they accept online donations, sell goods online, or simply have a bank account, rely on their financial institutions to ensure they can continue to operate.
We’ve seen examples of pressure being exerted on a website’s wallet to try to shut down lawful speech.
When PayPal cuts someone off like that, it’s a way of trying to silence them. And that’s a real worry…
Last year, we told you about Brian Kolfage.
If you don’t remember, he’s a triple-amputee veteran of the Iraq War. Facebook banned his online coffee business because he also administers the conservative website RightWingNews.com.
And we’re not the only ones at Legacy up in arms about this. Here’s how colleague Teeka Tiwari put it to paid-up Palm Beach Confidential subscribers in the March issue…
In 2018, PayPal banned all transactions, including those from credit cards, to right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ InfoWars website. Twitter and Facebook also cut off InfoWars.
And in 2010, PayPal blocked payments to WikiLeaks and froze its accounts. WikiLeaks is the organization that publishes classified and secret documents, such as the emails hacked from Hillary Clinton’s accounts.
These may seem like extreme cases. But for Teeka, they’re deeply troubling…
How would you feel if the government began targeting folks for supporting certain “politically incorrect” causes?
Maybe you want to donate to a pro-choice group… Or maybe you want to buy a “Make America Great Again” hat online… What if some company tried to block your transaction or report you to the government? It may sound far-fetched. But it does happen.
He says everyone should own some bitcoin in their portfolio. And he sees its price surpassing the previous high of nearly $20,000 as folks seek an alternative to the mainstream financial system.
You see, unlike PayPal, or Visa, or MasterCard, bitcoin is censorship-resistant.
Bitcoin runs across a decentralized network. Nobody is in control of this network. Nobody is in charge.
This is critical to bitcoin’s value as a currency and as an alternative payments system.
The genius of Satoshi Nakamoto, bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator, was to invent an online payment system anyone can use without fear of censorship.
Anyone can use bitcoin… no matter what ideas they have… who they vote for… or which political party they donate to.
Teeka first added bitcoin to the model portfolios at our Palm Beach Letter and Palm Beach Confidential advisories in April 2016.
Since then, it’s returned 2,083%.
And as he’s been telling his readers, bitcoin isn’t something you hold just because you believe it’s going higher. It’s also a great way to move some of your wealth outside of the stock market. Teeka…
You own bitcoin for the same reason you own precious metals… or other currencies outside of the U.S. dollar. If I said to you that the only currency you should buy is the dollar… or that the only precious metal you should buy is silver… that would be a mistake.
I’m NOT recommending you go out and cash in little Johnny’s college fund and put all of it into bitcoin. But as a hedge against some bad things happening in the world, I believe everybody should have at least some exposure to bitcoin.
Like I said, longtime followers of Teeka are already up more than 2,000% on bitcoin.
But if you’re new to the crypto market, you can find out more about how to buy bitcoin in our special report, “Three Simple Steps to Buy and Store Cryptocurrencies.” As a Daily Cut reader, it’s free to access.
He’s spent the past two years researching an investment strategy that he says can give you a shot at bringing in five figures a month.
This strategy has been credited with calling most major moves in the Dow for the past two decades.
For example, in March 2003, it called the bottom of the dot-com bust. It then predicted that the U.S. stock market would continue moving up for at least three years… which it did.
In June 2007, it called the top in the Dow… and successfully predicted the coming collapse in stock prices 16 months in advance.
And in April 2008, it predicted the Dow would start moving up by midsummer of 2009… And that’s exactly what happened.
This strategy has also got documented history of making accurate calls in oil and natural gas, banks, the U.S. dollar, and commodities.
For the past few months, Teeka and his team have been beta-testing recommendations with real money on the line… And they’ve racked up a stunning 80% win rate.
But next Wednesday, November 13 at 8 p.m. ET, Teeka will reveal details of this system for the first time to the public – on camera.
And to prove its effectiveness, he’ll give everyone who attends his special event their first trade recommendation for free.
To secure your spot… and find out all about Teeka’s new strategy… go here now.
Regards,
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Chris Lowe
November 7, 2019
Madrid, Spain