{"id":5112,"date":"2011-06-16T01:52:07","date_gmt":"2011-06-16T08:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=5112"},"modified":"2011-06-16T01:52:07","modified_gmt":"2011-06-16T08:52:07","slug":"hoist-on-his-own-petard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/06\/16\/hoist-on-his-own-petard\/","title":{"rendered":"Hoist on His Own Petard"},"content":{"rendered":"

Opening their arms to every extremist group, no matter how absurd, has become a thorn in the elephant\u2019s side, that sometimes gives rise to humor.  This is one such such case.  While it\u2019s political significance is nil, it\u2019s quite entertaining to see a wing-nut hoist on his own petard.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"16giordanos\"This is a story for the \u201cSo you thought rich business owners are smarter than you are\u201d file.<\/p>\n

A man who epitomizes the American dream \u2013 a Greek immigrant<\/strong> who started out as a cook in a Giordano\u2019s Pizza restaurant in Chicago and rose to become owner of the 45-location chain \u2013 is on the verge of losing it all, in part because he has resorted to pseudo-legal tactics favored by antigovernment \u201csovereign citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n

John Apostolou has owned Giordano\u2019s since 1988, but a bankruptcy judge last month seized control of the business and banned Apostolou from the premises. The trustee appointed to run the business as it deals with its $45.5 million bank debt told the court: \u201cBecause of certain perspectives that the Apostolous have \u2026 they have done a few things that merit this court\u2019s attention. \u2026 Perhaps it contributed to the lack of confidence that creditors have and certainly were part of the reason that I wanted them removed as fiduciaries.\u201d<\/p>\n

What Apostolou did to \u201cmerit the court\u2019s attention,\u201d according to the Chicago Tribune, was to file legally bogus affidavits in court. One asserted that he and his wife, who co-owns the business, don\u2019t recognize U.S. currency and are free of any legal constraints<\/strong>. Another sought to terminate Apostolou\u2019s bankruptcy by alleging bank fraud and other misdeeds.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s ironic that an ambitious immigrant who made his fortune in the United States now claims he isn\u2019t subject to its legal authority. Sovereign citizens<\/a> generally believe they can remove themselves from the jurisdiction of state and federal government, so that they don\u2019t need to pay taxes or use any form of government documentation such as driver\u2019s licenses or automobile license tags<\/strong>\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>] <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <SPLC<\/a>><\/p>\n

They should have learned the Eleventh Commandment:<\/font><\/p>\n

Thou shalt not commit Teabuggery!<\/font><\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Opening their arms to every extremist group, no matter how absurd, has become a thorn in the elephant\u2019s side, that sometimes gives rise to humor.  This is one such such case.  While it\u2019s political significance is nil, it\u2019s quite entertaining to see a wing-nut hoist on his own petard. This is a story for the […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[141,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plus","category-politics","category-141-id","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5112\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}