I Have To Speak Up About Ben Farmer and Adam Kokesh

UPDATE TWO: Ben just replied to a comment I made about calling him out for his lies. His reply can be seen here, the time stamp is visible in full screen. He is still trying to belittle me for my poor performance on steemit. The 57 rep and 1100 SP I EARNED ON MY OWN are just not impressive when you can be a hemorrhoid on a name like "Adam Kokesh" and have Adam's account guy just upvote you to the top. Single handedly. He is bragging about making over $200 on this post. ALL FROM ADAM'S ACCOUNT. That his buddy Cody is running, not Adam.
This guy is really, really not a good person.

Please read @kafkanarchy's post from this morning, linked below. Then look at this, the source of Ben's incoming votes. Again, in full screen you can verify the account is benfarmer and the source for nearly all his upvotes is adamkokesh. They are churning rewards, including those from Adam's delegated SP and donations "for bail" into an income for themselves.

I don't know what to do... and I don't know if anyone cares about truth anyway. Except me. I know I care about truth, and I hate it when people back away from truth to protect their income. I was not going to post this, then I realized the reason I was not going to post it was because I was afraid the campaign people would come ruin my account. I was going to stand down to protect my income... No, I am NOT doing that.

In January, I was asked to consider being a delegate to the Libertarian Party convention for Adam Kokesh. I agreed, and my husband was going to be one also. We got our registrations done, which included a run to the valley 2 hours away to try to get some paperwork in on time. I attended the state LP meeting to start making those connections... but the campaign was not doing what I had been told they would do to help us get the funds. On February 11, I sent this message to my Idaho contact person with the campaign:
"OK Ed, I don't think we can pull this off. The post Adam boosted for me got me about 50 SBD, I have done 2 more asking for support and one got 65 cents and the other 67 cents. I had hoped that having Adam boost one would pick me up a few followers who would keep helping but apparently not, and even Adam is not upvoting my requests for support, making me feel like we are not needed. We just can't afford to do what we did with Ron Paul and it sounds like you have more delegates than you can use anyway. We will come to state, if you need us to, and if I am reading this all wrong let me know, but Rob says there are only 3 delegate seats open for Idaho. I understand that in the past other states did not fill their delegations but I am sure they will this time, they see us coming. Look at Idaho, already jockeying for "our" delegates versus "their" delegates. I am willing to play the game but not take another financial hit for politics. We simply cannot afford to take time off work, hire someone to cover the farm, and then live on the road for a week for lulz. And I know there have been reassurances made about "Oh, we will cover it somehow" but that is what we were told with Ron Paul too, so we went all in and wound up putting a couple grand on credit cards to live up to our word. Until there is money in OUR hands, we just can't afford to believe in fairy godmother donors in the future. Talk to you later!"

This is the reply I got:
"The person I talk to most is Ben Farmer the chief strategist it might be worthwhile for you to talk to him you will understand his language better than me. When I told him about your strategy he said they had just had a meeting about steemit with the guy they had hired a while ago and we’re planning the same thing. So it wasn’t quite like that but they are way behind and not fully utilizing steemit in my opinion."

And a little later, this:
"I sent Ben your info so if you get a call from a Texas number that’s who it is."

I never got a call from anyone. I got an email on the 16th of February offering me tips on using steemit:
"Hey there! Cody Adams here, Adam's Outgoing Communications Director. Ben Farmer mentioned me to that you were on Steemit and had some questions or concerns, and I wanted to help clarify anything I could for you. I run Adam's account and can help with info and tips, just let me know."

I replied:
"Hi-
Here is my concern. My husband and I were planning to go to New Orleans as delegates for Adam. A friend had asked us to get involved. We got ourselves registered with the LP, but there was some resistance from both the state and national levels. I went to the state meeting last week where I was told that 3 of the 6 delegate seats are already filled, but told that if we went to New Orleans we would probably get seated for another state. From what I have seen, they see us coming and there will be no empty seats this time, even if that has been true in the past. So it is a bit much for us to go to all the effort to go sit on the sidelines. We have a farm, it is literally all the way across the country for us and the very simple "free money" funding that we THOUGHT was going to be taken advantage of on steemit is not happening. Those of us who had committed to going to New Orleans ought to be getting autovotes and resteems from Adam, it costs him nothing and it could fund our trips. I did get one post resteemed and it did great, but not nearly enough to cover the trip. There ought to be a discord where our "Pro-Adam" posts get promoted and we can all upvote each other and resteem each other and no one has to go into debt over this. And I am sorry, but it is too late for us. The last post I made asking for help to get to New Orleans made something like 65 cents. I can't do it without some help, and I simply cannot, will not, go into debt. My husband is months from retirement eligibility. So I wish you all the best, truly, but someone needs to get their act together. We were ready, willing and able, and the lack of simple resteems has forced us to say we can't do it.
Good luck!"

I thought it was over. We stepped up, asked for help, got crickets and decided we were done. I tried to be polite, I tried to offer some tips in improving their steemit strategy, and I explained all the roadblocks we were hitting. But I said "someone needs to get their act together" and apparently bruised a BIG, FAT ego or two...

"Hey there, thank you for responding! It seems there is a bit of confusion and I think you have missed out on the main point of Steemit. It is a content creation site, not a fundraising site. In order for people to upvote, they have to see calue in the content. Making similar posts for one purpose of fundraising is just not going to work on Steemit. It is content driven, and it also take quite some time to build a page and a lot of energy. "but someone needs to get their act together. We were ready, willing and able, and the lack of simple resteems has forced us to say we can't do it." I run Adam's Steemit and we have over 8k followers, it is impossible to keep up with all of the posts from everyone on his page and it does cost to upvote and resteem, we are limited to 10 a day and have people reach out daily for similar support, and would gladly support you, but this is the first I have interacted with you about Steemit. Sorry to hear your disappointment, but this is the first I am hearing of your issues and we I am very on top of all of the social accounts and we have been having great success. Let me know if you would like to chat about ways to better use Steemit for your purposes. "

He either does not understand steemit himself or he is lying to me now. It does NOT cost anything to resteem posts. That was ALL I had asked form and they had not resteemed it. OK, I am a big girl, I moved on. But I this story of "this is the first time I am hearing of your issues" indicates they are NOT paying attention to people who had committed to supporting them, all the way to being delegates. I kept my reply short and to the point:
"I understand steemit, and I understand politics. There is a way to use steemit to fund the travel to the convention that would cost nothing. I am not going to argue about it. If you ever want to know what I am talking about feel free to ask. Good luck to you and Adam."

Notice I am STILL being supportive of Adam.

Last week we get an email asking us to step up for Adam from Ben Farmer. I replied to Ben:
"Ben-
It is too late for us. I am going to try to explain this once more, and hope someone will make use of the information before it is too late.
Adam needs to have a curation trail on steemit.com, and when a person commits to being a delegate for him they go on that list. .Then every time they post using the "adamforpresident" tag (or whatever tag is chosen) the post gets upvoted by the whole curation trail and resteemed by Adam. This is all free. Adam can give whatever upvote he can afford, that only costs him vote power, no steem dollars. Every solid supporter could have had their expenses covered courtesy of the steem reward pool. Whoever is running his steemit account is screwing the pooch, and he is kind of a twit.
Best of luck to you, sorry it worked out this way. A couple simple resteems and we could have done it, but it just didn't happen. To be honest, I talked to some person at the national level of the LP, and he was such a dickhead it is sort of a relief. But we still wish Adam the very best!
Mark and Claire"

Ben replies telling me they have all that in place. Well, I cannot find a discord group for them, or a curation trail. If they have one, we were never told about it. It makes me suspect they STILL do not know what I am talking about. However, I was STILL supportive of Adam. Then Ben adds this dig:
"I made 300 dollars on Steemit this week alone. Did you just drop out too soon?"

My reply:
"I asked for help twice, got no response. I made it very clear there were two of us willing to be delegates, ready to go to New Orleans and I could not even get a resteem. I was never told about or put on any curation trail. We registered LP, I went down to a state LP gathering... we were planning on going but i got zero feedback or support at the moment we had to make the call. We had to put in for the time off for my husband.
Sounds like you all have it all under control and do not need our help or support anyway."

FINALLY, this should be over, right? Well, it was not. Ben spent the next HOUR telling me how important he and Cody are and that I should feel special that they speak to me. He insulted my work for Ron Paul, he insulted me for not being able to earn as much on steemit as he does, and he just kept hammering on me. A sample:

"Ok, well you haven’t been speaking to any of our spouses. You’ve been speaking directly with us. I have to say, it feels like you’re just attempting to be disruptive. Everyone who has listened to Cody - the Social Media Director - is making plenty of money on Steemit to afford travel at this point. Everyone who did not listen to Cody, or did not know to contact him, is not."

So, who got this inside info? With me BEGGING for help I never heard of Cody until it was too late for us. And what have I done that is disruptive? Offered to help?!

Then this:
"No, it’s because we’ve been building it for months and now we’re making enough money to spread it around to all of the people on our list who asked for it. Which was precisely the plan you were told. What is your problem?"

I was NEVER TOLD of any plans at all! They NEVER contacted me!

My final reply to him:
"I was talking to Ed, not any of you. Shall I forward all my facebook conversations with him? On February 11, he assured me you had been advised of my situation. My "problem" - one more time - is that we needed to have the money in hand before we were comfortable. We were given the "we will pay for it" story before and when the time came, WE paid for it, on credit cards. Not a favorite activity of anarchists. We CAN'T do that again. It is not like we were asking for donations, I asked for a post to be resteemed. I was told that it costs money - it costs nothing. Shall I forward that email too?
Why are you picking at me? I was supportive still until you decided to prove whatever it is you think you are proving.
I offered to help still, even after the snippy reply from Chris? I think that is his name. No reply. What is YOUR problem?
Adam was on my autovote. Not any more.
I was telling people to support him. Not any more.
I spoke well of the campaign staff. Not any more.
Congratulations."

He still sent one more snippy email. Just had to get the last word in...

So this may be the end of me on steemit, they are "whale" enough to destroy my account. This breaks my heart in a way very few would understand: Adam's "Peaceful Dissolution" is the only plan that includes "Peaceful solution" in it that I have ever heard. I did not expect to win, I HOPED we might trigger a massive enough awakening to roll back a little tyranny. As it is, I see no way to avoid Civil and / or World War. But I just can't not speak out. This was nuts, I was a SUPPORTER, and rather than anyone ever admit we slipped through the cracks and apologize, I just got emotionally beat down for an hour. If these are the people running the campaign, then the "NAP" is NOT being represented in any meaningful way and I am not going to be silent about that.

Ron Wittig just died. No one ever heard of him, but without him no one would have ever heard of the Libertarian Party. Ron was the first Libertarian elected in Idaho, he was instrumental in making it a party. To lose him and see this kind of asshattery going on with our "best hope" - I have no words to convey the depth of the sorrow I feel for liberty lovers today.

It seems THIS was our last chance...

So, now I am seeing how readily Ben Farmer lies to people. He claims they already have done everything I suggested and he made 300 last month. HE JUST STARTED 11 days ago and he has made $32.12. Apparently they know everything about steemit except that it is transparent.

He claims they have already done what I suggested, set up a curation trail and a discord channel ... well, I looked.

You have been warned. This is the top man in Adam's campaign.

UPDATE:
While I was writing this, another steemian was posting this:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@kafkanarchy84/smashing-through-the-bullshit-an-in-depth-investigative-look-at-kokesh2020-campaign#@funbobby51/re-kafkanarchy84-smashing-through-the-bullshit-an-in-depth-investigative-look-at-kokesh2020-campaign-20180311t135834355z

Thank you @funbobby51 for the link.