For anyone that has not heard of Patrick Byrne, the CEO of Overstock.com, where have you been? Mr. Byrne has become the champion of the fight against naked short selling over the past couple of years. Mr. Byrne started a blog back some time ago called DeepCapture.com. In it, you can find some very interesting information, and the pictures he paints sound exactly like the story of Sirius XM. The following is a short snipped from an article by Mark Mitchell, a reporter/blogger from DeepCapture:

“This same clique of short-sellers has attacked dozens of other companies, almost always resorting to similar tactics: false “independent” research (dictated by the short-sellers, who trade ahead of it); harassment of targeted executives by thugs and criminals; scurrilous rumor-mongering; so-called “bashers” who are paid by the shorts to flood the Internet with smears and distortions; corporate espionage; government investigations (which are instigated by the shorts, and drain corporate resources, but usually end in no action); and bogus class action lawsuits (usually filed by a corrupt law firm called Milberg Weiss until Milberg’s top partners went to jail for bribing plaintiffs).”

A hugely disproportionate number of the companies that have been targeted by this clique of short-sellers have also been victimized by massive levels of phantom stock.

“False independent research”? Would this be Mr. Weinkes of GS? Or perhaps more publicized reporters such as Cramer and Cramer’s puppet Robert Holmes (who you may remember Homer took to task on his incorrect “research”).

Scurrilous rumor-mongering and so-called “bashers”? Yahoo Message Boards anyone? Comments on Seeking Alpha? “Anonymous Cowards” comments from other blogs and message boards?

Government investigations that drain corporate resources but usually end in no action? Could that be a reference to the options backdating investigation that XM was going through? And what if the NAB had the help of some of these naked shorters to squeeze every last day out of the FCC during the merger process?

Bogus class action lawsuits by none other than Milberg Weiss? Sounds like we hit the nail on the head here…

Massive levels of phantom stock? Perhaps some of you read my article entitled RegSho is a Joke, where I pointed out that in order for Sirius XM to be placed on the RegSho list, a minimum of 15 million shares, or 30% of the day’s trades, had to fail to deliver? Sirius was on that RegSho list for 28 days straight as of the time of that writing. That would mean over the course of that time, a MINIMUM of 420,000,000 shares – almost half a Billion shares (representing 1/6th of their float) were phantom shares that never existed and were never delivered. How can a stock react “normally” when the market is flooded with half a billion shares that do not exist?

It seems that many companies are fighting back on their own. Of course Mr. Byrne is fighting for Overstock.com. In another article, Fairfax Financial Holdings is also filing a lawsuit alleging stock manipulation.

It has come time that Sirius XM needs to do the same thing. Mel needs to stand up for his investors and correct wrongs that are being done to his company. Obviously, we can help. There is a thread in the SiriusBuzz forums where you can obtain the contact information for the SEC as well as the New York Attorney General. It is time that the blatant manipulation of Sirius XM stock comes to a halt.

Position: Long SIRI.