Saint Kevin Trudeau becomes GuruKev as Facebook clamps down on his "celebrity" page

When I was called KT, I had a fun “business mode” tycoon type vibration, as many wealthy tycoons used their initials as their “names”.

When I am called “Uncle Kevin”, I am broadcasting the frequency of a family member, a “sage” who can “read” you, teach you, and mentor you with love and kindness, someone who is wise and cares about you as family.

When people call me GuruKev, I am putting out a frequency mostly of love and light, and someone that can “transform” and totally plug into the “ether” thus being a total conduit of knowingness (and much more that I will not reveal here).
~ Kevin Trudeau, "What Is In a Name?", from his new GuruKev web site

* * * * *

Lies are flowing out
Like golden showers on the Interwebz
They slither while they pass
Onto the feeds of brand new waves of rubes
Schemes to suck their wallets dry
Are targeting their open minds
Astounding and confounding them.
Lie, Guru Kevin, oh,
Leopards never change their spots
Leopards never change their spots
Leopards never change their spots
Leopards never change their spots...

~ To the tune of "Across The Universe" (with profound apologies to The Beatles)

As you may know if you're a regular reader of this blog, being confined to a Federal Prison Camp for years has never stopped serial scammer Kevin Trudeau, a Whirled-favorite topic for more than 10 years, from thinking up new scams and schemes and shticks. Clearly he's paving the way for his release in May 2022 (or sooner, if he and his minions can only get #NotMyPresident Donald Trump to commute his sentence and maybe even pardon him).

Shortly after he was first incarcerated in Chicago's notorious Metropolitan Correctional Center, ahead of the criminal-contempt trial that resulted in a conviction and ultimately landed him at FPC Montgomery (AL), Trudeau seriously began trying to re-brand himself as a spiritual leader. Through some of his most loyal proxies, he spread messages on social media of miraculous revelations he was receiving from behind bars, promising that all would be revealed in good time. And with the help of minions and a passionate fan base, he built up impressive martyr creds, earning him the Whirled nickname of Saint Kevin.

Accordingly, I halfway thought he might be working up to a new shtick as a "Christian" prosperity preacher of some sort, once he got out of the clink. After all, even though he has certainly appealed to New-Wage/McSpirituality believers as well as motivational geeks who aren't particularly religious or spiritual, a significant part of his fan base considered themselves "Christians."

But it seems that Kevin Trudeau may be going in a different direction, spirituality-wise. Lately he has taken to branding himself as Guru Kev, and he is not using "guru" in the Western sense of being a master or ultimate expert at some mundane pursuit such as deceptive marketing or robbing people blind. Nope, he's using the word in the Eastern sense of being a spiritual master.

On his new GuruKev web site, visitors are met with some new hype that sounds a lot like the old hype:

Your Wish Has Been Granted.
You have been looking for something and now you’ve found it.
What you have been seeking is here.
You asked, and this site has been given to you.
All your answers will be given to you.
Attain SUCCESS beyond your wildest dreams.
Riches – Health – Happiness
A “Real Guru” can help you make
all your dreams come true, in
EVERY area of your life.
A “Genuine Guru” can give you
that “something” that has been always
missing in your life.
An “Authentic Guru” can reveal
that “missing piece within” that
you always knew has been missing,
yet you cannot describe.
Welcome!

On the page from which I pulled the first passage preceding this post, as well as on a Facebook post I'll link to below, Trudeau 'splains the origin of his "Guru Kev" moniker. It is not a name he gave himself, he says, adding that the nicknames he's had in his life have been bestowed upon him by other folks, depending upon the sort of vibration or frequency he's putting out at the time. The implication is that he is controlling the vibes and therefore the nicknames, and that other people are simply responding to his skillful maneuvering and manipulation. (Of course he can teach you to be a master maneuverer and manipulator too, for a price.)

Well, frankly, I am offended that I've been overlooked once again. I have been calling Kevin names for years and years, in response to the vibrations and frequencies that he was clearly emitting. I've called him "True-dough," "Katie," the aforementioned "Saint Kevin," and, of course, "serial scammer." And once, in response to that avuncular vibe of which he seems so proud, I even called him "Unca Kevin." But he didn't even mention those names.

I first found out about Katie's new guru shtick when I decided to pay a visit to the Kevin Trudeau Facebook page to see if there were any new announcements or revelations or something else eminently snarkworthy. Alas, the page did not show up in my search results. I thought perhaps I'd been blocked from seeing it, although that didn't make sense. I've been blocked for years from commenting on the page, or even from responding to it, but never from merely seeing it.

A bit of further searching revealed a December 17, 2019 post on the Free Kevin Trudeau Facebook page (from which, as it happens, I'm also blocked from commenting or responding). The post, labeled "Priority communication from Kevin Trudeau," explains that the main Kevin Trudeau Facebook page has been taken down by Facebook and made inaccessible, due to new rules about Facebook pages that use celebrity names. Kevin's team is looking into it and will keep us posted.

The message of the "priority communication" is that the sudden inaccessibility of the page is not a problem but rather just another opportunity. And indeed, as you'll see if you scroll through the Free Kevin Trudeau page, it seems to have taken over the promotion of the various schemes and info-frauducts that were previously promoted on the original Kevin Trudeau page.

There's a small complaint lodged in with all of the good cheer, though.

It has also come to my attention that in the “chaos”, for lack of a better word, that has ensued “out there” while I have been “in here”, there are a number of people, websites, social media pages, etc. that are spreading my messages, some with my permission and blessings, and others that are distorting my messages and even selling my copyrighted creations like “Your Wish Is Your Command”, “The Success Mastery Course”, “Nuggets of Gold”, and the “Science of Personal Mastery”. These particular individuals are claiming “rights” to my creations and selling them, seeking profit only for themselves, without my knowledge nor permission, nor the permission of GIN.

While some of these people have good intentions, this activity is both illegal and unethical. Clearly, this dilutes and distorts the purity of my message and is not in the best interest of ALL.

We are aware of them and they will be contacted and appropriate actions taken.

Many thanks and appreciation to those of you who are serving as my “eyes” to the “outside”. Keep up the good work!

By the way, if you are willing to help with being our “eyes to the outside”, please send an email indicating your willingness to assist with this "COMMENT BELOW"

Subject- “Eyes To The Outside”

We will get back to you with specific instructions. Thank you in advance, you are much appreciated!

Shame on anyone who tries to "dilute the purity" of a lifelong con artist's message!

By way of explaining the GuruKev nick, there's this:

Some of you may be wondering, "Why 'GuruKev'"? When people in the west use the word Guru it means something like "the ultimate expert; a master". I was called "America's Marking Guru" by the Wall Street Journal for example because of my expertise and success in that area.

Guru as used in the EAST, actually means "dispeller of darkness" or "one who sheds light", and refers to spiritual enlightenment, not expertise or mastery in some endeavor.

Over the last 7 years I was called "Kev" most of the time. During that time I taught many of the people here things like yoga, exercise, stretching, Kung Fu, Tai Chi, Chi Gong, Meditating, and "How to manifest your Dreams". Without any prompting, everyone suddenly started calling me "GuruKev".

I did not choose this name. This was the "title" or "label" that was given to me. Please read the post “What’s In A Name” for a partial explanation.
https://gurukev.com/2019/12/06/what-is-in-a-name/

Reading this and other messages makes it clear that Kevin still has a soft spot in his heart for the Global Information Network, or GIN, the organization that began life as one of his biggest and most successful (for him) scams, and thrived as such for several years. It would seem that GIN still has a soft spot in their hearts for him as well, which I guess is understandable, in light of the fact that it's still being run by some of his pals.

A December 3, 2019 post on the Free Kevin Trudeau page mentions GIN, among other recommended sites. Apparently one of Katie's ex-con buddies, one Jason Sant, millionaire Mormon and proud Kevin Trudeau "mentee," has a paid scheme of his own going, thanks to Kevin (see number 3, "The Science of Conscious Creation"). Here, from the Facebook post that I've been quoting, is a short list of blessed-by-GuruKev sites, with some Cosmic Connie annotations.

PLEASE SHARE! There are so many amazing resources that continue to be made available from KT, both directly and indirectly through highly trained students of his! If you aren’t up to speed on everything that’s available, check out the following websites:

1. “Guru Kev” (www.GuruKev.com) ... some of the latest and greatest FREE content from KT where he expands on many of the GIN principles, including six brand new lessons on “Who do you listen to?” [Fair warning: Nothing is really new in Katieland. ~ CC]

2. “The Science of Personal Mastery” (www.KTLegalDefense.com) ... an ongoing, intensive training course, coupled with KT’s “Nuggets of Gold” newsletter. It’s been said that of all the material KT has ever produced, THIS is his favorite! Available via donation to the KT legal defense fund. [The link on this item leads straight to the "KT Legal Defense Fund" site, on which the home page gives you several opportunities to "send good vibrations to KT, via monetary donations. The mailing address listed is for Winston & Strawn, LLP, one of numerous law firms that Katie has prevailed upon over the years to try to keep him out of hot water. (It's notable that their Wikipedia page does not list Kevin Trudeau in their "Notable Representations." I have a feeling that the firm considers him to be their biggest mistake ever.) Instructions for signing up for "The Science of Personal Mastery" course and the newsletter do not seem to be in evidence on the KT Legal Defense Fund site. In fact on the "Terms" page, it clearly states that the money is a contribution towards Katie's legal defense, that all amounts are non-refundable, and will go directly toward his "management and legal fees" -- and that the contributor does "clearly understand your contribution is not buying or purchasing any product and/or services." There's a "search" icon, but when I typed "science of personal mastery" into the search field, I got "Our apologies, nothing was found." So there's that. ~ CC]

3. “The Science of Conscious Creation” (www.SCCMasteryCourse.com) ... a training course based on 1,600 pages of information compiled during Jason Sant’s four-year intensive mentorship with KT in FPC Montgomery. SCC is a paid course that will provide a fresh new perspective on manifesting dreams, goals and desires and “consciously creating” the life of one’s dreams. SCC students who complete the foundational course will have access to advanced material disclosing coveted, proprietary business knowledge outlining specific action steps KT took to make millions of dollars in various industries. [Jason Sant went to prison for being a co-conspirator in a nationwide online foreclosure resuce scam. During the four years they were confined together, he became an eager student of Katie's. Turds of a feather... ~CC]

4. The Global Information Network (www.GINUnited.com). Level VII training is now available! [When GIN was first launched the plan was to have 12 levels. Moving kinda slow... ~CC]

While we don’t have KT with us physically, he is still very active in making sure that his students have enough new material to continue creating the life of your dreams! We encourage you to engage in as much of the above-referenced material as possible! [In other words... Katie and some of his closest cronies can suck your wallet dry remotely, so no worries. ~ CC]

Kevin's big dream: life on a cruise ship, and a new club with even less accountability than the old GIN
For the more materially-minded, GuruKev has a twin site, "Nuggets of Gold." Fool's gold, I'd say. The intro page features the same type of breathy hype as the intro page on GuruKev, promising that each "Nugget" will give you a secret to help you obtain success in every area of life, and that every "Nugget" will be infused with secret knowledge and "energy." The more things change...

The domain registration info for both the GuruKev and the Nuggets of Gold sites shows an address in Ontario, Canada (96 Mowat Ave, Toronto, ON, M4K 3K1), though the actual owner name is shielded.

If "GuruKev" (and for that matter, "Nuggets of Gold") were just some more silly shticks, they would be merely snarkworthy at this point. After all, the great guru is currently confined to government sleepaway camp. How much damage can he do?

But don't underestimate him, or the loyalty of his fan base. Katie won't be confined forever, after all, and as it happens, he has big, big plans -- plans that not only echo GIN back in the day, but the evil cult-church Scientology as well.

You can get more than a hint by digging a little more deeply into the GuruKev site, such as this "recruitment" page, which is titled, "POSITION AVAILABLE." It's signed by "Your friend, GuruKev." Here it is in part:

Hello,
Over the next few years, it is my “desire” to have many great wonderful things manifest for the benefit of all of you...

...This “Vision” includes the desire to build (or expand) a “Club” having members all over the world.

It also includes the building of a magnificent “Club Ocean Liner”. A SHIP that will be big enough for over 4000 passengers and be constantly travelling around the world.

This “Club Cruise Ship”, called Freedom, with be a virtual floating Clubhouse and similar to a Luxury 5 Star World Class Resort. This Ship will be ONE OF A KIND…The most unique and magnificent vessel on the seas (estimated cost to build: $1.5 Billion USD).

On the ship will be an area for “Residences” where Club members can buy a “Cabin/Home” to live full time, part time or have for vacations. It can also produce rental income when the owner is not “in residence” (like a second home or vacation home).

This Club “Flag Ship” will also be my main residence.

A “hotel” with luxurious cabins will also be part of the ship so that members can come and enjoy a vacation on the most magnificent “Luxury Cruise Ship” ever built.

Members will also be allowed to purchase “fractional ownership” in “Cabins/Homes” as well. This way a member can have 1 week or more on the ship “locked in” every year for “life” and get to cruise on the ship for a tiny fraction of normal commercial cruise rates on the major cruise lines.

The ship will be circumnavigating the globe and staying in exotic ports for up to 3 weeks at a time so that passengers can explore the beauty of cultures in various locations at a leisurely pace.

As a “Floating Clubhouse”, members in the club will be allowed to come on board with their guests, when the ship is in port. “Members Only” meetings, workshops, seminars, and trainings will be held on the ship. The ship will also host “Open Houses” which will include World Class entertainment and Seminars/Lectures, so that potential members can come aboard and see what The Club is all about.

The Ship will have the finest restaurants, spa, a “Natural Cures Health and Anti-Aging Clinic”, world class gym and fitness areas, the largest theater/showroom ever built on a cruise ship, and much more. It will be a utopian society, a virtual living paradise filled with happy, loving people from all over the world.

All new members will be invited to be on the ship for “New Member Orientation” Cruises free of charge. 

GuruKev blabs on a bit, and then gets to the recruitment part.

In order to make all the “Dreams” realities (including the writing of several new books and courses, relaunching my Radio Show and podcasts, establishing and building a “Land Based Headquarters, Community, and Retreat” exclusively for Club Members, and many other projects), I will need a team of dedicated people who share the same Vision as I do, have the same passion that I do, and are willing to devote 100% of their time to making all these dreams come true, as I am.

This fully committed “Mastermind Group” or “Team Alpha” (Team ONE)  will consist of people who will be my personal private staff. The team will live with me, work directly with me, travel with me, and be 100% focused on accomplishing the “Mission” of serving humanity by bettering the lives of people all around the world.

Being on Team Alpha is more than “full time” service to humanity, this is “All the Time” service to humanity while you are a member of this exclusive group. Thus, only a “Few” will be drawn to apply to be a staff member on this highly selective and unique “Team Alpha” mastermind.

Team Alpha will work directly with me and for me, side by side, together working to make the “Dreams” actually “happen”.

Being on “Team Alpha” is not for someone with a mild interest. It is certainly not for everyone. Team members will be those few rare people who, once hearing about this, “Know” this is their calling, their mission, and their purpose. It is for people who are ready to be “ALL IN”.

Here is the most exciting part. While working together, you will also be “trained”, taught, and coached by me personally, together as a group, and one on one. You will receive the highest and most advanced training available. This training will be delivered to you first, before anyone else in the world. Team members will be the most fully trained members in the Club, and in some instances get exclusive training that will not be delivered to the general membership.

This training will make you a master of manifesting your desires, and attaining inner states of total emotional and spiritual freedom. You will attain complete “Liberation” and become a true “Master”.

For the right person, this is a dream come true, a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Some of you right now are probably already bouncing off the walls with excitement and enthusiasm. Some of you will have a very hard time sleeping tonight thinking “This is too good to be true!”

Well, it is true.

We will also establish the “Volunteer Service Corps” (VSC).

This will be for people who still want to work with me personally, be a part of the mission, and who share my vision.  But perhaps they have families or have other reasons and responsibilities as to why they who do not want to have a 100% all-consuming life working on the manifesting of the “Dream”.

These people still want to be a major part of making the Dream happen, but would rather prefer to have a more “normal life”, work only normal full time or part time hours, and who get to “go home after work” to be with their family and friends. 

Then he tells you how you can apply to be considered for one of these enviable positions. The address to write to is someone named "Tonya Canada" in Snyder, Texas. GuruKev helpfully adds that the recruitment process includes:

1.) Candidates getting all the information about the opportunity, getting all their questions answered, and deciding if they have a burning desire to be on one of the teams and be considered.

2.)”Testing” the candidates, with such programs as CliftonStrengths assessments and other such tools. Then determining who we will consider offering Membership in the Volunteer Service Corps (VSC) or Team Alpha (TA). This will be based on multiple factors including competence, experience, expertise in various areas that are needed, the candidate’s burning desire level and intensity to be on the team, and other considerations.

I'm pretty sure there will be a "financial fitness" test as well, but there's no mention of it on the page.

So, is any of this beginning to sound familiar? Take that "Team Alpha" bit (please): GIN "Inner Circle," anyone? And as for that "Volunteer Service Corps".... shades of Scientology? In fact, that whole cruise-ship idea is unpleasantly reminiscent of Scientology's notoriously abusive SeaOrg. A friend remarked that Trudeau is "going full L. Ron Hubbard!"

Indeed, I've heard from various sources over the years that one of Trudeau's long-time goals is to have an organization somewhat like Scientology, with his own body of work as the basis. And it's pretty easy to imagine Trudeau using international waters to violate labor laws and create an entire brigade of volunteers to serve his every need.

None of this should be very surprising to anyone who knows Kevin Trudeau's background. He has dabbled in Scientology over the years, famously recommended Scientology and its intro book, Dianetics, to his employees years ago (here's a direct link to a 2003 memo), and, according to a January 2015 piece in Business Insider (under "Up Close And Personal"), his prenup required one of his ex-wives, Kristine Dorow, to reach a certain level in Scientology. I've blogged about all of this stuff before, but it certainly bears revisiting now.

All of the above is part of a grand "Vision," outlined on a separate page on the GuruKev site, for a brand new seekrit club. And if you think you've seen all of this before, of course you have. This is the same laundry list of promises that accompanied the launch of GIN more than ten years ago. I believe that list also included GIN yachts, as well as banks and schools and an entire separate infrastructure solely for GIN members. As we... well, okay, I... like to say on this blog, it's deja screw all over again.

One point seems clear: Federal prison is a great incubator for scams. Guru Kev -- and his "mentee" Jason Sant, for that matter -- are living proof. You probably don't need me to tell you this, but I'd advise taking a healthy dose of caveat emptor along with that "love and light" vibe that Guru Kev and his pals are pushing.

This post has been updated to include the information about "The Club," and the 'magnificent "Club Ocean Liner"' -- i.e., with the exception of the last paragraph, everything under the subhead, "Kevin's big dream" etc. I have also added my annotations, including additional links, to the list of "GuruKev-approved" web sites in the first section of this post. ~ CC, 20 December, 2019

UPDATE 3 February 2020: Today a friend who's an ex-GIN member emailed me a copy of a February 2 email she received from Jason Sant, promoting Kevin Trudeau's promotion of Sant. So apparently Sant's SCCam is live, and being promoted via email blasts. As I said above, caveat emptor.

Click on pic to enlarge.

  Related on this Whirled:

• February 2019 -- GIN turns ten, and Kevin Trudeau continues to spew wisdumb from Camp Cupcake
  "Camp Cupcake" has been Trudeau's nickname for the Federal Prison Camp where he has been languishing.
• January 2015 -- Kevin Trudeau: an interview from the clink, and an attempt to take Business Insider for a ride
  My take on Aaron Gell's article for Business Insider, based on his interviews with Katie in the clink. His piece provides some great background info on Trudeau and his scamming ways. 
• January 2015 -- Kevin Trudeau: Pooping out "nuggets" for the New Year
  Sheds some light on the the origins of one of the branded hustles of which Kev is so proud, "Nuggets of Gold."
• July 2012 -- Independence Daze
  Back in the day, GIN aggressively used Scientology-like indoctrination/brainwashing tactics. In this post I share some of the obsessive checklists that members were expected to follow as they tried to advance to higher "levels" of membership.
• February 2014 -- SciWINtology: One step closer?
  In the wake of Kevin Trudeau's criminal-contempt trial, conviction, and sentencing, the future of GIN was uncertain. Undeterred, several ex-GIN members formed GIN-ripoff huckster clubs of their own, e.g., Ohio GINster Perry Kiraly, founder of WIN (the World Information Network). The WIN "curriculum" was reportedly provided by WISE (the World Institution of Scientology Enterprises), a business branch of the Church of Scientology.
  There's more about WIN and WISE in this July 2014 Whirled post, under the sub-head, "Elron would be so proud...maybe: SciWINtology updates."
• December 2009: Illumniutty: the secret brotherhood of the chronically gullible
  My first substantial post about GIN, shortly after the scam was launched

Flawsuits and bad whines and fake Xmas wars: a few Sunday leftovers

It's a lazy Sunday, and since I don't feel like cooking up a substantial post from scratch today, I'm serving a plate of reheated leftovers, in the form of updates on previous posts.

Tony Baloney banks on luck o'the Irish to stifle BuzzFeed News and Twitter
Earlier this year, on May 29 and June 22 to be exact, I wrote a couple of posts about BuzzFeed News' ongoing series covering accusations against selfish-help icon Tony Robbins. Robbins had been accused by numerous parties of emotional, physical, and in some cases sexual abuse and misconduct. He had repeatedly denied the allegations and had threatened to sue BuzzFeed if they didn't retract their stories and/or quit writing about him.

As I noted in an update to my June 22 post, but am bumping it up here as well (along with some additional content), BuzzFeed published yet another installment in its Tony Robbins series on November 22, 2019 -- that's Part 6, for those who are keeping track. This latest story covered Robbins' alleged sexual abuse of a minor female at a summer camp in Southern Cali way back in 1985, when Tony was 25, but already rich and famous.

Following the publication of that piece, Tony, who denies those allegations as well, had apparently had enough. He has now decided to SLAPP Buzzfeed with a defamation flawsuit, and is currently threatening to sue Twitter too in the bargain, apparently for allowing people to tweet about the Buzzfeed series. But he's not suing in the United States; rather, he's suing in Ireland, with his lawyer rationalizing that Dublin is Twitter's European headquarters.

Here's a Scribd link to the complaint.

The Irish Times reported that Robbins is being represented by a Belfast-based libel lawyer named Paul Tweed, who denies the claim that Robbins, like other public figures who have filed unsuccessful defamation suits in the United States, is engaging in "libel tourism." Tweed also countered BuzzFeed's accusation that Robbins was abusing the Irish courts, since BuzzFeed's headquarters and primary audience are in the US. He noted that the BuzzFeed journalists who wrote the articles are based in the UK. But BuzzFeed spoksman Matt Mittenthal responded to that by pointing out that Ireland is "a sovereign nation that hasn't been part of the UK for nearly 100 years. This is a bizarre and flimsy attempt to justify a transparent legal manoeuvre."

And Mike Masnick, writing on the TechDirt site on December 4, cut to the chase:

Of course, the real reason to sue in Ireland is because either lawsuit would be laughed out of court in the US. The bar to prove defamation against a public figure like Robbins would make it nearly impossible for Robbins to win a defamation lawsuit here, unless he could somehow prove that Buzzfeed made up the reporting, which seems highly unlikely. And, of course, Section 230 of the CDA would protect Twitter. Even in Europe, it seems unlikely that Twitter could be held liable for how other people tweeted, just because Mr. Robbins is "aggrieved" about how this story spread.

Meanwhile, BuzzFeed continues to stand by their reporting.

Whinemaker Trump Junior gets triggered again
In late November I posted a lengthy snarkalysis about the reactions to Donald Trump Jr.'s first book, Triggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us, which had been released earlier that month. The book quickly soared to the top of some prestigious bestseller lists, but lots of folks were crying foul in the wake of revelations that numerous republican/conservative orgs, including the Republican National Committee (RNC) made bulk purchases.

One point I made in my post was that even though sales of DJTJ's magnum dopus were indeed artificially boosted by those mass purchases, the book most likely would have done pretty well on its own, thanks to the cult of Trumpism. I also pointed out that although it's a given that the Trump family are scammers, bulk purchasing isn't illegal and in fact is commonly done, by scammers and non-scammers alike.

But I also made the point, as I have before, that right-wingers and conservatives seem to be more easily "triggered" (and hate-filled) than the lefties and liberals whom they're continually accusing of being hyper-sensitive snowflakes. Junior himself filled the pages of Triggered with his own whining about how awfully he and his family have been treated. As if to reinforce that particular point, on November 30 DJTJ uncorked another bottle of red whine on Twitter when he groused that airport bookstores operated by Hudson News bookstores are refusing to sell Triggered. He griped that he'd been in seven different airports that week and hadn't seen it. "Why not have the #1 book?" he tweeted. "Usual BS I suppose?"

The tweet, with its strong implication of a nefarious liberal conspiracy to squelch the book, inspired his minions to flood Hudson News' social media accounts, berating them for their alleged participation in the conspiracy. But Junior's lament also inspired a flood of snarky rejoinders from those who are, to put it mildly, not supporters. One Twitter user responded to Trump's complaint by saying that he thought the books were fully stocked in the fiction section; another one, using the handle @MuellerSheWrote, noted that "there are boxes and boxes of them at the RNC."

Apparently Triggered is for sale on Hudson Booksellers' website, but regarding its brick-and-mortar stores, Hudson didn't respond to request from Newsweek for comment about Junior's tweet.

I wonder if Junior also thinks it's part of the "usual BS"/triggered-lib conspiracy that his book was pretty quickly bumped from its number-one spot on the New York Times bestseller list by a scathing tome about his daddy, A Warning, By Anonymous. 

Phony holiday wars continue
Just the other day I was nattering about the phony "war on Christmas," which this year was joined, thanks to #NotMyPresident Donald John Trump, by the phony "war on Thanksgiving." With my usual gift for stating the painfully obvious, I predicted that despite Trump's declaration that the Xmas "war" had been won, the conservanoids weren't about to relinquish that phony construct entirely.

And along comes right-wing nutcake/culture-wars veteran/Trump ally/career hypocrite Newt Gingrich to prove me right. He and another top Trumpanzee, former Acting Attorney (and scammer) General Matthew Whitaker, have come right out and stated that those demonic Democrats, with all of that impeachment nonsense, are ruining Christmas. #Impeachment is the new #HappyHolidays, I guess.

Newt went on Fox News to cry his crocodile tears about the degradation of the holiday by the impeachment, which in typical Trumpian form he described as "a modern-day lynch mob." But as many others have pointed out, including Charlie Nash on Mediaite, Newt himself participated in the ruination of Christmas back on December 19, 1998 when he was Speaker of the House of Representatives, and the House voted to impeach President Bill Clinton.

Jack Holmes, writing in Esquire, also made note of Gingrich's hypocrisy, adding:

...what tale of shameless grandstanding would be complete without a contribution from Matthew Whitaker, the former Big Dick Toilet Salesman whom the president once saw fit to make the Acting Attorney General of the United States?

"It is really a sad day for America. It is, I think, going to hurt people's Christmas experience because this is going to be playing in the background. Instead of Bing Crosby's Christmas album, we're going to have impeachment," Whitaker said.
— Josh Wingrove (@josh_wingrove) December 5, 2019

That's right, folks: turn off that Bing Crosby. Shut down the Mariah Carey. Nix the "Wonderful Christmastime"—which, contrary to blasphemous reports in this very magazine, is good. It's going to be all impeachment, all the time. Give your Dad a congressional gavel in a box. (Or a T-shirt from War on Christmas x Impeachment.) Of course, what Whitaker's really saying is that people may be forced to discuss the president's assault on the American Constitution at some point this holiday season, which simply will not do. Then again, this is the same guy who jumped on Fox News in October to declare that "abuse of power is not a crime." It is, however, the most essential reason to impeach a president. Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas indeed. And a Happy Impeachment.

That's it for now; more soon.

Udder inanity: Devin Nunes, bogus-bovine battler, files yet another defamation flawsuit

Back in March of this year, the Interwebz were all a-Twitter about a defamation flawsuit filed by Congressclown Devin Nunes (R-California), who is currently the rank republican member... I mean the ranking republican member of various committees and subcommittees of the US House of Representatives, and who in more recent weeks has taken his comedy stylings to the public impeachment hearings against #NotMyPresident Donald John Trump.

The Nunes litigation that had, and still has, the Internet bellowing with laughter is Devin's suit against a fake cow on Twitter, as well as against various other fake parties. Actually they're satirical Twitter accounts that make fun of our little diva Dev. His feelings have been terribly hurt by the derision. I was one of countless hordes of folks who snarked about this when the story was new-ish -- here's that Whirled link for you -- and I'm back with another round because of a couple of recent developments.

The first development is really just a humorous addendum to the ongoing phony-cow saga. Since the lawsuit was initiated in March, Nunes has been laboring to get Twitter to give up the goods on the anon Twitter users who run the fake-cow account and another satirical account by "Devin Nunes' Mom." In October, Nunes' attorney issued a subpoena demanding records from former Democratic National Committee employee Adam Parkhomenko, who presumably had been corresponding with the puckish anons. Parkhomenko's attorney responded with a filing to quash the subpoena, arguing that the Twitter accounts are clearly satirical and do not constitute defamation, and that the courts have a responsibility to protect anonymous communications, in the interests of protecting free speech. On November 26, the Sacramento Bee reported:

“No reasonable person would believe that Devin Nunes’ cow actually has a Twitter account, or that the hyperbole, satire and cow-related jokes it posts are serious facts,” reads the filing in Virginia’s Henrico County Circuit Court. “It is self-evident that cows are domesticated livestock animals and do not have the intelligence, language, or opposable digits needed to operate a Twitter account. Defendant ‘Devin Nunes’ Mom’ likewise posts satirical patronizing, nagging, mothering comments which ostensibly treat Mr. Nunes as a misbehaving child.”

For extended (and well-deserved) mockery, check out this Damage Report video.

If you can't access the embedded vid, here's the direct YouTube link.
 
The second development that inspired me to return to the old blogging board on behalf of our delicate Devin is the announcement a couple of days ago of yet another defamation flawsuit he's filed. This one is about more serious matters. True to recent threats he'd made, Nunes is suing CNN for $435 million over a report that an associate of Trump's personal ghoul Rudy Giuliani claimed Nunes had met with a former Ukrainian official late last year in Vienna, in order to help dig up some dirt on former VP Joe Biden. Since Trump et al.'s shenanigans re Ukraine are at the center of the impeachment hearings, it's understandable that Devin would be a little upset.

Indeed, employing his customary histrionics, Nunes disputed the story and called the CNN report "demonstrably false and scandalous" and a "hit piece," despite the fact that other parties in question stated their willingness to testify under oath that the story is true. Nunes added that CNN is the mother of fake news and is eroding the fabric of America.

What's interesting is that this suit, along with Nunes' threats to sue other media outlets reporting on Nunes and Ukraine, may actually undermine Trump's impeachment defense -- at least according to a November 26 opinion piece written for USA Today by none other than Jonathan Turley, who had his own starring comedic role in the second phase of public impeachment hearings that began December 4.

One can only hope that Turley is right. In fact, I'm willing to exercise some rare-for-me optimism and predict that the efforts of both Nunes and Turley will strengthen the case for impeachment. At least I'm willing to entertain that possibility, or let it entertain me.

* * * * *

It's abundantly clear by now that when he isn't busy with his overwrought performances in public hearings, and his other attempts to embed himself even more deeply into Trump's aperture, Devin Nunes is udderly consumed with suing people and animals, both real and imaginary. This past October, the LA Times ran a piece by columnist Robin Abcarian, summarizing the frivolous and vexatious litigation in which Nunes had been involved up until that time. Besides the fake-cow litigation, Nunes also sued an organic peach farmer and various reporters. Abcarian wrote:

To help get a sense of the injury caused by an organic peach farmer, reporters and a fake cow, Nunes’ lawsuits first lay out what a fantastic guy Nunes is:

“Nunes’ career as a U.S. Congressman is distinguished by his honor, dedication and service to his constituents and his country, his honesty, integrity, ethics, reputation for truthfulness and veracity.”

This is a helpful corrective, I guess, because most people think of Nunes as the Trump lackey who sneaked into the White House in the middle of the night last year to receive information that he turned around and claimed to be presenting to Trump for the first time the next day. Instead of really trying to figure out how Russia had mucked about in the 2016 election, Nunes was helping Trump make a case against American spy agencies.

As I mentioned in my own post last March, Nunes was a co-sponsor of the "Discouraging Frivolous Lawsuits Act," along with dozens of other republicans.

But this current Ukrainian sideshow must really be rattling him. As Scott Shackford, writing for the Libertarian publication Reason, noted, Nunes is getting a taste of his own medicine. After all, he once attacked those who wanted to restrain the NSA's snooping, but now the shoe is on the other cloven hoof.

Now this surveillance apparatus that Nunes has long supported has happily provided his political opponents with information that could destroy his career. The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (which Nunes used to chair, and where he is now the ranking minority member) just published its impeachment report. It shows calls between Nunes and Rudy Giuliani in 2016, as Giuliani was making the media rounds arguing that Ukrainian officials colluded to help Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. This information will most certainly be used to argue that Nunes is not just a defender of Trump but also an active participant in Giuliani's Ukrainian push.

I wish that all of this stuff were simply silly, like the threats and occasional legal actions of another litigious Whirled snarget, fake doctor/cancer quack/conspiranoid/fascist Leonard Coldwell. But there's a graver import, as the Fresno Bee editorial board explained today in a piece noting that Devin Nunes and his blind allegiance to Trump constitute the real danger to the republic.

As the ranking Republican on the powerful House Intelligence Committee, Nunes holds one of the top posts in Congress. Nunes should have disclosed to his committee colleagues that he had those phone calls last spring. One expert on government ethics took it a step further and said Nunes should have recused himself from the impeachment hearings, rather than acting as No. 1 Trump defender.

To advance the cause of getting at the truth, Nunes should come clean on the phone calls and tell the House what was discussed. He should also provide travel records to debunk the charge that he met in Vienna last December with the Ukrainian to get information that might hurt Biden; Nunes says he was in Libya and Malta.

Short of that, his actions continue to reduce him to being a mere partisan — the label with which he loves to tarnish his Democrat colleagues...

Yeah, what the Bee said. And by the way, their parent company, McClatchy, has also been sued by Nunes. But if his goal is to chill free speech... well, as the Bee pointed out in a November 27 editorial, it's not working (so far, anyway). The fake cow keeps on mooing, and the online jeers are only growing louder.

PS added on 8 December 2019: A member of the Daily Kos community, Sher Watts Spooner, posted a piece on why Diva Nunes may regret SLAPPing his critics. It's a good, concise summary of Nunes' litigious lunacy. Read it.

The phony war on T-Day is over, the fake war on Xmas begins

The annual late November gratitude day/food orgy that we in the US call Thanksgiving is officially over, and the Christmas/winter holiday season has begun. This Thanksgiving was marked by, among other things, #NotMyPresident Donald J. Trump's declaration, at one of his fascist emotional support pep rallies in Sunrise, Florida on November 26, that there's a radical leftist plot to decimate T-Day by changing its name. And thus did the world learn of a new phony war to join the infamous phony war on Christmas: the war on Thanksgiving.

It's all just part of a larger pattern, of course. As Emily Stewart wrote in the Vox piece I linked to above:

The president has leaned into culture wars often throughout his tenure, aware that it’s a way to rally his base and sow division. Declaring out of the blue that there’s a movement on the left to change the name of Thanksgiving is another example of that. But the episode also highlights the president’s dismissiveness of issues with some real cultural and social weight. While Thanksgiving’s name isn’t particularly controversial, its history is.

But Trump seemed to be making it all about the name. He told the Florida crowd that "some people" don't want to use the term "Thanksgiving," adding, "And that was also true with Christmas. But now everybody's using Christmas again. Remember I said that?" A November 26 piece on The Hill site cited Trump's long-standing "war on Christmas" narrative, noting that back in 2015 he said, "I'm a good Christian. If I become president, we're going to be saying 'Merry Christmas' at every store."

Though Trump has since declared victory in the war on Christmas, he told the Florida rally attendees, "Now we're going to have to do a little work on Thanksgiving. People have different ideas. Why it shouldn't be called Thanksgiving. But everybody in this room, I know, loves the name Thanksgiving. And we're not changing.”

Naturally, this declaration gave rise to a spate of jeering memes and tweets, but this didn't seem to faze Trump or his followers at all.

Elsewhere on the culture-war battlefield, Donald Trump Jr. boldly marched forward with his own plan to enhance the sacred holiday of Thanksgiving. As you may know, he recently released his first book, Triggered, about which I wrote a very long post last week (and have added several updates since then). Flush with the early success of that magnum dopus, he used his Instagram page to announce a holiday giveaway: he invited the deplorables to "trigger a liberal" by bringing up politics around the T-Day table. Whoever shared the best photo or vid of the resulting conflict would win a signed copy of Triggered and a MAGA hat. What a deal!

Maybe I'm just too easily triggered myself, but in general I don't think it's funny to encourage people to create disharmony among loved ones, shoot videos of the results, and upload them for the world's amusement. For instance, I am not amused by Jimmy Kimmel's annual Halloween stunt in which he invites parents to tell their kids that the parents ate all of the child's Halloween candy, and then record the almost inevitable tantrum and upload the vid. I think it's pretty crass.

But I also think that Kimmel's stunt pales in comparison to DJTJ's "contest." There's surely enough family stress during the holidaze as it is -- always has been, given the way holiday expectations can amplify existing family dysfunctions. As many folks have learned from first-hand experience, the problem has only become worse in the era of Trump. While Daddy Trump and the GOP are busy blaming the Democrats and liberals for the deep divisiveness in the US, and while the elder Trump has also been bloviating about a spurious war on Thanksgiving, Junior's stunt constitutes more of a "war" on the holiday than anything that the left is allegedly doing. And far from being an attempt to heal divisions, it's only deepening the gap.

But if the responses of that Florida crowd to Junior's daddy are any indication, these finer points are likely to be lost on devoted Trumpians, who will embrace the phony T-Day war as eagerly as they have the Xmas war.

I wish these bogus battles were just comic relief, on the level of the absurd stuff I used to write about so much in Whirled Musings' younger days, like dolphin worship and hollow-earth theories and imaginary naked blondes in Russian forests and phony mystical poets and multidimensional Stick People and magickal water and so forth. In historical context, however, the phony holiday wars may have a more disturbing significance.
 
In a November 27 piece, Washington Post columnist Max Boot suggested that as silly as the Trumped-up narrative about a "war on Thanksgiving" is, there's also something sinister about it, given the decades-long history of (conservative) complaints about the so-called "war on Christmas." Notorious racist/anti-Semite Henry Ford groused about the secularization of Christmas back in the early 1920s, blaming the Jews for the phenomenon. In the height of the McCarthy era of the 1950s, the far-right John Birch Society claimed that the Commies and the UN were engaged in an operation to take Christ out of Christmas. And infamous conservative mouthpiece Bill O'Reilly claimed in 2004 that Christmas was "under siege" by "secular progressives" who were trying to force gay marriage, partial-birth abortion, legalized drugs, and a host of other "progressive visions" on America. From there, wrote Boot...

It did not take long for Trump — Fox News’s most faithful and credulous viewer — to join the “War on Christmas” as a full-throated combatant. By doing so, he gets to portray himself as a champion of white Christian America against insidious “Others” who, his followers fear, will destroy the country they know and love.

And this year Trump decided to do the same thing for Thanksgiving. It was, I suppose, inevitable. Even though T-Day is a secular rather than a religious holiday, and it's one that happens to be observed by millions people of all faiths in the United States (other countries have their own Thanksgiving holidays too at various times of the year), the last Thursday in November is a natural focal point for the ongoing culture wars that conservatives in the US insist on fighting. Given America's changing demographics, it's only natural to examine historical events -- including that fabled first Thanksgiving -- through lenses other than those of the white European Christians who once constituted the majority of the US populace. Many of these folks are understandably triggered by such "revisionist" histories. Indeed, as Max Boot wrote in the wrap-up to his WaPo piece:

Trump’s white evangelical followers — the core of his base — are terrified that they are fast losing power in a country they once dominated. Hence their fanatical support for Trump as “the chosen one” and their disparagement of his critics as “demonic.” A skilled demagogue, Trump unerringly taps into their anxiety with his risible claims about a war on Christmas and now a war on Thanksgiving.

Even so, as Emily Stewart wrote in the Vox article I linked to at the beginning of this post (here's that link again), it's not unreasonable to invite people to look at Thanksgiving through the eyes of folks for whom the holiday may have meanings that aren't in sync with the traditional happy-feast scenario. To many Native Americans, for instance, the holiday serves as a reminder of the atrocities indigenous peoples suffered when Europeans landed in the "New World." Add to that the fact that the story about the Pilgrims and the Native Americans is not an accurate one, and there's a sound basis for a counter-holiday, the National Day of Mourning, which has been observed for nearly half a century in Plymouth, Massachusetts by indigenous people and their allies. But that's hardly some contemporary liberal plot to destroy Thanksgiving. It's not even an initiative to change the name of Thanksgiving. It's just an alternative and arguably more inclusive holiday.

In addition, some environmental groups are promoting awareness of the environmental impact of Thanksgiving, including the enormous quantities of food consumed (and wasted), as well as the impact of travel. As painfully PC as these considerations may be to the climate/environmental science denial camp, though, they still don't qualify as a war against T-Day.

Disappointing as it may be to the pearl-clutching culture warriors, there is no actual war against any of our cherished holidays, other than the wars that are playing out in the heads of cynical political opportunists and the frightened, gullible people whom they are stringing along like so many gaudy Christmas lights. Besides, technically Trump didn't really "win" the phony Xmas war anyway. People are still saying, "Happy Holidays," as in fact, they've been saying (and singing) for decades.

May you have joyful holidays, no matter how many of them you do or don't celebrate. I'll be back in December, which is just around the corner. And you won't see any war on Christmas on this Whirled: to the contrary I intend to deck these (recently refurbished) halls with an ever-changing festive background to celebrate the season.

Triggered: Traitor Tot touts his own Trump-branded whine

As you're no doubt aware, among his numerous other enterprises #NotMyPresident Donald J. Trump, aka #Dolt45, sells Trump-branded wines, which his Number 2 (in more ways than one) son Eric was hawking recently during the impeachment hearings. But more than his wines, Trump is known for his whines. In 2015, just as his presidential campaign was picking up steam, he proudly embraced his whiny ways when "New Day" host Chris Cuomo asked him to respond to a National Review article by Rich Lowry, which began:

Donald Trump is given to superlatives, so let’s do him the honor of pronouncing him the most fabulous whiner in all of American politics.

By Trump’s own account, he’s the baddest, smartest thing going, except if you ask him a challenging question, in which case he kicks and screams and demands to know how anyone could treat him so unfairly.

Unfazed, Trump told Cuomo, "I think [Lowry is] probably right. I am the most fabulous whiner. I do whine because I want to win. And I'm not happy if I'm not winning. And I am a whiner. And I'm a whiner and I keep whining and whining until I win," he said. "And I'm going to win for the country and I'm going to make our country great again."

Well, here we are in 2019, in the midst of an impeachment process that may or may not be entering the next phase, and Trump is still whining, and whining, and whining. He may be "winning," but every time he "wins," the country loses a little more of its soul.

And now comes the next-generation Trump whinemaker: Number 1 son Donald J. Trump Jr., aka DJTJ (as late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel likes to call him), aka Traitor Tot.* Earlier this month Junior's first book, Triggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us was published by Center Street, a conservative imprint of the Hachette Book Group. In light of the fact that the book is given over as much to Junior's whining about how tough he has had it as it is to grousing about how the left is oppressing the right, Triggered might more accurately be titled, Poor Little Rich Boy.

Whines notwithstanding, Don the Younger apparently couldn't be more thrilled, tweeting excitedly about the book's rise to number 1 on the prestigious New York Times Best Seller list for print hardcover "nonfiction." (This despite the fact that Junior and Daddy both have repeatedly excoriated the NYTimes for being "failing" and "fake news.")

But there's a but (and also a butt, but that goes without saying). The "but" is that Daddy's chums at the Republican National Committee have so far made a nearly $100,000 bulk purchase of the book. From Vice.com today:

Don Jr.’s opus — Triggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us — shot up to No. 1 on the hardcover nonfiction charts right when it dropped last week. But observers noted that Jr.’s title was the only one on the list accompanied by a symbol indicating sales boosted by a bulk purchase. The Trumps, and their compadres at the RNC, pushed back at the idea that the Trump son had a leg up.

“We haven’t made a large bulk purchase, but are ordering copies to keep up with demand,” said Mike Reed, an RNC spokesman, after the group sent an email fundraising off the book, according to the New York Times. “Each book is sold to an individual who supports the Republican Party.”

But it’s clear the RNC did exactly what they said they didn’t do — that is, they made a whopping bulk purchase. A Federal Election Commission disclosure revealed the RNC spent $94,800 on pre-order copies of Triggered, purchased from Books-A-Million as “donor mementos.”

And from The Washington Post:

The purchase, disclosed in a recent Federal Election Commission filing, could explain the caveat that accompanied the bestseller listing for “Triggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us” — and prompted speculation about what propelled Trump Jr.’s book to the coveted spot. A small dagger next to the book’s blurb in the ranking indicates “institutional, special interest, group or bulk purchases,” which the Times says are factored into rankings at editors’ discretion....

The RNC is reportedly making money hand over fist with this magnum dopus. Also from WaPo:

“Triggered” attacks Democrats and Trump critics and bills itself as “the book that leftist elites don’t want you to read.” The RNC has offered signed copies of Trump Jr.’s book to those who donate more than $50; spokesman Michael Joyce told BuzzFeed News that the RNC has “netted $500,000 for the party fundraising off the book.”

The fundraising campaign was helped along by fake-personal messages from Junior himself.

UPDATE: According to a November 28, 2019 article in the New York Times, the Republican National Committee is far from the only Republican/conservative org to have bulk-purchased Triggered. Included among at least nine other bulk purchasing entities are the conservative student group Turning Point USA; conservative activist group Citizens United; the National Republican Senatorial Committee; and various state G.O.P. orgs. While the NYT article acknowledges, as others have (and as I do below) that bulk purchases for fund-raising purposes are neither illegal nor uncommon, there is a difference with Triggered:

But the breadth of the Republican establishment’s effort behind Mr. Trump is striking for a noncandidate whose most significant claim to fame remains his parentage, and who has sought to deflect criticism of his recent attacks on impeachment witnesses by asserting that he is merely a “private citizen.” And it underscores the unusual cross-pollination between the Trump family’s political ambitions, its business ventures and the party President Trump now leads.

A few potholes on the road to stardom
Don't imagine for a moment that it's been all easy for the proud author. Shortly after Triggered was released, pranksters sneaked into a New York City Barnes and Noble bookstore, replaced its dust jacket with a parody cover bearing a new title, Daddy, Please Love Me, and moved the display to the "Young Adult" (ages 12 and up) section of the store.

And a few days later, DJTJ got booed out of one of his own book-launch events not by the "easily triggered" libs and lefties, but by his own supporters, a group of angry white nationalists who were apparently ticked off that he wasn't taking questions. Barely 20 minutes into an event that had been scheduled to last two hours, Junior and his girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle, left the stage. So it was actually right-wing haters who had effectively silenced Junior, while, as The Guardian piece linked to in the first sentence of this paragraph notes:

...if Trump Jr was expecting a small army of “triggered” leftwingers to clamour for his silence, he did not get it. No more than 35 protesters showed up and, despite making a lot of noise with drums and whistles and shouts of “Trump-Pence Out Now!”, resisted taunts and insults from provocateurs in Make America Great Again hats from across a line of metal barriers.

Then there was the (well-deserved) blowback that Junior got for an anecdote in his new book in which he described driving past Arlington National Cemetery the day before Daddy's inauguration. He wrote that the "gravity of the moment" filled him with a "deep sense of the importance of the presidency and a love of our country." Had he stopped there it would have been no big deal. But being his father's son, he felt compelled to pivot back to his own family's "suffering."

“In that moment, I also thought of all the attacks we’d already suffered as a family, and about all the sacrifices we’d have to make to help my father succeed—voluntarily giving up a huge chunk of our business and all international deals to avoid the appearance that we were ‘profiting off of the office,'” he wrote, later adding, “it was a big sacrifice, costing us millions and millions of dollars annually. Of course, we didn’t get any credit whatsoever from the mainstream media, which now does not surprise me at all.”

When that bit was publicized, there was a loud collective "Give me a break!" from veterans and non-veterans alike. Granted, Junior's story may not be quite as insulting to service members past and present as Daddy's claim, in an interview years ago, that his own promiscuous rutting years, when he constantly dodged the STD bullet, were his "personal Vietnam." (Of course that was intended to be a joke, but it's a sick one, particularly since Trump Sr., aka Cadet Bone Spurs, was infamously also a draft dodger.) And certainly the Arlington/Trump family sacrifice tale is not on the scale of atrocity as Daddy's recent pardoning of service members accused of, and in some cases convicted of, war crimes.

Frankly, I doubt that either the Junior or Senior DJT is particularly bothered by blowback on any of the military matters just described, and the Trumpanzees are clearly not bothered by any of it either, but for folks who still have a moral compass, all of this actually matters.

Notwithstanding Trumpian complacency and pride, though, Triggered has not had a completely easy time of it. Months before the book was even published, it was a popular subject for jeering memes.

Then there's the fact that the reviews in the media have not been especially kind. For instance, there's this from a November 16, 2019 Slate.com piece by Slate senior writer Ashley Feinberg:

While Jr.’s entry on the list is marked with an icon indicating bulk purchases, at least a few people have purchased the book of their own volition and with genuine interest. Technically, one of those people was me. Ever since the 2016 campaign, I’ve been fascinated by Don Jr., a fully grown father of five with the sensibility of a not-particularly-bright 13-year-old, and his visible public effort to prove himself as his father’s son...

...Fortunately, for Don Jr.’s readers, there is indeed plenty of arguing on behalf of his father in the nearly 300-page denunciation of his family’s enemies. There’s also the sort of awkward writing and clunky metaphors endemic to campaign trail books of all stripes (even if Jr.’s not technically personally running for anything—yet). This particular cash grab, though, transcends the ordinary campaign-publishing vanity project. It’s the work of an author so nakedly self-conscious—or so in need of self-soothing—he constantly breaks off his message to assure the reader he’s proud, confident, and doing fine...

...Actual Don Jr. fans likely won’t be too bothered by [inconsistencies and distortions in the book]. Coherence and attention to detail are not features of any Donald Trump brand experience, whether junior or senior. Still, you can’t make an entire book solely out of father-defending. So what exactly is Don Jr.’s book about?

After reading the book twice, I’m still not entirely sure...

Feinberg then goes on to list what she thinks may be the core messages in Junior's tome, all of which center not around issues vital to America but instead around those that are central to Don Jr.: (1) He's not really angry; (2) His dad loves him; (3) He's the real victim; (4) He has a girlfriend; and (5) He's one of the real reasons that Daddy won. DJTJ seems pretty taken with his own rising stardom, overall, though he appears to be trying as hard to convince himself of his greatness as he is trying to convince his readers. But as for the general veneer of boastful arrogance and the propensity for two-bit, cliched insults to perceived enemies, the orange doesn't fall far from the diseased tree.

Putting it all in perspective 
In light of the widely reported news about the contrived boost of Triggered to bestseller status, I would be remiss were I not to mention a couple of points. This isn't an attempt to let Trump the Younger or Trump the Elder off the hook -- as you may be able to discern just from the way I frame point number 1, below. But it is some necessary perspective.

1. Bulk-purchasing and other, shadier ways of gaming the bestseller lists are common in Scamworld (and beyond).
Look, most of us can see that Trump and sons (and son-in-law and daughter) are scammers. I get that it was the Republican National Committee [and other Republican/conservative organizations] that made the bulk purchases and not a Trump per se, but since the Republican party has for all practical purposes degenerated into the Trump Party, it's still all in the scamily.

And going back slightly further in American political history: according to an August 2016 piece on the Daily Beast site (which was updated in April 2017), Donald Trump Sr. himself used more than $55,000.00 in campaign donations to buy thousands of copies of his own book, Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again, at retail cost from Barnes & Noble. The Daily Beast article elaborated:

Executives, celebrities, and politicians have long purchased copies of their books in bulk; many publishers even get high-profile authors to agree to buy a certain number of copies before a contract for the book is even signed. But Trump’s arrangement appears to be very different. Ben Bruton, who has worked in publishing public relations for 25 years, called the way in which the books were bought “suspicious.”

Suspicious as in possibly violating federal campaign laws, that is. It's maybe not quite the same thing as paying $130,000 to buy a porn star's silence, but still possibly a bit naughty.

But the Trumps and the Republican groups that enable them certainly didn't invent the bulk-purchase strategy. When I shared an article on my Facebook feed the other day about the RNC purchase of Junior's Triggered, a Facebook friend of mine remarked, in the context of noting how common bulk purchasing is, that imprisoned serial scammer Kevin Trudeau bulk-purchased his own books back in the day to sell them on his TV infomercials. This may not be quite the same thing, though, since Trudeau's books -- at least his first two Natural Cures books -- were self-published, and he did actually sell millions of copies over the years via his infomercials, landing him spots at various times on the bestseller lists of Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and the New York Times.

Another point is that Trudeau's books and other info-products were almost always vehicles either for forced-continuity schemes or for upselling (e.g., his 14-CD set Your Wish Is Your Command, which was promoted via infomercials and online, was a very aggressive upsell for his massive scam, the Global Information Network, or GIN). Having said all of that, it's always appropriate, in a general turds-of-a-feather sense, to bring up career con artist Kevin Trudeau in the context of just about anything related to the Trump scampire.

But the larger point is that artificially pumping up sales figures, and making a book seem of more import than it really is, are things that are done pretty regularly, not only by Trumps and anyone else whom you'd normally think of as a scammer, but by "regular" folks (and their publishers and/or publicists) as well. In fact, as a September 2017 Vox article expressed it, the world of bestseller lists is convoluted at best. This has been the case for many, many years. In a sense, the game of book promotion and selling has long been rigged.

For instance, it was pretty widely known for years in the publishing industry, if not among consumers, that major publishers paid big bucks for premium display space in the major chain bookstores, as this 1996 piece from the New York Times shows. At the moment I can't seem to find information on the extent to which this might still be the case; the role of brick-and-mortar book stores has changed drastically over the past couple of decades, and there's been a big shakeup in the publishing industry overall with the explosion of electronic media. But I hope my point is clear.

And to cite another example that brings us back to the topic of bestseller lists, people have been finding ways to game Amazon's bestseller lists, and for that matter their review system as well, in various ways ever since Amazon came on the scene. Professional scammers as well as amateur authors eagerly promoting their first book have often fallen to temptation, and a range of parties from publicists to publishers have also taken advantage of the system over the years.

I wrote about the problem way back in March 2007 (though unfortunately the specific SHAMblog post link is no longer valid), but folks were complaining about those issues with Amazon years before this blog was born. Just as people are constantly trying to find ways to game the search engines, those who are selling books or other info-products -- whether they're individual authors and their cronies, or big publishers -- are going to try to find as many ways as possible to make it at least appear that their products are bestsellers. As is true in the business world in general, many folks will use any tricks they can get away with, no matter how ethically questionable. Maybe that's just one of the less admirable aspects of human nature.

I remember that when Triggered was first announced, months ahead of its publication, I casually predicted on a Facebook thread that there would be bulk purchases. But it didn't take any great gift of prognostication to figure that one out.

Understand this: I'm not claiming that efforts to manipulate or exaggerate sales figures are ethical, no matter how many "regular folks" do it, and no matter how institutionalized the subterfuge may be. But this is hardly the worst offense committed by a Trump, and those anti-Trumpers who see some kind of Russian plot behind it all are nearly as silly as the pro-Trumpers for whom the Trumps can do absolutely no wrong.
 
Besides, bulk purchases do not account for all of the sales of Triggered. Which brings us to the next point...

2. Triggered very likely would have been a bestseller anyway, even without the bulk purchase(s).
After all, Trumpism is now for all practical purposes a cult with a large, and fanatically devoted, membership. The Son has been granted an enormous platform in which to bask in the reflected light of The Father. Of course people are going to buy his book, even if they don't read it, just because it was excreted from a Trump.

As I write this on November 22, 2019, Triggered is #16 on Amazon's Books bestseller list (right ahead of the latest anti-Trump work, A Warning by Anonymous). [Subsequently, as I mention below, A Warning overtook Triggered. ~ CC, 11-30-19.] It's also #1 in several sub-categories, including Censorship & Politics (directly ahead of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, which was originally published in the mid-1980s and which is, interestingly enough, a work of fiction that describes a frightening theocratic dystopia much like Trump's cronies are trying to create today). Triggered is also #1 in Political Commentary & Opinion; and Political Conservatism & Liberalism.

And what do actual Amazon purchasers (and, presumably, readers) think? Well, for what it's worth, at the moment Triggered boasts a 95% five-star review status on Amazon, though I should note that the top-rated positive review, voted "helpful" by more than 2,800 folks so far, is an an all-caps mockery.

DisneyDenizen HALL OF FAME TOP 50 REVIEWER 5.0 out of 5 stars
THIS IS THE BEST BOOK EVER WRITTEN November 6, 2019 Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase
THIS IS THE GREATEST BOOK EVER WRITTEN, ALSO THE LONGEST, BY THE BEST SON IN THE WORLD, AND BY THE BEST I MEAN HE IS THE SMARTEST, EASILY THE SMARTEST SON THERE HAS EVER BEEN, AND THE BEST LOOKING AND THE BEST WRITER, WE HIRED THE BEST WRITER, I MEAN HE IS THE SMARTEST GOOD LOOKING BEST WRITER, WELL, YOU KNOW, EXCEPT FOR HIS FATHER, OBVIOUSLY HIS FATHER IS SMARTER, AND HAS REALLY BIG HANDS, AND WE'VE BEEN GROOMING HIM BECAUSE OF COURSE THE DYNASTY MUST GO ON BECAUSE THERE WOULDN'T BE MUCH POINT IN HAVING A DYNASTY, OR A NAME REALLY, IF IT DIDN'T GO ON, BUT GROOMING NOT IN THE WAY YOU WOULD THINK – HAVE YOU SEEN THAT BEARD OF HIS, WE MAKE SURE THAT STAYS REALLY CLOSELY CROPPED, IT'S ELEGANT ISN'T IT? THAT BEARD? ANYWAY, WHERE WAS I? OH RIGHT BUY THIS BOOK IT'S THE BEST.

There's a lot of (apparently) sincere praise too, of course, but the mocking one is by far the most popular.

I'll acknowledge the possibility that manipulation of book reviews could still be going on at Amazon, as it was years ago: that perhaps the publisher or some others with vested interests have been able to persuade Amazon to remove most of the negative reviews, and/or that there have been other efforts to flood the page with praise for Triggered. Honestly, I have no idea. (There is definitely some serious gaming going on with some of Amazon's third-party sellers, though; see this November 20, 2019 piece from BuzzFeed, for example. And if you're still not convinced to take online reviews with a grain of salt, this November 28 article in the New York Times references not only Amazon but also other online retailers, and the ease with which their reviews can be manipulated. Caveat emptor!)
 
But since Amazon has reportedly taken steps in recent years to clean up their book review system, I'll take at face value the ratio of positive to negative reviews for this title until and unless I receive evidence to the contrary, keeping in mind that most of the positive reviewers seem to like the book chiefly because it reinforces their Trumpism and hatred of "liberals," rather than because of any deeper merits. 

UPDATE: According to the November 28 New York Times piece I linked to above (here's that link again), Triggered had dropped to Number 2 among nonfiction books on the November 27 NYT bestseller list. Taking over the Number 1 spot was another Hachette Book Group release, A Warning, by Anonymous -- you know, that infamous book that depicts Junior's daddy as being totally unfit for office.
 
Among the few critical comments for Triggered on Amazon is this bit of constructive criticism:

XXX 2.0 out of 5 stars
This is simply not well written, regardless of whether you agree with it November 7, 2019 Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase
Whether you agree politically with the content of this book or not, it is impossible to look past the fact that it is very poorly written. It reads more like a rushed draft than a finished work, and it would have benefited from the input of an editor at any time during its production [or maybe a ghostwriter, like Daddy has always used. ~CC]. I will give it two stars instead of one as it does appear to be an honest attempt at writing by the author, but the author needs to understand in future attempts that even a mediocre book needs more effort and consideration than simply putting a lot of words in order.

... By the time a reader gets to the end of this book, they will have much more of an idea of who the author believes he is - and how the author feels about his father - than they will have any sort of new insight on its purported subjects.

Should the author write any more books, my suggestion would be to put more effort into their production and the depth of their content. This book as it stands attempts to rely on witty insults and attempts at humor to bridge the content together, but that content has no depth, provides no new or fresh insight, and is not presented in an organized manner. If readers want superficial content used as a vehicle to move cheap insults, they can get content of that quality for free just by reading the comments on any news article posted to Facebook. There is no real value gained by paying money to get that same caliber content out of this book.

Good recommendations, XXX, and I say this as someone who hasn't read Junior's entire book, but has read enough of the available excerpts to agree with the criticisms. But more than likely it doesn't matter, since ridiculously sub-par writing doesn't appear to be keeping the Trumpstruck masses from happily glugging down Junior's whine just like they do Daddy's. The more they drink, the drunker they get. And no doubt scads of them will stumble, tipsy on Trumpism, to the voting booths in November of next year. It's up to us sober folk to counter those votes with our own.


Related on this Whirled:

• 3 November 2019: Wead it and reap: selfish-help author/Christian fundie/right-wing political hack pens new book that kisses some yuuuuge orange butt
  Another book that's destined to be a best-seller. Don't be surprised if there are some republican-linked bulk purchases of this one too, since the author is apparently an embedded Trumphole resident. It's getting pretty crowded up in there...
• 21 March 2019: Red, red whine: Devin Nunes' defamation flawsuit against Twitter, a bogus bovine, et al.
  Contrary to what DJTJ et al. love to tell themselves, right-wingers overall seem to be more easily triggered than the left. In addition, their gripes about being "censored" and "shadow-banned" online are hugely exaggerated.
• 25 March 2019: Trump as Julius Seizer? Health Ranger endorses tyranny as solution to online "censorship" of right-wingers
  The right believes in freedom of speech... for themselves. For others, not so much.
• 14 August 2018: Alex Jones and the usual whiners: censor-y deprivation?
  More about baseless right-wing whining regarding "censorship." But we also cover some of the nuances in the "censorship" issue that are overlooked by many on both the left and the right.
• 9 August 2019: Conspiranoid claptrap & manipulative manifestos cloud narrative about El Paso & Dayton shootings
  In the wake of recent mass shootings, the right tried to pin the blame for the incidents, as well for as the larger problems of systemic hatred and violence, on the left/liberals/Democrats -- basing their claims upon nothing more than a scattering of social media posts and, more importantly, a few sections in a couple of "manifestos" that had been deliberately crafted (i.e., "shit-posted") to sow confusion.

Related off-Whirled:

• 16 April 2019: The Far Right Doesn't Want to Beat the Left; It Wants to Exterminate It
  Yes, this is an opinion piece and yes, it's from Pacific Standard, which has been rated by the Media Bias Fact Check site as having a left-centered bias, but -- and this is crucial -- the site was given a high rating for factual reporting. (Many conservatives will dismiss Pacific Standard because of its emphasis on social justice, which is a derisive term in some circles, but as far as I'm concerned, that's a plus.)
• "Oh, poor boy, so sorry for himself..." A song to celebrate Don Jr.'s first official contribution to the Trump whinery.

* I should note that I am not accusing DJTJ of actual treason. Generally speaking I think that this accusation is far too widely used by both the right and the left, libs and cons, Dems and repubs. Seriously. But I rather like the alliteration of "Traitor Tot," and as you may know I'm a sucker for alliteration, which is one reason I named myself Cosmic Connie years ago. In any case, while DJTJ is probably no more traitor than I am cosmic, he's still a putz.

NOTE: This post has been amended several times since first published on November 22. Among other things I've added more information regarding the manipulation of Amazon reviews and other ways of gaming sales and promotion of books and other products; I've fleshed out several other points throughout the post; and have, with no insult whatsoever intended to a much-loved singer whose life was tragically cut short in 1974, embedded one of my favorite Nick Drake songs.
~ CC