Monday, January 06, 2020

Meet the new year, same as the old year(s) in Scamworld

A belated Happy New Year to everyone who observes the Gregorian calendar, and a Happy New Decade if you're on Team Zero. It may be a new year/decade, but the scammers are still up to their same old tricks. Let's revisit three of my unfavorites.

Death Ray still trying to convince himself that he's on a "hero's journey"
Late last month my friend and
fellow blogger Chris Locke (aka Kat Herding) gave me a heads-up about a December 23, 2019 tweet by star of The Secret/convicted killer James Arthur "Death" Ray. Ray had tweeted:
Each and every hero of all myths (no exception) went through tremendous suffering, agony, pain, disillusionment, and sometimes premature death. All of them!
The tweet included a link to a blog post written by Ray, titled, "Life is Yours for the Taking." Though there's no date header on the post, a scroll down to the comments section shows that it was actually written in 2014; for some reason Ray dredged it up again for that December tweet. The post offers a bit of drivel about how suffering can potentially be the path to salvation, a concept that Ray has often exploited, using his own life as an example. It's congruent with that whole hero's journey/martyr theme that he has been flogging ever since he was sprung from an Arizona prison where he'd served a far-too-short sentence for killing Kirby Brown, James Shore, and Liz Neuman.

Maybe I am being an overly sensitive snowflake again, but I think that "Life is Yours for the Taking" is a distasteful title for a blog post penned by a reckless, ruthless sociopath whose unheroic actions have demonstrated that he believed other people's lives were his for the taking as well. Even more offensive is Ray's ongoing narrative that casts him in the light of the wise hero who has suffered much but has emerged stronger for the suffering, and is willing to guide others through their own tribulations (for a price).

Twitter was reluctant to show me this at first, describing it as possibly offensive -- I'm guessing that's because it contains the word "asshole" -- but I insisted on seeing it, and what I saw was that my friend Dave Cook made a Christmas Day comment to Death Ray's tweet.


You tell him, Dave.

Nefarious Silicone [sic] Valley leftist plot against Kevin Trudeau
On my previous post -- and my last one of 2019 -- I wrote about a new-ish fake-guru scam that's being orchestrated by imprisoned serial scammer Kevin Trudeau, aka KT, aka Katie, and some of his most loyal proxies. Said proxies were terribly upset because Katie's main Facebook page had been temporarily suspended by Facebook, supposedly because of new rules about Facebook pages that use celebrity names but are handled by third parties.

A little later that month,
on December 23, 2019, to be exact, the Free Kevin Trudeau page announced that the embattled main page, which had more than 40,000 followers, had been permanently deleted. This being Katie fan territory, there had to be a sinister "they" behind this outrageous action.
We’ve just been informed that the official Kevin Trudeau Facebook page (with 42,000 followers) has been permanently deleted. It’s totally clear that the exercise of “free speech” is now 100% at the mercy of a handful of Left-Wing Silicone [sic] Valley tech giants. Unbelievable!

Please share this post so that as many people are aware of this as possible. Our page and “Kevin Trudeau Teachings” are all that’s left in terms of promoting KT on Facebook. We will do our very best to continue to build, inspire and inform KT’s support base to best of our ability.
The fans rallied in the comments following the post. A person whose name I recognized as that of a long-time Katie fan wrote:
Who deleted it and for what pretext or reason, does anyone know?
The lesson is, for adminstrators [sic] in the future, to always safeguard a separate copy of the page, in case of cyber-attacks, accident or politically motivated censorship.
Have the administrators of his Official Facebook Page kept a copy of it anywhere?
What are the legal recourses (if any) against such unjustified censorship?
Let's rebuild what they've been trying to destroy or stiffle [sic], and learn from our past mistakes.
Merry Christmas to all lightworkers.
The Free Kevin Trudeau admin responded to the fan with a reiteration of Facebook's new policy, adding, "Was this the real reason? Who knows?"

I really hate to rain on that conspiranoid parade about left-wing political bias... well, no, I don't. Look, Katie fans, I know that y'all get a big kick out of riding your leader's martyr coattails; I get that it gives you a sense of being part of something grand and righteous. But there is abundant evidence that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has actually been working overtime, especially over this past year, to court the rabid right-wing political camp, including and especially the big sick Trump machine. Since so many of you seem to be Trump fans, like your hero is, you should be cheering rather than jeering Facebook.

As Politico reported in October 2019:
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been hosting informal talks and small, off-the-record dinners with conservative journalists, commentators and at least one Republican lawmaker in recent months to talk about issues like free speech and discuss partnerships.

The dinners, which began in July, are part of Zuckerberg’s broader effort to cultivate friends on the right amid outrage by President Donald Trump and his allies over alleged “bias” against conservatives at Facebook and other major social media companies. "I’m under no illusions that he’s a conservative but I think he does care about some of our concerns,” said one person familiar with the gatherings, which multiple sources have confirmed.

News of the outreach is likely to further fuel suspicions on the left that Zuckerberg is trying to appease the White House and stay out of Trump’s crosshairs. The president
threatened to sue Facebook and Google in June and has in the past pressured the Justice Department to take action against his perceived foes.
An opinion piece penned by Daniel Newman in early December 2019 on the MapLight site was more blunt.
Mark Zuckerberg has rigged the rules of Facebook political advertising, making him complicit in lies and voter manipulation. The result is the most powerful propaganda amplifier in history, boosting campaigns that traffic in falsehoods.

Zuckerberg’s company screens some paid political advertising for lies. But since early October, it makes an exception: When candidates pay for the ads, it will run any ad —
even those with blatant lies. Who does this exception help? Politicians who lie.

The most prominent lying politician in America is, of course, President Trump. Of more than 700 of Trump’s claims reviewed by the fact-checking site
Politifact, more than 70% were rated “mostly false,” “false,” or “pants-on-fire” lies....

..
.What is Zuckerberg’s motive? He is afraid of a president that will rein in Facebook’s power. Several Democratic candidates have said that they would do exactly that: seek to break up Zuckerberg’s company. This would “suck,” said Zuckerberg in leaked audio recordings. “If someone’s going to try to threaten something that existential, you go to the mat and you fight.”
Newman goes on to explain that several key executives advising Zuck on ad policies have ties to Trump and Trump's allies. For instance...
Peter Thiel, a prominent Trump supporter, is a longtime Facebook board member. Zuckerberg and Thiel dined with Trump at the White House in late October, in a secret meeting uncovered by NBC News. What did Trump and Zuckerberg discuss during this meeting, held so soon after Zuckerberg changed his company’s ad rules to help lying politicians? And why was the meeting secret? Neither Zuckerberg nor Trump will say. Based on what we have learned from the impeachment hearings about how Trump does business, he may have offered benefits to Zuckerberg. Perhaps he suggested that he won’t ever regulate Facebook — if Zuckerberg keeps the ad rules that help him get re-elected. This is Zuckerberg’s quid pro quo, whether explicitly spoken or not.
MapLight, by the way, is a worthy org that has been exposing negative influences on American democracy for more than fifteen years. Their mission includes illuminating the influence of money in politics, and empowering voters with facts. Check 'em out here.

I realize I've probably wasted my time trying to address the diehard fans of Kevin Trudeau, to whom facts or informed opinions have never really mattered. And in case you're wondering, I would be saying all of this directly to the Katie fans' faces on Facebook, but as I've mentioned previously, I am blocked from commenting or even responding to all posts on the Free Kevin Trudeau page, just as I was blocked from the now-defunct Kevin Trudeau page.

In any case the intrepid Trudolts are working round the Web to rebuild what Facebook has so ruthlessly destroyed, creating social media pages and web sites to carry on the "teachings" of their guru while they continue to campaign for his liberation from government custody. Their worship of this incorrigible con artist has not diminished at all, but has only increased, as he continues to languish at Camp Cupcake. Apparently he has been elevated to the status of GOAT in the selfish-help rogue's gallery. Plus, he can change your DNA.





Need your face, boobs, butt, or wallet lifted? Try the Access Energetic Facegrift TM
It's been a while since I've written about the vaguely Scientology-inspired sex-and-money scampire known as
Access Consciousness. Figuring it was time for at least a brief check-in, I popped onto their Facebook page and came across a couple of recent posts about something called the Access Energetic FaceliftTM, which has actually been a thing for a few years now, but I hadn't written about it yet. Some of the posts link to a fairly creepy video that apparently gives a general idea of the process.

The Facebook posts also link to
a blog post on the Access web site, which invites aging targets to explore some exciting new possibilities.
What if you could undo the ravages of aging so you could appear younger and more vibrant, without surgery, injections, creams or pills?

And what if, as you experience these physical changes, you could experience other changes, too, as your points of views (aka judgments) about aging shift?

How might this change how you view yourself in the mirror, no matter your age or appearance?

Would you be interested in this other possibility? If so…

Welcome to the Access Facelift™.

The Access Energetic Facelift is a wonderful way to rejuvenate and reverse the appearance of aging on the face, while creating similar effects throughout the body. It reverses the effects of gravity and activates the muscle structure in the face that can become less dynamic as you get older. All by having someone place their hands, in a non-invasive way, on your face and upper body.
It may be non-invasive, but if that video I linked to above is any indication, you still have to take your clothes off.

Want proof that the Access Energetic Facelift really works? Well, there's a very blurry series of pics of a woman in Mumbai, India, who claimed the Facelift caused subtle but desired shifts in her facial skin texture and chubbiness. Here, judge for yourself.

The blog post has a link to a page on the Access site that has more "information" as well as a class schedule. The page answers burning questions such as, "What occurs during class?"
This class is a one-day, hands-on class in which participants learn the Access Energetic Facelift and participate in gifting two sessions and receiving two sessions.

During this class, you will work with the energies in the body and face, and while applying these, discover what can be released.

Once we get rid of the judgments we project at our faces and bodies daily in the mirror, our body has the space to regenerate itself.
Well, okay. Regeneration is a big thing in some New-Wage/alt-health circles; I wrote about it back in 2011. At any rate, the Access Energetic Facelift can apparently lift more than just the face.
People have reported changes in the following:
  • The light and luminosity of the face
  • Elasticity of the skin
  • Clarity of the eyes
  • Glow in the hair
  • Lifting of breasts and buttocks
  • Improved energy
  • Increased relaxation
What are the prerequisites for the Access Energetic Facelift? You may be pleased to know that there are absolutely none. Even if you're an Access virgin you can take advantage of this wonderful flopportunity.

But how much does it cost? Sorry, that's a seekrit until you register:

Pricing
Global pricing, Repeat pricing and Age pricing applies.
Your individual and applied pricing can be seen under Billing & Payments after registering.

I'm not going to register, but if you do, let me know how much they're trying to stick you for. And as always, I'm interested in hearing from folks who have experienced this miracle for themselves.

That's it for now, and I'm guessing you get the drift, or the grift. It may be a new year/decade, but where New-Wage crapitalists are concerned, it's the same old story.

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