Covidiocy continues: Canadian crackpot, COVID camps, Carlson claptrap

A year ago, I would never have dreamed that in August of 2021 I would still be blogging about the COVID-19 pandemic, and I'm pretty sure that thousands of working journos and pundits in the "legitimate" media didn't think they would still be reporting and commenting on it... yet here we are. I am far from the first or the only or the best to observe that the plagues of misinformation, conspiracy narratives, anti-vax hysteria, and dangerous (right-wing) politicizing surrounding COVID-19 are posing as much of a threat to our individual and collective well-being as the virus itself -- and in fact are directly contributing to making the virus more... well... virulent. That point can't be emphasized enough.

Some of the hucksters I've written about over the years have participated enthusiastically in the misinfo campaign, such as serial scammer Kevin Trudeau, whose contributions to the con-versation (emphasis on the first syllable) I wrote about at some length here and here last year. Another peddler of pandemic piffle, much lesser-known and far stupider than Trudeau, is one of his former grift-buddies, cancer quack/fraudster/anti-vaxxer/neo-Nazi Leonard Coldwell. Trudeau, still serving out a ten-year prison sentence and faced with restrictions to his online activity, has spread his COVID lies through proxies, but Coldwell apparently posts his own content.

A Facebook friend of mine recently expressed concern about the lies that Coldwell has been posting on his main Facebook page, regarding COVID concentration camps, microchips in vaccines, and whatnot. While COVID-19 may be relatively recent, the Facebook falsehoods problem is not new: for years Coldwell has been using social media to spread anti-vax lies, "alternative" health misinformation (especially about cancer), conspiracy tall tales, and the like. When COVID-19 emerged in early 2020, he jumped right into the deep end of the covidiocy pool.

That's really no surprise; the surprise would have been if he had passed on such a golden opportunity to spread his toxins. But my friend seemed to be really fed up with the continual flow of sludge from Coldwell's Facebook page, and wondered if it would be possible to get him permanently removed from that platform.

No doubt many have tried to do just that -- not me, believe it or not; I only reported Coldwell to Facebook a couple of times when he was posting things that directly endangered me, and once when he was publicly and falsely accusing an ally of mine of being a child rapist. All of that took place years ago. As I've been saying for years, for the most part I'm content to let people make assholes of themselves in public. It gives me something to snark about here, and I don't have to search very hard for material. Lazy bloggers like me like having easy pickin's.

But others have reported Coldwell at various times over the years, mostly for hate speech, and no doubt at least some of those folks have urged Facebook to permanently ban him. Yet the most that has happened so far has been that Facebook suspends him for 30 days...and he whines about it on his other forums (claiming Facebook has “banned” him only because he isn’t afraid to tell “the truth”)... and then he uses that as the hook to get more people to sign up for his "exclusive information" that he promises is absolutely life-changing and possibly lifesaving and that you cannot find anywhere else, but which is almost always recycled rubbish that you actually see everywhere these days.

The suspension/whinefest/reinstatement cycle has occurred again and again and again with Coldwell. I wrote about it back in May of 2016, but it's happened numerous times since then.

My normally laissez-faire attitude to public discourse notwithstanding, however, I find the new COVID-19 surges due to the Delta variant alarming. And I share my friend's concerns about the effects, whether direct or indirect, of COVID lies and misinformation posted by Coldwell and a host of other cranks. What I worry about are not just the effects these lies and rumors have on the course of the pandemic and public health, but also on the future of critical thinking and rational discourse.

Oh, Canada!
A couple of Coldwell's recent COVID offerings stood out for me. The first one occurred earlier this month when he posted a link on his Facebook page to a video on BitChute, which is sort of an online refugee camp for conspiranoid nutcakes and far-right hate-speechers who were booted off of YouTube. Or maybe "toxic waste dump" would be a better description than "refugee camp." My apologies to refugees.

The video to which Loony Lenny linked is about an Alberta, Canada man named Patrick King, who'd apparently ended up in court after being fined for not wearing a mask. Coldwell didn't make any comment on his own post; he merely posted the link to the vid, which bears the teaser headline, "YUGE!!! Canadian Court Victory Proves Covid-19 Is A Hoax & All Restrictions Have Now Been Dropped." Here's the blurb on the BitChute page, complete with typos and spelling and grammatical errors:

Patriot Patrick King represented himself in court after being fined $1200 dollars for protesting against the Covid-Hoax, he slew the beast and emerged VICTORIOUS. He issued a subpoena to the Provincial Health Minister for proof that the so-called Covid-19 Virus exists, and they were forced to admit that they had no evidence whatsoever. The virus has never been isolated, and thus the government had no legal grounds to impose any of the punishing restrictions they have inflicted on society. Since this shocking confession came to light, the Province has since rescinded all Covid-Restrictions and now officially treats Covid-19 as nothing more than a mild flu! WE WON

King has shown the template to be followed WORLDWIDE. This is what can happen when you are not re-presented by a BAR (British Accredited Registry) Lawyer who's first obligation is to the Corrupted Courts and not their client.

THIS IS HUGE

That's pretty much the gist of the narrative that has appeared all over the right-wing/COVID-is-a-hoax looniverse, and it's no surprise that, as is the case with most covidiocies, Coldwell is far from the only person to spread this one. I've seen it in numerous other places myself -- even, I'm sad to say, on a forum that once upon a time, before the Age of Trump, was in sync with this Whirled, particularly on matters regarding Coldwell's general idiocy. Those were the days, my friend.

To my pal who was concerned about Facebook letting people like Coldwell continue to rant, I pointed out that one encouraging sign is that Facebook has become more vigilant about flagging misleading or false posts, and explaining why they are flagged, while providing links to correct info. I noted that maybe this is the best course; they leave the posts up so the potential martyrs can’t whine about being “censored” (as right-wing ranters are wont to do), but readers have easy access to correct information. And even if the true believers refuse to follow the links, it does take some of the wind out of the sails of the original post.

Indeed, Coldwell's post about the Canadian anti-masker was flagged by Facebook as false information, and immediately under the post were these three links:

• Fact Check: Alberta Man Did NOT prove COVID-19 Is Hoax, Restrictions NOT Dropped Because Of Him (Aug. 6, 2021)
• Fact Check -- Alberta court case not linked to lifting of COVID-19 restrictions (Aug. 7, 2021)
• Canadian court case unrelated to lifting of Covid-19 restrictions in Alberta (Aug. 10, 2021)

The headlines reveal the basics, but there's much more detail in the respective articles.

Not surprisingly, Coldwell objected to being corrected, and wrote that the video content he'd shared is 100 percent true.

One small story, one large (and stupid and dangerous) narrative
This whole little Canadian drama would be just another silly story if not for the fact that it provided yet another reinforcement of the (almost exclusively right-wing) narrative that COVID restrictions (masks, vaccines, etc.) are a dire threat to freedom, and that those who flout those restrictions are exemplary heroes who have taken a bold stance against looming tyranny. And you can be assured that this narrative is alive and well, and that there are many Americans who actually believe that the republican governors (e.g., Florida guv Ron DeSantis and Texas guv Greg Abbott) who are working so hard to quash basic COVID safety measures are in fact fighting for the "freedom" of all of us. Here's one example of this delusion; it's on one Floridian's public Facebook page.

I am amazed at just how many people do not appreciate freedom. [cute little flag icon to demonstrate patriotism]
Our Governor is standing up against big government and so many Floridians can't even grasp that. Just because you don't happen to agree with his current stance just shows that you aren't smart enough to realize it's a lot more than just the current news uproar that he is fighting for.
It's being done in an attempt to preserve YOUR rights and freedoms... That YOU don't even appreciate and are ready to throw away so easily. It would be far easier for him to just "go along"...
Stop being so ungrateful.

I should note that this post is from a former enthusiastic follower of Kevin Trudeau -- one who was eventually convinced by others to see him for the scammer he was and is, but who was not smart enough to see that Leonard Coldwell is actually even worse than Trudeau, and apparently is not savvy enough to understand that politicians such as DeSantis are not motivated by altruism or principle.

I mention Kevin Trudeau again because there are striking parallels between Trudeau's propaganda about being a freedom fighter, and the propaganda of the republican "leaders." For years Trudeau -- and his loyal fans -- have insisted that Kevin has been battling for the rights and freedoms of all of us, when in reality he has only been interested in furthering his own scam agendas. Similarly, republican pols such as Governors DeSantis and Abbott, and even lesser ones such as Texas' dumbest box of rocks, Rep(rehensible) Louie Gohmert, claim to be taking their "bold" stands on COVID in order to stand up for "freedom," with their supporters endlessly and annoyingly echoing those claims. The reality is that the repubs are doing nothing more than pandering to a fairly significant base of misinformed or stupid voters, the public good be damned. They just want to get re-elected. With them, it's all politics.

(Besides, isn't it the height of "big government" for a governor to issue an executive order banning mask and/or vaccine mandates, even if the individual businesses or institutions deem that such mandates are necessary to protect the health and safety of their staff/students/customers? Just wondering.)

The Canada tale is also one more instance of the refusal of COVID deniers to perform even the most rudimentary research before they regurgitate content on their social media or blogs.

This one time, at COVID camp...
Another tale that has the conspiranoid tongues wagging is the "news" that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is plotting to set up COVID "concentration camps" for the unvaccinated or those exposed to COVID. Right-wing rabble-rouser Candace Owens was apparently the one who got this particular balderdash ball rolling, on Twitter.

Another Facebook friend of mine shared a video about the alleged COVID camps a few days ago on her feed. The teaser/headline was ominous: "They are coming for us." The source of that video was Rumble, which has also become popular with conspiranoids and haters who were exiled from YouTube. In response to my friend's post I shared a link to a debunking article, and she responded that she just hopes people will do their own research and then make up their own minds, without resorting to calling each other names. (Okay, I'm a name-caller and not ashamed of it, because some names deserve to be called.) To my friend's comment, I responded that while I have a similar wish to hers, people who rely on conspiracy sites to "research" and reinforce their anti-vax convictions are endangering all of us.

It will come as no big shock that Loony Lenny had to sound the COVID camp alarm too on the blog on his main website. His August 10, 2021 entry, under the category "The War on America," contains an embedded link to yet another Rumble vid, this one from conspiranoid nutcake radio host Stew Peters. The teaser on Coldwell's blog reads:

YOU HAVE TO STAND UP NOW! There is no more time. They are trying to separate vaxxed/unvaxxed and put the unvaxxed in internment camps…………………….DO not be bullied into taking this v a x. It is NOT an immunologic! IT IS intended to kill you.

I hate to piss on the parade of the paranoid... oh, you know I really don't, but anyway, let me let Reuters set the story straight (and this is only for those of you who don't fervently believe that Reuters is part of the big "Them" that are trying to shield us from The Truth and kill us). This is from August 13, 2021:

One Aug. 9 tweet saying that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had written a document “to discuss putting high risk people into camps to ‘shield’ low risk people” during the pandemic can be seen here .

Other tweets making similar claims can be seen here and here .

Posts replicating the claim can also be seen on Instagram (here) and Facebook (here).

However, this claim is misleading as presented. The document, last updated in July 2020 (during the Trump administration), is a discussion of pandemic approaches for people who already live in “humanitarian settings” such as refugee camps and displaced populations. It is not a strategy relevant to the U.S. general public (here).

Then there's this, from USA Today on August 17, 2021 (I know, I know, USA Today is yet another corporate media monster, but if you're interested in what the monster has to say, follow the link).

If you need more sources, help yourself.

Camp, schmamp
I suppose it was inevitable that the conspiranoids would start foaming at the mouth about government camps in America again, now that a Democrat is back in the White House. During the Obama administration, the nutcakes absolutely could not stop talking about "FEMA camps." Loony Lenny was an enthusiastic promoter of that narrative. Supposedly Obama and FEMA and George Soros and the rest of the usual gang of suspects were plotting to herd Americans into big internment camps, where they would be forcibly vaccinated and microchipped and who knows what else'd. It didn't happen.

They weren't nearly so paranoid during the Trump reign of ruin. They didn't utter a peep when real internment camps became, for all practical purposes, more of a thing than they'd been since World War II, thanks to the cruelty-is-the-point immigration "policies" of Trump and his reincarnated Nazi helper, Stephen Miller. Those camps didn't and don't matter, because they were built for "illegals" who are scarcely human and clearly have no right to be on hallowed American ground.

But now that there's a Democratic president again -- and one who actually seems to care about taking real steps to end a deadly pandemic -- it's time to dust off the "camp" narratives and update them for the times. Deja vu all over again...

Is fact-checking a losing battle?
Despite the time and effort have I put into writing this post, and every other post I've written on these subjects over the years, I am fully aware that fact-checking sites don't faze the conspiranoids and covidiots one bit. In their eyes, the fact-checkers are part of the MSM (mainstream media) or "Them" or the Deep State or the Killuminati and/or whichever other force(s) they imagine are trying to shield us from The Truth. Fact checkers are just there to placate the sheeple, while the awake and aware crowd knows what's really going on.

So much of the misinfo/disinfo industry, which formerly was relegated to the fringe, has become all too mainstream, and particularly in recent years, its products have leeched into American politics, which is the core reason that this formerly apolitical blog has become so political at times. And so much of the misinfo/disinfo is just plain silly or stupid. But silliness and stupidity have consequences, and some of them are dire.

An August 23, 2021 opinion piece on Slate, written by Amanda Marcotte, suggests that much of today's politically-oriented stupidity has become strategically weaponized. Marcotte frames her piece around Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who is one of the main sources of right-wing toxicity these days (and has made no small contribution to COVID-19 misinfo himself). The arguments Carlson makes are maddeningly stupid on purpose, Marcotte asserts, with the goal being to destroy rational discourse itself.

For instance, there's Carlson's assertion that refugees are mainly to blame for the housing crisis in America. Intrepid Media Matters analyst Matt Gertz quickly debunked that claim, but on Twitter, Gertz acknowledged that "it's fruitless to fact-check a wildly dishonest demagogue like Tucker Carlson." Gertz' pessimism is understandable, Marcotte acknowledged.

The whole incident illustrates one of the most pernicious problems with modern right-wing discourse: stupidity is strategically weaponized. And the strategy is as simple as it is sinister: make arguments so transparently false and silly that it makes people feel stupid for even engaging with you.

Carlson, in particular, is the master at playing dumb. It is a tactic that requires none of the hard work of learning, only shamelessness and a lack of basic morality. Carlson regularly makes claims so preposterous that it's unlikely even the most QAnon-addled conspiracy theorist can take him seriously...

...While deliberate stupidity is, well, stupid, it's also maddeningly effective. Carlson's playing dumb act works primarily as permission to his audience to let go of any lingering attachment to good faith or rationality. He allows them to instead glory in bullshit. After all, asinine arguments that don't make any sense at all drive the liberals up the wall, and nothing matters more than "owning" the liberals. Why bother being correct when you can be glib instead? ...

And actually there's nothing particularly new about this tactic; fascists and Nazis have been using it for decades. Today's right-wingers have found that this time-dishonored strategy works. Concluded Marcotte:

It's why Tucker Carlson's arguments are often transparently stupid, to the point where they self-debunk. He is training an audience in the bad faith that Sartre so eloquently described when he wrote that fascists [specifically anti-Semites, but pretty much the same thing ~ CLS] "delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert." It is what modern people call "gaslighting." It's different than lying because liars are often trying to legitimately deceive people about the truth. This isn't about trying to deceive anyone, so much as it's about taking a hammer to the very idea that words mean things, facts matter, and rationality is important.

The right knows they can't win in a debate based on facts and reason. Instead, they're turning political discourse into a whirlwind of meaningless noise. 

While I am inclined to believe that Leonard Coldwell, various other right-wing ranters, and many of their most loyal followers are, in fact, stupid enough to actually believe many if not most of the lies and bad-faith arguments, the points in the Slate piece are well taken. And whether the spewers of spurious content about COVID-19 (or a "stolen" 2020 election or US withdrawal from Afghanistan or any other burning issue of the day) are genuinely dumb or disingenuously faux-dumb, the effects may be the same, and they're harming all of us.

Nevertheless I believe that it's more important than ever to try to keep hammering away at the nonsense, even if the effort does seem at times to be a losing battle. And one of the ways to do this, if you're so inclined, is to report lies and misinformation to Facebook or other forum hosts when you see them. After all, their bots and human fact checkers can't do it all.

Hot tub slime machine

Last month I wrote about the recent revitalization of a Facebook fan page, as well as other new web content, devoted to previously imprisoned/currently on "home confinement" serial scammer Kevin Trudeau, aka KT, aka Katie on this Whirled. After a hiatus of several months, new content has been appearing on the Facebook fan page, mostly with motivational/inspirational themes centered around Katie's teachings. But the main purpose of the page seems to be to inspire people to send money to help support Kevin, and to motivate them to join what remains of the seekrit club he founded, GIN (the Global Information Network).

I check in on the fan page every few days or so, and on August 20 this brief post appeared:

How many times have we heard Kevin say 'dream a dream so big it would take ten lifetimes to accomplish'?

Would you like to know how big Kevin's dreams are? Read the vision for 'The Ship': https://kevintrudeaufanclub.com/the-ship
Read the vision for 'The Club': https://kevintrudeaufanclub.com/the-club

Well, there are some big problems with this post about big dreams, apart from the fact that Kevin's "vision" for "The Club" is really nothing more than recycled content from the early daze of GIN, when the same lengthy list of lofty goals was presented to members, and aside from the tiny little detail that "The Ship" is creepily Scientology-like. (I discussed both points at some length in this December 2019 Whirled post; see under the sub-head, "Kevin's big dream: life on a cruise ship, and a new club with even less accountability than the old GIN").

To me, the issue with the August 20 fan page post lies not so much with the verbiage, which is pretty much the standard fangirl/fanboy gushing that we've come to expect from this and similar pages, and which was more than likely directed by Kevin himself from the safety of his "home confinement" situation. The real problem is the rub-a-dub-dub-three-men-in-a-hot-tub image accompanying the post. Maybe Kevin himself specifically wanted that pic, or maybe the writer of the post took the liberty of choosing it out of hundreds in the archives. I guess it doesn't matter. But if it was selected with the intent to illustrate the concept of dreaming "a dream so big that it would take ten lifetimes to accomplish," it fails on several levels.

To begin with, and let's just get this out of the way first, it's really quite silly. It's also a very old pic -- ancient, in Internet time. Although when I first published this post I wrote that I did not know exactly how old the picture is, but that I knew it had to be before 2005, someone in a very good position to know has since informed me that it was taken circa New Years 2000 in Sydney, Australia. (In case you're wondering where I got the photo, it's in Kevin Trudeau's Flickr collection, specifically in the "Business As Usual With Kevin Trudeau" album; here's the direct link to the photo. As you'll see if you follow that direct link, the site indicates that the photo was taken on July 15, 2011, but even if the person in the know had not informed me of the correct date, I would have known that it couldn't have possibly been taken that recently. You'll see why in a few moments, if you haven't already guessed.)

And while I speculate that the pic is intended to portray a complacently successful Kevin just chillin' with similarly accomplished buddies in a hot tub on what one can imagine is somebody's luxury yacht, chomping on what one can only assume are outrageously expensive cigars... is that image really the most compellingly seductive depiction of the giddy heights of success that Kevin has been promising to deliver to his followers for decades, if they are only willing to pledge their life savings and their eternal fealty to him? More to the point of this particular post, is it truly representative of Kevin's grand "visions" of "The Ship" and "The Club?"

I will concede that there's a vaguely nautical theme, so while it may be a stretch, I guess you could say that it is suggestive of "The Ship" -- but all in all it seems kind of lame from a materialistic standpoint, while at the same time being hopelessly mundane and even a tad vulgar in light of that whole enlightened-guru image that Kevin and the minions have been flogging for at least a year and a half. I imagine it can be a challenge to market to diverse demographics: spiritual seekers and the conspicuously enlightened as well as greedy or envious materialists and scammer wannabes. (This is not to say that one can't be both a conspicuously enlightened type and a scammer wannabe, since Scamworld is rife with hyper-materialistic McSpirituality types, but I digress.)

On the other hand, maybe the picture is merely intended to portray something more abstract, such as the simple heartfelt joys of kicking back with good pals, fellow members of an elite group of folks who have Realized Their Dreams. But there's a problem with portraying these particular friends, or at least one of them.

The guy on the right hand side of the photo is Kevin himself, of course, and if you overlook the fact that he's currently serving out a ten-year federal prison sentence, and that his water carriers claim he's utterly penniless and needs you to send him money, I suppose you could say he's successful by the traditional Scamworld definitions of "success" embraced by the shallow, the crass, and the naive.

The bloke in the middle is the UK's Andrew Malcher of High Street TV, a "multi-channel retail group." He sells stuff, in other words. Lots and lots and lots of stuff, apparently. He was also involved in various ventures that included Kevin Trudeau in the past. Hustle, hustle, hustle.

It's the guy on the left who should make you raise your eyebrows. That would be the late Rene Walter Rivkin, Australia's most notorious insider trader. (If you thought that the worst Oz had to offer in the way of crooks was investment fraudster and star of The Secret (he was the car-park guy) David Schirmer, think again.) It was on Rivkin's boat that the Trudeau hot tub party apparently took place.

For Rivkin, though, the party was most likely on its way to being over even at that time, because his troubles were steadily mounting, resulting in misery to his family as well as to himself. Finally on May Day 2005, at the age of 60, he committed suicide at his elderly mother's home, where he had been living. He had already attempted suicide the previous year and by all accounts was not a happy man at all. And no wonder: he had been battling a shipload of legal problems that resulted in the permanent revocation of his stockbroking license, as well as a slew of health challenges, including benign brain tumors, a gangrenous gall bladder, deep vein thrombosis and bipolar disorder.

I've mentioned Rene Rivkin a couple of times on this Whirled, years ago: in passing in this September 2013 post, and in a bit more detail in this May 2014 offering (see under the sub-head, "The infomercial wizards of Oz"). In the latter post I linked to a June 2000 piece on Australia's Media Watch site about the infomercial partnership between Kevin and Rene. As co-directors of the Rivkin Group, the two spewed out infomercials together back in the day for Shop America (Australasia), hustling everything from memory techniques and weight loss schemes to Rivkin's own scams, including his stock market report "and other more magical products" targeted to the Australian TV public.

Their go-to technique was the phony interview, geared to make viewers think they were watching actual programming in the style of the then-popular Larry King Live (which of course is no longer a thing, especially since Larry King is dead). Trudeau had gotten himself into a spot of trouble with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for, among other things, using that technique in his infomercials for American audiences, and the FTC required him to tell viewers that his "talk shows" were in fact paid advertisements. In Oz, though, he and his grift-buddy were still able to get by with the ruse, at least for a while, until Australia also passed laws to better protect consumers.

In any case Rivkin was thrilled with Kevin's magic touch, gushing:

From first hand witnessing of Kevin in action, I can tell you he truly is a marketing phenomenon....You may have seen us on TV. The results have been excellent.
(The Rivkin Report, issue 133)

Clearly he didn't care at all about Kevin's criminal "past." In a June 2000 letter to Media Watch, Rivkin wrote:

I am of course aware of [Trudeau's] criminal record...I am also and have always been acutely aware of Mr Trudeau's past...suffice to say I remain of the very strong view that people with criminal records are capable of rehabilitation.

That was then, and there's been a lot of water under the bridge since then, with Rivkin ultimately succumbing to his own inner demons and Trudeau going on to create bigger scams and, finally, a bigger prison sentence for himself than he'd accomplished at the time Rivkin knew him.

More recently, in August of 2019, Institutional Investor published a profile on Rene Rivkin by David Wilson, "The Down Under Scammer You've Probably Never Heard Of." Wilson described Rivkin as Australia's "singularly tragic version" of both mega-fraudster Bernie Madoff (who at the time the piece was published was still alive and was begging #NeverWasMyPresident Trump to commute his 150-year prison sentence) and notorious sex predator/trafficker and Trump buddy Jeffrey Epstein (who had just died in prison of apparent suicide). Wilson wrote that when Rivkin was sentenced to a mere nine months of weekend detention stints, even that relatively lenient sentence was still cause for "national gloating" in Australia; the lead story in the Sydney Morning Herald crowed, "Cell, cell, cell." Had Rivkin not ended his life, Wilson speculated, he might have ended up serving considerably more time.

For one thing, he was also a suspect in a seamy murder case and the recipient of a lavish insurance payout under suspicious circumstances. And he allegedly offloaded stocks that his newsletter, the Rivkin Report, tipped. Last, despite having untold wealth hidden in the Swiss banking system, Rivkin owed the taxman millions. 

His memory still casts a tailored shadow across the Australian investment landscape, because the “guru of greed” was such an epic character: a high-octane, cigar-smoking, Prozac-popping Sydney-sider dubbed “Australia’s most aggressive broker.” Some even labeled him messianic based on his grandiose claims of persecution, going so far as to compare his criminal conviction to the crucifixion of Jesus. 

I suppose it was only natural for Rene Rivkin to be good buddies with Kevin Trudeau, who has compared his own trials and tribulations to those of Jesus Christ, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and other martyrs.

But you know what? Nothing about Rivkin's sad story probably matters at all to Kevin's most loyal minions, who will continue to praise Trudeau as the savior of humanity and a key to making all of their dreams come true. Someone told me years ago that Kevin himself had spoken of Rivkin as a tragic example of skewed values and poor choices. Maybe so, but the fact remains that Kevin Trudeau continues in a multitude of ways to promote many of those same cockeyed values, leading countless followers to make poor choices themselves. For the vast majority, those choices may not result in prison sentences and hopefully not in suicide, but GIN did, by many accounts, leave a trail of empty bank accounts and damaged lives, and call me cynical, but I really don't believe that Katie has changed in any significant way.

Related on this Whirled:

•  July 2021: Serial scammer Kevin Trudeau: new websites, same old hustle
  I'm adding this link again, though it was embedded above, because the point needs to be emphasized: Trudeau, through various proxies, is begging for money, which the minions claim he could very well earn for himself once he gets out of prison, but (according to their narrative), instead of money-grubbing he intends to devote his life to "serving humanity." Don't buy it.
• March 2021: El-Ron is dead. Long Live Kevin Trudeau!
  Kevin's big "vision" of "The Ship" didn't just spring up spontaneously. More than likely it's at least partly related to his longtime affection for Scientology (not to mention his desire to get the hell out of US government jurisdiction as soon as he possibly can).
• December 2020: Spotify series "Fraudsters" tackles Kevin Trudeau in 3 parts
  While it may seem that much of the world has forgotten about Trudeau for the time being, not everyone has. The Spotify series provides a good history of his life of fraud, including the big GIN scam.
• August 2020: Whiny babies of Scamworld
  When he's not hustling scams and schemes, or waxing wisely McSpiritual, Trudeau is whining about his martyrdom. Of course he's not the only whiner in Scamworld...
• March 2020: The Lie-land of Dr. Trudeau: Kevin Trudeau joins the ranks of the corona-crapitalists
  Fairly early into the COVID-19 pandemic, Kevin Trudeau hopped aboard the misinfo train, dictating "COVID-19 Updates" from prison that were faithfully recorded by the minions on his Facebook fan page and his current main web site. Though Trudeau billed his messages as exclusive information that "they" don't want you to know about and that was available nowhere else, the content was -- you guessed it -- little more than recycled stuff from the conspiranoid slush pile. In this post I go into some detail about the earlier "updates," and if you can stand to wade through it, there's also a link to some of Kevin's subsequent covidiocies.
• January 2020: Kevin Trudeau asks Judge Robert Gettleman for post-prison scam guidance
  Just how much scamming will Kevin legally be able to do once he completes his sentence in either May or July 2022? In early 2020 he wrote a letter to the judge who'd presided over his civil case for many years, asking for guidance. To my knowledge, Judge Gettleman never answered him, but in any case this post contains a link to the original sentencing document, which provides general guidelines on what he will and won't be allowed to do.
•  December 2019: Saint Kevin Trudeau becomes GuruKev as Facebook clamps down on is "celebrity" page
  Another one I linked to in the main post, but it needs to be emphasized. Expanding his brand as a "spiritual leader," Kevin and his devotees are really pouring it on thick about Kevin being an enlightened master, or some such: a source of wisdom that you just won't find anywhere else. Is he grooming the cult followers, or just cynically exploiting another avenue to material riches? More than likely it's both.
• January 2015: Kevin Trudeau: an interview from the clink, and an attempt to take Business Insider for a ride
  Despite a few errors and omissions, which I discuss at length in this post, Aaron Gell's portrait of Trudeau for Business Insider remains one of the best and most comprehensive in recent years.