Kevin Trudeau: as prison release date approaches, the KT fraud machine is revving up

From time to time I visit the official Facebook Fan Club Page of serial scammer Kevin Trudeau, aka KT, aka Katie on this Whirled. It's at least a marginally reliable gauge of what's going on in Katie's world as his official prison release date of May 9, 2022 approaches (he's currently on a "home release" program overseen by the Bureau of Prisons). One point that has stood out overwhelmingly for me whenever I peruse the page -- and it's a point I've made here several times over the past few years -- is that Trudeau is prepared to hit the ground running with new or expanded scams once he's released, at least to the extent that he can get away with doing so as a newly released felon who presumably will be on probation for a few years. But then again, as also noted here numerous times, he never stopped hustling throughout his incarceration.

Grin and Barrett
In July 2021 I published a post about Kevin's loyal water carriers begging for bucks on his behalf. One claim made in the minions' message -- which was most likely written by Kevin himself, or at least heavily directed and edited by him -- was that Kevin is more than capable of making zillions of dollars on his own. In part, the message I cited in that post read:

Kevin could easily come out of prison and start an international company again. Mega successful people from all around the world are making multi-million dollar offers to Kevin. They all want Kevin full time and they want to be a business partner with Kevin.

Kevin is getting offers for large amounts of equity in companies, huge salaries, board positions, multi-million dollar cash advances and more to commit full time to their ventures.

The issue, explain the minions, is that as a now-enlightened spiritual master (just call him GuruKev), Kevin will be solely focused on humbly serving humanity ("Selfless Service," no less!), and on lifting the collective vibration of the planet. But he still needs to live, of course, and he needs moneys to do it, and since he'll be too busy saving the world to earn those moneys, he needs a bunch of people to fork over (and over and over and over).

I originally shared that fan club post under the assumption that more than likely most of it is hyperbole, as is the case with anything remotely related to Kevin Trudeau's marketing efforts. Then again, given the serious ethical lapses and scam-friendly business practices of more than one billionaire or rich corporation, maybe there are a bunch of 'em clamoring for Katie. Be that as it may, at least one of his former partners-in-grime, one Donald Barrett, infamous infomercial producer, has actually issued a public invite to Kevin in hopes, one can only assume, that the two of them can pick up where they left off.

I saw Barrett's message on -- you guessed it -- the Facebook KT fan page. It was a short and simple response to a February 21, 2022 post in which the admins, clearly attempting to recruit more "volunteers" to serve The Master, urged people to read about what a sublimely splendid experience it is to "work with Kevin":

Donald W. Barrett KT... Where are you? I can be anywhere anytime.

• 1d

Like Kevin, whose infomercials Barrett used to produce, Donald has had his share of troubles with some of the alphabet agencies of the US government, most notably the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The Feds took issue some years ago with his claims that a frauduct he was peddling, Supreme Greens, could cure multiple diseases, including arthritis and cancer. He was also nailed for his participation in an infomercial for Trudeau's weight-loss book -- the same matter that ultimately landed Kevin in prison. And to top it off, he got in a spot of trouble with the IRS for failing to report a fairly substantial amount of income from his frauduct-pushing.

Unlike Trudeau, though, Barrett was able to avoid serious prison time. From Salem News, October 7, 2011:

Yesterday, Barrett was given a year of probation by U.S. District Court Judge Richard Stearns. Three months will be spent in a halfway house, and three more on home confinement.

Barrett will also not have to pay the $3,000 fine prosecutors had sought.

It's not entirely clear why, since not only did Barrett's lawyers insist on filing their sentencing memorandum under seal, but U.S. District Court Judge Richard Stearns did not include any specific reasons for the decision in the written sentencing order.

In court, the judge cited only the family circumstances raised by Barrett's attorneys, and in his order listed an "inability to pay" as the reason for waiving the fine.

Barrett's attorneys, William Kettlewell and William Lovett, asked that their sentencing memorandum be sealed from public view because it contains "confidential personal and medical information" about a family member, and also asked the judge to impound the transcript of their sidebar discussion with the judge, according to the case docket.

It appears that there's another thing Barrett has in common with KT: an "inability" to pay the fine imposed for his misdeeds. And Barrett had it relatively easy: his fine was only $3,000.00, as opposed to the nearly $40 million that Trudeau had accrued. But if ya can't pay, ya can't pay.

This piece from Truth in Advertising, originally published in 2013 and updated in 2015, has some info and commentary about both Trudeau and Barrett. While the updating of the article was apparently incomplete -- contrary to a claim in the last paragraph, Trudeau did, in fact, end up in prison -- the core message is spot-on: you can't keep a bad ad man down.

In any case, it seems that Donald Barrett is up and running with a whole new string of hustles, at least if his Facebook page is a reliable indicator. The Intro blurb on his Facebook page describes him as, "Rated as America’s top marketing consultant’s [sic]." When I looked on his page I saw that he is only followed by 159 people at the moment, but I'm sure there will be many, many more as people wake up to the realization that he is, after all, America's top marketing consultant's [sic].

These daze Barrett seems to be heavily involved in the cannabis industry -- not that there's anything wrong with that -- but apparently he's always looking for new business ops. And what better partner to partner with than his old buddy Kevin Trudeau? Who knows... if the two of them get together and start something up again, maybe Barrett's next fine will be much greater than $3,000.00, and he may actually be rewarded with some real prison time. It's something to aspire to, anyway.

The banned plays on (but not on the KT FB page)
I would gladly have attempted to answer Donald Barrett's question about KT's whereabouts, at least to the best of my ability. I would have told him that, as reported on this January 2022 Whirled post, his last known location was in the home of long-time Trudeau loyalist David Krueger, who lives in a near-northwest Chicago suburb. (Trudeau may very well be somewhere else by now, since one of his reported goals is to get back into luxurious surroundings as soon as possible, but he was staying with Krueger as of late 2021.)

But I couldn't write that on the KT Facebook fan page, because it appears that I have finally been banned -- more specifically, blocked from participating in any manner on that page. I'd actually discovered my pariah status earlier this month when I visited the page to see if there was a post about the February 2, 2022 death of longtime KT loyalist and substantial financial supporter Ed Foreman.

Ed not only poured money into Kevin's coffers for years, but he also contributed heavily to the myth of Kevin as a hero and martyr, this recap of Kevin's legal troubles being one example. He even caused a bit of a ruckus in court during the sentencing phase of Kevin's criminal trial (and had to be physically dragged out of the courtroom by federal marshals, and was fined for his efforts). And he shamelessly groveled at the feet of #NeverWasMyPresident Donald Trump just before Trump took office, begging him (in vain, as it turned out) to commute Kevin's prison sentence and pardon him.

But I didn’t see anything on the Facebook fan page about old Ed. That didn't come as a complete surprise, since I had heard from credible sources that Ed had issues with KT being kind of a dickhead since being semi-released from federal sleepaway camp. (I mentioned that in the above-cited January 2022 post as well.) It’s possible that Ed finally saw the light towards the end of his long life, and that he renounced his membership in the Kevin Trudeau Inner Circle of Worship. If that was the case, it's very possible that The Great Master forbade the minions from ever uttering Ed's name again, or perhaps the omission was the decision of the fan page admins, out of deference to their Master. (If I'm wrong, tell me and I'll publish a correction.) 

I am not blocked from seeing or sharing the posts on the KT fan page, only from commenting or even responding — so no more of my ha-ha emojis in response to one of their ludicrous posts that everyone else on that forum takes as profound wisdom. For more than two years, much to my surprise, the admins tolerated my contributions, though a few comments were removed and my words were almost always ignored by the faithful, who, I imagine, considered me to be one of those “rats in your head” that Kevin used to warn them about.

Apparently, however, my last contribution was the last straw. It was a response to a January 31, 2022 post about one of the Kevin Trudeau channels on Telegram. Telegram, as I've previously mentioned, is the infamous social messaging app preferred by right-wing extremists and a host of other unsavory characters in the eight or so years that it has been in existence. Telegram's operational center is in Dubai, UAE, and the owners don’t do much if any moderation, so it’s pretty much "anything goes." Of course, I'm sure that the KT Telegram channels are all on the up-and-up.

At any rate, the post on the KT fan page requested that readers ask Kevin anything, the idea being that he will choose a question to answer on one of his future Telegram performances, which apparently happen every Saturday. Always eager to constructively participate in a conversation, I was the first person to post a question, and it was a perfectly legitimate one, but I guess they didn’t like it.

All I wanted to know was whether Kevin intends to continue promoting the Global Information Network, aka GIN, once he is released from prison, or if he intends to start an entirely new club… or if it all depends upon the willingness of the current “official” GIN owners, the Morters and Blaine Athorn, to do Kevin’s bidding. I think it’s a completely valid question -- one that I've certainly asked here before -- and that it is something GIN members and prospective members need to know, so they can make an informed decision before throwing their money down the toilet.

My guess is that Kevin didn’t like that question. Or perhaps he never even saw it, and the admins just finally got tired of me, which is perfectly understandable because I can be very annoying. Anyway, my question is gone from that forum and so, it seems, am I. The admins are well within their rights to ban anyone they want -- I'm not whining about "censorship" or "First Amendment violations," because neither of these applies -- and I'm surprised it took them so long to get rid of me. But rest assured that I will continue to ask those uncomfortable questions on this forum, and I will also provide uncomfortable answers here, or highly informed speculation at the very least, whenever I receive credible information.

Frauducts in store
It remains to be seen exactly how Kevin Trudeau will exercise his considerable flim-flamming talents once he's released back into the wild. His loyal water carrier Tonya Canada, one of the founders of the fan club and an admin on the fan club's Facebook page, assures us that he has big dreams and visions.

It has been such an honor to work with Kevin for over a year. We have email contact nearly every day. I often think how amazing it is that every day I am receiving positive energy from Kevin as he thinks about me as we are emailing back and forth about different assignments & questions.

I consider it a blessing to be one of his volunteer assistants and work directly with Kevin in his “Vision and Dream”. He is working on something HUGE and I am so thankful for my part and the ability to be of service.

Yeah, I have a pretty good idea what that something HUGE might be. He wants to be the leader of a new Scientology-like cult; L. Ron Trudeau, anyone? Meanwhile, Tonya and other proxies are carrying on his work for him now -- again, under his direction -- and I wouldn't be surprised if he was getting a hefty chunk of change from all of their crapitalistic efforts, as well as from GIN. I have no idea if any of that is a violation of the terms of his home release; I guess that's up to the parole board to decide.

Indeed, when it comes to Kevin Trudeau and frauducts, it seems that the more things change, the more they stay the same. The "Kevin Trudeau Fan Club Store" is prominently featured on the KT Facebook fan page, and also on the official Kevin Trudeau Fan Club web site, and seems as clear a sign as any that the Great Master is benefiting from going back to his huckster roots. Some of store's the offerings include:

• The Fibonacci Life Path Package -- "the ULTIMATE package from I Ching Systems that you can buy!" -- which you can get now for the low, low price of only $3,295.00, marked down from $3,395.00.
• The Kloud by Centropix -- "A Luxurious At-Home System For Molecular Activation" -- for only $4,990.00. It's part of the "Personal" product line in the KT shop, and one of the devices that "Kevin Trudeau uses to protect his personal energy space and his environment from external sources of stress and chaos." (The Kloud was "casually" mentioned in a worshipful post by a young huckster-in-training; see again this Whirled post (under the sub-head, "A dream come true for three lucky rubes"). If The Kloud is too rich for your blood, there's the Cocoon for only $3,690.00, or if you're a real cheapskate, you can slum around with the Bubble for a mere $890.00.
• Elk Antler Velvet Platinum -- Surely you can afford this, you tightwad. It's only $240.00 for one whole fl. oz., and it'll help you regain your youthful "go mode" -- your stamina, endurance, strength, and perhaps even your manly manliness, should that be something you're worried about.

But wait, there's more! Granted, I haven't browsed through the entire store -- I can only take a little bit at a time -- so maybe you can browse for me. If so, perhaps you can tell me if Trudeau and gang are still peddling anything by a crackpot named Alex Chiu, whose Immortality Rings and other bat-crap baubles Trudeau promoted in his first Natural Cures book. I wrote about that a few years ago.

I am well aware that in essence there's really nothing new about this store, other than perhaps its framework as an adjunct of the Kevin Trudeau Fan Club; after all, Trudeau and his various partners and supporters have been promoting these very same types of frauducts and services for many years, through Natural Cures, through GIN (via the GIN Store), and through books and infomercials and newsletters and email blasts and every possible way that a frauduct can be promoted. I've written about some of these efforts over the years, e.g., on this July 2014 post (under the sub-head, "Lamp unto my feet"). I highlight the KT Fan Club store offerings now simply as a way of making (or belaboring, as the case may be) my point that Kevin is up to his same old tricks.

I'll continue to monitor and write about the goings-on in the Kevin Trudeau scampire to the extent that's it's possible for an "outsider" to do so. But I can't do it all myself. My lines of communication are always open, should you have anything to add to the conversation. One point is certain, and it's another one I've repeated ad nauseam on this blog: No matter how he brands and re-brands himself, it's a safe bet that Kevin Trudeau has been and always will be all about the hustle.

Big flap on the border: conspiranoid terrorists/Trump supporters force indefinite closing of National Butterfly Center in Rio Grande Valley

The domestic terrorists are at it again: threats from QAnon conspiranoids and radicalized Trumpsters have forced the 100-acre National Butterfly Center, located in a former onion field along the U.S.-Mexico border in Mission, Texas, to close indefinitely. As reported by The Texas Tribune on February 2, 2022 and elsewhere, the 20-year-old butterfly center has been targeted at least since 2019 by these wackadoodle conspiracy-porn addicts, who have falsely tied the organization to human trafficking.

Never mind that there are zero law enforcement investigations into the organization, or any of its staff members, for human trafficking. Facts don't matter to these zealots. The center's executive director, Marianna Treviño-Wright, said, "They tell these lies in a variety of forms through all of their channels to promote stochastic terrorism."

The trouble most likely began in 2017 when the butterfly center filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, arguing that proposed construction of the infamous border wall would drive through the center and decimate butterfly habitats. Treviño-Wright suspects that this is what initially attracted the attention of the conspiranoids. (The lawsuit is still ongoing in federal court.)

But a Trumpster/con artist/troll named Brian Kolfage really got the ball rolling in 2019, when he tweeted out false rumors accusing Treviño-Wright of human trafficking. In November of that year, Kolfage and his group, We Build The Wall, began clearing land next to the nature preserve to build a private crowdfunded wall along the border. (In August of 2020, I published a post about Kolfage and his crowdfunding wallscam and vicious trolling -- not to mention his indictment (along with luminaries such as Steve Bannon) for the scam.)

The National Butterfly Center opposed the construction of the wall, citing that it not only violated international treaties but would also be detrimental to the center's ecology. And that's when the attacks from Kolfage began. The following month, the National Butterfly Center obtained a temporary restraining order against Kolfage and his scammy hatriot organization, and then filed a lawsuit claiming defamation and disparagement.

Not surprisingly, the harassment did not stop after the lawsuit was filed. Treviño-Wright claims that she has been the subject of threats via phone, email, and Twitter since then. And late last month, a fringe right-wing congressional candidate from Virginia, Kimberly Lowe, paid a visit to the butterfly center, demanding that the center give her access to the river "to see all the illegals crossing on the raft." Treviño-Wright says that when she asked Lowe to leave the premises, Lowe tackled her. The Daily Beast posted an interesting report about this incident on January 28, 2022. You need to read it.

This past weekend, the center closed during the We Stand America border security rally after a former state representative informed Treviño-Wright that the place could be a target during the rally. She was advised that she should either stay well-armed or that she should just get out of town. Avid Trumpsters attending the rally did in fact stop at the butterfly sanctuary, and a contributor to the ultra-right site Real America's Voice posted a clip on Twitter, repeating the spurious sex-trafficking claims.

Finally on Wednesday, February 2, the butterfly center closed again, this time indefinitely, citing safety concerns for both staff and public.

If that's not terrorism in your book, then clearly we are reading very different books.

* * * * *

Arguably this saga really began in 2016 with "Pizzagate," the well-known whacked-out conspiranoid narrative claiming that the (nonexistent) basement of a Washington, DC pizza restaurant was the site of a child abuse ring spearheaded by then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and other demonic Democrats. As stupid as that narrative was and is, it was enough to get loads of folks fired up, including a North Carolina man who, armed with an assault rifle, paid a visit to the pizza joint in an effort to investigate the matter.

In the wake of Pizzagate, the far-right conspiracy movement QAnon emerged from the fever swamps of the imageboard website 4chan, building on a narrative about a worldwide cabal of Satanic, cannibalistic pedophiles (especially Democrats and liberal elites!) who operate a sex trafficking ring and who have engaged in wicked conspiracies against #NotMyPresident Donald Trump. And the rest, unfortunately, is history in the making, as QAnon and a general conspiranoid, untethered-from-reality mindset have spread their poison across the right-wing political landscape. What once was fringe is now all too mainstream.

And it's not getting any better. Today a butterfly center, tomorrow... who knows? More than ever, domestic terrorism is a thing, and most of it exists on the right, not only in the US but all across the globe. It would merely be funny, if only it weren't so scary.

Covidiot protests in DC, Ottawa & elsewhere cement the marriage between alt-health "freedom-fighting" conspiranoids & far right

In September of 2021 I published a post about the strengthening alliance between the most vociferous anti-vax/anti-mask/"alt-health" factions and the American right. The post, which is arguably even more useful for the offsite links list at the end than it is for my own contributions in the body, was framed around an October 2021 event at the famous Gaylord Opryland Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee: "The Truth [sic] About Cancer Live" convention. It was promoted as a health symposium, the type that features the expected denigration of conventional medical treatments (in this case, for cancer) and provides a platform for anti-vax propagandizing -- but the political component was undeniable.

True, the speaker lineup at that Gaylord Gullibalooza included some of the loudest and daftest (or most cynical) alt-health luminaries working the sucker circuit today, such as discredited doc and anti-vaxtivist Andrew Wakefield; nutcake Dr. Sheri Tenpenny, who believes COVID vaccines are a plot to turn us all into trans-humanist cyborgs; and conspiracy peddler/health-frauducts pusher/right-wing rabble-rouser Mike "The Health Ranger" Adams, the latter of whom has a money-grubbing finger in both the political-punditry and the alt-health pies. But the main attractions seemed to be incendiary right-wingnut political figures: most notably, top-listed keynoter Eric Trump, and Eldertrump toady and convicted-but-pardoned felon Roger Stone.

The following month, Rolling Stone published a good report/commentary on the event, sounding the alarm, as I and others had, about the marriage between health-nuttery and right-wing politix.

Right-wing figureheads like Trump and Stone aren’t chemo deniers, but they can’t resist a speaking fee, or an opportunity to rile up gullible conservatives already punch-drunk on grievance politics. As Oren Segal, Vice President of the Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism and host of the podcast Extremely, tells Rolling Stone, gatherings like “The Truth About Cancer Live” are breeding grounds for bad ideas.

“This has been quote-unquote ‘mainstream’ now for a while,” Segal says. “These narratives [have brought] what some would consider legitimate voices together with more fringe [figures] throughout the country for some time, and so obviously the big concern is the more that you have people who have a significant reach or a voice, who are giving voice to conspiracies that seek to undermine democratic institutions, the more that disinformation gets normalized and the more potential for polarization there is.”

My only quibble with Mr. Segal is that bit about "legitimate voices." While he qualified his statement by including "what some would consider," the truth is that there really aren't that many legit voices in the alt-health movement these days. But his point, and those made in the Rolling Stone piece, are well taken, and are congruent with the points I tried to make in my own post in September.

I just don't think that the perils of these unholy alliances can be overstated. The evidence is everywhere. On January 23, 2022, for example, there was a big march in Washington, DC protesting (COVID) vaccine and mask mandates. The next day, The Daily Kos published a piece about the event, observing that even though the anti-vaccination/"holistic health" movements began life as largely left-wing/liberal/hippie phenomena, things have changed:

As this Sunday’s “Defeat the Mandates” march in Washington, D.C., however, showed us, there’s no longer anything even remotely left-wing about the movement. Populated with Proud Boys and “Patriot” militiamen, QAnoners and other Alex Jones-style conspiracists who blithely indulge in Holocaust relativism and other barely disguised antisemitism, and ex-hippies who now spout right-wing propaganda—many of them, including speakers, encouraging and threatening violence—the crowd at the National Mall manifested the reality that “anti-vaxxers” now constitute a full-fledged far-right movement, and a potentially violent one at that...

Indeed, promotions of violence, as well as vile displays of antisemitism and Holocaust trivialization, were everywhere.

Many of the rally attendees wore yellow replicas of the Star of David badges that were forced upon Jewish victims of the Holocaust, and many of them carried signs referencing both that horrific episode of history and the German Nazi regime that inflicted it. So did other speakers, such as Del Bigtree, CEO of the anti-vaccination group Informed Consent Action Network, who added a threatening tone directed at journalists.

"Unlike the Nuremberg Trials that only tried those doctors that destroyed the lives of those human beings, we're going to come after the press,” Bigtree told the crowd.

Violence was also an undercurrent in the audience, some of whom carried signs suggesting a lethal response: “Shoot those who try to kidnap and vaccinate your child.” Another agreed with Bigtree, calling for “Nuremberg Trials 2.0.”

I have zero patience with those who trivialize the Holocaust by comparing vaccine and mask mandates to the atrocities committed by the Third Reich last century against 6 million Jews (and more than 5 million non-Jews). Yet making this comparison seems to be a common rhetorical tactic among right-wing "freedom fighters" who should know better and should be ashamed of themselves.

And by the way... Memo to the ignoranti:
Vaccine mandates do not violate the Nuremberg Code.

When you parrot that "Nuremberg Code/Geneva Convention violation" narrative you are diving into dangerously stupid territory. And I'm talking about the level of stupid occupied by the likes of cancer quack/fake doctor/fraudster/neo-Nazi Leonard Coldwell, as evidenced in this copy-and-paste post on his Facebook timeline on January 20, 2022. [Click on the pic to enlarge it if you need to, but be warned that the time it takes you to read this screed is time you will never get back.]

The Daily Kos piece I cited above (here's that link again) pinpointed the COVID-19 pandemic as a turning point in the development of the alliance between anti-vaxxers and far-right wingnuts, with increased radicalization of the allied factions and resulting endangerment of public health and safety.

The coalescence of the anti-vaccination movement with other far-right conspiracist movements—particularly the authoritarian QAnon cult—has been an ongoing phenomenon since COVID-19 broke out in 2020, and the radicalization of its believers has been gathering steam increasingly since. Likewise, the inherently violent nature of many of these movements has resulted in an increasing drumbeat of real-world violence directed at health care workers, local authorities, and anyone who supports the pandemic measures.

Yep, and it's pretty scary.

Of course, the phenomena we're discussing are not limited to American culture and politics. All across Europe, for instance, there's a growing anti-mandate movement that is attracting far-right groups and is fomenting violence. It's been happening in Germany, and in Austria (and Belgium and the Netherlands and France), and in Italy... and it just seems to be getting worse.

And closer to home, if your home is in North America, witness the yuuuge march on Ottawa this past weekend, attended by Canadian truckers and apparently thousands of non-trucker allies who clogged up and bogged down Canada's capital city in order to protest COVID mandates. Originally the purpose of the protest was to rail against a rule requiring truckers to show proof of vaccination upon returning to Canada from the U.S.; those that don’t are required to quarantine for 14 days. But the event soon evolved into a more sweeping protest against COVID mitigation mandates in general. And while overall it has reportedly been a "peaceful" event for the most part, there have been reports of swastika flags, desecration of a war memorial, and threats of violence.

Unsurprisingly, #NeverWasMyPresident Donald John Trump, in Texas during the same weekend for a couple of fascist rallies, praised the Ottawa protesters, claiming that they were "doing more to defend American freedom than our own leaders by far." Trump's coked-up elderspawn, Donald J Trump Jr., also endorsed the protest, describing one of the truckers as a heroic fighter against "medical tyranny."

Also unsurprisingly, Canada's Conservative Party supported the protestors, who aimed much of their anger directly at Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. (Trudeau and his family felt compelled to leave their home in Ottawa that weekend, due to security concerns.)

Notwithstanding the hoopla, vaccination is actually pretty popular among Canadian truckers and the Canadian population in general, according to Forbes.

Despite the large turnout, 90% of Canada’s cross-border truckers are fully vaccinated against Covid-19, along with 79% of the population overall.

So there's that. It's also noteworthy that the Canadian Trucking Alliance opposed the protest, saying this is "not how disagreement with government policies should be expressed."

Now, I get that many insist that it's not vaccines that are the problem; it's the mandates. People hate being told what to do (though curiously enough, many of the anti-vaxxers have no problem with authoritarianism in general, as long as it's right-wing authoritarianism). For many others, however, it's the vaccines themselves that are the problem. In any case, if a significant number of people still refuse to get vaccinated because of their own misguided beliefs, COVID will continue to win. Indeed, Canada is currently in the middle of a spike in Omicron variant cases, and its hospitals and over-burdened healthcare workers are strained to the max.

But the anti-mitigation maniacs on both sides of the Canadian-American border, and both sides of the Atlantic, for that matter, have shown time and time again that they don't care about little things like that. For them, it's all about fighting for their own "freedom" to go vax-less and mask-less -- never mind how many people, including themselves, they may be endangering.

And unfortunately, they have been immeasurably emboldened by the far right, even as they continue to throw their support behind the craziest and/or most fascistic right wing politicians. It truly is a marriage made in hell; too bad that the rest of us have to suffer as a result.