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Sunday, June 11, 2023

Indictments? Schmindictments! Trump, the republican party, and the cult pretend it's NBD

#NeverWasMyPresident Donald John Trump appears to be in very deep trouble, but for him, it's just another day on the campaign trail and at the grift mill -- not to mention yet another golden opportunity to exploit his dual shtick of martyr to the Deep State and fearless warrior for all Americans.

This weekend I finally sat down and read the 49-page indictment that everyone is talking about.
Here's a direct link, one of many available, to the doc so you can read it yourself, if you haven't already. It is at once painfully tedious and stunning. If you don't feel up to reading the whole thing at the moment, here's a summary -- again, one of many available.

Trump, predictably, is using the indictments in
fundraising efforts as well as on the campaign trail. He's treating the whole thing as if it's just a big joke, which, of course, plays well to his audience of fascists and hypnotized cultists. A piece on the WGNTV.com site quotes him making one of his familiar spurious claims about how he's fighting for the rights of all Americans:

“They’ve launched one witch hunt after another to try and stop our movement, to thwart the will of the American people,” Trump alleged, later telling the crowd that, “In the end, they’re not coming after me. They’re coming after you.”

You probably saw this coming, as it's a constant theme on this blog, but here I go again: Trump's claim is, on a much larger and more dangerous scale of course, reminiscent of serial scammer Kevin Trudeau and his tiresome, very long-time shtick about how he is fighting for all of us -- when in reality both men have always been all about saving their own scaly skins so they can just keep on grifting. No doubt about it, Trump and Trudeau are turds of a feather.

That so many folks are laughing with Trump instead of taking the indictments seriously is more than worrisome. That almost everyone of note in the republican party, even Trump's rivals for the 2024 nomination, all refuse to condemn him --
and in many cases even take his side against the "Deep State" -- is frightening.

At their core, however, I suspect that most of the Trump defenders and even Trump himself aren't laughing on the inside, because they realize that this latest series of indictments is, in fact, a very big deal. Trump of course claims he's innocent, but as for almost everyone else, instead of directly defending Trump's actions or saying that he didn't do it, most of them are busily attacking Biden, Merrick Garland, Jack Smith, Jack Smith's wife, et al., and making absurd comparisons to the Clintons and even Nixon. It's distraction, obfuscation, gaslighting, which is all they really have, because even they are aware that they cannot defend the indefensible.

But still they refuse to step up and loudly and publicly say that Donald Trump is a criminal who poses a clear and present danger to America and American democracy.


The embedded video leading off this post has been up on YouTube for 6 years (!) and I just learned of it today, via a private Facebook group. Unfortunately it is more pertinent than ever, serving as a poignant reminder of the damage (some of it possibly irreversible) that Trump and Trumpism have done and continue to do.

I honestly believe that American democracy cannot survive another Trump term. Even if the criminal justice system can't necessarily keep him from running, being nominated, or winning, the sane electorate has got to step up and make sure that he never holds public office again.

Thursday, June 01, 2023

Donald Trump and serial scammer Kevin Trudeau: still grifting, and the suckers are still sucking it up

#NeverWasMyPresident Donald John Trump and serial scammer Kevin Trudeau (aka KT, aka Katie on this blog) are still turds of a feather, actively grifting not only directly, but also through PACs (in the case of Trump) or fan clubs (in the case of Trudeau) and various other proxies (in both cases). And the marks are still eagerly swallowing whatever these two incorrigible con men toss their way... because that's how cults work.

In late May of 2023, for instance,
NBC News reported that MAGA types were complaining about having been scammed out of, in some cases, thousands of dollars when they purchased so-called "Trump Bucks" from various Colorado-based web sites that strongly insinuated the gaudy merch had the approval of Trump himself.

These bogus bucks, emblazoned with photos of the Cantaloupe Caligula, were advertised, in the words of the NBC report, as "a kind of golden ticket that will help propel Trump's 2024 bid and make the 'real patriots' who support him rich when cashed in."

And MAGAts, being MAGAts, bought it hook, line, and sinker. Some gave thousands, expecting that somehow their Trump Bucks could morph into great wealth for them, especially if their idol were to be reinstated in the Oval Office. Boy, were they shocked when it dawned on them that they'd been had.

The news reports I've seen on this matter have all taken care to explain that there is no evidence that the Trump Bucks scamsites had any connection to either Trump or his reelection campaign. But isn't there an old saying about absence of evidence not necessarily meaning evidence of absence? In any case, according to NBC, a Trump spokesman has so far not responded to emails seeking comments about the scams. And my guess is that even if Trump and his toadies were not directly or indirectly involved in these particular grifts, they were, at the very least, envious, and no doubt resentful that lesser scammers had so successfully ripped a page from the Trump playbook (or preybook, as the case may be).

Because, let's face it, it's not as if the Trump camp is a stranger to similar sorts of scams. Consider, for example, all of those various incarnations of "Trump cards" that have been hawked with Trump's approval over the years, promising exclusive elite benefits, including and especially a pretty "membership card," to those who donate everything they possibly can to the Trump coffers.
I wrote about that back in 2019. And here's a more recent look, this one from Business Insider in April 2022, at a Trump "gold card" grift via his PAC.

A few days after their initial report,
NBC reported that the Trump Bucks scamsites had been taken down or deactivated, the strong implication being that NBC's harsh light had made the cockroaches scatter. Maybe, maybe not, but good for NBC for reporting it anyway. Still, where Trump is concerned, there's always another grift right around the corner, and I'm not holding out hope that even MAGAts who've been badly screwed will be any the wiser the next time around.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, in the realm of lesser but equally skillful and incorrigible scammers... in case you missed it, a May 10, 2022 piece from the Chicago Sun-Times reports on a court hearing that revealed serial scammer Kevin Trudeau's fan club has raised millions of dollars from folks who "admire his teachings" (which, in all too many cases, is code for "abjectly worship him").

Lawyers for the FTC say Trudeau has hidden gold bars and other assets from the government and raised questions about donors who have made five-figure donations to support Trudeau’s legal defense and living expenses — which included a $750 dinner at Michelin-starred Alinea. 

Testifying by remote video from her home in Texas on Wednesday, fan club co-owner Tonya Canada
[speaking of abject worshipers... ~ CLS], a retired teacher, testified that she collects $5,000 a month to manage the club, with the proceeds doled out to Trudeau upon request. 

Trudeau “has, probably millions, hundreds of thousands of fans around the world who love his teachings,” Canada said.

So which is it, Tonya? Millions? Or just hundreds of thousands?

Federal Trade Commission lawyer Jonathan Cohen said that of the $3 million raised through the fan club, only a little more than a million has gone to pay off the big fine that Trudeau still owes the FTC. Meanwhile, besides spending money on his own self-indulgences, Trudeau has directed Canada to make $7,500 payments to "volunteers" who help maintain his web sites, as well as to a woman that Cohen identified as Trudeau's girlfriend.

Moreover Trudeau was, until recently, selling a "Tesla" device through the fan club, claiming that it would lower blood pressure and blood sugar while reducing inflammation and increasing circulation. These are exactly the types of "health benefit" claims that Trudeau has been barred by the court from promoting. But it's a pretty safe bet that he's going to continue to flout court orders, and then cry big martyr tears if (when) he gets nabbed again -- and that, like Trump, he will be able to turn his misfortune into yet another fundraising op.

Besides, even if the Tesla frauduct is no longer available via the KT grift machine, that vehicle offers plenty of other opportunities to throw your money away.
In February 2022 I wrote about just a few of the egregiously overpriced, Trudeau-endorsed frauducts (see under the subhead, "Frauducts in store").

Lawyer Jonathan Cohen also told the court that several fan club donors had made multiple five-figure gifts. (Jeez, people! What the hell do you think you're actually going to get from all of this? Don't you know that Katie will eventually drop you like a hot potato when he decides that you're no longer of use to him? That is, unless you wake up on your own, as some folks of my acquaintance have done within the past couple of years, and you drop him like a hot potato.)

When Cohen asked Tonya Canada to confirm that the club had done nothing to determine the source of the funds, she said, "Right. We just accepted the contributions." And then, of course, they passed them to the Overlord as he demanded them.

It doesn't appear that the FTC is going to give up on its years-long search for hidden assets that Trudeau continues to deny he has. And since he's a serial liar as well as a serial scammer, I'm guessing that the search is justified. Meanwhile, Trudeau will continue to sit back and rake in the money, pretending that he is engaged in serving humanity and fighting for your freedom as well as his, when the funds are actually going towards subsidizing $750 dinners at Michelin-starred restaurants, helping to support Katie's latest "girlfriend," and other necessities for maintaining his
"signature lifestyle."

Call me cruel and unfeeling, but I think that at this point, both the MAGAts and the Trudopes deserve to lose money.