The Healing America Summit 2024: alt-health, reich-wing politics, conspiranoia, and utter lunacy

 

I have written repeatedly on this Whirled about the unholy marriage between Scamworld and (reich-wing) politix, but the Healing America Summit -- which began May 16 and lasts through May 22, 2024 -- is not only serving up steaming piles of MAGA politix and Scamworld (particularly the alt-health sector of Scamworld), but also a hefty dose of conspiranoia and outright lunacy.

As we collectively and apprehensively grope our way through what millions of folks, for various reasons and with a wide range of emotions, view as the End Times, we can take profound (dis)comfort in knowing that there is no shortage of "experts" (i.e., grifters, scalawags, and scoundrels) offering to take us by the hand and the wallet to lead us out of fear and darkness and into their sales funnels. With increasing frequency, and more often than not under the auspices of a central grifter, these unsavory players are joining forces to pummel us with their propaganda.

There was, for example, The Truth [sic] About Cancer Live! convention back in October 2021, which featured Eric Trump and several alt-health/conspiracy crapitalists as speakers. And there's the ongoing ReAwaken America Tour, a conspiranoid Christofascist movement that was born in Oklahoma during the height of the pandemic, and has continued to spread its virulence in the years since.

And now we have the Healing America Summit, which began on May 16, 2024 and continues through May 22. The English-challenged web site says it all in the opening blurb:

USA & THE WORLD GOT CRAZY LIKE NEVER BEFORE AND WE ARE EXPERIENCING A CHALLENGING TIME!
Vaccines, Immigrants, Transhumanism, War, NWO... Bible Prophecies of End-Time & 5D consciousness rising...
The Summit offers you true science, real insider knowledge, natural medicine & Energy healing for YOU to SUCCEED in this time!
Join for FREE. www.HealingAmericaSummit.com

A smirking German huckster and "healer" named Michael König-Breuss is the host of this to-do. Here's what he tells us about himself on the Healing America Summit site:

Why do I organize this Healing America Summit?
I work as a spiritual healer like my grandfather. I knew in 2006 already, that „the mandatory vaccination with nano chips to track, manipulate or even switch of people“ will come. I saw presentations of this technique on TV already in 2014. I heard of plenty Pharma insiders how Pharma companies reduce people on purpose, how the money system is working, how Rockefeller / Rothschild are giving orders to politics in the USA & worldwide, how Chemtrails & Frequency manipulation is used and so on…. I always wanted to help people. With Covid it was enough and the Idea was born, to organize an Online-Summit to inform and wake up the people that are ready to be awakened. NOW it’s time to WAKE UP and take ACTION.

On a "Get To Know Michael" link, he adds more autobiographical details.

After living a life as spiritual Skiguide & Tourguide, I started 2006 as an energetic therapist – healer. Already my grandfather was a healer for over 40 Years, who helped even people in the hospital when Dr. couldn´t help anymore.

I am specialized expert in clearing – releasing peoples energy field of KARMA & foreign energy (old death experiences, fears, curse, black magic, demons…) and teacher for SOUL LANGUAGE – LIGHT LANGUAGE – TALKING IN TONGUES, probably the oldes [sic] Frequency healing technique on planet earth!

Since the COVID plan-demic started, I realized the ability, to significantly alleviate COVID-vaccination & COVID-testing sideffects. In the best case, i was able to eliminate them altogether.

Autum [sic] 2020 a client with migraine, aggression, depression, inner darkness, sucidal [sic] thought [sic] got a distance treatment of me via Zoom.

During the treatment I could see with my „inner eye“ a small black „Nano-Chip“ in her troght [sic]/ neck! Shocking in the first moment. But it could get taken out by SOULLANGUAGE ENERGY-HEALING work. After that happened, ALL her problems were gone in the same moment!

After that, I have helped many people with problems, that started AFTER PCR testing & COVID vaccination. These were people with enormously distressing physical, emotional and mental symptoms & problems. Depression, aggression, suicidal thoughts, headaches, migraines, foreign body feeling in the troat [sic] and whole body, unsuccessful clearing of throat, meaninglessness in life, inner darkness and restlessness, being cut off from the source, sweating, trembling and many more were symptoms that could be solved.

These things and the health problems associated with them were largely gone afterwards.

My endeavor is that with my help and gifts, people can be freed from their vaccination symptoms and can live “normally” again, AND realize the power of ENERGY, BELIEVE, HEALING & DIVINE POSSIBILITIES.

…and realize, that it seems to be a BIG plan of the divine, to wake us people UP! To get us MOVE FORWARD, UPWARD to our „true potential“.
From heart to heart,
Michael

With creds like that, you just know you're in good hands.

Of course we've heard it all before. Along with the hackneyed hype about energetic healing and other pseudo-mystical arts, plus the requisite conspiranoia about nano-chips and the NWO, the core of König-Breuss's message is simply a post-pandemic variation on the traditional New-Wage/McSpirituality theme about a bold new era of human possibility and evolution -- you know, the eternal dawning of the Age of Aquarius that the conspicuously enlightened have been yammering about for at least three generations. (As quoted above, one of the opening blurbs of the Healing America web site mentions "5D consciousness." Hmmm... 5D: fith dimension? Hey, wasn't it The Fifth Dimension that made a top-40 hit of the song from the musical Hair, "The Age Of Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In?")

My rhetorical question, and I've asked it many times, is this: When is the dawn finally going to give way to actual sunshine? Your guess is as good as mine, and my guess would be "never."

Meanwhile there's still bank to be made by promoting oneself as a wayshower or lightworker or truth-teller or savior or bearer of exclusive life-saving (mis)information. And don't think that König-Breuss isn't going to take full advantage of that.

Only the best people
The speaker lineup for the Healing America Summit includes everything from anti-vaxxers to intergalactic ambassadors to American reich-wing traitors. Here's what it says about this list of luminaries on the "summit" web site:

Your speaker [sic] are leading experts from around the WORLD.

Medical doctors, scientists, lawyers, US-Sheriff, US-General, TV-speakers, medical researchers, WHO-experts, pharma insiders, historical & political experts, healer, coaches, fitness influencer and more… They will tell YOU:

HOW the „BAD BOYS & GIRLS“ harm YOU day & night, mentally, emotionally & physically.

DETOXIFICATION possibilities of the COVID-Vaccine / PCR-Tests / Shedding by a MEDICAL WAY and on an ENERGY HEALING WAY.

The plan of the DARK SIDE, and the higher plan of the „DIVINE“ & EVERYBODY'S SOUL.

The „NEW NORMAL“ of the pharma lobby, big tec, NWO...

HOW YOUR „NEW NORMAL“ for YOU can look, if YOU take responsibility for YOUR OWN BODY, MIND, SPIRIT and SOUL!

SOLUTIONS if YOU like to learn and RISE ABOVE!

This "summit" first came onto my radar when, though officially blocked from doing so, I took a peek at the Facebook feed of one of the featured speakers, another German huckster/"healer" named Leonard Coldwell, whose English writing rivals that of Michael König-Breuss in its illiteracy. If you've been hanging around here for a few years you probably know Coldwell as a cancer quack, conspiracy loon, racist, and neo-Nazi who tried for years to kill this blog and even, at one point, tried to get some of his more fanatical followers to harm me. Coldwell's topic for the Healing America Summit is... well, let me let him tell you himself. (Spoiler: Apparently there are bad people out there who are trying to eliminate the entire human race.)

Dr. Leonard Coldwell
Founder of Instant Based Medicine System. Cancer healing expert

Worldwide Conspiracy to eliminate the Human Race - and what we can do about it

I do this work for 52 years and have the highest cancer cure rate in the world

25 mega best selling books in 29 languages. My own TV and Radio shows 26 Million listeners and regular viewers.

Before censorship my videos on Youtube had 2.3 Billion views. I as the Keynote Speaker on EVERY Health Freedom Expo

If you like to see some testimonial videos: [links]

...I just got off a life interview in Australia with Kate Kate Shemirani kateshemirani@tntradio.live

Attached my latest book the only Cancer Patient Cure – Confidential   900 Million books sold

Here's a link to a video. It's just a teaser, but in that teaser you get the gist of Quack-o Coldwell's "medical" wisdumb: he claims that medicine is a belief system rather than a science and that doctors even admit they don't know anything, with the implication being that he has all of the solutions that medicine can't offer. Meanwhile his interviewer and fellow countryman König-Breuss, is nodding and smirking in agreement. By the way, if you want to know the truth about Coldwell's "credentials," you'll find it in a concise form here, and in a more expanded form here (scroll down to the section with the sub-head, "Lenny's creds, such as they are"). [Spoiler: Coldwell is not a doctor, and never has been.]

Other speakers at the "summit" include:

Storm Dillenschneider [not to be confused with Stormy Daniels ~ CC]
Daughter of The Most High God, Mrs. Elite Universe 2024, stand Advocate against Fentanyl

Alas, Storm's lofty description on the home page is just a setup for disappointment. Her actual "bio" is essentially an announcement of her [2022] campaign for city council in Lee's Summit, Missouri. Boooooring. And apparently outdated; I seriously doubt that her speech at the Healing America Summit will have anything to do with a two-year-old political campaign in Lee's Summit.

More than likely her spiel will be political, though, as one of Storm's other credentials, which I had to go Googling (actually, Bing-ing) to find, is that she is a Trumpette and is apparently very involved with the movement to re-elect the Mango Mussolini -- which comes as no surprise whatsoever. On a May 15, 2024 Facebook post Storm shared a meme celebrating a dinner party that included Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz. The lead blurb on the meme said, "I feel the Presidential air again, everytime [sic] I enter Mar-a-Lago. Could it be my ESP is confirming what we all expect to be true?"

I'm thinking that maybe the "Presidential" air is actually something she smelt rather than felt, but what do I know?

Christie Hutcherson
Women Fighting for America to help take back America

[Topic] Enemies at the Gate- Can america [sic] Survive the Coming Conflict?

Christie Hutcherson is the Founder, President, and Spokesperson for Women Fighting for America LLC. (WFFA). She is widely recognized as a geopolitical security expert and sought-after speaker with broad connections into the Freedom Movement. 100+ Border Ops Missions. 2,500+ Miles on the Border.

Christie is a front-line fighter for freedom. She is one of the only Americans who has traveled the entire 2,000 miles of the southern border and hundreds of miles of our forgotten northern border in her quest to save America. Christie has led 100 plus border missions establishing Women Fighting for America as a clear leader in exposing and fighting the corruption on our borders.

She has seen firsthand the devastation of illegal immigration, child and human trafficking, organ trafficking, massive amounts of lethal drugs entering the United States, and the atrocities committed by the transnational criminal organizations.

Support the Fight with Women Fighting for America and Christie Hutcherson!

Sounds like a bad case of Border Derangement Syndrome, Christie.

She helpfully concludes her blurb with Paypal/Stripe/Venmo links, which I will not share here. Those dumb enough to want to pour money into Christie's grift machine can look up the links themselves.

Eesha Patel
Galactic Embassador [sic] for the Galactic federation

[Topic] Galactic Experiences for Visionary Leaders

Eesha Patel specialises in the field of Galactic Consciousness. Eesha is here to facilitate the connection between humans and our Galactic Family.

A profound awakening and contact experience in 2015 set Eesha on a journey of exploring consciousness. In her current role as Galactic Ambassador, Eesha liaises with over 20 different galactic races, humanoid and non-humanoid, and facilitates these connections for visionary leaders and pioneers of the New Earth. Through her powerful interdimensional connections, Eesha lends her services of activation and channelling to assist other leaders in bringing through powerful visionary tools, techniques, and technologies for healing and our greater evolution.

Eesha’s vision is peaceful open contact with our galactic family by 2027 and her mission is to lead this global level awakening through her teaching, speaking, facilitation, and courses. Eesha’s galactic contact work has been featured in prominent media worldwide. Eesha Patel is available for mentoring, consultancy, and speaking. You can connect with Eesha Patel at eeshapatel dot con. [emphasis and intentional typo mine. ~ CC]

And no reich-wing/alt-health/alt-facts grift-fest would be complete without...

General Mike Flynn
Retired United States Army lieutenant general. 24th U.S. national security advisor of the Trump administration.

[Topic] We are in WW 3. Nobody will come to rescue us! No General, no white heads [??? ~ CC], no Trump. WE, the people need to change it!

Michael Thomas Flynn (born December 24, 1958) is a retired United States Army lieutenant general who was the 24th U.S. national security advisor^[3] for the first 22 days of the Trump administration.[Note to Mike: you forgot to take the Wikipedia footnote out. ~ CC]

Ret.  President @ Resilient Patriot LLC Special Assistant to the POTUS, National Security Advisor @ United Stat es Government Presidential Campaign National Security Advisor @ Republican Presidential candidate Donald J. Trump Chairman and CEO @ FLYNN Intel Group INC. Director and Commander @ Defense Intelligence Agency / Joint Force Component Command, ISR Assistant Director of National Intelligence, Partner Engagement @ Office of the Director of National Intelligence Assistant Chief of Staff, G2 @ US Army Director of Intelligence @ International Security Assistance Forces Director of Intelligence @ The Joint Staff Director of Intelligence @ United States Central Command

Someone forgot to add "traitor," "insurrectionist," and "QAnon nut" to Flynn's credentials. Flynn, by the way, is a co-fonder of the ReAwaken America Tour mentioned above.

And that's just a very small sampling of the featured shriekers at this gathering of grifters. For the complete lineup, see here.

Now, if you are concerned about costs, or about the hassle of making travel and lodging arrangements, you needn't be. The Healing America Summit is 100 percent online -- all you have to do is sign up -- and, best of all, it's 100 percent free.

And worth every penny, no doubt.

Before you leave...
This has been, through what is no apparent fault of her own (excluding, perhaps karmic matters that are quite beyond her ability to comprehend), a nightmare of a year for the ruler of this Whirled. Money, alas, cannot make the nightmare go away, but it can make it easier to bear. Now more than ever, donations are urgently needed and profoundly appreciated. Here are some ways to do it:

• New: Venmo -- username @Connie-Schmidt-42. Here is a direct link to the Venmo page.
  New: PayPal -- Here is a direct link to Cosmic Connie's PayPal page.
  Old but still good: You can click on the "Donate" icon that currently appears on the right-hand side of every page of this blog on the Web version. There's also a donation link at the end of many of my older blog posts. In the case of both the icon and the links on the older posts, this is also a PayPal link, but it references the email account of Cosmic Connie's husband, RevRon -- which is cool, because it all ultimately goes to the same place.

NOTE: If you are donating by PayPal, please specify that your contribution is a gift, which it is (as opposed to a conventional purchase, for which PayPal deducts a percentage for their fee).

Whether you can donate or not, thank you for visiting this Whirled.

 

In honor of Kevin Trudeau's 61st birthday, a look at the dark side of conspiranoia

Today is the 61st birthday of serial scammer and multi-convicted felon Kevin Trudeau, aka KT, aka Katie on this blog, so it's a good day to showcase the really dark side of conspiranoia. Conspiranoia is a word I've used often on this blog to describe the paranoia that both fuels and is fueled by an addiction to conspiracy narratives. All too often these narratives are marketed as "secret"/"forbidden"/"exclusive" (mis)information by cynical and greedy hucksters -- hucksters such as Katie, whose stock-in-trade for decades has been conspiranoia crapitalism. After all, he's the grifter who shot to giddy heights of fame and wealth by offering to sell you all of the "secrets" that "they" don't want you to know. And he's still at it today.

The shameless sycophants who, under his direct supervision and instruction, run Katie's Facebook fan club page, have helpfully informed followers that they are welcome to send him money for his birthday. I certainly won't try to stop you; you're welcome to send him anything you want if you don't have any problems with gifting a grifter. (Although I would like to mention that I had a birthday recently myself, and if you really want to give money to someone who needs it, just click on the graphic above, or here, or on the "Donate" button on the right-hand side of the Web version of this blog.)

At any rate, I think it's appropriate to observe Kevin Trudeau's big day with a shout-out to his massive contribution, over the years, to the dumbing-down of humanity via nonstop exploitation of people's deepest fears and longings.

Into the darkness
I have celebrated KatieDay on this blog before -- most notably in 2016, when a decision by an appellate court determined that Kevin was going to have to stay in prison instead of being released. (Of course, that just gave him more opportunities to grift by playing up his big hero/martyr narrative, begging his followers to send more money to help free him.)

Today's celebration, though, was inspired by an AP article published on January 31, 2024. entitled, "Days of Darkness: How one woman escaped the conspiracy theory trap that has ensnared millions." It's framed around the story of a young woman referred to as "Ramona," whose life was nearly wrecked by her belief in the conspiracy narratives embraced by her ex-boyfriend, "Don." The situation was both fueled and exacerbated by the widespread panic over COVID-19.

“I have a lot of fear about what I can’t control,” Ramona, now 23, said of her vulnerable mindset as COVID-19 spread. Ramona agreed to tell her story to The Associated Press after she detailed her experiences on a forum for recovering conspiracy theorists. The AP is not fully identifying Ramona or her ex-boyfriend to protect her privacy and safety. “The stuff he was telling me, it made me feel like at least we understood. He had an explanation for what was going on. I didn’t realize what I was getting into.”

This alternate reality nourished by these conspiracy theories would transform Ramona’s life, sending her down a dark path of paranoia and loneliness that upended her life and spun her dreams of the future into turmoil. Convinced that a “New World Order” was already underway, she fell into a trap that has ensnared millions of Americans and even, at times, hijacked the nation's politics.

Isolated from friends and family, distrustful of the explanations offered by officials and the media, Ramona and Don began to prepare. The military might try to put Americans like them in concentration camps run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA. They had to be ready to flee.

The couple began stockpiling food and supplies. Don started a “go-bag” containing survival gear. He used their modest savings to buy a rifle, a handgun and ammunition.

One cold day in January 2021, Don read about a power outage in Vatican City on one of his conspiracy theory websites. The couple discussed what it might mean: Perhaps the Pope had been secretly arrested for his role in the conspiracy to control the world. Or maybe the bad guys had knocked out the power so they could smuggle child sex victims in or out of the Vatican.

Either way, the outage meant something big was happening. There are no coincidences. Just clues to be deciphered...

Ramona's story was not all that unusual.

The AP spoke with more than a dozen people whose lives were disrupted by conspiracy theories — either because they believed them or because a close loved one did.

Many spoke of the social isolation that comes from spending more and more time on conspiracy theory websites and message boards.

They talked about money lost to investment scams or products that claimed to reverse aging or cure COVID-19. They talked about a mounting sense of paranoia and distrust as they began to lose faith in their community and their fellow Americans.

Former believers said conspiracy theories offered them meaning when they felt empty, even if those promises proved to be hollow themselves.

“I was suicidal before I got into conspiracy theories,” said Antonio Perez, 45, a Hawaii man who became obsessed with Sept. 11 conspiracy theories and QAnon until he decided they were interfering with his life two years ago. Back then, when he first found other online conspiracy theorists, he was ecstatic. “It’s like: My God, I’ve finally found my people!”

“I think I got a sense of self-importance” from conspiracy theories, Perez said. He believed that he alone “was figuring everything out. It all ties into wanting to be a hero.”

Perez, who happens to be a Facebook friend of mine, has written a book, Converting Conspiracy Theorists: Rescue Anyone from Dangerous & Destructive Conspiracy Theories. I have not yet read the book so I cannot evaluate it at this point, but I'm providing the Amazon link. If you have MAGA friends, the book might come in handy.

I urge you to read the AP piece (here's that link again), because it provides insight into the darker side of a phenomenon that all too many folks -- including me, at times -- have dismissed merely as comical lunacy.

Behind every good conspiracy tale is a scammer (or multiple scammers)
What is both sad and infuriating is that the conspiranoid movement is led by parties who may not even believe what they're spouting, but who are motivated by money, ego, money, power, and money. Like all successful grifters, they know their target markets well. Take Kevin Trudeau (please).

During the height of the COVID panic, while Trudeau was still confined in the minimum-security federal prison camp (FPC Montgomery, AL) where he spent eight years, he used his proxies to spin out a wealth of conspiranoid content about COVID-19. Characteristically, he framed his misinfo as exclusive, seekrit stuff that he and he alone was getting from various un-named sources, and was generously sharing it with the public at great risk to himself. To get the full story, of course, you had to pay to join his mega-scam GIN (the Global Information Network), which he was still running from the clink, and continues to run to this day.

Kevin's COVID-19 "updates" were, as I put it on a May 2020 blog post about a related topic, "essentially overcooked sales letters for the Trudeau-founded GIN (Global Information Network), mixed well with stale whines about Katie being 'censored,' and well-seasoned with recaps of conspiranoid and right-wing talking points." Nothing original, in other words. A main thread in the KT narrative was that COVID had been deliberately created to crash the American economy in order make Donald Trump look bad and cost him the 2020 election.

I honestly do not think that Trudeau actually believed that. But he knew his gullible target market would. Plus, he was all-in for Trump in those daze (and he may still be, though I don't know for sure), and he most likely felt that burnishing Trump's own hero/martyr narrative would benefit both Donald Trump and Kevin Trudeau, who are, as I like to say, turds of a feather.

Kevin's ludicrous COVID claims were previously showcased not only on his Facebook fan page, but also on his main web site. Here's a former link to the latter, but now... "Oops! That page can't be found." Fortunately you can still read all you need to know about it on this Whirled:

• March 20, 2020 ~ The lie-land of Dr. Trudeau: Kevin Trudeau joins the ranks of the corona-crapitalists
• April 2, 2020 ~ Lockdown, schlockdown: Kevin Trudeau is still pooping out COVID-19 nuggets from Camp Cupcake

In the larger scheme of things, Trudeau's COVID content was part of a pattern of what I have dubbed coronacrapitalism, a phenomenon in which Grifter-in-Chief Trump and his allies and cronies also engaged, to the detriment of the entire country. There was money to be made, including significant political capital, not only from hawking dubious and dangerous "preventives" and "cures" for COVID, but also from spreading conspiranoia and mainstreaming even the craziest lies.

And Kevin Trudeau, even though he didn't get nearly the amount of publicity for his COVID lies that Trump and gang did, was right in the thick of it.

Naturally that was totally on-brand for him, especially since the marketing of the aforementioned GIN was, particularly in the early years, centered around conspiracy narratives, "secret" knowledge that Katie had supposedly learned from a mysterious "Brotherhood," and an imaginary "GIN Council" of elites whose names remained a closely held secret (because, of course, they didn't actually exist). There's no telling how many susceptible folks were sucked in by these whoppers, some of which read as if they were ad copy for a secret club for kiddies in the 1950s, but the marketing strategy apparently worked very well for years.

I first wrote at length about GIN's ludicrous marketing in December 2009, shortly after the club was launched. If you want a much more comprehensive history of GIN, here's a June 2022 post that will provide just that.

Why Kevin Trudeau still matters
Kevin Trudeau established himself decades ago as a scammer. And I've made my point, over and over, that GIN was a huge scam until the courts stepped in, and now it's a smaller scam but still essentially a scam, simply because Kevin Trudeau is involved. So why don't I just move on and quit writing about Trudeau? Why does he still even matter, especially since his recent-ish COVID misinformation seems to be wiped from the Internet?

I've answered those questions several times previously on this Whirled, but the points are worth repeating in this context. Once again, in the interest of expediency, I'm going to quote myself instead of rewriting.

In a January 2022 blog post about Kevin Trudeau, for instance, under the subhead "Why this still matters, after all these years," I wrote:

..one major reason that I think Kevin Trudeau is still important, apart from my concern that he has spent decades cheating people out of their hard-earned money, is that he is flagrantly symptomatic of a nearly out-of-control trend of misinformation/conspiranoia crapitalism.

Of course Trudeau was in many respects far ahead of the curve, since he has been trading in "information that 'They' don't want you to know" for decades. Most of that "information" has consisted of misinformation, distortions, exaggerations, lies, repackaged selfish-help/McSpirituality content, or, in some cases, cherry-picked data about issues that have been addressed by far more responsible consumer advocates, whistleblowers, and muckrakers. But the nebulously evil "They" were the perfect scapegoat for Trudeau's marketing strategies.

Shortly after Trudeau was convicted and sentenced back in 2014, Salon.com published a piece by Mary Elizabeth Williams, which I've cited on this blog before, but here it is again. The headline reads, "Kevin Trudeau's empire of 'they' collapses," and the tag line said, "The TV pitchman goes to prison -- but his conspiracy shtick lives on." The piece was spot-on in many ways, but the truth is that Trudeau's own scampire never did completely collapse. As noted, he continued to run it throughout his confinement

And unfortunately, the Error of Trump mainstreamed the conspiranoid, "alternative-facts" mindset that has been the foundation of KT's hugely successful marketing efforts for years, and that has attracted so many gullible people to his "teachings" and schemes. Kevin and his most devoted fans and enablers are emphatically part of the problem, but the problem is so much bigger than they. It's bigger than Alex Jones and Mike Adams and the other conspiracy-porn peddlers I've written about on this blog. It's even bigger than Donald Trump.

What is happening now goes beyond the fact that conspiracy theories have become a booming business. America (and to a large extent much of the developed world) have entered a "post-truth" era in which we're all susceptible, some of us more than others, to conspiracy theories, science denial and extremism. In the May 2021 edition of Scientific American, Andy Norman wrote that we are all being played by liars, and that those lies not only further divide us but also manipulate our brains in a way that we lose the capacity for reasoned reflection....

...Kevin Trudeau has made money for decades not only on peddling questionable products for which he has made outrageous and in some cases fraudulent claims, but also, and more importantly, on pushing conspiracy narratives and misinformation that he always frames as exclusive info that "They" are trying to keep from you, but which can be all yours -- for a price.

And Trudeau has never missed an opportunity to crapitalize on the fears and concerns of the masses, while placing himself firmly front and center as the only source to be trusted for vital information. He has long played on and nurtured people's growing distrust of government and mainstream media...

Later that year, in September, I made the claim that Kevin Trudeau's scampire of misinformation is actually enabling fascism. And for the benefit of anyone who might have thought that was an exaggerated claim, I had this to say:

Perhaps you're thinking that I'm being a bit histrionic (or hysterical), and that I exaggerate the threats to cherished freedoms posed by Trudeau and other scammers. Possibly you even think I'm overstating the threat of Trump and Trumpism. I'm not. Both Trumpism and "Trudeau-ism" feed into, and are fed by, many of the same base aspects of human nature, particularly the aforementioned need for scapegoats and the yearning for a hero.

And both Trumpism and Trudeau-ism rely -- and I can't state this often enough or forcefully enough -- upon the cult of personality: Kevin with the laughably transparent GuruKev shtick, among several other longer-standing ruses; and Trump with a Messiah-ish scam that has sucked in millions of gullibles. As progressive talk show host Thom Hartmann wrote in a September 23, 2022 opinion piece in Daily Kos:

Donald Trump has built a cult around himself. This is dangerous to America and dangerous to democracy.

Cults of personality in governance are broadly incompatible with democracy. They usually erupt in dictatorships where the Great Leader’s face and sayings are splashed all over public places. Think Mao’s China, Stalin’s USSR, Hitler’s Germany, Kim’s North Korea...

...Rational people know that messiahs don’t molest women and brag about it, don’t fleece people with a phony school who just want a college education, don’t encourage racial hatred, and don’t get crowds to try to overturn democracy and kill a policeman.

But Trump isn’t after the rational people. He’s a predator, and his prey are the psychologically and emotionally vulnerable, people crushed by 40 years of Reagan’s neoliberalism, now desperate for simple answers to complex problems.

We should have known when Trump said, in a Charles Manson moment, that he could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and his followers would still support him.

Charismatic con men can make some people believe anything.

For example, nearly a third of all registered Republicans believe that top-level Democrats are running international child trafficking rings to torture and abuse kids before draining their blood...

Again, Trump is just Trudeau, writ large. Or, for anyone who needs to have the point hammered home, Trudeau is just Trump, writ smaller. Both are ruthlessly exploiting, and profiting from, the inherent irrationality of humans.

And ultimately, that's not good for freedom or democracy.

I stand by my opinions.

False narratives, real dangers
Another opinion I stand by is that, beyond Kevin Trudeau's various schemes and scams, conspiranoia in general is a danger not only to public health but also to American democracy.

I'm far from the only one who believes this. The conservative Bulwark site ran a disturbing piece today (February 6) titled, "Mike Johnson Is Mainstreaming the Spirituality that Gave Us the Capitol Riot." While I think that the headline is an insult to actual spirituality, it's a good article, focusing on a prayer gathering with faith leaders who mobilized their followers to storm the Capitol. It provides insight into the way conspiracy theories, in tandem with increasingly powerful ultra-right religious factions, played a large part in the violent January 6 attempt to overthrow the US government and keep Trump in power.

This event has been billed as a more radical alternative to the newly bipartisan and toned-down National Prayer Breakfast. It was designed for Republican politicians—including, most prominently, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson—to meet and pray with right-wing charismatic/Pentecostal and evangelical Christian leaders. This year’s gathering was a somber affair, focused on national penitence and lamenting the many sins of America. It also demonstrated the mainstreaming of the beliefs and values of a new set of insurgent Christian-right leaders—several of whom played major roles in bringing about the violent events of January 6th.

Yes, you read that correctly: This past week, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, second in line to the presidency, spent hours praying with the Christian leaders who did the most to encourage religious participation in what became the Capitol riot."

The NAR, not to be confused with the NRA (though equally if not more dangerous than the latter), has Cheeto Jeezus' back. I'm pretty sure that Original Jeezus would be appalled. Also from the above article:

In my work as a scholar of American religion, I’ve been tracking a tectonic shift over the last few years in the leadership of the American religious right. In my forthcoming book and in a short documentary released this week, I detail how a fringe set of charismatic evangelical Christian leadership networks known as the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) have become a vanguard among Christian elites supporting Donald Trump and the Trump administration. The NAR is the backbone of Christian Trumpism, offering not only theological rationales but supernatural prophecies to support Trump, and they have inspired other Christians to rally around the embattled former president, as well."...

...There is, today, a January 6th–based spirituality built around conspiracy theories [emphasis mine ~ CLS], around upholding Trump as a type of messiah, and around aggressive Christian theologies of power and dominion. We see it in the cult of martyrdom that surrounds the violent criminals who are now being prosecuted for attempting to overthrow the government. We see it in the integration of evangelical worship music into right-wing political rallies. We see it in the mystical ties that continue to bind evangelical Christians to Trump.

And if you care anything about Church/State separation in the US, that should scare the bejeezus out of you.

While I do not consider Kevin Trudeau to be one of the ultra-right Christian nationalists who are doing their part to destroy American democracy and turn it into a theocracy in their own image, he has shamelessly pandered to Christians for years. After all, their money is as green as anyone else's, and they're noted for their gullibility, and many of them seem to possess both money and gullibility in large quantities.

Moreover Trudeau certainly has aligned himself with the American political right, on everything from immigration to support for Donald Trump (particularly in more recent years, when Katie and his buddies were furiously, and as it turned out vainly, campaigning to get Trump to commute Katie's prison sentence and even pardon him).

I'm speculating that since the long-dormant Kevin Trudeau Show is poised for a comeback on February 21, 2024, according to an announcement on Katie's Facebook fan club page, we might be subjected to plenty more reich-wing rhetoric and orange-nosing from Katie and friends, not to mention more conspiracy tall tales and secrets that "they" don't want you to know about. Hopefully I'll be able to access the show, and won't be blocked from it the way I am, for some reason, blocked from the aforementioned and otherwise public Facebook fan club page.

It's a big, big problem
There's no doubt that conspiracy theories have become much more mainstream in recent years than they were in the past, and they are playing an outsize role in American politics and society at large. This is not a good thing for anyone but those who stand to gain money and/or power from the public's gullibility (people such as Donald Trump and Kevin Trudeau, if I may belabor a point). In fact, and it can't be overstated, belief in conspiracy narratives can be dangerous. From AP, January 31, 2024:

Polls show nearly half of Americans believe a conspiracy theory and that those beliefs are almost always harmless. But when fringe views interfere with a person’s job or relationships, they can lead to social isolation. And when people put their conspiracy theory beliefs into action, it can lead to violence.

In recent years, conspiracy theorists have tried to stop vaccine clinics, they’ve attacked election officials and they’ve committed murders that they say were motivated by their beliefs. The Jan. 6 riot is perhaps the most notable example of how conspiracy theories can lead to violence: The thousands of people who stormed the Capitol and fought with police were motivated by Trump’s election lies.

Here is a link to more AP articles on the topic of conspiracy theories.

So... Happy Birthday, Kevin. Thank you for your contributions, all in the service of fleecing the public, to the dumbing-down of humanity and the possible dismantling of American democracy. Well done, Sir. Well done.

Forecast for 2024: fascism, with a 100 percent chance of stupidity/gullibility/mis- and disinformation

The final hours of a tumultuous 2023 are upon us, and in the past few days we've seen many signs and reminders that we'll be facing even stormier weather in 2024. And I'm not talking about weather in the meteorological sense, although that will very likely be newsworthy too, but about social and political weather. The driving forces behind the sociopolitical tempests -- a dangerous combo of fascism and stupidity/gullibility/mis- and disinformation -- are the sorts of things that all too often keep me awake at night. It can't be stated often enough or loudly enough: American democracy has never been in greater danger than it is now, and that is thanks in large part to the Mango Mussolini and his MAGA minions. I was reminded of this fact yet again just yesterday; more on that in a moment.

But first, a confession. Believe it or not, I had every intention of closing out 2023 on this Whirled on a positive, or at least a neutral, note, especially in light of the fact that many of the events and discoveries of 2023 have been positive, if not outright wondrous when viewed from a scientific, big-picture perspective. But when I sat down to begin writing a celebratory or at least a relatively neutral '23 closeout post, I just couldn't do it. Time was running out for me to keep my 17-plus-year commitment to write at least one post per month, and yet I was at a loss.

True, I could have just typed out a few sentences and ended with a promise to be back with more substantial fare in the new year, as I've done numerous times on New Years' Eves past, but that seemed kind of lame. What to write, then? The problem wasn't that there was a dearth of possible topics; on the contrary there were, as usual, too many potential topics competing furiously with each other across the Interwebs.

And then... inspiration, if you want to call it that, struck in the form of a Facebook post on the timeline of a devout Trumpster and all-around conspiranoid who, like so many other Trumpsters/conspiranoids, seems to also worship at the altar of Vladimir Putin (and every other reich-wing authoritarian asshole on the planet). The composite graphic at the top of this post includes a screen grab, with profile pics redacted and names changed to protect privacy.

The Trumpster began with a proud, tricked-out announcement about "Vladimir Putin's letter to the world." Immediately following the main post was a link to a fringe-site article quoting this alleged letter from Putin.

“Dear inhabitants of our beautiful planet Earth,

I, the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, decided to address all of you directly, bypassing diplomats, your leaders and journalists. In Russia, there is a so-called “Ural exchange”, where it is forbidden to lie, deceive and exaggerate. Therefore, I will speak very honestly so that everyone will be convinced of the truth of my words.

Russia is a big and rich country, its most important value is more than 150 million people who live in a territory where justice is above all. We don’t need new territories.

We have energy and all other resources are abundant.

Since the time of the Great Tartar and the Great Mughals, the peoples of Northern Eurasia have not developed because of the onslaught of the Crusades and the colonization of America, Africa, India, or the drug addiction of China, but because of their hard work and pacifism.

Anyone who knows Russian understands that “Russian” is an adjective that refers to all the peoples of our country. Russian Slavs, Russian Tatars, Russian Jews, Russian Evans, etc. All Russian at heart, even if their culture, language and way of life differ. We honor this diversity of unity.

The Russian people are once again forced to sacrifice their lives to protect the world from Nazism and fascism. We exchanged 50 of our prisoners of war for 50 Ukrainian soldiers. Ukrainian soldiers were treated in our hospitals, given three full meals a day and returned home.

We received Russian soldiers who had their fingers and genitals cut off. Not even the Nazis did that in the last war.

We will present this evidence in a future process. Shame on everyone who supports these scumbags now.

Your leaders in the US, Europe, Japan, Australia and elsewhere have sided with these subhumans who put civilians, pregnant women and children above themselves in combat and deliberately want POWs. I can’t imagine any sane person supporting these monsters.

And your Bidens, Scholz, Macron and other dark democrats * not only protect criminals, but actively arm them, provide them with money that is not enough to lower prices in your countries. Prices are rising, the world is collapsing, but not because the Russians are cleansing Europe of Nazi evil spirits, but because you are silent and even support the new wave of Nazism. This time we will not go to Berlin, we will stop at our historical borders, and all the Nazi evil spirits that your leaders open the door to will give you a new “crystal” life, as the Nazis did, adding circumcision of the reproductive organs to it.

I appeal to all who want to live and work in the world, raise children and socialize with people all over the world. Help Russia fight the new cancer – Ukrainian Nazism. Not Ukraine, where peaceful and hard working people live, but Nazism, fueled by your US taxes and NATO hawks. If your leaders support Nazism, push them over the edge, take power into your hands.

Ukrainian Nazis are protected from bullets by civilians, your rulers also decided to transfer the burden of high prices and future troubles to the population under the pretext of terrible Russia. In Ukraine, just like you, the Nazis live well behind the backs of ordinary citizens, and ordinary citizens have to suffer – these are the same crimes in Ukraine as in the West. We have not broken any of our promises and your leaders have stolen 300 billion dollars and Euros from the Russian people.

They steal the property of our country’s citizens all over the world, you deliberately want our soldiers, ban the Russian language, attack the Church of God. I see that in countries where leaders are tightening sanctions against Russia, there is a growing awareness of what is happening and a wave of protests is spreading”.

Though fairly consistent with the general narrative of lies and disinformation spewing from Putin and his army of Russian bots, the whole thing looks and sounds phony-baloney to me. A fairly extensive Web search to verify the authenticity of the letter revealed nothing but the fact that the screed was posted on numerous reich-leaning fringe web sites. There were a couple of non-mainstream sites that at least acknowledged that the letter might not have been penned by Putin (even though the writers of those posts said the letter made sense), but so far there is zilch on the mainstream news sites or the fact-checking sites. (I will continue to search for info and will update this post as necessary.)

I can just hear the smug conspiranoid chorus now: "Well, of course there's nothing about this powerful message on the MSM! What do you expect from them? They're afraid of the truth!"

But if you ask me, anyone who places her or his faith in Trump or Putin wouldn't know "truth" if it sat on their smug faces.

Regardless of the letter's origins, the worship of Putin and the scapegoating of Ukraine is playing right into Vlad's evil, blood-stained hands. This December 28, 2023 piece on the EUvsdisinfo site accurately paints Putin as the "Bad Santa" of disinformation, and sums up many of the reasons that it is utter folly to believe the Putin party line about Ukraine and the state of the world.

For example, not surprisingly in the Kremlin’s twisted alternative reality, Ukraine is still very bad and doing very, very, very bad things. It’s still a Nazi (opens in a new tab), terrorist (opens in a new tab), Satanic country that commits war crimes, fakes Russian war crimes, exploits children for sexual trafficking, harvests and sells human organs and even children’s organs, and is preparing covert biological and nuclear attacks to order to blame their consequences on Russia. Not exactly the sort of thing that puts one in the holiday spirit.

Yet more ridiculous whoppers lie at the bottom of this sordid stocking. According to the spinners of Russia’s nightmarish fantasy tales, Western countries are also still very bad and doing bad, bad things. Devious Westerners have nothing else to do than to be Russophobic and to spread instability and chaos (opens in a new tab) wherever they can. In case you’re wondering, when pro-Kremlin commentators call you Russophobic, it often means you are daring to oppose Russian bullying of the country’s smaller neighbours...

For additional factual perspective on the specific concerns that our Facebook Trumpster has about Ukraine, here's something from USA Today, published on July 24, 2023. The point of reference in the article is a viral social media post supporting the ludicrous claim that Putin invaded Ukraine to stop bioweapons, child trafficking, and money laundering.

This post misstates the reasons Putin put forth as justification for the Ukraine invasion, though Putin's real reasons have also been based on false claims.  Statistics also show that Ukraine is far from the world's capital of money laundering or child trafficking. And the claim about bioweapons labs has been disproven as a conspiracy theory.

On the morning of Feb. 24, 2022, Russia launched its invasion into Ukraine, with Putin dubbing it a “special military operation.”

Putin did not make any statement that Ukraine was the “main hub” for money laundering, child trafficking or bioweapons labs. But his stated reasons for invading were also false.

And once again I can hear the smug chorus: "USA Today? Mainstream propaganda. What a gullible sheeple you are, Cosmic Connie."

But Putin is an evil SOB, no matter how intelligent and rational the reich-wing conspiranoids believe him to be, and no matter how much the culture warriors on the American reich want to see him as a humanitarian and a brave defender of "traditional" Western social and spiritual values. An August 21, 2023 opinion piece from The Messenger sums it up well.

Let’s not mince words. Russia’s dictator, Vladimir Putin, and his regime are evil. They are, according to several dictionary synonyms, morally bad, wicked, depraved, harmful, injurious and offensive.

But there’s more to Putin and his regime than simply being defined by these modifiers. Putin and his comrades know they are evil, and they openly admit to and revel in this fact.

They know they are killing thousands of innocent Ukrainian civilians, destroying hospitals, schools and museums, kidnapping children, and poisoning Ukraine’s environment. They know they are starving millions of people in the Global South. They know they’ve killed scores of Russian oppositionists and jailed thousands. They know that Ukrainian and Russian prisoners are being tortured and executed. They know they’ve amassed fortunes while the population of Russia has gotten poorer.

Neither Putin nor his minions denies these facts. They only deny that these atrocities are, in fact, atrocities. Quite the contrary, Putin and Co. — and their Western apologists — claim that theirs are actions of mercy and liberation and goodwill. That’s not surprising. Adolf Hitler also believed he was doing the world a favor by exterminating Jews, Roma and Slavs.

And there's no doubt that Putin has an entire army of useful idiots in the American reich. From The Guardian, March 16, 2023:

As Russia’s ruthless war against Ukraine has faced major setbacks since it began a year ago, the Kremlin has deployed new disinformation themes and tactics to weaken US support for Kyiv with help from conservative media stars and some Republicans in Congress, according to new studies and experts.

Moscow’s disinformation messages have included widely debunked conspiracy theories about US bioweapon labs in Ukraine, and pet themes on the American right that portray the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, as an ally in backing traditional values, religion and family in the fight against “woke” ideas...

...Russia experts warn that Putin’s rhetoric and Kremlin messaging on these themes is far removed from the reality in Russia.

“One of the glaring mistakes of far-right propagandists is to view Vladimir Putin as some kind of defender of Christendom, of family values and as a protector of the white race,” said Ariel Cohen, a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. “They repeat the Kremlin talking points and get excited about the Russian ‘gay propaganda’ law. Nothing could be further from reality.

“Today Russia is the leader in Europe of high divorce rates, HIV infections, and low church attendance and practice.”

[Democratic Senator Chris] Murphy expects Putin to count “on the [American] right wing to advance Russian propaganda and exploit our internal divisions.”

You get the idea. The big takeaway here is that if they're eligible and registered, stupid, gullible, misinformed, and disinformed folks can vote too -- so we have to outvote them. Together, I think, we can face the storms that are coming.

I needn't belabor the point any further for now; it's getting late, and I have some black-eyed peas and collards to cook up (no cornbread, though, because we forgot to pick up a mix at the store). And later on Ron and I are going to watch the corny, sometimes eye-rolling, but nonetheless lovable Garry Marshall flick, New Year's Eve, while we try to keep our dogs from getting too hysterical over the fireworks. I hope you have a safe and happy New Years Eve and a great start to your 2024, and I'll see you next year.

Burning Man conspiranoia and God-dun-it claims are burning up the media, online and off

Conspiranoia, much like rust in the world of singer Neil Young, never sleeps. The same goes with weaponization of God whenever bad things happen. Whether the focal point is a deadly pandemic, a devastating hurricane, a tragic wildfire, or yet another mass shooting in the USA, the conspiranoids and the insufferably righteous will be front and center with a series of increasingly wackadoodle narratives -- all too many of which are politically motivated these days. So it should come as no surprise that Burning Man, the infamous nine-day masochist "radical-self-reliance" festival, should have attracted a new round of conspiracy tales and God-dun-it explanations when extreme weather conditions -- flooding, to be exact -- turned it into a calamity.

I'll state right off the bat that I am probably not the most sympathetic or empathetic soul when it comes to Burning Man attendees. The mass camp-out and self-deprivation orgy seems to have changed very little since I snarked about it (and, more specifically, about one of its most pretentious attendees) waaaaay back in September 2007. The big differences between then and now seem to be that the Burning Man of today has become significantly more expensive over the years, and there are tens of thousands more attendees than there were back then.

But as silly as I think Burning Man devotees are, I also think they're relatively harmless. They do their thing, I do mine (which mostly involves being inside in front of the air conditioner, far away from the cruel desert heat, and staying well-hydrated). Not so harmless are reich-wing nutcakes and conspiracy peddlers such as Georgia Congresswoman/proud insurrectionist/Trump sycophant Marjorie Taylor Greene and the vile Alex Jones, whose recent conversation about the reasons for the Burning Man 2023 disaster are making the news.

On the Sunday night (September 3, 2023) episode of Jones' infernal Infowars show, he and Greene took to gabbing about the fact that 70,000 or so folks were stranded at Burning Man due to the torrential rains and the mud. (You can watch the video here.) Greene mentioned the strandings, upon which Jones interjected with a harrumphing comment about a "mock sacrifice" that had supposedly occurred just before the weather turned dangerous, and then Greene responded, "God has a way of making sure everyone knows who God is."

The implication could not be plainer: Clearly, the flooding was God's way of punishing those heathen attendees. The punishment-from-God angle has actually been a go-to narrative for Christofascists for years whenever there has been a natural disaster. And Marge is nothing if not a Christofascist...oops, I mean "Christian nationalist."

Apparently not satisfied with the divine-disaster explanation, Marge then lapsed into reich-wing political conspiranoia, asserting that the stranded Burners were probably being "brainwashed" into believing that climate change was the root cause of the weather disaster in the desert, after which they were certain to go forth and evangelize about fighting the human-made climate crisis. She said, "I believe this is the left's new lie that they're going to put on the American people. This is what they're brainwashing people to believe."

It's not entirely clear whether she was insinuating that the radical left might have somehow colluded with the Almighty to produce the dangerous weather that benefited their agenda, or if she thought they were merely stopping the attendees from leaving the festival in order to create a mass panic that would inspire the stranded to jump on board with the lefty climate agenda. Either idea is bonkers, especially since it's a pretty safe bet that most of the folks who attended Burning Man already believe that human-induced climate change is actually a thing. In other words, there's nothing at all "new" about the generally accepted science that Marge and her reich-wing colleagues continue to insist is a "lie" or a "hoax."

Margie wasn't the only reich-wing zealot to push the punishment-from-God narrative. On the same night Greene appeared on Infowars, Senator Mike Lee of Utah went on Twitter/X to imply that the floods were "God's judgement." From Rolling Stone, via Yahoo:

The post linked to a tabloid article describing some of the more offbeat activities at Burning Man, including “group orgasm sessions, daily whippings and naked oil wrestling.” Of such pursuits, the senator grumbled, “This isn’t healthy.” Shortly before that, Lee had quote-tweeted far-right Daily Wire host Michael Knowles‘ comment that “one should endeavor to avoid traveling to the desert for week-long bacchanalian orgies that culminate in the worship of giant burning idols.” Lee wondered how many may have “had a ‘road to Damascus’ moment” at this year’s Burning Man, making a biblical reference to the conversion of Paul the Apostle to Christianity.

Several other reich wingnuts weighed in on the God angle as well, including one of Donald Trump's co-indictees in the Georgia case. From the Rolling Stone/Yahoo piece again:

Last but not least, Jeff Clark, a former assistant attorney general indicted in Georgia last month along with 18 others, including Donald Trump, for an alleged conspiracy to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election, weighed in with his own moralizing take. Commenting Sunday on a post from former solicitor general Neal Katyal, who had hiked out through the mud to escape Burning Man, Clark called the festival a “neopagan ritual.”

“Pray that these folks come to the light & realize that the only path is through and to our Lord,” Clark wrote. “We are all fallen and need God, and to repent as a Nation.”

Yet another conspiracy tale arose in the midst of the strandings: tongues were wagging about an Ebola outbreak, which was supposedly the reason nobody was allowed to leave the festival. From The Daily Dot:

“Now there’s some new terrifying information coming out that there’s a virus on the loose in the festival and that people are getting really sick with boils, vomiting, hemorrhaging,” a TikToker shared on Sunday. “To me, this makes way more sense than flooding in terms of what their response was to the situation.”

The Ebola tale was causing such hysteria that the local sheriff had to step in to debunk it.

As Bevan Hurley at the (UK) Independent noted, Burning Man 2023 was an undeniable disaster. But the explanations offered by the conspiranoids were not the cause. Nevertheless the conspiracy tales took on a life of their own, as they always do. And various satirical posts, such as a hoax narrative about cannibalism, only muddied the situation (so to speak).

All of this would be merely funny if it weren't for the fact that conspiracy-peddling Christian nationalist loons such as Marjorie Taylor Greene actually possess real power to shut the US government down and further erode our democracy, as noted in a September 5, 2023 opinion piece in USA Today by columnist Rex Huppke. The absurdity of Marge's crackpot tales, wrote Huppke, doesn't mean that we can safely ignore Greene's "willingness to sit next to someone like [Alex] Jones and gin up conspiratorial Burning Man nonsense."

During a town hall meeting with constituents last week, Greene said: “I’ve already decided I will not vote to fund the government unless we have passed an impeachment inquiry on Joe Biden.”

To date, Republicans have provided zero evidence that President Biden has done anything worthy of impeachment. His son, Hunter Biden, is being investigated by a special counsel, but any wrongdoing on the part of the president remains purely speculative.

That clearly won’t stop Greene, or any number of small-minded far-right congressional goofballs, from willingly shutting down the government in promotion of a still-baseless conspiracy.

After all, Greene sees a conspiracy in an inordinately wet Burning Man festival. She proudly sits next to a man who has spun some of the most hateful and damaging conspiracies imaginable.

The Republican Party has been overrun by fools like her, and with a Sept. 30 government funding deadline looming, Greene and her far-right compatriots have the power to wreak havoc.

She’s not a serious person, but she has conned her way into a position that allows her to cause Americans serious problems.

It may all seem overwhelmingly ridiculous, and it is. But we ignore her, and the off-the-rails party that has fostered her, at our own peril.

Yeah. What Rex said.