Neothink and Mark Hamilton aka Wallace Ward Jr.: still scamming, but apparently on a smaller scale these daze

Some lifelong scammers just never give up, even if their scam machine is running on fumes -- and that seems to be the case with one Wallace Ward Jr. (aka Mark Hamilton, aka Mark Scamilton on this blog) and his Neothink® scampire, which is based on "secret" information and "forbidden" knowledge.

Because I have been so distracted by the disturbing trends in American politix, it's been a while since I have posted updates about any of this blog's featured scammers besides serial huckster Kevin Trudeau (aka KT, aka Katie on this blog) and convicted murderer James Arthur Ray (aka Death Ray). And actually, in both of those most recent posts -- the one about Trudeau and the one about Ray -- there was more than a hint of American politix as well as Scamworld, since, unfortunately, the two areas have become increasingly intertwined over the past few years.

In any case, I had recently been wondering about the current activities of Scamilton, who for many years was one of Kevin Trudeau's bestest bilking bros. I'll say right off that at this point I don't know if Katie and Mark are still associated with each other in any way; Scamilton seemed to beat a retreat into the background years ago after it became obvious that Trudeau and his mega-scam, the Global Information Network (GIN) were in real and immediate legal and financial peril. But back in the day, specifically 2009 and for a few years thereafter, Scamilton and his Neothink machine played a very large part in launching and marketing GIN. More about that in a little while.

Scamilton had inherited the Neo scampire from his daddy, the late Wallace Ward Sr. (aka Frank Wallace), whom Katie reportedly met during his first incarceration back in the 1990s. Kevin had been locked up for fraud, and Ward the Elder for tax evasion. Apparently the two hit it off.

The Ward/Wallace/Hamilton scheme has gone by various names: Neo-Tech, Nova-Tech, Nouveau-Tech, and Neothink among them. There have been numerous variations in spelling; sometimes the names have appeared as two separate words, sometimes as one hyphenated word, sometimes as one word with no hyphen. Under Scamilton, Neothink has been the predominant brand name. By any name, it has always been based upon "secret" or "exclusive" or "forbidden" information -- much like Kevin Trudeau's GIN. No coincidence there.*

The Neo/Nova/Nouveau franchise has always centered around several books of timeless "wisdom," some penned by Ward the Elder, some by Ward the Younger, some written by one or both under various pseudonyms. A few were presented as poorly-written novels. (Speaking of novels, Kevin Trudeau announced a few years ago that he was going to begin a series of magickal mystical books to be presented as "fiction" in order to make them more acceptable to the sheeple and to keep him from getting in trouble with the government and other evil forces, though he insinuated, in a nudge-nudge wink-wink way, that they will actually present the true story of the prodigy and extraordinary human that he markets himself as being. If you need a laugh and a brief diversion, read all about it here.)

But back to Scamilton. When casually surfing the Net for updates on him and his Neo-schemes, I came across a piece on the web site of the Denton (Texas) Record-Chronicle. It's a March 2023 column by Dallas Morning News Watchdog Desk columnist Dave Lieber, with the headline: "89-year-old invited to join 'Secret Society.' What is it?"

Lieber's 89-year-old mother-in-law had recently received, by snail mail, a 10-page letter inviting her to join a "Secret Society." The mother-in-law didn't fall for it, fortunately, and she did have the widsom to pass it on to her son-in-law.

The 10-page missive did not ask for money, but merely requested permission to send a free pamphlet. And if you know anything about Neo-scam marketing, the next part in Lieber's article will sound very, very familiar.

The letter informs Mom that she is one of the lucky few who have been targeted to join the secret class of leaders who quietly run our country. Please keep this confidential, it says. (So much for that.)

Using her first name throughout the letter, it praises her for possessing “some very rare, hidden traits.”

It informs that with its collection of famous people, billionaires, intellectuals and scientists, it’s considered by some to be “the most powerful organization in the world.”

Pretty impressive, Mom.

The letter writer doesn’t fully identify him or herself, but adds, “I don’t mean to brag, but I’m perhaps one of the most famous people in the world. If you own a TV, listen to the radio, browse the Internet, you will find me in a news story.”

The letter was simply signed, "Tom."

"I am the last man standing"
Now, if David Lieber had been a regular long-time reader of this blog, he would have known right off who "Tom" really was. But almost nobody reads this blog, so instead Lieber had to go to one of his colleagues to find out who was behind the mysterious letter.

I asked Dallas Morning News researcher Misha Vaid to help me find out who’s behind this. She described the research as going down “a very fun, albeit baffling rabbit hole.”

She helped me find the wizard behind this enterprise. Mark Hamilton is his pen name, and his real name is Wallace Ward, who is 64 and lives in Nevada.

In an hourlong phone interview, Ward told me the free pamphlet he sends can lead the curious to buy his $139 book, which, in turn, can lead buyers to pay $299 for a 3,000-page book by him. He calls it his “magnum opus” and shares his life philosophy, which he calls Neo-Tech.

The company that prints his book printed phone books, so you get an idea of his book’s heft.

The Neo-Tech philosophy was started decades ago by his dad, who had the same name. He carries on his late father’s work.

In summary, it goes like this: The world, especially in business and government, is populated by liars and cheats. The only way to stop them is through truth and honesty.

To Scamilton's credit, I guess, he did acknowledge to Lieber that it's inappropriate to send solicitation letters to the elderly, and he vowed that he was trying to cull the mailing lists he buys to attract a younger audience. Alas, most of those lists are by and large populated by the elderly, so what's a fellow to do? From Lieber again:

“I haven’t been able to figure out how to market this online,” he confesses. “I’ve tried over and over again to target younger people, but I haven’t been able to make that work through direct mail at this point in time.”

In his prime, he sent out 20,000 letters a month. Now, he feels lucky if he can get 2,000 out each month.

Nothing I can find is illegal here, but its morality is debatable. The initial letter is filled with promises about joining a society that claims to help rule the world.

While many solicitations thrive online, this one, without a strong digital presence, is dying. Ward refers to “the good old days.” He says that in his endeavors, “I am the last man standing.”

If those claims are really true (and you have to take everything a lifelong huckster says with a big dose of skepticism), then it would appear that the former ties between Wally Ward Jr./Mark Hamilton and Kevin Trudeau have indeed been severed. After all, Trudeau's scam machine is very much an online thing, and appears to be attracting not only younger rubes but an expanding international audience to boot.

"I will see you on the beaches of the world!"
But oh, back in the daze when Trudeau's GIN was a mega-MLM (multi-level marketing) scam, Mark Hamilton cleaned up more than anyone in the org except for Kevin himself. He made millions selling the "product," which wasn't actually a tangible product but was an expensive Level 1 membership in GIN.

In fact, according to court documents, Hamilton had not one but two MLM downlines in GIN, one under his real name of Wallace Ward Jr. and one under his pen name, Mark Hamilton. I wrote all about it in September 2013. If you read that post you'll find links to some of my previous posts about the Neoscam. (You'll also see that, according to a November 2009 letter I quoted from Trudeau's then-asset manager, Marc Lane, Mark Hamilton apparently had a sponsorship arrangement with Trudeau's infamous International Pool Tour, or IPT, which had supposedly failed a couple of years previously. I wrote about the IPT at length in this April 2013 post, under the subhead, "The International Pool Tour.)

Trudeau and Hamilton were scratching each other's backs big-time in those days, and, thanks in no small part to Hamilton's legacy (and his Neo mailing lists, no doubt), GIN was able to attract numerous folks who were already Neothinkers, some of whom paid tens of thousands of dollars to be in KT's mysterious "inner circle." And some of these people were senior citizens. (Here's a link to a capsule history of GIN and the wild promises on which the scheme was founded.)

Scamilton and Katie were clearly collaborating on the marketing of GIN in those early days, to the point that some folks thought GIN and Neothink were the same organization. In this May 2013 post I wrote about this, and included a link to a page, taken from one of hundreds of court documents, in which this statement appears:

26. Trudeau further states that he and another individual named Mark Hamilton reached out to their lists of purchasers of Trudeau's Natural Cures and Debt Cures books to get people to join GIN. At approximately 1 minute and two seconds, Trudeau then states "And because it was Kevin Trudeau, people joined, that's why thousands joined."

You'll notice that Trudeau shared his invaluable "Natural Cures" and "Debt Cures" lists with Hamilton. It was "Natural Cures" that shot Trudeau, via infomercials as well as online and direct-mail marketing, to new heights of fame in the early 2000s. "Natural Cures" unfortunately also launched some formerly obscure but truly evil scammers, such as phony doctor/cancer quack/neo-Nazi/alleged predator Leonard Coldwell, to infamy and wealth... but I digress.

In my May 2013 post I also provided screen shots of one of the early GIN solicitation letters, dated November 7, 2009 and headed, "From the desk of Mark Hamilton." In the grand Neo tradition, it was done up in an old-school looking typewriter font. Here's a direct link to page 1 of the letter, and here's a link to page 2.

The screen shots were originally shared by one of thousands of folks who had received the letter by snail mail; for privacy concerns I redacted the recipient's name. The wording is very much like the "secret society" solicitation letters for Neothink. Here's a bit from page 2:

Riches can be yours!

Secrets never before revealed can be yours!

The web site explains it all. Once you listen to the GIN Special Invitation recording, you will know what I am talking about. You will thank me a million times for thinking about you and personally giving you an invitation to join this never before structured kind of wealth membership organization.

But this is a LIMITED TIME OPPORTUNITY.

Listen to the Special Invitation on the web site. Go to [web site address] to sign up. Now is the time to act on this opportunity.

Money will flow like lava!

Millionaires will be made!

Join now and watch your dreams come true!

Join NOW, [NAME REDACTED], and I will see you on the beaches of the world!

Your Mentor,
Mark Hamilton
Author of Your
Nouveau Tech Heirloom Manuscripts

In the PS, Hamilton reiterates that you must act NOW and that you must use the affiliate code Hamilton. And as I mentioned above, "Hamilton" made millions from GIN as a result. As did "Ward," of course.

I have to wonder about Scamilton's insinuation, in his interview with Lieber, that he is still trying to attract a younger audience by direct mail. That's clearly not working, so why spend so much time and energy on that endeavor? After all, as he indicated, he does have an online presence.

What does seem to be true is that he has been trying to market his schemes online for years. For instance, in late 2013, after the original GIN MLM was shut down by the courts and it was clear that GIN would no longer be the gravy train it once had been for a very select few, Hamilton doubled down on his Neo-hustling -- and those efforts appeared to be largely if not exclusively online. I wrote about this in December 2013.

There's a new flopportunity in Scamworld. Or should I say, there's a "Neo-flopportunity." Now-jailed serial scammer Kevin Trudeau's Ponzi-like Global Information Network (GIN) is imploding, and the MLM portion has been suspended, so the top earners and others are scrambling to find a new scam -- or in some cases, to dust off the old scams. One such top GIN earner, dustin' off the old scams and makin' 'em Nouveau again, is Mark Hamilton (real name Wallace Ward, Jr.; Whirled name Mark Scamilton). ...

...This seems to be the flopportunity in question: the chance to sell overpriced manuscripts of seekrit wisdumb, which are basically what the Neo-scampire has been selling for decades. In the past they old-school-marketed mostly to the elderly and under-educated, sending them "personalized" letters that told them they were Very Special People, and offering them special "heirloom editions" that had their name on the cover and everything. Now the Neo-scammers are trying to open up new markets, via an MLM...

...The copy on the landing page betrays, I must say, a certain desperation:

How would you like to make a nice profit selling the in-demand Neothink® Manuscripts from the Neothink Society, being released to the public for the first time? Especially since this is an easy, turnkey system all set up for you to place on your website or send out by email? It costs you no money and only a few minutes to set up and get started. For over three decades, Mark Hamilton’s life-changing Neothink® Manuscripts have sold through the private-club Neothink® Society to specially-selected people. You may remember at one time receiving your invitation letter from the Society. For the first time, Mark Hamilton and his Neothink® Society are allowing his highly-coveted Neothink® Manuscripts to be sold to the general public.

And so on. Of course, that was 2013 -- ancient history in Interwebz time -- and I have no idea how successful that scheme was, nor how successful overall the online marketing efforts by Hamilton and his proxies have been. But the point is that Hamilton and his scampire do have a significant online presence and they have for years. If their marketing has been as unsuccessful as Hamilton indicated, they need to modernize the products and maybe hire some better marketing folks.

I wish I could attribute Hamilton's claimed lack of success (again, provided that he was being forthright with Dave Lieber) to nothing more than a general smartening-up of the public in recent years, and a lower gullibility quotient than in the past. Stop snickering right this minute, because I know that this argument doesn't really hold water, given the fact that Kevin Trudeau and GIN are still attracting suckers with the secret society/forbidden info/conspiracy narratives shtick -- and for that matter, given the fact that there is a yuuge Trump cult that has been sucked in by many of the same marketing strategies Trudeau and Hamilton have used. ICYMI, I covered all of the above in my previous post.

Where Hamilton is concerned I think there's another factor at work besides ineffective marketing strategies. Perhaps the main key to Hamilton's and Neothink's relative obscurity, as opposed to Trump and Trudeau and their respective grifts, is personality, or lack thereof. For better or worse (worse, actually), Trump and Trudeau are Personalities with a capital P, and therefore have been able to build a cult of personality around themselves. They keep their respective cults alive by exploiting all media at their disposal to aggressively and relentlessly pander to their cult members' vanities, longings, greed, fears, and anger, while presenting themselves as saviors who can fix every problem.

By contrast, Hamilton, who has chosen to remain in the background for the most part -- and did so even in GIN's heyday -- has zero personality, and often comes across on his videos as a creepy perv from a third-rate 1980s movie. So maybe his problem goes deeper than mailing lists and advertising strategies.

Neostink web site's fake history of Mark Hamilton
Nevertheless Hamilton seems to still be striving to portray himself as a hero and a servant of humanity. The site that currently seems to be the main one for the Neothink Society is really playing up Mark Hamilton's contributions to humanity. (Again, shades of Kevin Trudeau and his supposedly magnificent contributions to the advancement of the human race.) Here is the copy on the "About Mark Hamilton" page:

Mark Hamilton wanted to tell everyone, but they would not listen. Their eyes would glaze over, for they were ensconced in what they had been taught by the powers that be.  The “experts” would ridicule Mark’s ideas.  The authorities would punish Mark’s ideas. His ideas were too different.  In fact, his ideas threatened the existing power structures.  He soon learned there could be no direct communication of what he knew.  He needed to silently clear a new path.

So, his work began in secret.  No one beyond his family would know for quite some time about his secret knowledge. Mark Hamilton worked long days, years, decades getting what he knew onto paper and then into action.  As years became decades, he captured thousands of pages of Neothink^® in his highly-guarded manuscripts.  Finally, after many years, he decided it was time to form a protected, secret society of his select few, yet very passionate readers.

And those passionate readers grew to a couple million, reading his large Neothink^® Manuscripts with entirely new ways of looking at the world.  With the rise of the Internet, Mark Hamilton’s secret society took a lot of abuse from establishment-ensconced, misinformed people who heard out-of-context bits and pieces of Mark’s hidden ideas when some of his ideas began to leak.  Of course, the establishment’s “experts” tried to discredit Mark Hamilton, and the authorities tried to shut him down.

After thirty-three long years, Mark decided to no longer keep his ideas hidden.  Maturing from an ambitious young man into a determined middle-aged man, Mark feels the time has come to release his ideas to the world.  And his passionate, secret- society readers agree.  The country is scattered with Mark Hamilton’s Neothink^® Clubhouses.  And they are ready, willing, and waiting with open arms, hearts, and minds to teach you Mark’s life-changing Neothink^® ideas and techniques.

And he gives you his entire life’s work — over thirty years of long days writing (and sleepless nights fighting establishment authorities) — all delivered to you in his massive and extensive volumes of literature.  Mark Hamilton wants you to finally benefit from his deepest, secret knowledge.  He has envisioned this secret knowledge reaching you and eventually the masses for a long, long time, ever since he was a young man and realized his secret establishment-shattering knowledge would enormously benefit everyone alive.

Since he was a young man, Mark Hamilton has pursued the goal of improving life for everyone…from his breakthroughs that turn your work from a burden to a joy, to his breakthroughs that turn our country’s leadership from suppression to a launching pad for universal wealth, health and peace.  Mark Hamilton’s Neothink^® breakthroughs bring unprecedented prosperity and wonderful emotions to the people.

There's not a peep about Mark's daddy, Wallace Ward Sr. aka Frank Wallace, who started the whole thing decades ago. And the claim that Hamilton "stayed in hiding" with his "secret knowledge" for years and years and then just suddenly decided to "release his ideas to the world" is just pure bunk.

The Neothink site has more tall tales about Scamilton, including that he built the Grand Canyon Skywalk even after engineers said it was impossible (thanks to Neothink, of course). From the What Is The Neothink Society page on the web site:

Following your heart and living the life you were meant to have seems impossible.  Through Neothink^® and The Neothink^® Society you will learn how to specifically do what Jobs so enticingly suggests: follow your heart for a life of immense passion, vision, and insane wealth.  Neothink^® is a new way of using our minds and enables us to do what before was considered impossible.  Mark Hamilton built the famous Glass Bridge and put it out over the edge of the Grand Canyon, even after engineers said it was impossible.  Through Neothink^®, the Grand Canyon Skywalk now is an American icon for the whole world to enjoy and for the Hualapai Indian Tribe to rise from poverty to prosperity.

It appears, however, that Super Mark didn't actually build the Grand Canyon Skywalk all by his lonesome, as admitted even on some of his own propaganda. From an October 2016 Mark Hamilton/Neothink blog post:

Neothink Society founder Mark Hamilton is one of the financial backers of the Grand Canyon Skywalk. He was part of Grand Canyon Skywalk Development LLC, which created the walkway. The attraction is located on Hualapai Tribe land and is operated by the tribe. A horseshoe-shaped glass bridge suspended over the western rim of the Grand Canyon, the Skywalk gives visitors a bird’s-eye view of the canyon from a height of 4,000 feet.

Mark Hamilton, Neothink founder, got involved with the Skywalk project after seeing a rendition of the completed structure in a newspaper. Hamilton first fell in love with architecture after reading Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead when he was younger. After seeing the renderings of the Skywalk, he got in touch with the Skywalk’s designer, David Jin.

So at most, Hamilton helped fund the project, most likely with ill-gotten gains from scamming old folks out of their life savings. I suppose, then, that you could at least say that Neothink^® had something to do with the building of the project.

The bottom line, given Dave Lieber's Dallas Morning News report cited above, and the current Neo online content, is that it would appear that Mark Hamilton is still running scams, or trying to. Like Kevin Trudeau, that's all he knows how to do, and in Hamilton's case it's a family tradition. I'd be curious to know if, a year later, Hamilton has indeed tried to cull his mailing lists of senior citizens' names, as he promised Lieber he would do, and if in fact he has reduced or ceased his marketing efforts to them.

Let me know if you have any info about Hamilton's current activities and schemes, especially about whether he and Trudeau are still involved in any projects together. Because their marketing copy is so similar and has been for years, and because they shared their most valued mailing lists with each other in the past, and because they both clearly possess the heart of a huckster, their divorce, if it occurred, must have been really traumatic. Drop me a line; I'm always open to providing more updates.

* For a (long and circuitous but nonetheless informative) two-part Whirled post that provides background on the Neo scampire and its association with Kevin Trudeau's GIN, here's Part 1 (with a link to Part 2), from 2011. Part 1 in particular has details about the Neo/Nova/Nouveau tradition of marketing to vulnerable elderly people.

Kevin Trudeau: doubling down on his latest grift to maintain his "signature lifestyle"

Serial scammer and ex-prisoner Kevin Trudeau, aka KT, aka Katie on this Whirled, has doubled down on his latest grift (which I first wrote about in December 2022) by releasing a new YouBoob misinfomercial. In it, Trudeau spends an hour-plus boasting about his massive accomplishments and incredible success (while reassuring his audience that he is not boasting, but just stating facts).

He talks about having had $200 million dollars worth of mansions in California, Chicago, New York, Florida, Zurich, and Sydney, as well as owning Bentleys, Rolls-Royces, Ferraris, Porsches, and limousines, and having butlers, two full-time chefs, maids, full-time gardeners, and so on. All of his houses were fully staffed, he says, so if he went to Cali he had a staff of people waiting for him at the house even if he hadn't been there in six months, because even though he hadn't been at the house, he'd kept them on the payroll. He says he flew around in private jets, stayed in the biggest hotel suites everywhere he went -- suites where celebrities had stayed!

It's all in the service of convincing his audience that he is uniquely qualified to teach about success and money-getting, unlike many if not most of the gurus who make their living doing the same. Which brings us to the purpose of the video: to promote his upcoming BIG EVENT that will only cost you $25,000.00. (The preview pic on the video is deceptive, because it appears that the purpose of the vid is to promote a new book, when in fact he was just holding up one of several over-hyped books that he has perpetrated over the years. He does brag that he was the first person to really talk about recession, back when the Great Recession was cranking up.)

But back to the BIG EVENT, which, as noted above, will only set you back $25k. If you can't come up with that relatively trivial amount, it very likely means that you'll always be a loser, so you'd better do your best to find that money somewhere, somehow, because if you do, you will learn 30 never-before-shared-in-one-place secrets to removing the money blocks that keep the average schmo from becoming a success like Kevin. Actually there are 33 secrets, but at the BIG EVENT Trudeau is only going to share 30 of them, because the other three would make you much, much too powerful, and he needs to save those for a next-level, much more expensive grift get to know you personally before you can be trusted with them.

Woven throughout the vid are mentions of the seekrit organizations that Katie has belonged to or on which he has inside information, most notably the fictional "Brotherhood" that he flogged to sucker so many gullibles into his mega-scam, the Global Information Network (GIN) back in the day. So in case you were wondering, that part of his shtick is alive and well as Katie casts a wide net for whole new generations of suckers who have no clue that it's the same old grift.

Speaking of GIN, it appears that Katie is distancing himself, at least in this video, from the club that he founded back in 2009. The closest he gets to mentioning GIN is that at one point he holds up the CD set he created for the sole purpose of promoting GIN, Your Wish Is Your Command (erroneously stating that it's over 20 years old). He says it is being called one of the greatest success courses of all time by people who have gone through the training. But there's no direct mention of GIN. And he even says, also erroneously, that you can't even get the CD set today, because, "I mean who has a CD player, right?" Even so, he's still making bundles of money from GIN, which we'll get to later on in this post.

Watch the misinfomercial if you wish, but keep in mind that it's 1:06:13 that you'll never get back. If you'd rather not listen to Katie's annoying voice, just click on the "Show transcript" icon. That's what I did, after listening to a few minutes of the video here and there. I copied and pasted the transcript into a Word doc so I could easily read it in its entirety. Like most auto-generated transcripts it's not perfect, but the technology seems to have improved over what it once was, and the transcript is more than sufficient to reflect the content of the video.

About that big fine...
Meanwhile, although he earnestly claims otherwise, Trudeau is apparently still trying to find creative ways to avoid paying the rest of the fine that he still owes the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for repeated violations of consent orders related to one of his griftbooks, The Weight Loss Cure "They" Don't Want You To Know About. It was this matter that sent him to Federal sleepaway camp for eight and a half years (on criminal contempt charges). Years later, as an ex-prisoner but still on a tight-ish leash for the time being, he is still trying to convince the Feds that he doesn't have any money because the mean old government took it all away.

And the Feds still aren't buying it.

I had promised updates about this matter in a previous Whirled post back in November of 2022, but -- and I apologize for this -- I got sidetracked by politix again (a topic not unrelated to contemporary Scamworld and incorrigible scammers such as Trudeau). So I missed this January 26, 2023 report in Chicago Sun-Times. Sun-Times staff reporter Andy Grimm covered a daylong hearing, during which Judge Robert Gettleman declared Trudeau to be in contempt for failing to report to the court way back in the spring of 2022 when he was first sprung from the clink. At the time, Judge Gettleman said that he would decide later whether or not to have Trudeau locked up or to impose a fine on top of the original one. From the Sun-Times piece:

Trudeau made no payments while he was incarcerated, but he put up $1.86 million in recent weeks, the judge said, noting that money came from “gifts” of as much as $50,000 each from members of Trudeau’s “fan club.”...

...In addition to the $1.85 million Trudeau had raised from his fan club, his lawyer, Giel Stein, said that Trudeau has been making money by organizing and speaking at events, and he could pay back his victims sooner if he were able to travel outside the state.

Trudeau on Thursday agreed to empty his bank accounts of about $200,000, but Stein noted that the pitchman needs considerable income to be able to put on events, pay his taxes and maintain his signature lifestyle.

“The court has now $1.85 million reasons to believe he can [pay] and will continue to do so,” Stein said. “He can raise money by being Mr. Trudeau ... because that’s what people like and they’ll pay for.”

It may seem unbelievable to folks who can spot a blatant scam when they see one, and especially to those who were scammed by Trudeau and learned their lesson, but people are still giving Trudeau money, and apparently lots of it. And notice that bit about Katie emptying his bank accounts of about $200,000, along with the mention of his lawyer's statement that Mr. Trudeau needs lots of money to, among other things, "maintain his signature lifestyle..."

All of this, while many of his followers are probably struggling to keep the lights on and food on the table, but he's still trying to squeeze every last dollar out of them. Won't people ever learn?

An interesting part of the January hearing involved Kevin's latest ex-wife, Nataliya Babenko. Jason Meisner of the Chicago Tribune, also reporting on January 26, 2023, wrote that Ms. Babenko told Judge Gettleman that Trudeau had a stash of gold bars, and she added that she is "very scared" of him.

Trudeau has claimed in sworn depositions that he gave gold to Babenko during their marriage, which was annulled last year. But when an attorney for the Federal Trade Commission asked her Thursday whether that happened, she answered in a flat tone, “Never.”

She also denied Trudeau’s claim that her father had threatened to kill him. “Never,” she said. “This is outrageous.”

At the end of her testimony, over the strenuous objections of Trudeau’s attorneys, Babenko told the judge that facing her ex-husband in court was “excruciating” because of what he has put her through with his lies.

“So much abuse, so much oppression,” she said, as Trudeau sat at a defense table, looking right at her. “I’m very scared for my life ... from the day he has thrown me into this false narrative."

Babenko is expected to give continued testimony via Zoom at a later date, when Trudeau’s attorneys will get the opportunity to cross-examine her.

I'm rooting for Ms. Babenko, whose whole story has not yet been told. She has apparently been through hell, and I believe her claims that she feels threatened by her scalawag of an ex.

A followup hearing took place on March 9, as reported by Andy Grimm at the Sun-Times. That report has additional info about Trudeau's income, as well as his relationship with GIN.

Trudeau maintained that he turned over information about all his bank accounts and business ventures to a court-appointed receiver a decade ago, who then liquidated his assets. Since getting out of prison last year, Trudeau said he has become an employee of Global Information Network United — previously, Trudeau had controlled a company called Global Information Network — where he provides training materials and leads seminars for the groups members, and receives an annual salary of $150,000— which ballooned to around $1 million last year with bonuses.

Trudeau’s “fan club” members have donated money that Trudeau has used to pay for his lawyers and living expenses since his release from prison, as well as the bulk of the $1.8 million he sent to the FTC to date. Trudeau also emptied several bank accounts and his cryptocurrency wallet after the hearing in January.

So, GIN members, that's where your hard-earned money is going: to support this lifelong grifter -- just like in the glory daze of GIN. Nothing has changed. Maybe you'll wake up someday before you lose everything. And as for what's left of the GIN staff: my guess is that most of y'all are being paid pittances if you're paid at all, while the overwhelming majority of the grunt work is being done by Katie's army of "joyful volunteers." And super-high-paid "employee" Kevin is pocketing almost all of the money generated (GIN-erated?) by his boondoggle. He can claim that he's a mere employee if he wants, but for all practical purposes he still owns GIN. Again... nothing has changed.

And while all of this has been going on, the home page of The Official Kevin Trudeau Fan Club is still all about the begging. That's the entire purpose of the "Fan Club" and its web site and Facebook page: to put even more money into Kevin's pocket. After all, he does have a signature lifestyle to maintain.

PS ~ For many years, Kevin Trudeau has been successfully fundraising off of his spurious narratives of heroism (he's bravely fighting for you, not himself!) and of martyrdom at the hands of powerful enemies including the US government. And #NeverWasMyPresident Donald John Trump, in the wake of his recent indictment, is using the exact same narrative to suck multiple millions of bucks into his own coffers. From attorney, former Federal prosecutor, and ex-republican Ron Filipkowski on Twitter:

Trump issues a plea for cash tonight to fight his indictment: “If you’re doing well because all the things I’ve done have brought you wealth and prosperity .. it would be really great if you can contribute .. Show the Left that nothing can destroy the greatest political movement”

That's straight from the master grifter/cult leader playbook. I'll have more about this in an upcoming post.

Serial scammer Kevin Trudeau is in trouble again (or still)

This post has been updated.

Well, that sure didn't take long.

I know this will come as no big surprise to anyone who has been even marginally keeping up with the saga of serial scammer Kevin Trudeau, who was recently released from federal prison after serving about eight years of a ten-year sentence, but... he's in trouble again. Or rather, he's still in trouble over a matter that never actually went away: the millions of dollars that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) says he still owes on a nearly $40 million judgment from years ago; and the FTC's belief -- which I happen to share -- that he has untold wealth hidden offshore.

On Thursday, November 17, Trudeau (aka KT, aka Katie on this Whirled) appeared in court before Judge Robert Gettleman, as reported in various Chicago-area media, such as ABC-TV Channel 7 (reporting by investigative reporter Chuck Goudie), and the Chicago Sun-Times (by CST wire reporter David Struett). He's due back in court on November 30, and has an FTC deposition on December 9. I'll try to retrieve some documents from PACER and share them with you.

Apart from the big question about possible (probable) hidden wealth, both the ABC7 and Chicago Sun-Times piece report that Trudeau appeared to have violated his order to notify the court when he was released from prison. From the Sun-Times:

Prosecutors said Trudeau had ignored the order. “I think they wanted this to go away,” FTC lawyer Jonathan Cohen told the judge.

Trudeau’s lawyer, Giel Stein, said it was a “misunderstanding” and apologized. “He’s deeply regretful he did not show up at the end of his home confinement,” Stein said.

But I'm not buying it, especially since Katie took the time and trouble to actually write a letter to Judge Gettleman back in January of 2020, seeking clarification about what he needed to do, and what would be allowed to do, once he was released. I wrote about that here; that post also contains screen shots of the original judgment/sentencing document that outlined the restrictions Trudeau would face upon release. Even if he never received a direct answer from the judge, the matter would still have to have been on his mind. My guess is that he just blew it off, figuring he could get away with it.

As for the issue of hidden wealth, apparently there's new evidence. From the Chicago Sun-Times again:

At issue are two boxes of new evidence provided to the FTC by Trudeau’s now-ex-wife. The government wants to use those documents in Trudeau’s upcoming deposition, but the defense lawyers asked to review them for possible violations of attorney-client privilege. The judge ordered that attorneys on both sides review the documents and report back to him.

Prosecutors also allege Trudeau hid millions of dollars overseas and plans to flee there. The new evidence comes from information from Trudeau’s ex-wife’s testimony in their divorce proceedings, prosecutors said.

I imagine those divorce proceedings were... very interesting. From what I've heard, Katie's ex is well rid of him.

According to the news reports, Kevin really wants to start traveling the world for "business." But for now, he's grounded in the Chicago area. Oh, dear, if only he could just jump on that big luxury cruise ship he's been dreaming about, and sail away... Except, of course, the ship doesn't exist yet.

Kevin bites back
Naturally, Katie had something to say about his latest troubles, and he said it on the Kevin Trudeau Fan Club Telegram Channel on November 18, the day after his court appearance. Here's the direct link, if you have 15-plus minutes to waste.

If you'd rather not waste your time, I'll recap it for you here. Kevin spends the first part of his message 'splaining why it makes no logical sense for him not to have paid that $37 million years ago if he'd had the dough, thus avoiding a prison sentence. He repeatedly says that he didn't then and doesn't now have the money, and laments that it is impossible to prove a negative, so what's a poor boy to do?

Now, if you were just listening to this without the benefit of knowing Trudeau's past history, that would all sound quite reasonable. But in the years prior to his trial and conviction, he had a notorious history of claiming to be poor, while he still continued to spend lavishly on himself. It's not unreasonable for the government to believe he still has money somewhere, since he repeatedly lied about it before. While it's true that the government seized as many of his assets as they could manage to get, the question that they asked back in 2013 and 2014 has never gone away: was there more? Investigators believed then and still believe that there is more, and I think they are right.

What also sounds more than reasonable, on the surface, is Trudeau's claim that it "makes no logical sense" for him to have not paid the big fine when first ordered to do so, or at least when the threats to lock him up began, thus avoiding what ultimately turned out to be a years-long prison sentence. Again, however, you have to look at the past, and here I don't have specific links because so many of them have apparently been wiped from the Web. You'll just have to trust my long-term memory.

For I do recall the defiance that Trudeau expressed on many occasions, starting back when the fine was considerably smaller than nearly 40 mil. Even as he was telling authorities that he didn't have the money to pay up, he was also telling his followers, via videos and on his radio show and more than likely at live events too, that he was refusing to pay on principle, mostly having to do with fighting government tyranny and so forth. He was, he repeatedly assured his followers, being a brave fighter not only for his own First Amendment rights, but for the 1Arights of all of us. Meanwhile, he continued to enrich himself from his various scams and schemes.

As well, he repeatedly violated consent orders that he had signed with the FTC, which only increased penalties and his own legal jeopardy. Subsequently, when called by the gov on one violation or another, he would always claim innocence, saying that he absolutely, positively had no intention of violating anything, and that he was doing his level best to cooperate fully. That was his losing argument in his criminal trial, in fact. Yet all the while he was playing the innocent, he continued with his defiance act, using it to burnish his hero/martyr narrative. He kept this up until there was no turning back. As they like to say on social media these days, FAAFO.

As the Telegram spiel continues he spends some time in motivational master mode, offering advice on how to handle adversity and gabbing about how the special training he offers can help anyone do just that. He also, as per usual, takes a few moments to peddle some of the overpriced frauducts that he sells through the Kevin Trudeau Fan Club website and Facebook page.

But the main purpose of the message -- and once again, this will probably come as no shock -- is to beg for money, and he mentions the link to the donation site a couple of times. Katie warns that his lawyer bills could possibly rack up to millions of dollars. Frankly, I'm surprised any lawyer took on his case, after he reportedly stiffed so many previous attorneys, but perhaps it's possible that the attorney named in the news stories, Giel Stein, is working pro bono, which, if that's the case, would negate the claim about millions of bucks in legal fees.

If you follow the embedded link in the previous sentence, you'll notice that some of Mr. Stein's listed accomplishments include defending big pharmaceutical companies, big insurance companies, and government agencies, so... maybe not the best choice for a lawyer for a defendant who's been loudly speaking out against all of the above for decades? That should be interesting.

In any case, legal fees are pretty far down on the list of the Official Kevin Trudeau Fan Club's list of what your donations will be used for.

Your Contributions made to The Official Kevin Trudeau Fan Club (ContributeToKevin.com) therefore will be used to pay for these things and more (this is just a partial list of possible uses):

• a place for Kevin to live and all his living expenses (utilities etc)
• furnishings for Kevin’s residence
• food
• nutritional supplements
• computers; cell phones; internet services; mobile phone service
• personal care items
• medical and all other insurances
• dental care, haircuts, eye care (contacts and glasses)
• car; insurance; petrol (gas); parking; maintenance
• clothes
• travel: transportation, hotels, meals 
• lawyers and other professional services
• subscriptions
• secretaries, assistants, transcribers, researchers, social media managers, booking agents, drivers, security, etc.
• and many other possible uses of the funds donated

Trudeau wraps up his Telegram message with his usual spiel about bad things happening to good people, and assures his fans, "Suffering is an option I choose not to take."

Of course. His go-to option is grifting, though over the years he has proven time and time again that he's not above playing the suffering victim in efforts to get leniency from the courts or to manipulate people into giving him money.

They've heard it all before
I think the prosecutors and Judge Gettleman are too smart to fall for Kevin Trudeau's excuses. And good for the ex for handing over that evidence. But if I were the investigators, I would also be scrutinizing the "success club" that Kevin founded back in 2009, the Global Information Network, or GIN. Back when Trudeau was officially running it, GIN was a huge scam that sucked millions of dollars out of thousands of rubes (see the link in the previous sentence for a capsule history of the scam), but technically GIN was not the reason he was charged, tried, convicted, and locked up. Even so, to this day a number of former GIN members would love to see Kevin Trudeau be held accountable for GIN; absent charges/trial/conviction/incarceration, they would simply like have their money back. That will almost certain never happen.

By the way, I've made this point and shared this link several times previously, but it bears repeating that Jason "Salty Droid" Jones strongly disagreed with the prosecutors' assertion back in 2014 that a ten-year sentence was sufficient because, according to them, no one who bought Trudeau's weight loss book was financially ruined. They may not have been ruined by the purchase alone, but for many that book, like Trudeau's numerous other loss leaders, was a gateway drug that did lead to financial and/or emotional ruin. But that's a whole other story.

Under court order, GIN was sold in May 2014 to a group of Trudeau's close buddies, and though ownership has shifted since then, to my knowledge it is still owned by pals of his, chiropractors Dr. Tom and Dr. Ted Morter, and career huckster Blaine Athorn. Reportedly Kevin is not legally allowed to be benefiting financially at all from that enterprise. My understanding is that he's not even supposed to be calling the shots, though I suspect that he's been "shadow running" it for some time now, perhaps in violation of the terms of his probation.

At any rate I think it would be wise for the investigators to look into GIN's finances -- if that's possible -- to find out if, for instance, the proceeds from the club's live events, and from some of their other income sources, are being funneled to Kevin through the official donation site or other more hidden outlets.

The inevitable recap of the larger issues
I've discussed these issues at some length in previous posts, so this is mainly for the benefit of new visitors. First off, whether Kevin Trudeau should be locked up again, if he fails to satisfy the government's and the court's demands, is a larger question that I do actually believe is pertinent, and some who are new here may be surprised that I'm not firmly in the lock-him-up camp. I've said many times before that in general, I don't believe nonviolent criminals should be locked up (those who incite violence, such as Donald Trump and numerous other republican politicians who are directly responsible for the violent January 6, 2021 insurrection, are another story, however).

Regarding Trudeau, the blunt truth is that being imprisoned never stopped him from scamming. Moreover, locking him up now almost certainly won't lead to the recovery of hidden assets. It would be punitive, and perhaps would be poetic justice or karma, if you believe in such things. And locking him up could limit his huckstering activities, but again... it won't keep him from grifting, either directly or through his loyal proxies. The bottom line is that the government would probably be no closer to reaching its stated goals of retrieving the money still owed, presumably so the remaining refunds to those who bought Trudeau's wacko diet book, The Weight Loss Cure "They" Don't Want You To Know About, can be issued. I discuss the incarceration issue in a January 2022 post, under the subhead, "Did prison change Kevin Trudeau?"

In other words, I recognize that there are nuances to this story, as there are to most stories. But the gist of it is that Kevin Trudeau is, has always been, and almost certainly always will be a scammer -- and my opinion on that issue is anything but nuanced.

Secondly, some may be asking why this obvious crook is even still important in the larger scheme of things. Isn't he so... yesterday? Rather than re-invent the wheel, I'll just direct you to the aforementioned January 2022 post again (under the subhead, "Why this still matters, after all these years"). Here's a snippet:

...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...

And as I wrote at the end of that post, "Caveat emptor."

Stay tuned for further reports.

Update, December 6, 2022: Jason Meisner at the Chicago Tribune reported on Trudeau's November 30 hearing. The government is still considering "coercive incarceration" (which has never worked in the past to get Trudeau to cough up the dough, but whatever).

At a hearing Wednesday, [FTC attorney] Cohen revealed newly discovered emails that he said show Trudeau was seeking to ship and store 300 pounds of gold bars and other precious metals in Switzerland in 2013, the same time he was crying poor to the court.

The FTC has also learned that around the same time, Trudeau hired two law firms in Switzerland to research what impact pending lawsuits in the U.S. would have in Switzerland as well as the logistics of legally changing your name in that country, Cohen said.

Of course, Trudeau is once again stalling for time.

Trudeau’s attorney, Giel Stein, accused the FTC of jumping the gun, saying Trudeau “is acutely aware of the consequences here” and only wants to know how much he still owes so he can figure out how to begin repaying it.

Stein also said it made no sense to put Trudeau in jail before he’s given the chance to answer questions under oath about his assets at a deposition, which is scheduled for Dec. 9.

Judge Robert Gettleman, though clearly fed up with Trudeau's lies and his stall tactics, declined to incarcerate Trudeau immediately, setting a December 15 hearing to sort things out. Meanwhile, Trudeau's lawyer, Giel Stein, says he wants to question Trudeau's ex-wife under oath about “eight suitcases of materials that (she) absconded with” from Trudeau’s storage facility in Zurich, Switzerland. Sounds like the defense is trying to blame the ex for Trudeau's crimes.

More updates to come.

Kevin Trudeau: keeping a low profile since release from prison, but still grifting, begging, cult-building (and yes, enabling fascism)

 

Earlier this month, someone wrote to this blog asking me if I'd seen a recent-ish video of formerly imprisoned and newly released serial scammer Kevin Trudeau, aka KT, aka Katie on this Whirled. Here's the link to the vid in question, which shows a July 16, 2022 interview on a show called "All Things Rex Worldwide," hosted by one Rex Sikes. Sikes, whom, I confess, I'd never heard of prior to the heads-up from my reader about this video, is self-billed as an "NLP Trainer and Authority on the Law of Attraction." (His Twitter handle is I'mRexcellent. Modest fellow.)

Rex may be an NLP trainer and an "authority" on the Law of Attraction, but his bread and butter, the area in which he truly appears to Rexcel, seems to be making videos of himself kissing up to far more successful Scamworld luminaries that people have actually heard of, such as mega-hustler "Dr." Joe Vitale, one of this blog's former favorite subjects. I say "former" because even I, who am so easily amused, get bored after a while. But clearly, Rex is not bored at all with Vitale. Quite the opposite: he seems utterly enamored.

He appears equally enamored with Kevin Trudeau, as you'll quickly see if you watch his interview with Katie. Here's that link again, but I warn you, as I often do with such offal offerings, that it will be time that you'll never get back, in this case, 1:20:52. Rex is in full-blown hero-worship mode on this one, beginning his intro by listing all of Katie's many "achievements" -- acclaimed best-selling author; worldwide media star; widely revered marketing genius; one of the foremost authorities on success and goal-setting and the Law of Attraction; and to top it off...

Today he is known as an enlightened spiritual leader, helping people attain a state of joy and happiness in addition to manifesting material success...

Rex fails to mention a few of Kevin's other major achievements, most notably: lifelong grifter who has scammed thousands of people out of millions of dollars; notorious liar; and several-times-convicted felon who recently completed a ten-year(ish) federal prison sentence.

The long conversation between Rex and Kev focuses mainly on "spiritual" stuff, in keeping with Kevin's efforts over the past few years to rebrand himself as "GuruKev," which I first wrote about back in December of 2019. It's also congruent with Kevin's apparent and reported longtime desire, and ongoing efforts, to become a true cult leader in the manner of the late L. Ron Hubbard, founder of the evil cult Scientology. I've mentioned that several times over the years, one of the more recent offerings being this March 2021 post, which links to previous Whirled posts on the topic.

In any case, I'm glad my anonymous commenter wrote to me about the video, which was also announced on a September 22, 2022 post on Katie's public Facebook page, The Official Kevin Trudeau Fan Club. I hadn't posted about Trudeau in several months, in large part because I've been busy with other matters, such as concentrating on a very challenging book manuscript. Any energy I've had left over for blogging and social media engagement has been devoted more or less to political issues, particularly the very serious threats presented by the rise of fascism in various and insidious forms, in America and other parts of the world .

But I've certainly not forgotten Kevin Trudeau. For that matter, concerns about the rising tide of authoritarianism and fascism are not irrelevant to Trudeau and scads of other grifters who prey on gullible and unhappy people who are desperate not only for scapegoats, but for heroes. More about that momentarily.

We've detected a blockage in your social media pipeline
Anyone who still cares enough to follow the saga of Kevin Trudeau has probably noticed that he seems to be keeping a very low profile these days. This is likely because the terms of his release/probation dictate what he can and cannot do in order to avoid being thrown back in the clink. But he is still hustling, though in most cases making it appear that others are doing the hustling on his behalf while he occupies himself with humbly serving humanity. It's all in the service of lining Kevin's pockets so he can resume his formerly gaudy lifestyle as quickly as possible.

Trudeau has apparently been quite active on Telegram, that haven for scammers and far-right wingnuts, and no telling what all he's doing there. Sure, there's The Official Kevin Trudeau Fan Club Channel, which is more or less publicly accessible, but he is reportedly on several other Telegram channels that aren't so accessible, as well as using deeply encrypted email services that are all but untouchable by US or any other authorities. I would assume that the judges who presided over both his criminal and civil cases are paying attention.

Previously, when I wanted to get an idea of what Trudeau was up to, I would check the aforementioned public Facebook page, The Official Kevin Trudeau Fan Club. That's a little more difficult now, though, because it appears that I have finally been thoroughly blocked from the page. It no longer shows up as an option for me in the Facebook search field, and when I click the link to the URL, I get a "content not available" message. I know that the site is still up there, and that the posts are still listed as "public," because I checked via another route. So it's still available to the public generally, just not my part of the public specifically.

I suppose that blocking me was the next logical step in the process of isolating the cult from the nefarious influence of what one faithful KT ally warned the fans is "that nasty woman" (according to another former KT ally, who told me as much on the phone a couple of years ago). Earlier this year the admins of the fan page blocked me from commenting or responding or doing anything but share posts from that page, but now it appears that I have been completely locked out. The blocking happened very recently, occurring only this month, which I thought was rather odd timing, as I hadn't even blogged about Fearless Leader since June 12. But maybe the admins are simply procrastinators.

Of course, they have every right to block anyone they want to block, and as I've noted previously, I can be rather annoying when trying to make or belabor a point, particularly points about scammers and grifters. But in this case, I suspect that something more than mere annoyance led to the blocking. I have to ask a largely rhetorical question I've asked before: what are Katie and the minions so afraid of?

Trudeau's fans (and Trudeau himself) are always talking about how brave and bold he is, how completely unafraid he is to face government tyranny and whatnot. But one little blogger, whose blog is read by almost no one... what threat am I? After all, I'm just one of those "rats in your head" that Kev has been warning the cult followers about for years. Or, to put it in other terms, I'm a "Suppressive Person."

Who, apparently, has to be suppressed.

(Right-wing) politix and Scamworld: more than ever, a match made in hell
Earlier in this post I mentioned a connection between Scamworld grifters such as Kevin Trudeau, and the rise of authoritarianism and fascism in America and other parts of the world. Notwithstanding the fact that Kevin has spent decades presenting himself as a fearless fighter for freedom and individuality, and against tyranny, his brand of hustle is actually taken from the propaganda playbooks of any number of historical and contemporary tyrants (and wannabe tyrants).

Over the years I have written many posts about the alliance of politics (mainly right-wing American politics) and Scamworld. In a September 2021 Whirled post titled Scamworld & politix: Eric Trump set to join alt-health/conspiranoid scammers in Nashville in October, one point I made was that the strengthening bond between alt-health hucksters and the American right is not only spreading misinformation that endangers public health, but is also endangering democracy. While Trudeau wasn't featured at the event discussed in this post, a couple of his alt-health/conspiracy-mongering/right-wing brothers-in-arms were, such as Mike "The Health Ranger" Adams.

Two of my original and most significant points of reference for the Scamworld/politix theme on this blog have been Kevin Trudeau and #NeverWasMyPresident Donald John Trump, for good reason. First off, the two have much in common, even down to a mutual disdain for "Mexicans" -- here's Trudeau, and here's Trump. As well, for years Trudeau expressed a fawning admiration for Trump, using that as a basis for unsuccessfully begging Trump to commute his sentence and pardon him.

All of which provided rich fodder for numerous blog posts. It wasn't long before I discovered that these posts had alienated a substantial base of my former readers who had been screwed to a greater or lesser degree by Trudeau's mega-scam the Global Information Network (GIN) and enthusiastically supported my endless critical posts about him -- but who turned out to be ardent Trump supporters, and were totally put off by my critical posts about Trump. This came out during the 2016 US presidential campaign, and I wrote about it in this October 2016 post, in which I pondered the curious fact that so many who had seen Trudeau's true colors seemed so blind to Trump's. I had come to realize that for many, their liberation from the KT/GIN delusion did not inoculate them against similar, or even worse, delusions.

It appears to me that these good ex-GINfolk simply cannot see that Donald J. Trump is an even worse -- and potentially more dangerous -- scammer than Trudeau ever could be (although granted, Trump and Trudeau have a few things in common). Though a few people have acknowledged that Trump is far from an ideal candidate, they insist that all of his shortcomings, wrongdoings, and deep character flaws pale in comparison to Clinton's alleged "life of crime."...

...None of this is really surprising, though. As my pal Salty Droid has both documented on his blog and has mentioned in private correspondence, quitting one manipulative scam or scammer doesn't cure one of the thinking pattern errors that got them sucked in in the first place. "Manipulation causes susceptibility to manipulation as a side effect," sez Salty. I know he's right, but I am still capable of being surprised by the phenomenon, especially when it occurs among folks whom I'd thought were friends, or at least allies.

But I digress. One of many examples, and a relatively recent one, of ruminations on the Trump-Trudeau connection, is a July 2021 post in which I compared Kevin's ridiculous narrative about the many sacrifices he had voluntarily and selflessly made in order to serve humanity; and the Trump crime family's equally ridiculous narrative about how they had voluntarily and selflessly sacrificed nearly everything in order to serve the American people. In both cases, the narratives owe their success and longevity to the support of various dodgy allies and a zealous fan base. I wrote:

None of these grifters could effectively spread their myths without the ready assistance of their respective armies of faithful enablers. Matter of fact, Trump and Trudeau share a significant fan base -- which is not surprising since the two inveterate hucksters have a lot in common.

And that brings me to a question that some may be pondering, and which I've actually been asked: why am I still going on and on about Kevin Trudeau after all these years? Isn't he kind of passe? Haven't I made the point, over and over, that he's a huckster? Can't we just move on? The simple answer to that has to do with the aforementioned point that Trudeau has so much in common with Trump, and that their respective and mutual fan bases are veering more and more towards existing in a universe of "alternative facts." In both cases, there's a big cult mentality going on. Trump is Trudeau, writ large, and while many of us may wish that both would just go away, that seems unlikely to happen any time soon. With Trudeau, the appeal to alt-reality may just mean that more people will get snookered out of their hard-earned money, to greater or lesser degrees. With Trump... well, as [the January 6, 2021] insurrection/day of rage demonstrated, those "alternative facts" -- and cult mentality -- could spell the death of American democracy.

Trump, unfortunately, is far from the only political figure threatening American democracy, as noted, among many other sources, in a July 2022 Brookings blog post.

One of the problems we have now is the rise of copycat candidates who parrot Trump’s moves and endorse his anti-democratic tactics. Possible presidential candidates Ron DeSantis, Ted Cruz, and Josh Hawley as well as dozens of congressional candidates spread the Big Lie about 2020 election fraud and some Republicans show a willingness to have electors chosen who do not respect the popular vote winner within particular states.

One of the worst things Trump has done is to show many other aspirants how to engage in power politics using unethical steps. Between his unorthodox behaviors challenging the legitimacy of the 2020 results and his continuing efforts to push Republicans in illiberal directions, he has become a role model for many candidates around the country. Rather than seeing Trump as a dangerous demagogue who threatens our democratic system, many Republican candidates are mimicking his tactics and pushing the country down the road towards illiberalism.

"Illiberalism?" Why mince words? Maybe a better word is "fascism." On the larger world stage, fascism and other forms of totalitarianism, both historical and contemporary, are built upon many of the same tactics used by the contemporary American right (or reich, as the case may be). Perhaps political philosopher and Holocaust survivor Hannah Arendt's 1951 work, The Origins of Totalitarianism, is worth a revisit. From a September 2019 liberalarts.org.uk piece that discusses this work:

Fake news, people versus elected officials, trashing of democracy, ridicule of truth, relativism of values, nationalism with its love of loyalty and oaths and its aesthetic of self-sacrifice and violence, the hatred of internationalism and its humanist liberal values, accusations of international (Jewish) conspiracies, charismatic malevolent leaders shunning accountability and saying whatever would be popular one day, only to be reversed the next day, and supporters who don’t care at all about the behaviour of their leaders. These were fascisms then. Are they also fascisms now?

Spoiler alert: Yep.

Masses of people succumb to fascism, without realizing what is happening, due to a combination of factors, including gullibility, cynicism, dissatisfaction with their lives, a desire to find someone or something to blame for their unhappiness, and a longing for a hero.

And these are precisely the factors exploited by skillful hucksters such as Kevin Trudeau, whose longtime ticket to riches has been the scapegoating of an amorphous enemy he has repeatedly referred to as "They," while painting himself as the white knight who rushes in with the life-changing, life-saving information that "They" don't want you to know.

But Kevin Trudeau is no hero, no white knight. At the time of his sentencing in March of 2014, the sentencing judge, Ronald Guzman, noted that since at least the age of 25, Trudeau "has attempted to cheat others for his own personal gain." And prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo that Trudeau was...

...an unrepentant, untiring, and uncontrollable huckster who has defrauded the unsuspecting for 30 years. He is the type of person the Court should expect to defraud his fellow inmates while in custody, and to continue to commit fraud into old age. He appears capable of nothing else.

That just about says it all.

And Trump? Like Kevin, he has mastered the art of the neverending grift. Kevin is mainly doing it these days through his proxies, who are constantly begging for money on Kevin's behalf, using the false narrative (or outrageous lie, if you prefer) of Kevin as the self-sacrificing hero/martyr who has risked life and limb for all of us, despite the forces of evil that are out to get him. (Of course, Kevin is directing all of these propaganda campaigns, and very likely is writing a lot of the copy himself.) And Trump is currently doing it through his PACs, mainly in the form of relentless, aggressive fundraising emails that use pretty much the same false narrative (or outrageous lie, if you prefer).

And apparently that strategy is working, for both of these craven grifters.

But... fascism? Isn't that carrying things a bit too far?
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.