Billionaire Scientologist/Scamworld couple Grant & Elena Cardone are raising money to pay Trump's $355 million fine

In yet another tawdry scene from the unholy marriage between (right-wing) politix and Scamworld, billionaire huckster/Scientologist Grant Cardone and his wife Elena are appealing to the Trumpcult to cover Trump's massive New York civil fraud fine.

While many lauded the $354.8 million judgment (plus approximately $100 million in interest) against #NeverWasMyPresident Donald John Trump in his New York civil fraud case, that development provided yet another splendid fundraising opportunity for him and the Trumpcult. This always seems to be the case whenever Trump has a legal setback.

Among the Trumpcult, the first out of the chute to make the news were prominent social media influencer/huckster/Scientologist Grant Cardone and his wife Elena of Floriduh (that's where their primary residence is, anyway), who are passionately and earnestly boosting the phony Trump-as-hero/martyr narrative that has snookered so many folks into forking over to support the Mango Mussolini. (Elena C is also involved in fundraising for election-denying loon Kari Lake.) On February 16, 2024, just after the news about the judgment broke, Elena started a GoFundMe page to get the rubes to pay Donny's yuuuge fine. The fundraising goal? $355 million big ones -- though apparently Trump is on his own with that $100 million in interest.

Never mind that Trump boasts he's a multi-billionaire, which means that he should have no problem paying that fine as well as other judgments against him. And never mind that the Cardones are billionaires too, and have no business soliciting regular folks, many of whom may be struggling to keep the lights on and food on the table, to give their hard-earned money to another alleged billionaire.

And also never mind that Trump's lawyers are, as expected, preparing to appeal the New York judgment, which may hinge on Trump's "there were no victims" defense. The argument goes that the loans were paid back, and the banks were sophisticated lenders instead of innocent rubes, and they knew darn well what they were getting into, and they made a tidy profit, and nobody was really hurt, and therefore all's right with the world. (Here are some reasons why that defense is bunk.)

At any rate, the appeals process could take more than a year. More than likely Trump will use an appeal bond, secured with his assets as collateral. This would entail Trump putting up a percentage of the judgement, and a third-party guarantor would be on the hook for the full amount, according to Joshua Naftalis, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice in New York. At the very least, Trump may be able to get the judgment significantly reduced.

In short, there's no guarantee that every dollar of that big fine will actually have to be paid. The point is that at the moment, nobody knows exactly how much Trump will ultimately have to pay on the New York civil fraud case (and on other judgments against him), or when he will have to pay it.

It's complicated, in other words.

But no scammer worth his or her salt ever let complicated reality get in the way of a good and simple grift. What the Cardones are doing is appealing directly to the great unwashed MAGA cult to donate every dollar possible, which the Cordones pinky-swear will be sent directly to the Trump Organization for the Great One's defense of "this ridiculous judgment." And oh, does Elena ever pour the histrionics on thick on the GoFundMe page:

My name is Elena Cardone and I am a wife of Grant Cardone, mother and an ardent supporter of American values and an advocate for justice, I stand unwaveringly with President Donald Trump in the face of what I see as unprecedented and unfair treatment by certain judicial elements in New York. The recent legal battles he faces are not just an attack on him, but an attack on the very ideals of fairness and due process that every American deserves. It's a moment that calls into question the balance of justice and the application of law, disproportionately aimed at silencing a voice that has been at the forefront of advocating for American strength, prosperity, and security.

In standing with Trump, we're upholding the cause of every business owner and entrepreneur who believes in the fight against a system that increasingly seeks to penalize dissent and curb our freedoms.

The fact that a business owner did a loan with a bank, never defaulted, nor missed a payment, pays back the loan with interest and caused no financial damage to anyone, yet, the government overreaches and slaps a business owner with a $355M ruling should terrify all business owners and entrepreneurs. Is this Government seizing assets? Seeking financial ruin?

This is more than a legal fund; it's a call to all businesses owners and entrepreneurs to rally in defense of all businesses and for man who has never hesitated to stand in defense of us.

This fundraiser, therefore, is not merely about raising the “ruling” amount. It's about making a stand. It's about showing that when one of us is targeted for championing the values that make America great, he does not stand alone. We stand with him, shoulder to shoulder, ready to support, defend, and fight back against a system that threatens to undermine the very foundations of our republic.

Now, more than ever, it's time for business owners and entrepreneurs to unite, to show our collective strength and resolve. Let's stand with Trump to ensure that justice prevails and that we continue to fight for a country that respects freedom, honors courage, and rewards the unwavering spirit of its people.

So the Cardones claim to be standing shoulder to shoulder with Trump, fighting back "against a system that threatens to undermine the very foundations of our republic?" Huh. Apparently they don't seem to be at all concerned about Trump and gang's serious and deadly threats to American democracy -- and last time I checked, democracy was also a pretty important foundation of our republic.

And what's this about Trump never hesitating to stand in defense of "all business owners and entrepreneurs?" It's true that he has been good to select business owners who were his buddies, as well as to large corporations). But overall Trump, who has a long and infamous history of stiffing small businesses and entrepreneurs, and whose tax cuts largely benefited huge wealthy corporations rather than small businesses, has never actually stood, or stood up, for anyone but Donald Trump. (Demagogic rhetoric at fascist pep rallies and reich-wing gatherings doesn't count; talk is cheap.)

When I started writing this post, the GoFundMe had raised more than $67,000 towards that $355M goal, and at the moment, the tally is nearly $138,000 -- and the donations keep pouring in. The "words of support" following the pitch are, for the most part, sickeningly culty praises for the Lard God Trump (with the NY AG and the judge cast as the Devils in the narrative), but there are, fortunately, some trolls as well. One cannot troll for free, however. You have to donate in order to be able to comment, and some, I am happy to say, have sacrificed a few bucks for the privilege of trolling. For instance, one woman donated $5 in order to say this:

Hi everyone, my name is Billie N*****. I am raising funds to prove that my grift is stronger than Donald Trump's. I have set a lofty goal of $355,000,000, but with your help, we will beat Donnie's numbers and prove ONCE AGAIN, that he will never be smarter, faster, nor better than ANY FEMALE EVER! It's a GRIFT, a GRIFT, and nothing, BUT the GRIFT, so help me, GOD! Donate here at my link above, and watch as I blow right past him. After all, how hard can it be to beat him?

There were a few other $5 donors who used more spicy language to describe the orange abomination. It's quite entertaining, and it's almost worth sifting through the worship and the groveling to find those kernels of truth. Even if the trolls' money goes into the same black hole that the supporters' cash does.
[Update, February 22, 2024: Unfortunately, it appears that commenting has been disallowed on the Cardones' GoFundMe page, and apparently all existing comments have been disappeared. At least I can't find them anymore, either on my mobile devices or my desktop computer. ~ CC]

Grifters who have each other's scaly backs
Grant Cardone himself has spoken up several times on Xitter about the judgment against Trump. For example, there's this February 17, 2023 post:

Regarding Trump $355M Judgement I have bought over $5,000,000,000 of real estate in my career… Every loan requires by law the lender get an independent appraisal, including an estimate of the property’s value. My estimate of value does not & cannot make for fraud.

Sure, Grant. In response to Cardone's Xitter post, a person named Mitch had a helpful suggestion.

so lend him the money if you and your wife trust him so much. he is suppose[d] to be a billionaire. so sure he will pay you back. go fund me is for health issues, homeless and poor to middle people in wealth. obviously you don't believe he would pay you back.

Good suggestion, Mitch. In any case, Cardone's passionate defense of Trump is to be expected, since Grant and Donny apparently have quite the sleazy bromance going on. From HuffPost, July 20, 2023:

In March 2022, businessman Grant Cardone stood onstage at his annual conference at the Diplomat Beach Resort in South Florida, preparing to introduce a special guest.

“The gentleman I’m about to bring to the circle right here is massively, massively successful,” he said, his voice reverberating through a room filled with thousands of his adoring fans.

As the crowd roared and Lee Greenwood’s song “God Bless the USA” blared across the sound system, former President Donald Trump emerged from a corner of the room and strode to center stage, spotlights and smoke machines erupting around him.

Trump, smiling, fist-bumped Cardone, who seemed uncharacteristically starstruck as the former president told him, “You have a great reputation.” He added that if Cardone ever went into politics, “You would automatically have my vote. I don’t care whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, you have my complete and total endorsement.”

That endorsement has been shared by millions of fans who eagerly follow Cardone’s advice; A-list celebrities like John Travolta, Tom Brady and Kevin Hart who routinely appear at his events; and finance websites like CNBC’s Make It and Forbes that tout him as an expert.

Ah, John Travolta, a fellow Scientologist (who nonetheless has shown recent signs of disillusionment with the evil cultchurch). And Tom Brady, a fellow huckster (as observed on this Whirled back in May of 2016). Turds of a feather...

Cardone's journey from minor scammer to major scammer (with some help from Scientology)
The key to Grant Cardone's success has been his social media skills, which he has leveraged to sell his "training" programs and real estate "investments" to his millions of devoted followers. As one of the world's leading "finfluencers" or financial influencers, he uses the classic Scamworld come-on of flaunting his opulent, ostentatious, celebrity-infested lifestyle while repeating the ancient Scamworld mantra: "And you can too!" From the HuffPost article cited above:

Cardone’s promise is simple: His fans, too, can have a slice of the high life, provided they attend his seminars to learn his sales techniques or invest money in his real estate company.

But as is always the case, sooner or later, with the and-you-can-too grifters, there have been some pesky legal problems as a result of some folks waking up and recognizing that they'd been had.

...lawsuits examined by HuffPost show that he’s been involved in a series of business disputes over the years and that people around him have been accused of fraud by federal authorities. His twin brother, Gary, who put up the seed money for Cardone’s booming real estate business, has been the target of Federal Trade Commission civil action, which alleges his company helped scammers evade credit card fraud alerts. The FTC is petitioning the court to close Gary Cardone’s business and order him to pay money to consumers impacted by his activities. (Gary Cardone did not respond to requests for comment.)

Court records from lawsuits involving Grant Cardone’s training programs include claims from former clients who say they were trapped into lengthy, inflexible contracts that they were unable to pay for or get out of.

The owner of an Ohio power-washing business claims he tried to cancel the firm’s $497-a-month contract after eight weeks but said he was unable to do so. An employee from Cardone’s training company stated they could only cancel after their contract was completely fulfilled, and the firm later sued for the remaining $16,401 of the contract. The case was settled.

Lisa Williams, the owner of Jubilee Family Chiropractic, a struggling family business in Virginia, signed up for a six-year training contract at $795 a month. A fan of Cardone, she claims she maxed out her credit cards to attend training sessions with him....

And then there's a class action lawsuit, filed in 2020, that alleges he used his mighty social media prowess to mislead investors with overblown promises of high returns. Natch, Cardone has denied the allegations, accusing his accusers of suing in order to "hold a company that is doing great things hostage." [There's more about this class action suit in the February 23, 2024 Whirled post. ~ CC]

Cardone is also accused of infusing Scientology teachings into his business methods. He settled a 2017 lawsuit filed by former employees, though the terms of the settlements haven't been made public. And although none of the settled or ongoing lawsuits have named Scientology as a co-defendant, a rep for the cultchurch wrote this to HuffPost:

The slanted and offensive allegations you have sent us, while mostly unsourced, from their tenor, appear to be lifted from a handful of anti-Scientology bigots who shriek at any successful Scientologist. The fact is there are many Scientologists and they are everywhere around the world. You can find them in their homes, at work and helping others in the community.”

And that, as you may know if you know even the basics about Scamworld and cults, is a variation on the standard reponse of both cults and scam artists to criticism: The critics are nothing more than jealous losers who hate success.

For his part, Cardone credits his involvement with Scientology with propelling him to new heights of success.

While Cardone’s training business empire was on the ascent, he was still intent on building something much bigger — and when he joined the Church of Scientology in the early 2000s, his path to wealth accelerated. When asked if he is still a Scientologist, Cardone did not respond. In its written response, the Church of Scientology stated: “While Mr. Cardone is undeniably a prominent parishioner, he holds no official nor unofficial position in the Church hierarchy and has no special ‘status.’”

You really should read the entire Huffpost article (here's that link again), because it provides the history of Grant Cardone's rise in both Scamworld and the Church of Scientology, and it details some of the ways he has tried to leverage his Scientology connections to enhance his own scampire.

Teach your children well...
Unfortunately, it appears that Grant and Elena are encouraging their fourteen-year-old daughter to carry on the scamily tradition. The young girl has made a few headlines for her Tik-Toks where she offers tips on how to become a millionaire before the age of twenty. She has outlined her own plans to do just that by working for her dad, apparently. From Unilad, January 18, 2024:

She said she works for her father, and is paid $4,000 to $5,000 a month. For doing what? Not quite sure, to be honest.

This hefty monthly sum then goes straight into real estate, and according to her own calculations, each year that money is doubled and tripled and will allow her to reach $1 million in the next six years.

Fortunately, not a whole lot of folks seem to be taking her seriously.

Rather than thank you messages for the pseudo financial wisdom, social media users were quick to dispute her method.

Many remarked that most teenagers don’t have access to jobs that merit $60,000 a year.

Others added that they also don’t have a luxury of being able to put all of their money into investments, with their hard earned cash more likely ending up in the pockets of landlords, utility companies, coffee chains, etc.

But apparently the youngster is learning from the best, so she may very well have a great grifting career ahead of her.

For now, her shameless parents are waving the Trump banner proudly, profiting from their promotion of Trump's hero/martyr mythology.

Another Scamworld parallel: Kevin Trudeau's ongoing grift
If you have been following this blog for any length of time, you very likely saw this bit coming a mile away. This is the part where once again, as I have done so many times before, I compare Donald Trump's hero/martyr shtick to that of serial scammer and convicted felon Kevin Trudeau, aka KT, aka Katie on this Whirled. (Katie, by the way, has been a devoted Trumpster for years, as have many of his followers.)

Like Trump, Trudeau has built an entire fundraising scampire around the lie that he is not just fighting for himself, but for each and every one of us, and that when "they" (the government, law enforcement, etc.) come for him, they are coming for us too. Like Trump, he is the mighty warrior who is standing between us and "them." And just like Trump, Kevin Trudeau has an army of sycophantic proxies who spread his message and endlessly fund-raise for him. People are still giving thousands of dollars a month to Kevin Trudeau, a known fraud, because he appeals to some of their basest emotions and because they believe his slick lies that he is looking out for them.

As I often like to say, Donald Trump is Kevin Trudeau, writ large, and conversely, Kevin Trudeau is Donald Trump, writ smaller. Again, turds of a feather...

By the way, Kevin has something in common with Grant Cardone (I mean besides Trumplove, and being an inveterate grifter who brags about his successful lifestyle): an abiding love for Scientology, which, like Cardone, he has infused in various ways into his businesses. Not only did he foist Scientology and Dianetics on his employees in the past, but just recently (January 29, 2024), his "Official Fan Club" page highlighted Speaking From Experience, a business book by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, as "the 1st book that Kevin Trudeau has all new staff read." As well, he borrowed heavily from Scientology indoctrination techniques to advance his mega-scam GIN (the Global Information Network).

While we're on the topic of Scientology, there have been some eyebrow-raising Trump-Scientology connections, as noted by The Daily Beast in the July 2020 article linked to in this sentence. And the Cardones aren't the only wealthy Scientologists who luv Trump; there's also another Florida Scientologist named Trish Duggan, who donated many millions of bucks to the Trump campaign in 2020, as well as in 2024 (though she and her fellow donors haven't been able to keep Trump's Save America Super PAC from running out of money). But Trump/Scientology is another rabbit hole, which you're welcome to explore to your heart's content. I don't want to get too far off topic.

And lest you think that I'm beginning to sound like one of the conspiranoid loons I'm always snarking about, I am not suggesting that there is some tightly woven conspiracy or collusion involving Trump/Trudeau/Scientology/the Cardones et al. I'm simply pointing out connections and common threads. For now, though, let's get back to the Cardone con, whose GFM page I just now checked again, and it's already approaching $167,000. Suckers!

How long can the Cardone GFM grift go on?
Some have suggested that the Cardone GoFundMe page violates GFM's terms of service, mentioning, for instance, that GoFundMe has rules against raising funds to pay criminal fines. But Trump's case is civil, not criminal, and so far GoFundMe hasn't taken the page down.

Even so, potential donors would be wise to question the Cardones' promises about the disposal of the funds. Until and unless the Cardones actually get nabbed for fraud, it looks like a win-win situation for them. As a writer on the National Zero blog put it on February 16, 2024:

In the first of what is sure to be many crowdfunding efforts to pay Donald Trump's $355 million judgment, Elena Cardone, the wife of wealth fund manager Grant Cardone–himself worth a reported $700 million who runs a website called 10xGrowthCon (c'mon people, the word "con" is right in the name)–wants everyday people to pay for Trump's malfeasance by setting up a site on GoFundMe.

"In standing with Trump, we're not just supporting an individual; we're upholding the cause of every patriot who believes in the fight against a system that increasingly seeks to penalize dissent and curb our freedoms," Cardone asserts defiantly. "This is more than a legal fund; it's a clarion call to all patriots to rally in defense of a man who has never hesitated to stand in defense of us." It's also a way to generate a fantastic mailing list of people who want to experience 10xGrowth.

Yes, there is that.

All of this puts me in mind of another Trump-related scam from a few years back, We Build The Wall, in which a few shameless Trumpsters, including the terminally repulsive Steve Bannon, suckered the rubes out of millions of bucks to go towards building Donnie's big Wall because the big bad government was refusing to fund it. That scheme did turn out to be a big fraud, with legal consequences.

As for the Cardones' GoFundMe grift, at this point, I am inclined to agree with one of the commenters on the National Zero post I linked to above. In response to the suggestion that folks should report the Cardone page to GFM for violation of TOS, one person wrote:

It's beautiful, but part of me does not want to interfere with the separation of fools and their money. Particularly since these monies are likely to go to GOP campaign funds if not diverted.

As for me, I'm finding it more and more difficult to sympathize with anyone who is willingly screwed by a grifter, whether that grifter is Grant Cardone, Kevin Trudeau, or Donald Trump.

The takeaway, once again: Caveat emptor. And if you want to save democracy in America, vote blue.

PS added on February 18, 2024: I checked the Cardones' GoFundMe grift page, and the donations now total more than $306,000.00. Granted, that's a long way from $355 million, but still. One of the people I follow on Xitter, Brian Kassenstein, posted about the grift page yesterday, writing:

A billionaire, Grant Cardone's wife, is raising $355,000,000.00 for another alleged Billionaire, via GoFundMe, because the one billionaire was found to have committed FRAUD.

So far hundreds of non-billionaires have donated money to the billionaire, who committed fraud, in order to help that billionaire pay off his fine, of which would indirectly go to the taxpayers of New York.

I'd rather light my money on fire. At least I'd get a few seconds of entertainment..

I'm just waiting for it to be shut down because it appears to violate Gofundme's rules.

I'm surprised these people have money left after all the NFTs and gold Trump coins they have purchased over the years.

Since the page remains up and running, I'm thinking that it will be allowed to stay up and running, most likely because it doesn't violate GFM's rules. Here is the link to GFM's terms of service, which may or may not be helpful to you if you're trying to figure out whether or not the Cardones' grift actually violates those terms.

Just for grins I copied and pasted the top 99 donations at the time, eliminating last names. I wonder how many of these folks who donated hundreds or thousands of dollars to help Trump are also bitching about how horrible the economy is under Biden, or are griping because food and gasoline prices are still too high. You can buy a lot of food and gas for $2,500. Just saying.

1. Aaron J.         $5,000
2. Anonymous         $2,500
3. Anonymous         $2,000
4. Anonymous         $2,000
5. Anonymous         $1,500
6. Stuart G.         $1,000
7. James W.         $1,000
8. James F.         $1,000
9. Anonymous         $1,000
10. margaret k.         $1,000
11. Edward L.         $1,000
12. Diana O.         $1,000
13. Michael D.         $1,000
14. Anonymous         $1,000
15. Anonymous         $1,000
16. Luke & Toni Ann R.         $1,000
17. joseph p.         $1,000
18. Anonymous         $1,000
19. Theresa K.         $1,000
20. Trey M.         $1,000
21. Anonymous         $500
22. Anonymous         $500
23. Jeffery R.         $500
24. Brook N.         $500
25. Anonymous         $500
26. Russell B.         $500
27. Brad M.         $500
28. Maria B.         $500
29. Anonymous         $500
30. Marie E.         $500
31. Glenn S.         $500
32. Anonymous         $500
33. Anonymous         $500
34. Scott B.         $500
35. ALICE A.         $500
36. William L.         $500
37. Anonymous         $500
38. Moon P.         $500
39. Don W.         $500
40. Anonymous         $500
41. Anonymous         $500
42. Gordon S.         $500
43. Anonymous         $500
44. Anonymous         $500
45. Anonymous         $500
46. Anonymous         $500
47. Eva P.         $500
48. Judy S.         $500
49. Javier R.         $500
50. Matthew I.         $500
51. Yvette B. G.         $500
52. Anonymous         $500
53. Yvette G.         $500
54. Anonymous         $500
55. Anonymous         $500
56. Anonymous         $500
57. Zachary T.         $500
58. Anonymous         $500
59. Anonymous         $500
60. Brock B.         $500
61. Anonymous         $500
62. Bethny H.         $500
63. Joseph M.         $500
64. brian N.         $500
65. Anonymous         $500
66. Donna I.         $500
67. Richard A.         $500
68. Angela G.         $500
69. Anonymous         $500
70. Anonymous         $500
71. Jay C.         $500
72. Barry C.         $500
73. Lisa C.         $500
74. Anonymous         $400
75. Brandy M.         $400
76. David B.         $360
77. Terence M.         $355
78. Anonymous         $355
79. Erick G.         $333
80. Anonymous         $300
81. Anonymous         $300
82. Lance L.         $300
83. KEVIN F.         $300
84. Anonymous         $300
85. margaret k.         $300
86. Sophia M.         $300
87. Anonymous         $300
88. Cambridge C.         $300
89. Kenton A.         $275
90. Anonymous         $253
91. Ronald L.         $250
92. Donna M.         $250
93. Anonymous         $250
94. Anonymous         $250
95. Anonymous         $250
96. Karla H.         $250
97. Anonymous         $250
98. T E         $250
99. Anonymous         $250 

Update/addendum, February 22, 2024
The bucks keep coming in to the Cardones' gift page; when I checked just now the total was approaching $975,000.00, and it's still steadily climbing. As of a couple of days ago, the top donation was an anonymous gift of ten grand. $975k is still a long way from $355 million, but there's no indication that GoFundMe has any intention of taking the page down any time soon, and apparently there's no deadline for reaching the goal, so it may stay up indefinitely.

Meanwhile, Elena Cardone has added a few paragraphs to her original pity-the-poor-billionaire-business-owner screed:

Given the circumstances, my husband and I have also now decided to cancel all future events in NY and halt all our real estate ventures there. I believe NY is not safe nor a place to conduct business at this time.

Thank you to all who are showing support. We ARE standing for what’s right. We ARE being seen and heard.

My lawyers are diligently working to ensure the funds are utilized properly.

Thank you for Standing With Trump, and thank you for Standing for This Country.

This would be merely funny if not for the fact that so many dimwits believe it. Anyone who is Standing With Trump is, undoubtedly, Standing With Trump, but is emphatically not Standing for This Country and is certainly not standing up for what's right. Elena is either gaslighting, or she is willfully blind to the grave danger Trump poses for American (and world) democracy.

As for the Cardones boycotting New York -- wow, what a devastating blow to a state (and city) that have already been felled by the latest stupid MAGAtrucker boycott.

Another update, February 23, 2024:
The GoFundMe sucker fund total has now exceeded $1 million, and Elena Cardone added an extended Update about this milestone to to her original begging-for-bucks missive. She also took time to assure donors that the funds are really, really, really going to be used only as intended, i.e., "to cover fines related to the New York civil fraud case, its appeal, and any related expenses." Hmmm... "any related expenses" could cover, well, just about anything.

And there's also this: "We are currently in communication with President Donald Trump's team to ensure that he can and will accept the funds raised. It's crucial that we navigate this process carefully and legally, and we appreciate your patience as we work through the details."

So, if it's determined that Trump can't or won't accept the funds, will everyone who contributed get a refund? Elena pledges "transparency," but I'm thinking that with hucksters, particularly Trump-aligned hucksters, the use of the word "transparency" could be like Vizzini's use of "inconceivable" in the movie The Princess Bride.

This post has been updated and amended several times since its original publication on February 17, 2024. ~CC

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.

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.