Gratitude Day, 2020

I've been distracted with numerous matters of consequence for the past few weeks, as sometimes happens, but I have not abandoned my Whirled. As the holiday most folks in the US celebrate as Thanksgiving winds down, I know I have a lot to be thankful for, not the least of which is the defeat of #NotMyPresident Donald John Trump.

This is hardly a neat and tidy ending; as I like to say on this blog, in politix, as in Scamworld, there are no neat and tidy endings. Apart from Trump's obstinate unwillingness to concede, and his ludicrous but potentially dangerous legal battles to overturn the election results, Trumpism has left a big ugly stain on America (and the world, for that matter). Even so, I have more hope than I've had in a long, long time for some promising new beginnings.
 
At any rate, I will be back soon: I haven't forgotten my commitments. I hope your holiday, if you celebrated it, was as good as a holiday could possibly have been in this horrid train wreck of a year. If you are grieving for lost loved ones, I wish you peace and strength and comfort.

May there be better times ahead.

Wead it and reap: selfish-help author/Christian fundie/right-wing political hack pens new book that kisses some yuuuuge orange butt

It isn't every day that politix, Scamworld, and the modern-day theocracy converge on this Whirled. This is one of those daze.

The convergence comes in the form of some very good news for Donald John Trump devotees who are disgusted by the spate of anti-Trump books that have been published since their Mad King ascended the throne. Selfish-help author Doug Wead, who has deep ties to both Amway and hypoChristian fundamentalism (more on that below), as well as to right-wing politix, is set to release a new sure-to-be-a-bestseller book on November 26 titled, Inside Trump's White House: The Real Story of His Presidency.

Apparently this is one of the boldest political books ever written, or at least the boldest book ever written about Trump, because it doesn't rely on "anonymous sources." From the promo blurb on the book's Amazon page:

After dozens of books and articles by anonymous sources, here is finally a history of the Trump White House with the President and his staff talking openly, on the record.

In Inside Trump's White House, Doug Wead offers a sweeping, eloquent history of President Donald J. Trump's first years in office, covering everything from election night to the news of today. The book will include never-before-reported stories and scoops, including how President Trump turned around the American economy, how he "never complains and never explains," and how his actions sometimes lead to misunderstandings with the media and the public. It also includes exclusive interviews with the Trump family about the Mueller report, and narrates their reactions when the report was finally released.

Contains Interviews with the President in the Oval Office, chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, Jared and Ivanka Kushner, Donald Trump, Jr., Eric and Lara Trump, and White House insiders.

Color me impressed! The Trump family and Trump's most loyal minions are willing to go on the record about how wonderful Trump is and how much he has accomplished and how wrong all of the critics are about this deeply misunderstood man. What bold risks they are taking to get the true story out to the public, as opposed to those off-the-record cowards and anon sources who had nothing more to worry about than having their careers wrecked, their lives ruined, and their physical safety threatened by vengeful Trumps or egregiously offended Trumpanzees.

But let's look more closely at that claim, quoted in the promo blurb above, that Donald Trump "never complains and never explains." Never complains, huh? Hey, Doug, have you forgotten that Trump is constantly ranting and raving at his fascist rallies, or rage-tweeting, or angrily shouting about something or other during those impromptu press ops just before he boards a helicopter? Even before he was elected he'd become notorious for griping about being treated unfairly.

And Donald Trump "never explains?" More than any other president in recent memory, he spends more time "explaining," in the form of rationalizing and defending, his goofy words and reckless or ill-advised actions, and of course defending himself from his many critics. He even defended the size of his penis on national TV, back during the 2016 campaign.
 
Among other revelations in Doug Wead's new book, as reported today in Axios, is that murderous North Korean despot Kim Jong-Un actually views Trump as a father figure. Apparently Wead got that particular tidbit from noted psychology expert Jared Kushner, who reportedly told Wead: "It's a father thing... You can see from these letters that Kim wants to be friends with Trump, but his father told him never to give up the weapons. That's his only security. Trump is like a new father figure. So, it is not an easy transition."

All righty, then!

Wead was apparently allowed to read several of the letters exchanged between Kim and Donnie, and in one of them Kim addressed Trump as, "Your Excellency." My first thought was that this is just Kim trolling, and being passive-aggressive, but Wead seems to believe otherwise.

Ahead of his latest book's release, the author himself weighed in on Fox News.

What I discovered inside the Trump bubble was quite different from what had been reported. No, Melania and Donald were not estranged, they were tender lovers, who playfully teased each other. On almost any subject -- North Korea, China, Mueller -- the president brought up her name.

Publicly, the whole family talks about what a privilege it is to serve the country, but privately they have no illusions about the horror they are going through. The president sometimes eases the tension by teasing the first lady, saying, sarcastically, with puffed up importance, “Melania, honey, look at this incredible journey I have brought you on.”

“It’s like a joke between them,” Lara Trump told me. “Everyone is attacking all of us and she’s smeared for no reason other than pure jealousy and he says, ‘Hon, isn’t this amazing?’

“And she’s like, ‘Oh yeah, thank you so much.’ “It’s hilarious. I love it.”

In other words, "I REALLY DON'T CARE. DO U?"

And later in Wead's Fox op-ed, there's this...

Donald Trump is the sixth president I have interviewed and I came away impressed. Some will say that he is only lucky. He was lucky to win the nomination and the election. He was lucky to see what every great economist in the world had missed about the GDP, lucky at finding jobs that no one else could find, lucky at bringing back hostages that other presidents had left languishing in foreign prisons, lucky at achieving energy independence, lucky at defeating ISIS so easily.

Trump is, arguably, the first president in 40 years to avoid starting a hot war. You can say he is lucky. I say he is great.

Oh, yes. Herr Twitler did indeed win the election... and he bested the world's greatest economists in figuring out how to grow the GDP... and he created jobs "that no one else could find" (and here's another link about that)... and he is absolutely the greatest hostage negotiator ever, in contrast to Obama, who was a total do-nothing... and he almost single-handedly achieved US energy independence... and of course we all know that his defeat of ISIS was easy-peasy.

And good for Trump for being "arguably the first president in 40 years to avoid starting a hot war," unlike that warmonger Obama, who almost got us into a hot war with North Korea. (Trump prefers trade wars, which he has assured us are easily winnable. Not to mention his love of dick wars, which of course bolsters America's standing in the eyes of the rest of the world. Not that the rest of the world's opinion matters, of course!)

But seriously now. Wead hasn't merely kissed the Mad King's ass; he has opened wide and swallowed it whole.

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Long-time Whirled visitors with especially long memories may recall that we met Doug Wead briefly on this blog eleven years ago, when I opened one of my posts about Scamworld elder statesman Bob Proctor with a quotation from Wead, praising Proctor as a "master thinker."

“Zig Ziglar may be the master motivator, Mark Victor Hansen and Jack Canfield of Chicken Soup for the Soul, the master story tellers; Anthony Robbins may be the guru of personal development, but Bob Proctor is the master thinker. When it comes to systemizing life, no one can touch him.”
~ Attributed (by Bob Proctor) to Doug Wead, former Special Assistant to the President of the United States


I've known for a long time that Scientist Bob Proctor is a deep thinker, but reading the above quotation from author, philanthropist and former Diamond-level Amway salesman Doug Wead just confirms it. "Well, gee, Cosmic Connie, is Wead really a reliable source?" you may be asking. To which I can only respond, "If you can't trust a person who betrayed the trust of a future President of the US by secretly recording conversations and then publishing them, whom can you trust?"

And that last sentence may bring up some older memories still, of the time when Doug Wead secretly taped then-Texas governor George W. Bush for three years without Bush's knowledge or permission. Previously Wead had taped the Bush family with their knowledge and permission, in the service of writing a very flattering book about the Bushes, which was based largely on these taped conversations and was published in 1988. But the seekrit taping took place later, between 1997 and 2000. From Wikipedia:

The release prompted some hostility from members of Bush's inner circle: Bush's wife, Laura Bush, said in an interview, "I don't know if I'd use the word 'betrayed,' but I think it's a little bit awkward for sure"; while Bush evangelical ally James Dobson said he was "shocked by [Wead's] breach of trust". Bush himself did not comment.^[16] The tapes' release also provoked negative reaction from some commentators, such as Bill Press, who called Wead "scum", and Bill O'Reilly, who called Wead "the lowest form of debris in the country."^[17]

You might think that when a theocrat like James Dobson accuses someone of engaging in a "breach of trust," and a right-wing darling such as Bill O'Reilly calls him "the lowest form of debris," that person's career as a sycophant of right-wing royalty would be doomed. You might assume he would at least be tempted to hang his head in shame and just go away quietly.

But Wead is from Scamworld, and "shame" simply isn't in the Scamworld purview. Wead continued cranking out books, including a political hack job called, Game of Thorns: The Inside Story of Hillary Clinton's Failed Campaign and Donald Trump's Winning Strategy, which purported to be the never-before-told inside story of what really happened in the 2016 US presidential election. On Amazon the book seems to have received overwhelmingly positive reviews, but as is often the case, it is the negative ones that are the most revealing, such as this one:

Cornelius C. Walsh
1.0 out of 5 stars
If you hate Hillary, You'll Love ThisJuly 24, 2017
Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase
Same old, same old. Didn't get more than 20 pages in as the background focused on old, old anti-Clinton issues and very little on events/issues related to contemporary and election related issues. Great for Clinton haters but really not what I was looking for.

But clearly, it was what the Trump devotees, who almost without exception are Clinton haters as well, were looking for.

If you want additional background on Doug Wead's evange-a-scam creds, as well as his past forays into politix, you'll find plenty in this February 2005 piece from the (sadly now-defunct) Village Voice. From that piece:

Unless you were an Amwayer, you wouldn’t know that Lennon Ledbetter, a tall young man in a dark suit who served as the emcee of Wead’s campaign kickoff rally, was one of Wead’s Amway business associates in Arizona. Or that Wead campaign aide Billy Childers, who introduced Ledbetter, is the son of a prominent Amway friend of Wead’s who lives in North Carolina.

More important, you wouldn’t know that John Godzich, who runs an Amway-like organization in France and also builds American-style houses there, is someone Doug Wead met years ago through Amway, and that Godzich, himself a newcomer to Arizona, is a major source of money for Doug Wead’s political ventures—much to the ire of some Arizona Republicans. You wouldn’t know that Godzich is the older brother of Pastor Leo Godzich, the leader of the drive against Phoenix’s proposed gay-rights ordinance and associate pastor at one of America’s largest churches, Phoenix First Assembly of God, whose pastor is Tommy Barnett. This business of clues has been used by Doug Wead before. During the 1980 presidential campaign, he wrote a quickie book entitled Reagan in Pursuit of the Presidency. Timed for publication just before the GOP National Convention, it was a campaign-trail journal capped by a Reagan campaign speech before a wildly cheering crowd in Charlotte, North Carolina. Doug Wead himself introduced Reagan to the crowd. There were countless standing ovations. At one point during Reagan’s speech, the assembled masses erupted into “God Bless America.” Must have been quite a speech, right? Not necessarily. If you were an Amwayer reading the book, however, you knew exactly what was going on. Reagan was at an Amway rally, where practically everybody gets standing ovations.

For that matter, in an April 2013 Whirled post about serial scammer and ex-Amway star Kevin Trudeau's bankruptcy, I cited a 2004 opinion piece linking Amway, Republicans and That Old Time Religion. Under the sub-head, "The Bush Family & Religious Heathens," the author wrote:

Several members of the media have looked into the relationship between the two Bush Presidencies and members of the extreme Religious Right Wing. After reading up on that gang, the only thing I know for sure, is that there is not a single honest person in the whole bunch.

First off, let's take a look at evangelist Doug Wead, a divorced Baptist Minister, and former Diamond distributor, who is still a regular speaker at Amway conventions

Wead was the first President Bush's liaison to the Christian Right and he later served as Special Assistant to the President in the first Bush White House. Time magazine referred to him as "the man who coined the phrase the compassionate conservative." ...

...At one time, Wead and his ex-wife Gloria, were both Diamond distributors, sponsored by Dexter and Birdie Yager. Wead earned large sums of money by speaking at Amway functions throughout the Yager organization.

Wead and another kingpin, Jean Godzich, eventually branched out and set up an Amway in France. In 1986, the French government began investigating it and decided the company was a dangerous mind-control cult, and a fraudulent business. Amway France terminated the distributorship of Godzich, from whose group most of the complaints had originated.

So what do Wead and Godzich do next? They set up a new MLM in France, called Groupement or GEPM. Its product line consisted of Amway products, its business structure was identical to Amway France, and its cultic activities were just as blatant as they were in the first operation.

After receiving numerous complaints about GEPM, French authorities moved in to shut it down, but this time it issued criminal arrest warrants, 13 for the company’s distributors, and 2 for Godzich and Wead. Godzich took all the cash and fled the country and Wead never returned to France.

This man is the same Doug Wead, who 2 years later, would become a White House Aide to the first President Bush, and spiritual adviser to the second. God help us!!!

God-if-there-is-one help us indeed. All I'm really trying to say here is, if you insist on reading Doug Wead's Trump book, go ahead. Let me know what you think about it, positive or negative; my blog is always open to comments. But even if you're a Trump fan, you might consider the possibility that Wead, like the principal subject of his book, is not exactly what the journalists would call, if you'll pardon the word, an unimpeachable source.

Related on this Whirled:

• November 2016 -- More about Scamworld, Amway, and Trump: Politix and Scamworld on an extended honeymoon
• May 2016 -- When it comes to serial scamming, Wead and Trump are turds of a feather: Donald Trump's Scamworld playbook isn't unique
• December 2013: More about the destructive and cultic aspects of multi-level marketing (MLM) schemes: from December 2013 -- Tin Promises: How MLMs Can Tear Lives Apart, Part 1 of 2 (link to Part 2 is included)

* * * * *

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Screen grabs indicate business as usual in Scamworld

It could be said that screenshots are the last refuge of the lazy, and I wouldn't argue with that, having been lazy indeed this month, at least blogging-wise. But I refuse to let the month of September slip away without posting anything, so here, just for the sake of saying that I posted something, are a few screen shots from the Facebook pages of various Whirled subjects. 

Kevin can wait
As you probably know, a frequent snarget on this Whirled over the years, serial scammer Kevin Trudeau (aka KT, aka Katie), is currently serving a ten-year sentence in a (relatively cushy) federal prison camp, FPC Montgomery, Alabama. One of Katie's long-time friends and co-scammers was Mary Miller of the Gentle Wind Project and later of I Ching Systems, whom I wrote about on this November 2014 blog post; see under "What's that smell? It's Mary Milker passing her 'gentle wind' through Scamworld." Mary was a big promoter of Katie's scams, including and especially his mega-scam GIN (the Global Information Network), before he went to prison. Afterwards she was known to visit him in the clink and then write glowingly of those visits on his Facebook page.

Alas, Mary left the planet in late 2017 (and was duly mourned by her fellow scammers, such as the Morters, who are also long-time Trudeau buds). But not to worry: one of her long-time partners, Shelly Miller, also of I Ching Systems, has taken up the mantle of shilling for Katie. She visited him at sleep-away camp last month and shared her experience on Facebook on August 25. Like Mary, Shelly is shamelessly pushing the narrative that Katie is actually delighted with his incarceration situation and that he has Something Really Big in store for the world.

Kevin and I talked about his vision for the future. And as you would expect, it’s AMAZING. It’s perfect, it’s phenomenal, it’s gigantic. As Kevin was describing his vision to me, what I saw was a coming together of all the separate paths he has walked during his life up to this moment. All roads have led him to this exact point — to this exact vision. I suspect that much of the last few years have been Kevin pulling together his vision and the personal resources he will need to accomplish his goal.

 And make no mistake — Kevin will most definitely accomplish his goal. He will bring his vision out into the world and make it happen. Kevin is one of only a handful of people who are truly able to change the world — and for the better — who can accomplish whatever they set out to do. His next chapter will be his best yet — so standby!

I can only imagine what sorts of McMiracles Saint Kevin has in the works. All I can say is, hold on to your wallet.

Home wreck-onomics tip: if you can't stand the heat, stay in the kitchen and keep on bitchin' 
Another serial huckster and frequent Whirled snarget (who is also a Kevin Trudeau buddy, or used to be, anyway -- and had the pics to prove it) is Joe "Mr. Fire" Vitale, whom I most recently wrote about in reference to his pending divorce from Nerissa Oden, and his decision to cast his lot with New-Wage dilettante (and apparent home-wrecker and gold-digger) Lisa Winston. I'll be the first to admit that the snark factor and the gossip dial were turned way up in that two-part post, one result being that Lisa blocked me from her main Facebook page. But some stories deserve extra snark and gossip, and notwithstanding the block, I got hold of this September 24 screen shot of a post by Lisa, which was also shared by Joe on his timeline. If I'm reading between the lines correctly, Lisa (and probably Joe) have been getting some flak for the way they've been carrying on.

Of course there is always the possibility that Lisa was referring to someone else when she wrote:

I am saddened that Facebook has become a platform for toxic people's smear campaigns in relationship breakups... They are all about punishment because they didn't get their way and of course, they never take responsibility for their part in the breakup...

But I rather think this reads as if written by someone who is trying to avoid taking responsibility herself. 

Take up the white man's bourbon...
Finally, it's been a while since I blogged about one of the stupidest and most evil men in Scamworld, fake doctor Leonard Coldwell, because frankly I got bored with him, and he has spent the past few years scamming mostly in his native Germany rather than in the US. But he still spends time and money Stateside too, and like most stupid scammers he's still bragging about his material wealth. These days he seems to be hanging his hat, or more accurately guzzling his bourbon, in Milledgeville, Georgia. This little pic should give you an idea of how he spends some of the money that some suckers are apparently still giving him: stocking up "Dr C's Bourbon Room in the Coldwell Mansion." 

If I had a room like that the shelves would be filled with books, but hey, that's just me.

Given all of the madness swirling about in the larger world, with new and increasingly unpleasant surprises popping up on a daily basis, I suppose there's something almost reassuring in knowing that Scamworld and the scammers who live there remain as predictable as ever. I'll be back soon with more substantial fare... but in the meantime, Shanah Tovah to all who are celebrating the New Year.

Colleen Conaway: nine years after

July 25 is an easy day for me to remember, for several reasons. Some of these are happy reasons: It's my sister's birthday (Happy Birthday, Barb!), and it's the wedding anniversary of my friend Marie, a Colorado attorney and writer, whom I hope someday to meet in person.

But it's also a memorable day for unhappy reasons. For one, the summer meeting of the Scamworld cartel, the Transformational Leadership Council (aka the Transformational Leadership Council...of Death), always occurs around July 25. This year's summer meeting begins today and goes through the 29th. At the moment I can't tell you where it's taking place; on their public web site the TLC is always very cagey about the location until after the fact. But in the past they've held their seekrit klub meetings in places as diverse as Hawaii, Costa Rica, St. Martin, and Croatia.

Though no longer listed as a member, or even mentioned, on their web site, convicted killer James Arthur "Death" Ray was a founding member of the TLC. And this brings us to the second and most unhappy reason I remember July 25: it was on this day in 2009 that one of Ray's most faithful followers, Colleen Conaway, jumped to her death from the third-floor balcony of a San Diego shopping mall during one of Ray's "wealth creation" manipulation weekends. If you follow the link in the previous sentence, you'll find some posts I've written on past anniversaries. And in fact the graphic on today's post is just a repeat of the one I created for last year's anniversary post.

But I've only covered the matter superficially; as I've noted in previous posts, some of my fellow bloggers have written in much more depth about the tragic story of Colleen, who had no known history of depression or suicidal tendencies. For instance, here's my pal Yakaru, writing on the third anniversary of Colleen's death.

Not every “self help” teacher shares Ray’s dangerous combination of stupidity and sadism, but it’s a slick and ruthless system that has been constructed and refined over decades. Every possible devious sales technique has been worked into these routines.

Colleen walked into this trap, hoping to learn how to fulfill her dreams and get the best out of herself. Once she had committed herself to Ray’s program and handed over her money to him, he had immense power over her: she would have felt he held the key to her dreams and hopes.

In essence, James Ray stole her dreams and then set about selling them back to her at the highest possible price.

Also cited in Yak's blog post is another excellent post by Salty Droid, written in 2009.

After Colleen’s death Lynn [Colleen's sister] found that she had been filling out 3x5 cards with what looked like James Ray’s sayings or directives. They were all over Colleen’s house :: Hundreds of them :: Along with spiral notebooks full of similar gibberish. Colleen had been directed to keep a list of her ‘old limiting views’ and her new ‘harmonic views.’ Lynn sounded anguished recalling her feelings at seeing that Colleen had lined though many of the values that 2008 Colleen would have treasured. Scratching off pieces of herself :: one at time :: replaced with empty lies.

Nine years later, Death Ray is still struggling to make a Scamworld comeback (as recently mentioned again on this Whirled), years after being released from his far-too-brief prison sentence for the deaths of three of his other followers, James Shore, Kirby Brown, and Liz Neuman, in Sedona, Arizona a few months after Colleen's death.

Given what we've learned about Death Ray in the years since the 2009 atrocities, it isn't an exaggeration to call him a cult leader. And cults, as we know, can be very dangerous, causing irreparable emotional harm, injury, or even death to their followers.
 
Unfortunately, cults are not limited to the selfish-help/McSpirituality/New-Wage industry -- a fact that is becoming ever more apparent as America morphs into Trumpistan.

About a month ago, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) complained that too much of today’s Republican Party has found itself in “a cult-like situation as it relates to a president.” Soon after, Donald Trump Jr. appeared on Fox News and was surprisingly reluctant to reject the criticism.

“You know what,” the president’s adult son said, “if it’s a cult, it’s because they like what my father is doing.”

One of the problems with cults, however, is that its leaders tell its followers to ignore external sources of information – because in order for the scheme to work, the leaders must be seen as the sole authority for truth.

As it is in Scamworld, so it is in politix, and the line between the two is becoming ever more blurred.

My heart goes out to the family and friends who loved Colleen Conaway. Never forget.

* * * * *

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Uncle Scam uses Trump U-like 'persuasion" tactics on delinquent taxpayers

Sigh... once again we meet at the intersection of politix and Scamworld. A few days ago Salon.com ran a piece about the failings of the Trump administration's privatized delinquent income tax collection scheme. Unfortunately the private debt collection companies to whom the IRS outsourced have, thus far, cost the government millions more than they've brought in. And they have targeted the most vulnerable taxpayers with sleazy Scamworld ploys.

It's only fair to note, before we go any further, that the use of outside contractors to go after delinquent taxpayers is not new and has been tried before (and has failed). As well, it has received support on both sides of the aisle -- and shame on every lawmaker, Republican or Democrat, who ever voted in favor of such a scheme. The point here is that the revival last year of this method of collecting delinquent taxes, which was part of the Trump administration's push to privatize tax collection, would seem to fly in the face of Trump's own man-of-the-people shtick, particularly regarding his previously expressed concerns for the tribulations of the over-taxed middle class.

The use of private for-profit thumbscrew operators is all in the service of that right-wing mantra, "smaller government," of course, and is also in keeping with the practice of awarding lucrative contracts to private companies. Win-win, if you're an oligarch or a friend of one. From the Salon.com article:

Under the terms of their contract with the IRS, the debt-collection outfits receive a 25 percent commission on whatever they collect. The four companies are CBE Group, ConServe [aptly named ~ CC], Performant Recovery and Pioneer. The IRS is owed hundreds of billions in past-due taxes.

Outsourcing debt collection also allows for sleazier collection tactics than IRS agents have traditionally been allowed to employ. For one thing, the privateers are allowed carte blanche to contact delinquent taxpayers by phone. While the IRS is busily warning consumers about tax-collection phone scams, the private debt collectors are employing tactics that are very similar to those of the scammers the IRS warns about. This of course leaves the door wide open to actual scammers who are working only for themselves. To help you distinguish between legal and illegal collection scams, the IRS offers this advice, which may or may not be helpful in determining if that caller or in-person visitor is legit or not.

In any case, what really struck my attention as fodder for this Whirled was this bit regarding the private debt collectors' m.o.:

The call scripts suggested that taxpayers should raid their 401(k) retirement funds, ask their employer for a loan, or put their tax debt on a credit card. In the case of an early withdrawal from a 401(k), the taxpayer could actually incur an additional federal tax liability in an effort to resolve back taxes.

That reads just like it's taken straight from the Scamworld playbook, doesn't it? Donnie John's Trump U hucksters used these ploys, as did, for that matter, the aggressive pushers of imprisoned serial scammer Kevin Trudeau's Global Information Network (GIN) MLM scheme, and its offshoots, back in the day. As have numerous other fraudsters...

Of course I understand that there is a fundamental difference between running a scam and making an attempt to collect a debt that is legitimately owed. If you're under legal obligation to pay a tax and you don't, there are consequences. But the point here is that private debt collectors, hired by a government agency, are being given free rein to mislead and harass people, in many cases making an already bad situation much worse, and that some of the strategies these collectors use are not only unethical, but may be only marginally legal -- and that these coercive-persuasion strategies are the same ones used by scammers to manipulate their marks into emptying their bank accounts.
 
One of my heroes, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), has (along with several other Democratic notables) been on the private tax collection issue for over a year now, having written to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) about those phone scripts. I applaud Senator Warren. She is actually looking out for the well being of American taxpayers while the "man of the people," the Mad King, continues to smear her with his "Pocahontas" taunts, as he did yet again during the word salad with Russian dressing that he served up in Montana just the other evening. Elizabeth Warren's DNA is truly a non-issue in the larger scheme of things; there's no evidence that she ever exploited her possible Indian heritage in any substantial way, and even a DNA test would most likely be inconclusive. Not that this will make any difference at all to the mindlessly cheering redcaps who attend Trump's all-too-frequent pep rallies/worship services.

Nina Olson, the IRS' national taxpayer advocate, said that the private contractors have targeted lower-income taxpayers into getting locked into repayment plans that they won't be able to maintain. As a consequence, the most financially vulnerable taxpayers are unable to pay for things they need; they can't meet their basic living expenses.

If Trump truly wanted to do something good for the average American taxpayer, he would have pushed for true tax reform that included substantially smaller tax cuts for the wealthy than that train wreck he pushed and signed off on last year, substantially larger tax cuts for the rest of us, and while he was at it, one-time amnesty for the millions of middle-class and marginally middle-class who are currently struggling to pay their delinquent taxes. But don't look for any of that any time soon. Instead I think we can expect more of the same from the Scammer In Chief. It may be only a matter of time before we see the revival of actual debtors' prisons -- private ones, ones, of course.

* * * * *

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The Only Answer To ® Recycled Cancer Misinformation & Relentless Self-Promotion

In 2008, Leonard Coldwell -- fake doctor, cancer quack and at that time an enthusiastic cohort of currently imprisoned serial scammer Kevin Trudeau -- vanity-published a book called Instinct Based Medicine, a rambling, redundant collection of medical misinformation and long rants against the medical profession (some of which were justified but most of which were self-serving distortions). The whole thing was framed around Coldwell's dramatic narrative of his life as a Brave Maverick Doctor, and the text was peppered with relentless promotions for his and some of his buddies' frauducts and flopportunities.

A year or so later, as Trudeau's big scam the Global Information Network, or GIN, was taking off and Coldwell was reaping the benefits as a featured speaker and owner of an unearned* downline in GIN's multi-level marketing scheme, he repackaged Instinct Based Medicine as The Only Answer to Cancer. This newer book used much of the same material that was in the previous work but substituted endorsements and testimonials from folks with whom he'd had a falling-out with praise from some current-at-the-time buddies, and there were new and more dramatic details in his Brave Maverick Doctor and miracle-healer narrative. (For instance, in the newer book he added that he had cured his mommy of Hepatitis C when he was a mere youth, in addition to curing her of cirrhosis of the liver and liver cancer. There was no mention of Hep C in the older book. In any case, Hep C hadn't even been identified by medical science yet at the time he supposedly "cured" her.)

Coldwell and Trudeau divorced in 2012 when Trudeau kicked Coldwell out of GIN, and since then Coldwell has spent a great deal of time bad-mouthing Trudeau (justifiably) while conveniently failing to acknowledge his own complicity in Trudeau's scams. But most of his time and energy over the past five years have been occupied trying to regain some traction in Scamworld after no longer having the much more popular Kevin Trudeau's teat to suck on.

I bought both Instinct Based Medicine and The Only Answer to Cancer on the used-book marketplace for cheap. But now it looks like I'm going to have to make yet a third investment, eventually, because Lenny is currently poised to release his newest English-language work, the long-awaited The ONLY Cancer Patient Cure, which you can now pre-order for $19.99 USD plus shipping and handling, and you can only hope that the book eventually shows up at your door some time in September.

The arrangement of text on the front cover makes it appear that the title of the book is The Only Answer To^® The ONLY Cancer Patient Cure, a title as mangled and nonsensical as much of Lenny's prose. In fact, Lenny himself -- and/or the admin responsible for handling many of his "blog posts" -- apparently believe that this is the real title. Or maybe it's just ham-handed SEO.

 

But as you can see by what I assume is the picture of the book's cover, the spine (that bit on the left-hand side of the graphic) makes it pretty clear that the title is simply, The ONLY Cancer Patient Cure, which indicates to me that The Only Answer To^® bit on the front cover is merely for branding purposes. However, since the phrase The Only Answer To^® isn't part of the new book's actual title, it seems to be kind of a stretch, but then, I'm no branding expert and Lenny and his publisher clearly are.

According to a blurb on the front cover of the new magnum dopus, "100% of Profits Go To Non-Profit." In other words, it appears that Lenny plans as usual to funnel money into one of his numerous "non-profits" -- such as his much-boasted about Foundation for Crime and Drug Free Schools and Health for Children -- in order to avoid paying taxes on sales of the book, while granting himself bragging rights as a high-minded humanitarian who has no desire to make money from other people's desperation. There's no telling how many "non-profits" he has in the US and in Germany, but I strongly suspect that few if any dollars or Euros go to any legitimate charities.

Judging by the logo on the spine, Lenny's stellar new work is being published by his favorite pay-to-play book producer, which he has used for most of his previous English-language works, 21st Century Press ("At 21st Century Press, creating a culture for author-centricity is the core mindset behind how we approach publishing books to an ever changing world.").

Apart from their garbled mission statement, or whatever that blurb was supposed to be, and their highly questionable taste in clients (at least in this particular case), 21st Century Press maintains a professional facade and it's pretty clear that someone there has a general love for books and publishing. Their web site is clearly designed by professionals, and the copy is written by people who, notwithstanding that train wreck of a mission statement, are obviously much more eloquent than at least one of the company's star authors. Just take a gander at the lovely prose squandered on one of LoonyC's older works, The Only Answer To Stress.

Dr. Leonard Coldwell has written this remarkable handbook for health with two voices.  Like a singer producing not one beautiful tone but two at the same time, these two voices blend into a harmonious song of health and potential.  And the remarkable thing is that every single person who reads—and follows—this beautiful book will be able to sing that way, too.  And their words, and the glorious melody of health and empowerment will be theirs, and theirs alone!

The two voices are the voice of the deeply informed, knowledgeable expert in physiology, medicine, neurology, biochemistry, pathology, research and clinical care—of which Dr. Coldwell is—and the homey, chatty, straight-from-the-shoulder Dutch uncle who tells you what is really going on, with compassion, but with no patience for self-pity or sloppy excuses.

So, in your hands, on the pages of this book, you have a tell-it-like-it-is friend and a scientific integrator who can make the complicated business of the life sciences simple, clear and, most important, comprehensible.

Dr. Coldwell ties all of the relevant sciences into one neat package with your life and shows you how, in simple, concise and well-laid-out steps, how it works and what to do about it.

You have to wonder if the person who wrote that was giggling or gagging while doing so. One thing is certain: Lenny paid to get those words written.

There are of course numerous inaccuracies in the poetic tribute quoted above. First off, if you've ever read any of his hateful, misspelled, grammar-challenged Facebook rants you'll probably be able to figure out that "Dr." Coldwell doesn't write any of his English-language books himself. Instead he uses ghostwriters -- most notably, a woman named Kelly Wallace. There's no shame in that, of course, as many folks who either can't write (like Lenny), or are too busy to do so, use ghostwriters. However, even with the help of ghostwriters fluent in English, the books of Coldwell's that I've seen are, as indicated above, rambling and redundant and could use some serious editing.

But describing him as a writer is the least of the sins in the blurb quoted above. To compare any of his work to a singer "producing not one beautiful tone but two at the same time" is just plain silly. Even more ludicrous is the claim that he is a "deeply informed, knowledgeable expert" in anything. He's not. And he's far less like a "homey, chatty... Dutch uncle" than like the volatile, raving, bigoted drunk uncle who used to be an embarrassment at your holiday gatherings until finally the adults just learned to ignore him and the children were taught to do the same. Except he's far less likeable than that druncle, and for that matter probably quite a bit drunker much of the time.

21st Century Press describes itself as a "partnership/royalty press" offering two options for the aspiring author. If you want the royalty deal you'll pay nothing upfront, but will apparently be required to purchase at least 500 copies of your own book, though they'll give you a 50% discount off the retail price. So that means Lenny would have to spend about $5,000 for a minimum run of his newest book, which has a retail price of $19.99, according to the current order form. The other option is for you to pay $3,000 upfront for 21st Century to put a book together for you (editing, book design, pre-press, printing, and whatever marketing and promotional services come with the deal), and you get 50 copies of the finished work. No doubt you have the option of buying as many additional copies as you want, for additional costs, of course.

Call it a vanity press if you wish, but this is actually a perfectly legitimate business model for authors who either can't land a traditional publishing deal (which is most likely the case with Lenny) or just don't want to, though other self-publishing options may be much better for authors who believe they can sell a lot of books and/or who want more control over every aspect of the publishing process, including ownership of their ISBNs, which is more important than you might think. But the point to remember is that with this business model the author pays to get published, and the merits of the work in question matter far less than the author's credit card number. That's something Lenny never mentions regarding any of his many "mega-bestselling" titles, whether they're in German (for which he uses Jim Humble Verlag) or English.

Lenny's English-language publisher apparently also offers a range of a la carte services for the self-published author, including manuscript review, the fee for which they promise to fully credit to the author if she or he chooses to publish with them. This bit is a little puzzling, though:

Some publishers charge upwards of $10,000 for a professional manuscript review. We charge nothing. And if you choose to publish with us, we will fully refund this amount back to you or place it as a credit toward your contract.

Wow. A refund on $0.00. What have ya got to lose?

I've previously written about the brains behind 21st Century, Lee Fredrickson. See, for instance, this Whirled post from August 2014, in a December 2014 update inserted into the main text. (Some links in that section are no longer valid but were at the time the post was published.)

Since 2014, when Lenny began claiming that he had written and was poised to publish a whole book "exposing" yours truly and a few other critical bloggers** (the linked screen grab was from October 2014), I've sent several polite emails to Mr. Fredrickson at the email address posted on his site (lee@21stcenturypress.com), simply inquiring about the titles and release dates of any upcoming books by his client and buddy "Dr." Coldwell. But I never received any reply whatsoever, not even an acknowledgment that my emails had been received.

At any rate, when I finally buy The ONLY Cancer Patient Cure I'll let you know my opinion. I may be totally wrong and it might really be all new material, but... oh, who am I kidding? But I'll let you know either way. Or you can buy the book now and let me know.

For the time being, I'm still waiting for the release of Horny Connie & Friends, or whatever that book that was set to be published on February 4, 2015, according to Lenny, was supposed to be titled. Lacking that, I'll be on the lookout in The ONLY Cancer Patient Cure for new additions to the Brave Maverick Doc narrative, and if there's anything in there about an AIDS-infected, sexually predatory, mentally ill, drug-addicted, dog-killing former prostitute who is on Big Pharma's payroll (all of which are lies that Coldwell has publicly and repeatedly written about me), the publisher may be hearing from my attorney. But I have a feeling he's too smart to publish all of Coldwell's unadulterated crap, and it's possible that even little Lenny himself has learned his lesson about targeting those who are trying to get to the truth about him. We'll see.

PS added on 20 August ~ Hatemonger and conspiracy peddler Jeff Rense, a long-time buddy of Coldwell's, interviewed Lenny on Friday, August 11. That was the same night that Neo-Nazis, white nationalists, and a variety of other bigots marched in Charlottesville, Virginia with guns, swords, and tiki torches. Although the Friday night march, and the tragedy that followed the next day, were of course not mentioned in the Rense-Coldwell conversation, the vile hatred spewed in that exchange is symptomatic of the same deep malaise that drove the bigots who convened in Charlottesville. It is staggeringly stupid, this conversation, and if you don't feel like listening to it in its entirety you can get the gist of it pretty well from the transcript, which is more accurate than most of the YouTube automatic transcripts I've read. Just be aware that due to Lenny's accent and his problems with the letter "r," the words "rape" or "raping" (and he does talk about rape a LOT in this conversation; it remains one of his favorite subjects) come out in the transcript as "wave" or "waving." Enjoy!






PPS added on 2 September ~ The Brave Maverick Doctor rides again! If you listened to the above-linked conversation between those two raging bigots Rense and Coldwell, you already know that Lenny is now claiming that "they" tried to kill him over his "new" book. He's using that phony story as a promotional hook. If you believe it, you have either not done much research on him, or there is something wrong with your critical-thinking faculties.

* Regarding Coldwell's unearned GIN downline: By this I mean that, according to Coldwell's account on an October 14, 2012 teleconference between him and his buddy Peter Wink (the link to that conference has long since disappeared, but I did listen to the whole thing), Kevin Trudeau gave Coldwell "a free downline to make it look like I was a member of GIN." Despite his claim in that teleconference that he never worked the downline, Coldwell did apparently work it quite aggressively, if the accounts of various ex-GIN members, and some of Coldwell's own online promos, are any indication. I wrote about that October 2012 teleconference in this January 2013 blog post (under the sub-head, "Axes of evil"). 

** In addition to me, the other bloggers whom Coldwell was supposedly going to "expose" in his new "book" were Salty Droid, Bernie O'Mahony at GINtruth, and Omri Shabat of the now-defunct Glancingweb blog. In 2015 Coldwell ended up suing Salty and me and a few other parties for defamation, but the suit was unsuccessful.

Another year, another moment of silence for Colleen Conaway

Eight years ago today, on July 25, 2009, a 46-year-old woman named Colleen Conaway died at a San Diego shopping mall after attending a "wealth creation" seminar by James Arthur "Death" Ray, convicted killer and star of the New-Wage moviemercial for magickal thinking and McSpirituality crapitalism, The Secret. Most of you who have been following this blog and/or the blogs of several others who have written about it -- especially Salty Droid and Yakaru of Spirituality is No Excuse -- know Colleen's story well. But it is a story worth mentioning again, in the service of never forgetting.

If you don't know the story, a good place to start is this 2012 Whirled post, which contains links to more detailed accounts. From that post:

Colleen, who reportedly had no history of emotional or mental problems, apparently had a psychotic episode at a James Ray event in San Diego in July 2009, and she leaped to her death from a third-story shopping mall balcony. After Ray found out about it, he and his top minions apparently worked to cover it up, shielding the rest of the attendees from the unfortunate event, and they all partied on that night. If you don't know Colleen's sad story, my pal Yakaru has written a good summary of this tragedy, linking to several Salty Droid posts.

At the time Colleen died, Death Ray was not yet a convicted killer. That distinction came in 2011, in the form of three convictions for felony negligent homicide, not for Colleen's death but rather for the October 2009 deaths of three other people -- Kirby Brown, James Shore, and Liz Neuman -- in a Sedona, Arizona faux-sweatlodge/torture chamber. For these three deaths, Ray served a disgustingly short term -- less than two years -- in an Arizona state prison. And while he has reportedly settled with Colleen's family (I still don't know all of the details there), he was never criminally charged, tried, or convicted, and therefore has never served prison time for, her death. In fact, Colleen's story, though reported in local newspapers, didn't really become widely known until after the Sedona story broke months later.

In the years since Ray was released from prison, he has been trying his best to make a comeback, and has worked the Sedona deaths into his narrative, painting himself as a hero/martyr who has survived a trial by fire and has emerged stronger than ever, prepared to charge others for his hard-earned wisdumb.

In 2009, after rising to the top of the industry, James was involved in a terrible incident that claimed the lives of three of his clients who he cared about deeply.

True to his own teachings, James maintained an attitude of personal responsibility coupled with resilience. James is constantly focused on extensive study of great philosophers, as well as an in-depth analysis of himself.   As a result, he has defined a new approach that will radically disrupt traditional thinking and present a fresh and dynamic approach to being successful in both life and business...

...James’ personal and business experiences have caused him to be considered an expert in leadership, entrepreneurship, mental toughness, resilience and emotional strength. His experience has proven time and time again…that it’s the challenges, adversity, and often crisis, that present the ultimate opportunity for growth and greatness if we’re only willing to utilize them in that way.

Ray even tried to get his three negligent homicide convictions overturned, but he was unsuccessful. He did get his rights to vote and hold office restored, however. Meanwhile, he continues to push his shtick, and though his crowds are considerably smaller now than they were in those heady post-Secret, pre-Sedona days, he still seems to have a loyal following of dolts who either don't know, don't remember, or don't care about his reckless past and unrepentant ways.

And in other, related news, the Transformational Leadership Council, the New-Wage/selfish-help cartel that Ray helped found but that booted him out after the Sedona story broke, is getting ready to convene in yet another seekrit place on July 26-30, 2017 to bolster each other's egos. Their summer event always takes place around the time of the anniversary of Colleen's death, which is why I remember it. The TLC used to publicize their events, and the locations, well in advance, but in the past few years have been much more circumspect -- at least on their official site. But another co-founder, Jack Canfield, reveals on his site that the event will be in Tucson, Arizona.

And so it goes. Death Ray natters on, and the TLC continues to hold events where members congratulate themselves on being masters of the universe, and Scamworld hums away: the dogs bark, but the caravan goes on.

But that doesn't mean the dogs should give up on barking.

And once again, my heart goes out to the people who loved Colleen Conaway. Never forget.

PS ~ While some folks have all but given up on the self-help industry having any integrity, there are good people working to improve the industry. One example is the Ginny Brown, mother of Ray victim Kirby Brown. Following Kirby's death, Ginny and the Brown family founded a non-profit called Seek Safely to try to make the industry more accountable, guide consumers to make safe decisions, and track legislation affecting the industry. Check out Seek Safely here.


Related on this Whirled:

• http://cosmicconnie.blogspot.com/2016/04/en-blight-en-us-death-ray-stars-in.html
• http://cosmicconnie.blogspot.com/2015/07/a-moment-of-silence-for-colleen-conaway.html
• http://cosmicconnie.blogspot.com/2014/10/james-arthur-ray-full-blood-moon.html
• http://cosmicconnie.blogspot.com/2013/07/remembering-colleen-conaway-victim-of.html
• http://cosmicconnie.blogspot.com/2013/07/killer-james-arthur-ray-is-nearly-free.html
• http://cosmicconnie.blogspot.com/2013/07/james-arthur-ray-deadly-devotion.html
• http://cosmicconnie.blogspot.com/2010/10/musings-on-tragedy-and-its-meanings.html