Kevin Trudeau: as prison release date approaches, the KT fraud machine is revving up

From time to time I visit the official Facebook Fan Club Page of serial scammer Kevin Trudeau, aka KT, aka Katie on this Whirled. It's at least a marginally reliable gauge of what's going on in Katie's world as his official prison release date of May 9, 2022 approaches (he's currently on a "home release" program overseen by the Bureau of Prisons). One point that has stood out overwhelmingly for me whenever I peruse the page -- and it's a point I've made here several times over the past few years -- is that Trudeau is prepared to hit the ground running with new or expanded scams once he's released, at least to the extent that he can get away with doing so as a newly released felon who presumably will be on probation for a few years. But then again, as also noted here numerous times, he never stopped hustling throughout his incarceration.

Grin and Barrett
In July 2021 I published a post about Kevin's loyal water carriers begging for bucks on his behalf. One claim made in the minions' message -- which was most likely written by Kevin himself, or at least heavily directed and edited by him -- was that Kevin is more than capable of making zillions of dollars on his own. In part, the message I cited in that post read:

Kevin could easily come out of prison and start an international company again. Mega successful people from all around the world are making multi-million dollar offers to Kevin. They all want Kevin full time and they want to be a business partner with Kevin.

Kevin is getting offers for large amounts of equity in companies, huge salaries, board positions, multi-million dollar cash advances and more to commit full time to their ventures.

The issue, explain the minions, is that as a now-enlightened spiritual master (just call him GuruKev), Kevin will be solely focused on humbly serving humanity ("Selfless Service," no less!), and on lifting the collective vibration of the planet. But he still needs to live, of course, and he needs moneys to do it, and since he'll be too busy saving the world to earn those moneys, he needs a bunch of people to fork over (and over and over and over).

I originally shared that fan club post under the assumption that more than likely most of it is hyperbole, as is the case with anything remotely related to Kevin Trudeau's marketing efforts. Then again, given the serious ethical lapses and scam-friendly business practices of more than one billionaire or rich corporation, maybe there are a bunch of 'em clamoring for Katie. Be that as it may, at least one of his former partners-in-grime, one Donald Barrett, infamous infomercial producer, has actually issued a public invite to Kevin in hopes, one can only assume, that the two of them can pick up where they left off.

I saw Barrett's message on -- you guessed it -- the Facebook KT fan page. It was a short and simple response to a February 21, 2022 post in which the admins, clearly attempting to recruit more "volunteers" to serve The Master, urged people to read about what a sublimely splendid experience it is to "work with Kevin":

Donald W. Barrett KT... Where are you? I can be anywhere anytime.

• 1d

Like Kevin, whose infomercials Barrett used to produce, Donald has had his share of troubles with some of the alphabet agencies of the US government, most notably the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The Feds took issue some years ago with his claims that a frauduct he was peddling, Supreme Greens, could cure multiple diseases, including arthritis and cancer. He was also nailed for his participation in an infomercial for Trudeau's weight-loss book -- the same matter that ultimately landed Kevin in prison. And to top it off, he got in a spot of trouble with the IRS for failing to report a fairly substantial amount of income from his frauduct-pushing.

Unlike Trudeau, though, Barrett was able to avoid serious prison time. From Salem News, October 7, 2011:

Yesterday, Barrett was given a year of probation by U.S. District Court Judge Richard Stearns. Three months will be spent in a halfway house, and three more on home confinement.

Barrett will also not have to pay the $3,000 fine prosecutors had sought.

It's not entirely clear why, since not only did Barrett's lawyers insist on filing their sentencing memorandum under seal, but U.S. District Court Judge Richard Stearns did not include any specific reasons for the decision in the written sentencing order.

In court, the judge cited only the family circumstances raised by Barrett's attorneys, and in his order listed an "inability to pay" as the reason for waiving the fine.

Barrett's attorneys, William Kettlewell and William Lovett, asked that their sentencing memorandum be sealed from public view because it contains "confidential personal and medical information" about a family member, and also asked the judge to impound the transcript of their sidebar discussion with the judge, according to the case docket.

It appears that there's another thing Barrett has in common with KT: an "inability" to pay the fine imposed for his misdeeds. And Barrett had it relatively easy: his fine was only $3,000.00, as opposed to the nearly $40 million that Trudeau had accrued. But if ya can't pay, ya can't pay.

This piece from Truth in Advertising, originally published in 2013 and updated in 2015, has some info and commentary about both Trudeau and Barrett. While the updating of the article was apparently incomplete -- contrary to a claim in the last paragraph, Trudeau did, in fact, end up in prison -- the core message is spot-on: you can't keep a bad ad man down.

In any case, it seems that Donald Barrett is up and running with a whole new string of hustles, at least if his Facebook page is a reliable indicator. The Intro blurb on his Facebook page describes him as, "Rated as America’s top marketing consultant’s [sic]." When I looked on his page I saw that he is only followed by 159 people at the moment, but I'm sure there will be many, many more as people wake up to the realization that he is, after all, America's top marketing consultant's [sic].

These daze Barrett seems to be heavily involved in the cannabis industry -- not that there's anything wrong with that -- but apparently he's always looking for new business ops. And what better partner to partner with than his old buddy Kevin Trudeau? Who knows... if the two of them get together and start something up again, maybe Barrett's next fine will be much greater than $3,000.00, and he may actually be rewarded with some real prison time. It's something to aspire to, anyway.

The banned plays on (but not on the KT FB page)
I would gladly have attempted to answer Donald Barrett's question about KT's whereabouts, at least to the best of my ability. I would have told him that, as reported on this January 2022 Whirled post, his last known location was in the home of long-time Trudeau loyalist David Krueger, who lives in a near-northwest Chicago suburb. (Trudeau may very well be somewhere else by now, since one of his reported goals is to get back into luxurious surroundings as soon as possible, but he was staying with Krueger as of late 2021.)

But I couldn't write that on the KT Facebook fan page, because it appears that I have finally been banned -- more specifically, blocked from participating in any manner on that page. I'd actually discovered my pariah status earlier this month when I visited the page to see if there was a post about the February 2, 2022 death of longtime KT loyalist and substantial financial supporter Ed Foreman.

Ed not only poured money into Kevin's coffers for years, but he also contributed heavily to the myth of Kevin as a hero and martyr, this recap of Kevin's legal troubles being one example. He even caused a bit of a ruckus in court during the sentencing phase of Kevin's criminal trial (and had to be physically dragged out of the courtroom by federal marshals, and was fined for his efforts). And he shamelessly groveled at the feet of #NeverWasMyPresident Donald Trump just before Trump took office, begging him (in vain, as it turned out) to commute Kevin's prison sentence and pardon him.

But I didn’t see anything on the Facebook fan page about old Ed. That didn't come as a complete surprise, since I had heard from credible sources that Ed had issues with KT being kind of a dickhead since being semi-released from federal sleepaway camp. (I mentioned that in the above-cited January 2022 post as well.) It’s possible that Ed finally saw the light towards the end of his long life, and that he renounced his membership in the Kevin Trudeau Inner Circle of Worship. If that was the case, it's very possible that The Great Master forbade the minions from ever uttering Ed's name again, or perhaps the omission was the decision of the fan page admins, out of deference to their Master. (If I'm wrong, tell me and I'll publish a correction.) 

I am not blocked from seeing or sharing the posts on the KT fan page, only from commenting or even responding — so no more of my ha-ha emojis in response to one of their ludicrous posts that everyone else on that forum takes as profound wisdom. For more than two years, much to my surprise, the admins tolerated my contributions, though a few comments were removed and my words were almost always ignored by the faithful, who, I imagine, considered me to be one of those “rats in your head” that Kevin used to warn them about.

Apparently, however, my last contribution was the last straw. It was a response to a January 31, 2022 post about one of the Kevin Trudeau channels on Telegram. Telegram, as I've previously mentioned, is the infamous social messaging app preferred by right-wing extremists and a host of other unsavory characters in the eight or so years that it has been in existence. Telegram's operational center is in Dubai, UAE, and the owners don’t do much if any moderation, so it’s pretty much "anything goes." Of course, I'm sure that the KT Telegram channels are all on the up-and-up.

At any rate, the post on the KT fan page requested that readers ask Kevin anything, the idea being that he will choose a question to answer on one of his future Telegram performances, which apparently happen every Saturday. Always eager to constructively participate in a conversation, I was the first person to post a question, and it was a perfectly legitimate one, but I guess they didn’t like it.

All I wanted to know was whether Kevin intends to continue promoting the Global Information Network, aka GIN, once he is released from prison, or if he intends to start an entirely new club… or if it all depends upon the willingness of the current “official” GIN owners, the Morters and Blaine Athorn, to do Kevin’s bidding. I think it’s a completely valid question -- one that I've certainly asked here before -- and that it is something GIN members and prospective members need to know, so they can make an informed decision before throwing their money down the toilet.

My guess is that Kevin didn’t like that question. Or perhaps he never even saw it, and the admins just finally got tired of me, which is perfectly understandable because I can be very annoying. Anyway, my question is gone from that forum and so, it seems, am I. The admins are well within their rights to ban anyone they want -- I'm not whining about "censorship" or "First Amendment violations," because neither of these applies -- and I'm surprised it took them so long to get rid of me. But rest assured that I will continue to ask those uncomfortable questions on this forum, and I will also provide uncomfortable answers here, or highly informed speculation at the very least, whenever I receive credible information.

Frauducts in store
It remains to be seen exactly how Kevin Trudeau will exercise his considerable flim-flamming talents once he's released back into the wild. His loyal water carrier Tonya Canada, one of the founders of the fan club and an admin on the fan club's Facebook page, assures us that he has big dreams and visions.

It has been such an honor to work with Kevin for over a year. We have email contact nearly every day. I often think how amazing it is that every day I am receiving positive energy from Kevin as he thinks about me as we are emailing back and forth about different assignments & questions.

I consider it a blessing to be one of his volunteer assistants and work directly with Kevin in his “Vision and Dream”. He is working on something HUGE and I am so thankful for my part and the ability to be of service.

Yeah, I have a pretty good idea what that something HUGE might be. He wants to be the leader of a new Scientology-like cult; L. Ron Trudeau, anyone? Meanwhile, Tonya and other proxies are carrying on his work for him now -- again, under his direction -- and I wouldn't be surprised if he was getting a hefty chunk of change from all of their crapitalistic efforts, as well as from GIN. I have no idea if any of that is a violation of the terms of his home release; I guess that's up to the parole board to decide.

Indeed, when it comes to Kevin Trudeau and frauducts, it seems that the more things change, the more they stay the same. The "Kevin Trudeau Fan Club Store" is prominently featured on the KT Facebook fan page, and also on the official Kevin Trudeau Fan Club web site, and seems as clear a sign as any that the Great Master is benefiting from going back to his huckster roots. Some of store's the offerings include:

• The Fibonacci Life Path Package -- "the ULTIMATE package from I Ching Systems that you can buy!" -- which you can get now for the low, low price of only $3,295.00, marked down from $3,395.00.
• The Kloud by Centropix -- "A Luxurious At-Home System For Molecular Activation" -- for only $4,990.00. It's part of the "Personal" product line in the KT shop, and one of the devices that "Kevin Trudeau uses to protect his personal energy space and his environment from external sources of stress and chaos." (The Kloud was "casually" mentioned in a worshipful post by a young huckster-in-training; see again this Whirled post (under the sub-head, "A dream come true for three lucky rubes"). If The Kloud is too rich for your blood, there's the Cocoon for only $3,690.00, or if you're a real cheapskate, you can slum around with the Bubble for a mere $890.00.
• Elk Antler Velvet Platinum -- Surely you can afford this, you tightwad. It's only $240.00 for one whole fl. oz., and it'll help you regain your youthful "go mode" -- your stamina, endurance, strength, and perhaps even your manly manliness, should that be something you're worried about.

But wait, there's more! Granted, I haven't browsed through the entire store -- I can only take a little bit at a time -- so maybe you can browse for me. If so, perhaps you can tell me if Trudeau and gang are still peddling anything by a crackpot named Alex Chiu, whose Immortality Rings and other bat-crap baubles Trudeau promoted in his first Natural Cures book. I wrote about that a few years ago.

I am well aware that in essence there's really nothing new about this store, other than perhaps its framework as an adjunct of the Kevin Trudeau Fan Club; after all, Trudeau and his various partners and supporters have been promoting these very same types of frauducts and services for many years, through Natural Cures, through GIN (via the GIN Store), and through books and infomercials and newsletters and email blasts and every possible way that a frauduct can be promoted. I've written about some of these efforts over the years, e.g., on this July 2014 post (under the sub-head, "Lamp unto my feet"). I highlight the KT Fan Club store offerings now simply as a way of making (or belaboring, as the case may be) my point that Kevin is up to his same old tricks.

I'll continue to monitor and write about the goings-on in the Kevin Trudeau scampire to the extent that's it's possible for an "outsider" to do so. But I can't do it all myself. My lines of communication are always open, should you have anything to add to the conversation. One point is certain, and it's another one I've repeated ad nauseam on this blog: No matter how he brands and re-brands himself, it's a safe bet that Kevin Trudeau has been and always will be all about the hustle.

Kevin Trudeau: poised for release, still hustling, and possibly shadow-running GIN

 

A brand new year is upon us, and although many folks may be viewing the coming year with trepidation, given all of what's gone down in the past two years (and with 2021 taking Betty White from us!), I imagine one person who is super excited about the year to come is imprisoned serial scammer Kevin Trudeau (aka KT, aka Katie on this Whirled), who is scheduled to be released on May 9, 2022. There are increasing signs that he is busily laying the groundwork for taking up where he left off, scamwise.

As reported on this blog in January of last year, in early 2021 Trudeau entered a Chicago-area Residential Reentry Management (RRM) program overseen by the Bureau of Prisons. He's not in a "halfway house" facility per se, contrary to what some of his fans seem to think, but instead is on "home release" in a Chicago suburb as he serves out the remainder of his ten-year prison sentence for criminal contempt. And he seems more than ready to hit the ground huckstering the moment his sentence is completed, perhaps through the Global Information Network (GIN), the "success club" that he founded in 2009 but no longer "officially" owns, or perhaps he intends to form a new club, and/or come up with new schemes to further broaden his scampire.

Of course, if you've been following this blog for the past eight or nine years, you know quite well that Kevin Trudeau has never really stopped being a huckster. Pre-trial confinement in Chicago's grim Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC), and subsequent incarceration in a relatively cushy federal prison camp (FPC Montgomery AL) didn't thwart his ambitions at all; throughout this time he never stopped begging for money and pushing various products and "trainings," while building on yet another marketing hook by presenting himself as a witness to miracles and a wise spiritual leader. (And the rubes have actually bought that crap.) He used proxies as necessary to get his messages to social media and websites, but it was clear that he was always controlling the messaging, with the ultimate goal being to line his own pockets. I've written about this topic many times on this blog, this January 3. 2015 post being but one example.

I'm far from the only writer to point out that Trudeau never stopped hustling despite being a federal prison inmate. On January 3, 2017, the Chicago Tribune published a short piece with the headline, "After 18 years, TV fraudster Kevin Trudeau's case is over, 'we hope,' judges rule." (Here's a link to the digital edition version in case you can't get past the Tribune's paywall.) The article explained why the appeals court judges could only express their hope, but not a solid promise, that the Katie court saga was over.

On Facebook last week, Trudeau's backers continued to solicit donations to his legal defense fund from his 29,000 followers, promising them they could “DOUBLE YOUR MONEY.”

And in a pre-Christmas message presumably relayed through supporters from his cell at the Montgomery, Ala., federal prison camp, Trudeau told his fans he would “share 2 secrets that will give you success in every area of your life.”

If they followed his advice, the convicted fraudster, formerly of Oak Brook, wrote, they would “vibrate frequencies that will allow you to create the life you want.”

We've heard all of that before, for sure.

But what about today? What's up with "GuruKev" as he prepares to be a free(ish) man?

Reduced circumstances, but still better than federal
sleepaway camp
It appears that Trudeau is currently residing in the home of one of his long-time toadies, David Krueger, in a near-northwest suburb of Chicago. (If I'm wrong about this, and you want me to write about it, feel free to send in corrections and I'll publish them.) Before this, Katie was reportedly staying with another Chicago-area fan and GIN member in a one-bedroom apartment, and my guess is that he drove that poor GIN member crazy. And no doubt Katie was going a little crazy too, because a one-bedroom apartment, no matter how nice it might be, simply isn't the same as a gaudy McMansion in Ojai, Cali or a fake castle in a swanky Chicago area neighborhood. Reportedly, however, the authorities overseeing Kevin's home confinement/parole are compelling him to live in relatively humble circumstances for the time being, which must truly be agony for him. Break out the violins.

At least Katie is now in more comfortable digs, though, even if his current situation is still far from the opulent lifestyle to which he had become accustomed before his conviction and sentencing, and to which he almost certainly plans to return as soon as he possibly can. For the time being David Krueger seems to be providing Kevin with a safe haven until the great KT can be restored to his full power, though when I think of this pairing I can't help but be reminded of the arrangement between Professor Quirrell and Voldemort (except without the turban), and I wonder how long it will be before Dave and Kev drive each other nuts, assuming it hasn't happened already.

But I digress. Lately Trudeau has been stepping up his efforts to beg people to give him money to support his mission to rebuild his lavish lifestyle, though he pretends that a third party is doing the begging on his behalf, since he is too busy Humbly Serving Humanity to beg for money for himself. Read about it here, especially if you're even marginally tempted to send money to this guy.

You've met David Krueger on this blog previously: initially back in 2012, when I reported that David was all excited about getting to ride on the same airplane as Kevin -- in first class, no less! -- and was absolutely over the moon because Kevin bought drinks for everyone on the plane, not just the first class passengers but the peons too. And David's mama had won a BMW Series 500 through GIN. (Later on, unfortunately, after Kevin's legal troubles began to seriously accelerate and GIN was taken down a notch or two, the authorities took the BMW away from Mommy, but apparently that didn't faze her son in the long run, since to this day he remains a KT loyalist.)

I also mentioned David in passing on this May 2020 post, following a remark that he had made on the Facebook KT fan page, claiming that Facebook and YouTube were censoring the real "truth" about COVID-19.

A dream come true for three lucky rubes

Infomercial Kings-in-Training?
Left to right: David Krueger, Rube, Kevin Trudeau, Rube, Rube

On December 30, 2021, David Krueger was featured again, not on this blog but on the Kevin Trudeau Fan Club page on Facebook. Apparently a trio of young hucksters-in-training got to spend some quality time with both David and Kevin earlier that month, and they took full advantage of the visit to push the MLM (overpriced cookware) in which they're involved:

Spectacular weekend with Kevin Trudeau and David Krueger, read about the Mushyakov brothers’ experience here: https://kevintrudeaufanclub.com/spectacular-weekend-with...

Here's a direct link to the post about that "spectacular weekend," in case the one above doesn't work. In breathless, starstruck prose the author(s), who claim to all be high level members in GIN, describe a personal meeting and sleepover with Kevin and David on the weekend of December 10, 2021. It's not a very long post, but it mentions a specific brand of pricey cookware no less than nine times, which is about par for the course for insufferable MLM-ers who just can't shut up about whatever it is they're hawking. Here are a few snippets.

...What a wonderful weekend we have spent with Kevin, David and of course my amazing brothers Nathan and Ruben. Words cannot describe the feelings and energy I felt. I know you will feel the energy in my words and immense gratitude with your hearts and souls.

First, I would like to thank Kevin and David for your generous hospitality by allowing us to spend the weekend with you...

...My family and I are forever grateful for the exposure to GIN and this new found wisdom it has provided us. The energy we felt during this weekend was mind blowing. It was very surreal. The smiles on our faces and the emotions we experienced were just simply spectacular.

Spending one on one time with Kevin was a dream come true. This seed was planted as soon as I started listening to “Your Wish is Your Command”. It has been watered and nurtured for some time now. This weekend the fruit has been harvested with many tasteful meals and conversations with Kevin and David. Many other seeds were planted along the way and I’m excited to see them come to fruition.

The energy among us was powerful. It has enlightened me to become a better person, a better husband and father, a better friend, a better brother to my family and to all the GIN brothers and sisters...

...When I woke up in the morning in Kevin’s house I felt like I was in a movie. With a fresh cup of coffee in hand, I sat across from Kevin on the couch and had an intellectual conversation. I was able to ask anything that came to mind without any sensation of being rushed.

Every morning Kevin would lead us in an hour exercise which was incredible. Even with muscles getting sore, I continued to push through because of Kevin’s leadership. We are all half Kevin’s age, yet we were not able to keep up with his stamina.

After the exercise we had the pleasure of using TEETER inversion table and other favorite gadgets of Kevin’s like the Kloud. All my aches and pains were gone, aside from the muscle soreness that felt great.

After all the morning activities, I felt amazing and energized...

...After dinner, cigars in hand, the conversations continued as we couldn’t get enough of Kevin’s life experiences and wisdom. Thank you again for this spectacular and unforgettable weekend. It will be remembered for the rest of my life!...

The post reads as if the writer(s) had been coached by Kevin himself, but at the very least, they were clearly inspired by Kevin's nearly lifelong devotion to aggressive selling, often via MLMs. (GIN itself was a very scammy MLM back in the day; the "product" being sold was a Level One membership to the seekrit club.) Reading about this "spectacular weekend" left me with the sense that the weekend was much more about training or rehearsal for producing an infomercial than about deepening the bonds of friendship and brotherhood. (Which wouldn't be at all surprising, come to think of it, since while he was in prison Kevin was marketing an infomercial training course for the low, low price of only $997.) Woven throughout the near-worshipful words about excitement and energy and intellectual conversations and life-changing, life-saving wisdom, there is persistent promotion: the nonstop selling, selling, selling of stuff.

Which is exactly what Kevin does. Turds of a feather....

Naturally, the readers of the post on the Kevin Trudeau Facebook fan page were excited about it, and gushing words of praise in several languages followed in the comments section. One person, however, had a question:

Matthew Manahan Does he have the ankle bracelet on under the table ?

To which I responded:

Connie Schmidt Matthew Manahan If the terms of his home confinement are typical, he has to wear an ankle bracelet, plus he has to answer random calls from a land line to make sure he hasn't wandered off of the premises (in this case, apparently, David Krueger's house -- perhaps a stopgap until he can move into a McMansion again. Big dreams!). So unless he has a way of forwarding that land line number to his cell phone, he has to stay put.

Of course, it totally is possible to forward your land line number to your cell phone. And Kevin reportedly is allowed both a cell phone and a laptop in his home-confinement setup. But presumably he is being properly supervised to ensure compliance with the terms of his home release. I don't know if this includes monitoring of all of his communications, including his activity on Telegram, the popular messaging app for all manner of hucksters, conspiranoids, and far-right wingnuts. (They probably can't monitor his email account, however, since his provider, ProtonMail, is a Swiss company that stores all data on servers in data centers in Switzerland, and is not subject to US or EU laws.)

Above: David Krueger's excited March 2021 announcement on Facebook
that Kevin Trudeau is "back" and is communicating via Telegram.

What's really going on behind the scenes?
Your guess may be as good as mine. But it seems that David Krueger rose in the ranks of GIN in early 2021 -- and I'm guessing that this was due to the influence of Kevin, who perhaps felt that David should be rewarded for being such a good and faithful manservant. Apparently David was even doing the weekly "GIN updates" for a while, which in recent times were normally perpetrated by one of the GIN owners. Rumor also has it that the few remaining members of the loyal GIN office staff, the folks who had been keeping the whole thing running for years and years through thick and thin, were fired around the time David rose to prominence, and I'm thinking that this was also at Kevin's behest.

Dr. Tom and the Chosen One (for now, anyway)
at a GIN event, summer 2021

You may be wondering how Kevin could possibly be dictating what goes on in GIN, since he hasn't officially owned the company since 2014, but... oh, who are we fooling? Kevin has always been the big draw in GIN, before, during, and after his criminal trial and sentencing, and the current owners, who are three of his very long-time buddies and scam partners, know this very well. (If you need to catch up on that, you can read about it here and here.)

It's very possible that the GIN owners -- chiropractors Tom and Ted Morter and inveterate MLM hustler Blaine Athorn -- are actually a bit intimidated by Kevin, and are nervous about the probability that if they don't do his bidding he'll take his mailing lists and his fan base, and form another seekrit exclusive club. With a big ship and everything.

In fact, if I were to hazard a guess, I'd say that Kevin Trudeau is for all practical purposes shadow-running GIN, quite possibly in violation of the terms of his home release/parole, and that he might even be raking in significant bucks, most likely tax-free, through direct donations to the current Katie fund being run by his fan club. (And his loyal minions do so love to promote that fund. A previous donation fund that was set up for him was supposedly for the purpose of paying off his lawyers, but I'm guessing that those guys have since given up on ever being paid. Shades of Trump, eh?)

Given the way hucksters like this work, and having some idea of the fealty that GIN's owners have to Kevin, I think it is possible that he might even be getting a slice of the GIN pie, safely funneled through the donation fund, perhaps as another attempt by Ted and Tom and Blaine to placate their prima donna and meal ticket.

I'm just speculating about much of the above, and accordingly do not have links to source material to back up my speculation. Again, if you have different or additional information and would like me to share it here, or even if you just want to tell me that I'm full of crap, my contact info is on this blog, or you can send in a comment. Comments are moderated to filter out spam, so yours may not show up right away, but I welcome your input.

In any case if I were Judge Ronald Guzman, who declared Trudeau "deceitful to the core" back in 2014 as he sentenced him to ten years, I'd probably want to look into these issues. For that matter, Judge Robert Gettleman, who presided over Katie's civil case -- and to whom Katie wrote a letter back in January of 2020 asking for post-prison scam guidance -- might also be interested, just in case Kevin still owes money on that nearly 40 million dollar FTC fine, which he claimed for years that he couldn't pay because he had no money.

Did prison change Kevin Trudeau?
As you may also know if you've been following this blog for a few years, I generally do not believe in prison sentences for nonviolent criminals, not even incorrigible con artists like Kevin Trudeau. I have mentioned that point several times on this blog and on other forums, and it's a stance that has put me at odds with several of my friends and long-time allies, some of whom have asked, "So how are you going to keep a convicted fraudster from continuing to scam?" But being imprisoned certainly didn't stop Kevin from scamming. Prison, on the contrary, is an incubator for scams; it certainly has been for Trudeau, both during the time he served on felony charges in the early 1990s and throughout his most recent stint in the clink.

Other defenders of lock-em-up policies say that even if being incarcerated doesn't completely prevent a scammer from scamming, there's a mitigation factor because jailed offenders are at least temporarily restricted from committing fraud on the scale to which they've been accustomed. Point taken... but see the paragraph above.

There's also the school of thought that confinement provides at least a small measure of punishment (or poetic justice, perhaps), because even the most cushy min-security facilities are still... well...prisons, as opposed to the ill-gained luxury accoutrements that many fraudsters had previously enjoyed. Surely the contrast between prison life and his mythic lifestyle as a free-range flim-flammer had to have bothered Kevin on some fundamental level.

A chronicle on the Kevin Trudeau Fan Club site, written by one of Kevin's prison mates at FPC Montgomery, Charles Wilson, may provide some insight. This is from Part 8 -- Covid," in which Wilson describes the experiences at the prison camp as COVID-19 was wreaking havoc throughout the facility.

I logged in my journal February 3, as a special day of sickness and noise in our wing. Big Jim had a 4-step process of cough, choke, snorting, and throat clearing. This would go on for hours at a time with no change. Kenny would yell at him or combat with a symphony of sewer farts. John was nonstop cleaning shoes, coughing, and yelling to “Little Man” about laundry and side hustles. Loui, right behind Kevin, was coughing, hacking, and spitting repeatedly. Dr. Mark was in the corner eating dozens of cough drops per hour, with intermittent coughing and throat clearing. “Papi” was blasting his ears out to American 80’s jams and singing at the top of his Puerto Rican lungs in broken English. KT was in the corner shuffling a deck of cards and practicing his Italian. My throat had just gotten sore, and I sat at my desk trying to enjoy the unique chaos of human survival in prison... 

Wow, not quite the ritzy and elegant surroundings to which Katie was accustomed, and that he used as a marketing hook for GIN in order to get people to fork over thousands and thousands of dollars to "upgrade," with the promise that they, too, could (eventually) enjoy the same enviable lifestyle. "See you on the beaches of the world!"

In fairness I must point out that all of these prison chronicles center around what a great man Kevin Trudeau is, and how he manages to remain unruffled and to inspire people even in the grimmest of circumstances. Consider the scene described above: even amidst the coughing and snorting and hacking and spitting and sewer-farting, there was Kevin, sitting in a corner shuffling cards and practicing his Italian. Congruent with this narrative, he (naturally!) managed to avoid getting COVID, at least according to Wilson, although I have heard from other sources that at one point Kevin did test positive for the virus.

However, notwithstanding the near-mythical image perpetrated by his admirers, and by the great man himself, who often described his prison daze as an experience of perfect bliss, it has always been clear that Kevin Trudeau did not actually enjoy being in prison. At all. In fact I think it would be fair to say that he hated it. And over the years, in numerous failed efforts, at times enhanced by tears, to get the courts to grant him leniency, he and some of his defenders have claimed that incarceration has changed him for the better, making him more humble and truly "reformed."

It's true that prison does change people, but rarely for the better, and I have a feeling that if it has changed Kevin, it has only made him more cynical and greedy. I've heard credible rumors that former friends and loyalists have been taken aback by the ego and greed and even the occasional abusive behavior that he has displayed since being semi-released in early 2021 -- in stark contrast to the humble-and-enlightened-servant-of-humanity image that his minions, almost certainly under his direction, have been trying so hard to push. Rumor has it that even his longtime generous supporter and sycophantic enabler, former Congressman Ed Foreman, is appalled by this new behavior.

To which I can only respond that there's nothing at all new about that behavior. His pals are just now noticing he's egotistical and greedy? Even many folks who have never even met him (including me) noticed it years ago. And I'm guessing that more than one of his ex-wives could vouch for his tendency to be emotionally abusive; consider ex-spouse Kristine Dorow's story in Aaron Gell's January 20, 2015 article for Business Insider (under the sub-head, "Up Close And Personal"). From what I've heard, his most recent wife, Nataliya/Natasha Babenko, had a pretty rough time of it too.

Despite his lofty spiritual rhetoric about leaving the ego behind, Kevin's own ego is large enough to have its own zip code. One of his goals appears to be to eventually live in a huge house again, but this time with lots of servants... er... volunteers/students/acolytes... to cater to his every whim, while he fools them, or allows them to fool themselves, into thinking that they are the ones who are really benefiting, just by being in his presence. I don't think it's much of an exaggeration to speculate that Kevin, a longtime dabbler in Scientology, wants to be the next L. Ron Hubbard. In fact I wrote about that last year.

Does/did Kevin Trudeau really belong in prison, though? That's not up to me to decide, of course. I do think it's a bit of a pity that his ten-year(ish) sentence was for his deceptive infomercials about a deceptive diet book, and not for the millions of dollars he pilfered from thousands of gullible GIN members, some of whose lives were reportedly decimated by the mega-scam.

Many if not most of those who were bamboozled have no doubt moved on, some with great difficulty, while others just slid on to the next flopportunity/flim-flammer, because some people never learn. (In several cases, disillusioned/angry GIN members or KT buddies or staff formed their own GIN ripoffs, such as the IBMS Masters Society and the World Information Network (WIN). The WIN founders initially tried to take over GIN and keep the MLM going, but the government said no.)

And there's at least one former GIN member, Abe Husein, who once made a lot of noise on the national news media about having been cheated out of big bucks by GIN and KT, but apparently has now forgiven him and has even expressed "mad respect" for Trudeau. See this January 2021 Whirled post, under the first subhead, "Ex-GIN 'whistleblower' still has a crush on Kevin Trudeau after all."

But the fact remains that the GIN MLM was a huge scam, and was launched chiefly as a private piggy bank for Kevin (as revealed in numerous court documents, this one being just one example), and lots of people lost lots of money. And while Judge Guzman may very well have taken some of these facts into consideration when handing down Trudeau's sentence, GIN was not the reason for the criminal charges or the prison sentence.

Why this still matters, after all these years
Over the years I've been asked why my blog posts so frequently focus on scammers such as Kevin Trudeau, when there are so many more important issues and world problems (and problematic people) to worry about. I've addressed this question numerous times previously on this forum, but for the sake of review (and at the risk of annoying some readers with my redundancy as well as my tendency to write too-long blog posts), I think it's important for me to go over this once again.

Actually, in July of last year an anonymous commenter, clearly a Trump supporter/right wingnut/anti-vaxxer, harrumphed that I should just stick to writing about Kevin Trudeau and similar scammers, and stay out of politics and world issues altogether, because clearly I'm a dunderhead who is "blinded by Liberal rhetoric." If you'll pardon me for quoting myself at length, here is one of my responses:

For years...[p]eople who were supporters/defenders of various scammers such as Kevin Trudeau, Joe Vitale, and a host of minor Scamworld gurus helpfully offered suggestions, some with more than a tinge of hostility, that my focus on these people was a waste of time and my talent. They said that I should be focusing instead on larger, more important issues such as government corruption, corporate malfeasance, politics, etc. For instance, when I was frenemies with Peter Wink (former shill for Joe Vitale, then for Kevin Trudeau, then for Leonard Coldwell, but now apparently retired from the shilling-for-scammers biz), Peter suggested to me more than once that I really needed to turn my attention away from KT and on to larger and more relevant topics. Not surprisingly, this was when Peter was working for Trudeau; later he very publicly turned against his former boss, and even helped various government agencies with their criminal and civil investigations of KT.

To all of those who advised me to focus on important matters, I would respond with some variation of my opinion that in blogging as in life, you have to pick your battles. And in the case of blogging, it's a good idea to narrow your beat. For years I mostly resisted political posts, because there were (and are) already so many political blogs and other forums online. And from 2009 on, Kevin Trudeau was certainly one of my favored targets (I had known for years that he was/is a scammer, but 2009 saw the launching of GIN and the alliance of Trudeau with some of my other favored targets, e.g., Joe Vitale).

Then Trump waddled his way to the front lines of American politix... and for me it finally sank in that Trump was like the worst of the Scamworld scum, writ large. One of my initial posts about that topic was this one, from March 2016:
https://cosmicconnie.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-devils-at-crossroads-of-politix-and.html

That was far from the first time I'd written about Trump, but that was the first post to really focus on the unholy marriage between American politix and Scamworld.

The point is that it looks like I've come full circle, and am now being advised by people who defend Trump and far-right-wing ideologies to abandon political subjects and focus on the likes of Kevin Trudeau. But I'll continue to blog about the matters that interest me and that I think are important.

And 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.

The deep culprit here is not a shadowy government insider. It’s not an aspiring demagogue or a corrupt political party. Trace the problem to its roots and you find a compromised cultural immune system. Astonishingly irrational ideas proliferate because they’re playing us.

This goes for "liberals" too, wrote Norman.

When we fixate on the wingnut outrage of the day, and nurse our own grievances, we suppress our own higher brain function...Right-wing provocateurs love to "own the libs" and too often, we liberals play along. When we do, we play ourselves.

I feel that there's a bit of a false equivalency here, since in contemporary America, right-wingers/conservatives are considerably more likely than left-wingers/liberals to fall for conspiracy theories and worldviews, anti-science dogma, and even political extremism. In fact, it is the right’s stubbornly persistent embrace of the big lie about the “stolen” 2020 US presidential election that led to the violent and deadly insurrection last year and that continues to seriously imperil American democracy. It may be my own "liberal bias" at work, but I think that overall the right is significantly more reality-impaired than the left, and at this point far more of a threat.

The deeper issues touched on in Norman's opinion piece are quite beyond the scope of this blog, but the point I wish to make is that this "post-truth" problem is a serious one. Bringing it back to our original topic, 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. It's hardly surprising that for a while in 2020 he was exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic by posting "updates" that were little more than a repackaging of the most out-there narratives from the alt-health and right wingnut fever swamps, all framed around promoting GIN membership or other outlets for Kevin's "teachings," and in some cases, promoting health frauducts.

I wrote about these COVID "updates" here and here, and in the body of my posts I provided summaries of and links to individual "updates," though the links no longer seem to be valid. For the benefit of those who don't feel like following those links or trying to find Trudeau's original COVID posts, some of the main takeaways were that, according to Kevin...
(1) COVID is no big deal
(2) the government is lying to us and seriously exaggerating the seriousness of COVID, just like they exaggerated the seriousness of AIDS for years (at least according to Kevin and numerous other conspiracy peddlers, not to mention some ignorant right-wing politicians -- even though that declaration is bull-crap; millions and millions of people have died of AIDS over the decades)
(3) COVID is mainly a hoax arising from a conspiracy by the mainstream media and the evil elite "They" to ruin the US economy, thus making Donald Trump look bad and ruining his chances for re-election
(4) the shutdowns and lockdowns are seriously hurting the economy and while that really sucks, hey, don't worry: a few enterprising folks will find a way to make tons of money even during the worst of the shutdowns and especially when all of this is over [with the clear implication being that if ya stick with Kev, he'll show you how to rake it in]
(5) there's so much more that Kevin really wants to share with you about COVID, and it is information that you can't get anywhere else because he's getting it from a select seekrit group of elite international experts (as well as, apparently, from other dimensions or planes of existence), and even though he's doing as much as he can for you by providing these updates, if you want to really get the inside scoop you need to join GIN and/or get on Kevin's mailing list and/or or give him money, and/or... well, you get the drift.

However, Trudeau seems to have been silent about COVID since he has been on "home release," though for all I know he has continued to spread misinfo via private forums such as his Telegram channels and his ProtonMail account. But the main point is that he continues to spread misinformation not only in the service of selling products, but also to maintain his brand as a source of forbidden secrets and indispensable wisdom.

From what I've been observing for many years now, Kevin Trudeau is the quintessential personification of the adage about leopards and spots. I know I'm repeating myself, but it can't be stated emphatically enough that he is all prepped to hit the ground scamming, full force, just as soon as he possibly can.

Caveat emptor.

Department of Just-Us (And Screw Everyone Else): Kevin Trudeau, Donald Trump and (lack of) accountability

Quick take: Imprisoned serial scammer Kevin Trudeau's loyal fans, many of whom are also Donald Trump supporters, are still campaigning for "justice" for their hero, looking to Trump to deliver that justice by commuting Trudeau's ten-year sentence and, ideally, pardoning him as well. Some declare that by doing so, Trump would be taking a stance not only for justice in general but also for increased government accountability (it was the US government that prosecuted and sentenced Trudeau).

However, folks who look to Trump for either justice or accountability are, for numerous reasons, on very shaky ground -- particularly in light of recent events, e.g., Trump's meddling in high-profile criminal cases (especially that of convicted felon and long-time Trump buddy Roger Stone); and the recent clemency spree in which Trump pardoned or commuted the sentences of a string of corrupt white-collar criminals who were well-connected (either by virtue of the criminals' support of Trump/the republican party, or by their celebrity status, or by a personal connection to Trump). These acts of clemency totally bypassed the usual channels in the Justice Department.

In a sense it's a bit surprising that so many Kevin Trudeau fans are still so enamored of Trump. After all, Trudeau has been posturing for decades as a brave fighter against government tyranny and corruption, and his fans have often echoed that battle cry -- but Donald Trump seems to be dragging the US headlong down the path towards tyranny and unfettered corruption, raising the question of whether people who are fans and supporters of both Trump and Trudeau are experiencing any sort of cognitive dissonance. It seems unlikely, though: what appears more likely is that both Trump and Trudeau, against all reason and logic, are still viewed by their supporters and fans as rebels who are fighting against a corrupt establishment -- despite the fact that Trump has been very much a part of that establishment all of his life, and Trudeau has benefited from it as well. Regardless, anyone who views either or both of these men as heroic clearly needs to choose better heroes.

It must be enormously frustrating to be a loyal defender of imprisoned serial scammer Kevin Trudeau (aka KT, aka Katie), particularly a supporter who has been participating in a shamelessly sycophantic multimedia plea campaign imploring #NotMyPresident Donald Trump to commute Trudeau's ten-year prison sentence and, ideally, issue a full presidential pardon as well. This campaign has been going on ever since Trump assumed office; I've written about it a few times.

Every time one of Trump's pardons or commutations has made the news, the Free KT contingent have gotten their hopes up, doubling down on their efforts to convince Trump that Trudeau deserves clemency as well. So I can only imagine the frenzy that Trump's latest clemency spree is stirring up. When, oh, when, will it be Katie's turn?

Trump's pardons and commutations thus far have either been a result of pressure from mostly-useless celebrities like Kim Kardashian, or they've been politically motivated. The most recent clemency orgy, which may not be over yet, has targeted high-profile folks who are either celebrities or have some ties to the White House -- well-connected people, in other words. And most of the clemency grants bypassed the Justice Department.

That said, a piece in the Washington Post noted that so far Trump has ruled on only 204 clemency requests -- 24 approvals and 180 denials, which is the slowest pace in decades. The White House wouldn't answer detailed questions about Trump's approach to clemency. But former head of the pardons office Larry Kupers, who quit in 2019 over frustration that under Trump the office had become little more than a bureaucratic way station, had this to say when asked what advice he would give to an offender seeking leniency: "Find a way to get to Kim Kardashian. I'm very serious about that." (Yes, that is pretty much the "advice" I offered in my May 2018 post about this very matter.)

It appears that Kevin Trudeau's army still doesn't have either the celebrity angle or the political clout to get the Orange Oaf of Office's attention. They can't even use Troy McClain, former Apprentice star and once a pretend-buddy of Donald Trump. As many may recall, Troy purchased the Trudeau-founded Global Information Network (GIN) a few years ago, and was head honcho for a while, but sold his interest some time in the summer of 2017. Besides, credible rumor has it that he dislikes Trudeau, so why would he advocate on his behalf? And a couple of years ago he caught flak from Trump supporters for allegedly playing a racist Trump tape for former White House staffer Omarosa M. Newman. (Troy vehemently denied it.) So Troy McClain is a wash.

But the lack of celebrity or political connections hasn't stopped the Free KT contingent from trying.

The Trump-Trudeau connection
The obsession with getting through to Trump on Katie's behalf is not at all surprising. To begin with, Katie himself is apparently a longtime admirer of Trump, though there's no indication so far that the love is mutual, or that Trump himself is even aware of Katie's situation (and no, form responses issued by the White House, and bearing a reproduction of Trump's signature, don't count).

Regardless, Trump and Trudeau seem to have a lot in common, such as serial scamming and chronic lying and pandering to racists. Furthermore many -- dare I say most? -- loyal Trudeau fans, at least those in the US, are also Trump supporters, and they clearly look on both of these guys as heroes who are sticking their necks out to protect the rights and freedoms of all Americans. Convincing these hero worshipers that they are either misinformed, misguided, or willfully blind about Trumpdeau is an uphill battle, and possibly a losing one, not that this will prevent my ongoing efforts to do so. I am nothing if not obsessive.

Among the most loyal and persistent defenders of Kevin Trudeau is former Congressman Ed Foreman, who has gone to such lengths on Trudeau's behalf as getting himself physically dragged out of court -- and fined for his disruptive behavior -- during the sentencing part of Katie's criminal trial in March of 2014. Eric Nicholson of the Dallas Observer mentioned that incident in a short piece that leads with this observation about Foreman:

It's not impossible to see how voters, first in West Texas (1962), then in southern New Mexico (1968), might have decided to send Ed Foreman to Congress. He has a hypnotic stage presence and exudes a folksy charisma, complete with an endless supply of homespun anecdotes.

Also pretty easy to decipher is how he was unseated in both cases after just one term, and it's not that he was running as a Republican in traditionally Democratic districts. His charm is that of a snake-oil salesman; for many, perhaps most, his manic shtick would wear thin rather quickly.

Manic or not, Foreman has been front and center in the "Free KT" campaign, posting content online and spearheading the concerted effort to get Trump behind the cause. (Katie himself cited Foreman's efforts in some of his own communications directed to Trump.)

One of Foreman's most detailed messages, originally written in 2017 and apparently updated recently, is filled with the usual distortions, misinformation, and outright lies about how the US government committed an outrageous act of injustice against Trudeau. Here's the link to the latest edition of Foreman's twisted history (twistory?) about Trudeau's legal woes.

At some point I may take the time to go line by line through Foreman's long screed and point out exactly where he is either providing incomplete information, distorting the facts, or just plain lying. I've actually addressed several of these distortions and lies, particularly as they were presented by Kevin himself, on past blog posts over the years (here is one from 2016, addressing the relatively minor fib that Kevin's sentence is the longest ever imposed for contempt in the US). But I know it would be much more convenient if the information were to be consolidated into one post that directly addresses the Trudolt camp's "official" narrative. For now, though, I want to address one crucial item in Foreman's twistory that stands out like Trump's fake tan under an energy-efficient light bulb.

Oh, the hypocrisy...
At the conclusion of his KT timeline, Foreman invokes the Constitutionally granted right of the US president to reduce the sentence of any federal inmate, solely at the president's discretion. Given Trudeau's repeated failures with his appeals, Foreman clearly views Trump as being Kevin's last best hope.

At this point, one man, and one man alone – President Trump – can rectify this grotesque derailing of our entire judicial process.

By commuting Trudeau’s sentence, President Trump will be sending a clear message of accountability to the judiciary, demonstrating that they are not bullet proof and remain subject to the same checks and balances as every other branch of the government.

President Trump will also show that judicial overreach, abuse of discretion, and politically motivated legal actions will not be tolerated.

No irony intended, I'm sure. But the actions of Trump and his Department of Justice following the sham impeachment "trial" and acquittal make Foreman's words about Trump sending a message of "accountability," and Trump showing that "... politically motivated legal actions will not be tolerated" seem even more absurd than they were when Foreman first wrote them. In fact, the very concept of Trump being a defender of the system of checks and balances is ludicrous.

During the entire process of impeachment, from the inquiries and hearings in the House to the "trial" in the Senate, the republican lawmakers demonstrated that they had little interest in checks and balances or the rule of law, particularly the spirit of the law. From the February 5, 2020 Vox piece I linked to in the paragraph above:

Senate Republicans didn’t violate the Constitution’s rules for holding an impeachment trial. They adhered fairly reasonably to the letter of the law and can credibly claim they did all that was legally required of them. But this was a sham trial, one whose outcome was never seriously in doubt. By following the formal rules, Senate Republicans gave this fiction a veneer of formal legitimacy. All of them, with the brave exception of Mitt Romney, weaponized the letter of the law against its spirit.

This kind of corrupt legalism is a common practice among ruling parties in democracies that have fallen into autocracy. That these regimes contain the most direct parallels to what’s just happened in America makes clear the precise way in which our democracy is under attack. We should not fear a coup or seizure of authoritarian emergency powers, but a slow hollowing-out of our legal system to the point where the people no longer have meaningful control over their leaders.

On Wednesday, the United States took another notable step in that direction.

Trump, of course, emerged triumphant from impeachment precisely because the republicans had done his bidding. Clearly the legislative branch -- or at least the republican part of it -- doesn't think the rules of accountability that Ed Foreman mentioned apply to them.

And Trump himself has already demonstrated, many times over, that he believes the executive branch is answerable to no one but himself. Of course he is not alone in his inflated view of executive privilege. Ever since the republicans let their Mad King off scot-free (and even before that), another key figure in the executive branch -- that would be Trump's plump little lapdog, Attorney General William Barr -- has also demonstrated that in Trump's America, "accountability" and "checks and balances" are abstract concepts at best, and "rule of law" only matters if (mis)used to quash Trump's critics and opponents.

For several reasons Barr has been raising alarm bells for years, at least among those who care about civil liberties in the US. He is particularly alarming to people who care about the separation of church and state -- although the secretive and extremist org Opus Dei insisted in November 2019 that Barr is not now and never has been a member of Opus Dei. But The Nation reported that as recently as 2017, he was on the board of directors of a DC-based organization called the Catholic Information Center, whose leadership are Opus Dei members, so that's probably a bit less than the proverbial six degrees of separation.

But the current kerfuffle is over Barr's intervention in the criminal case against longtime Trump associate and evil person Roger Stone, which has had a chilling effect nationwide on federal prosecutors who are only trying to do their jobs. From The New York Times on February 12, 2020 and updated on February 14:

In 2001, William P. Barr, describing his first stint as attorney general, under President George Bush, spoke of the department’s protected status in the post-Watergate era. “You didn’t mess around with it, didn’t intervene, you didn’t interfere,” he recalled in an oral history.

Fast forward to 2020, and Mr. Barr is attorney general once more. But President Trump’s ground-shaking conduct has demolished those once-sacrosanct guardrails. Mr. Barr’s intervention to lessen a prison sentencing recommendation for the president’s convicted friend Roger J. Stone Jr. prompted all four career prosecutors handling the matter to quit the case.

To career prosecutors around the country, the Stone case raised new fears of what is to come. Until now, according to conversations with more than a dozen career lawyers in some of the 93 U.S. attorney’s offices, they had watched other divisions in the Justice Department execute significant shifts in response to Mr. Trump while the work of prosecuting crimes was largely unaffected by the politics of the moment. Now career prosecutors said they worried they might face more pressure...

...Prosecutors across the United States, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid reprisals, said this week that they had already been wary of working on any case that might catch Mr. Trump’s attention and that the Stone episode only deepened their concern. They also said that they were worried that Mr. Barr might not support them in politically charged cases...

Also from the Times, on the same day:

Mr. Trump has established a new normal at the senior legal leadership of his administration. The rhetoric of Mr. Sessions’s successor, William Barr, suggests that he accepts, to a disturbing degree, the president’s desire for a politically responsive Justice Department. Mr. McGahn’s successor, Pat Cipollone, defended the president in the impeachment proceeding with arguments of the kind, in tone and variance from the factual record, you would expect to hear from Trump surrogates on Fox News.

Mark Sumner at Daily Kos summed it up in an email to subscribers:

Here's what you need to know about Tuesday and Wednesday's stunning and terrifying events:

• Federal prosecutors had recommended sentencing longtime Trump associate Roger Stone to seven to nine years in prison. Trump tweeted that this was unfair.
• Just hours later, Trump Attorney General William Barr intervened in the case, instructing the Department of Justice to overrule the prosecutors in the case and reduce Stone's suggested sentence.
• All four of the U.S. attorneys who had signed on to the sentencing recommendation have resigned, sending the strongest possible signal that things at the Justice Department are not normal.
• Trump again took to Twitter, even more unhinged. He mocked the prosecutors and threatened to bring charges against them. He spread lies and conspiracy theories about them, their connections to Robert Mueller, and even accused Mueller of lying to Congress.
• Barr has given up even pretending to be the country's top law enforcement officer, as NBC News reports he has "control of legal matters of personal interest to President Donald Trump." That includes persecution of Trump’s enemies, such as former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, and protecting Trump allies such as Roger Stone and Michael Flynn.

In the past 48 hours, Trump has fully transformed the Department of Justice from the country's top law enforcement agency into a personal and political instrument of Donald Trump.

I don't have a convenient link to that email, but here's a link to one of Sumner's articles, dated February 12, 2020, about the same events.

And nobody should be fooled by Barr's seemingly "bold" condemnation, in an ABC News interview, of Trump's Twitter habits. From The Guardian on February 14:

Matthew Miller, an Obama-era justice department official, wrote on Twitter: “Don’t be fooled by this one, people. Barr is telling the president that his impulsiveness is making it politically harder for him to deliver the results he wants. If Trump would just shut up, Barr could take care of him much more effectively.”

“The best indicator of future performance is past performance,” wrote the US congresswoman Val Demings, of Florida. “Attorney General Barr’s past performance was to mislead the American people (about the Mueller Report) in order to cover up wrongdoing by the president. Why shouldn’t we believe that’s exactly what he’s doing now?”

Indeed. Fortunately, it appears that a lot of folks were not taken in by Barr's theatrics.

I don't think it's an exaggeration to declare, as David Corn at Mother Jones did on February 13, 2020, that the Trump presidency has "entered its most dangerous phase."

With the impeachment behind him, Trump has been acting like Michael Corleone on steroids, intent on settling all the “family business.” He sacked impeachment witnesses Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and Ambassador Gordon Sondland. Next he moved onto the Justice Department and the judiciary. At the same time, Barr set up a special “intake” channel at the department for Trump’s henchman Rudy Giuliani to feed rumors, dirt, and supposed leads about Trump’s rivals.

All this is crooked and horrific. Trump is rigging the justice system, trashing norms that have been in place for decades, and attacking the notion that the rule of law is essential for democratic governance. Early in his presidency, facing the Russia investigation being run by the FBI, Trump exclaimed, “Where is my Roy Cohn?” He was referring to the thuggish mob lawyer who had been red-baiting Sen. Joe McCarthy’s chief hatchet-man years before becoming a mentor and consigliere for the young Trump. Though Trump placed Barr, his own lapdog, in charge of the Justice Department last year, Trump has become his own Roy Cohn, consolidating power and seeking vengeance. And extracting revenge has long been one of Trump’s primary psychological motivations, as I first explained before he was elected president.

But hey, don't take the word -- or the many words -- of those "liberal" or "fake news" media outlets I've been quoting at length. More than 2,000 (and counting) former federal prosecutors, who served under both Republican and Democratic administrations, have signed a scathing letter condemning Barr's actions regarding Roger Stone, and calling for Barr to resign. An excerpt from that letter:

...As former DOJ officials, we each proudly took an oath to support and defend our Constitution and faithfully execute the duties of our offices. The very first of these duties is to apply the law equally to all Americans. This obligation flows directly from the Constitution, and it is embedded in countless rules and laws governing the conduct of DOJ lawyers. The Justice Manual — the DOJ’s rulebook for its lawyers — states that “the rule of law depends on the evenhanded administration of justice”; that the Department’s legal decisions “must be impartial and insulated from political influence”; and that the Department’s prosecutorial powers, in particular, must be “exercised free from partisan consideration.”

All DOJ lawyers are well-versed in these rules, regulations, and constitutional commands. They stand for the proposition that political interference in the conduct of a criminal prosecution is anathema to the Department’s core mission and to its sacred obligation to ensure equal justice under the law.

And yet, President Trump and Attorney General Barr have openly and repeatedly flouted this fundamental principle, most recently in connection with the sentencing of President Trump’s close associate, Roger Stone, who was convicted of serious crimes. The Department has a long-standing practice in which political appointees set broad policies that line prosecutors apply to individual cases....

...Such behavior is a grave threat to the fair administration of justice. In this nation, we are all equal before the law. A person should not be given special treatment in a criminal prosecution because they are a close political ally of the President. Governments that use the enormous power of law enforcement to punish their enemies and reward their allies are not constitutional republics; they are autocracies.

Yeah, what they said. Then again, if Barr goes, that means Trump will most likely appoint an "acting" AG who won't require Senate confirmation, and that person could very well be someone who is even more willing than Barr has been so far to "play ball" with Trump -- so it could be a case of jumping out of the frying pan into the fire.

It doesn't help the general anxiety level that Trump has also (falsely) declared himself to be the "chief law enforcement officer" in the US. This was in the context of his (fake) conflict with Barr over the TrumpTweets and Barr's intervention in the Roger Stone case, and also in the wake of the aforementioned clemency spree. Given this context it appears that Trump is pardoning and commuting a string of corrupt white-collar criminals for the same reason that a dog licks its privates: because he can.

So far I've gone on (and on) about the legislative and executive branches of the US government, but some might wish to point out that Ed Foreman, in his long lament about Kevin Trudeau's legal saga, was specifically targeting the third branch: the judicial branch, which handles the courts. But that is precisely where the unintended irony grows even richer, because, far from making any kind of statement against the politicization of the judiciary, Trump has actually done more than any president in recent memory to shape the courts in accordance with a far-right political agenda. The Vox piece linked to in the previous sentence concludes:

The truth is, by worshipping at the altar of Trump, Republicans haven’t simply ensured conservative dominance of one branch of government. They may have entrenched conservative governance for decades.

And let's not ignore what's been going on, under the Trump administration, at the very tip-top of the judicial branch, i.e., the Supreme Court of the United States. On February 21, 2020, SCOTUS voted along very familiar ideological lines to allow a Trump admin rule targeting low-income immigrants to take effect, making it much more difficult for many of them to enter the US (Wolf v. Cook County). The case involves the "public charge" rule, aka the Immigration and Nationality Act, which would make it harder for immigrants who are "likely at any time to become a public charge" to obtain green cards. Critics have called it a "wealth test" for legal immigrants. Wolf v. Cook County had sought to reject the policy's effect in Illinois; a district court had filed a preliminary injunction while the case was being played out in the appeals courts. The conservative-dominated High Court voted to lift that injunction, clearing the way for Trump's "immigrant wealth test" to take effect all across the US.
 
It is not the first time that SCOTUS has appeared to be doing favors for the Trump administration. In a dissenting opinion to the February 21 decision, Justice Sonia Sotomayor accused the Court of "putting a thumb on the scale in favor of" the Trump administration. She described the ruling as part of a "now-familiar pattern" of the Court granting a stay pending appeal of a given case, an action that in a previous dissenting opinion in September 2019, she had said should be an "extraordinary" act. Under the Trump administration, however, it has become the "new normal."

Here's Vox again, posting about the February 21 action:

The Trump administration, moreover, has a high win rate when it seeks extraordinary relief from the Supreme Court. It’s achieved a partial or full victory in about 65 percent of the cases where it asked the Supreme Court to temporarily block a lower court’s opinion.

As Sotomayor explains in her Wolf opinion, it is very unusual for the Supreme Court to grant such relief so easily.

Because the Supreme Court is the final word on nearly all questions of federal law, it typically likes to let novel legal issues percolate in the lower courts before handing down a final command. “Stay applications force the Court to consider important statutory and constitutional questions that have not been ventilated fully in the lower courts, on abbreviated timetables and without oral argument,” Sotomayor writes in her Wolf dissent. They also “upend the normal appellate process, putting a thumb on the scale in favor of the party that won a stay.”

And in this Supreme Court, that party is almost always the Trump administration.

Should you have any doubt about Trump's attitude towards SCOTUS, consider this: he has called for Justices Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsberg to recuse themselves from cases involving him or his administration. He claims Ginsburg "went wild" with criticism of him during the 2016 campaign, and he is not at all happy about Sotomayor's "highly inappropriate" comments in her recent dissent. (Ginsberg made one comment about Trump to The New York Times in July 2016, but a few days later, after a round of criticism, she admitted that she had made a mistake and that her remark was inappropriate.) Absurdly, Trump is claiming that there should be a "higher standard" for Supreme Court justices, but I think we know what his definition of "higher standard" is.

As former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich wrote on Facebook February 25, 2020:

Trump has called on Supreme Court justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor to recuse themselves from all cases involving him and his administration, accusing them of being biased against him. Last Friday, Justice Sotomayor objected to the court’s decision to allow the Trump administration’s cruel “public charge” immigration rule to go into effect, criticizing the court for fast-tracking cases at the government’s request and warning of a dangerous precedent.

Meanwhile, Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife is personally delivering personnel recommendations to the president and advocating for purges of supposedly disloyal staffers. Now that he has been emboldened by his sham acquittal in the Senate, Trump has stepped up his attacks on the judiciary and launched a full-out assault on the basic notions of checks and balances and separation of powers. How can we teach children in America about these core principles of our Constitution when our very president tramples on them every day?

Accompanying Reich's post was a link to a Business Insider piece about this matter.

It's no exaggeration to say that the Trump administration seems to view SCOTUS as its personal fixer, and that the Court's actions have supported this view.

* * * * *

Do all of these events and facts constitute evidence that the US, under Donald Trump, has taken another few giant steps towards tyranny? Possibly. If so... are you paying attention, Kevin Trudeau fans? After all, Katie has been posturing for years as a brave fighter against tyranny. Don't Trump's actions bother y'all in the least?

Or is this situation more like those lines in the 1990 Bruce Willis flick, Die Hard 2? Like, say, Trump may be a tyrant of sorts, but he's "our kind of tyrant?"

On the other hand, if you've seen Die Hard 2, you know that the John Amos character who told Bruce Willis' character that he was "your kind of asshole" turned out to be a very bad man who wasn't good-guy Bruce's kind of asshole at all. And by the time Willis found this out, it was almost too late. 

Now, I am perfectly aware that most of Trump's supporters, whether they're Kevin Trudeau fans or not, do not perceive Trump's actions as tyrannical at all -- only strong and forceful and patriotic and alpha-male and America-first-ish, just like Murica has been needing for a long, long time. But I am also reasonably certain that most of them would perceive similar actions from an Obama or a Clinton or some other liberal or progressive as the very tyranny that they fear.
 
Of course, Ed Foreman originally composed his KT legal timeline well before most of the events we've been discussing, but then again, as I mentioned earlier, the chronology has been edited and updated recently -- and even at the time the original was posted, the writing was already on the wall about the type of "president" Trump was turning out to be. Clearly Foreman didn't see those indicators as troublesome then, and I'm thinking he probably doesn't see the latest events as problematic either.

But the next time you hear any preaching from Ed Foreman or from any Trudeau and/or Trump fan about accountability, or justice, or preserving the sacred system of checks and balances, take their sermon for what it is worth, which is absolutely nothing.

The "hate-love" list -- and a few foolish inconsistencies
If you're still wondering how being both a Trump supporter and a Kevin Trudeau loyalist could be a bit problematic at times -- at least for those who are bothered by glaring incongruities -- let me belabor the point a bit.

When poking around on the kevintrudeau dot com site, I redisovered a PDF that was originally published in November 2017, judging from the date in the link. The document summarizes the central mythology embraced by Trudolts after years of being subjected to Trudeau's own propaganda, regarding what a hero Katie is, and how loved he is by so many millions of good folk, and how loathed he is by a host of bad actors (the "they" who don't want you to know "the truth").

It was the hate/love list that interested me the most, for it highlights some truly foolish inconsistencies (apologies to Ralph Waldo Emerson). And here, unlike on Ed Foreman's long post, I am going to annotate. I pulled the bullet points directly from the document, but the non-italicized comments, and the links, are my own additions. You'll see several links to pieces about Trump, because the industries, agencies, and groups that Kevin Trudeau has supposedly been battling for decades -- and that allegedly "hate" him, and that he has convinced his fans to hate as well -- are some of the very same entities to which Trump has given major passes since he assumed office.

First, the "hate" list:

Generally speaking, Trudeau is "hated" by the:

• FTC [nope, got that reversed. It's Trudeau who hates the FTC, because they've repeatedly nailed him for his frauducts and flopportunities and lies]
• FDA [see FTC, above. Also possibly add FBI and SEC and a few other alphabet agencies.]
• Washington, D.C. political establishment [I'm pretty sure that most of these people couldn't care less about Kevin Trudeau -- former political establishment member Ed Foreman being a notable exception]
• mainstream media [the mainstream media don't "hate" Katie; he hates them because they have a long history of duly reporting his mulitple grifts (not that this has prevented thousands of people from falling for his lies, over and over). There's also the fact that mainstream TV stations have been running his infomercials for years, which benefited Kevin greatly for years, which doesn't sound much like "hate" to me.]
• liberal elites [this decades-old conservative talking point has become increasingly meaningless, and I'm surprised that anyone still falls for it. Now more than ever, the concept of "elite" has become a two-edged sword in both politix and Scamworld, intended as either an insult or the insincerest form of flattery, depending upon how it is used. Back in 2018 I wrote a two-parter about that:
  Part 1: On Donald Trump's misuse of the word "elite" and his apparent misunderstanding of both elitism and populism.
  Part 2: On elitism in Scamworld. This is where Kevin Trudeau enters the picture.]
• deep-state operatives [gimme that ol' time conspiranoia]
• globalists [too bad Donald Trump is a globalist... Also, given the fact that GIN is earnestly trying to expand its global reach, and there's every indication that Kevin Trudeau wants to do the same, it seems that being a Katie and/or GIN fan and a hater of "globalism" would clash at some point. Also, Kevin more than likely still has some cash stashed in various places all over the globe, so...]
• Big Pharma [too bad Donald Trump is a pushover for Big Pharma]
• banks [too bad Donald Trump is a friend to the big banks]
• insurance companies [too bad Donald Trump is trying to do everything possible to kill Obamacare, with its protections for pre-existing conditions (that bane of the insurance firms, and one of the focal points of Trump's gas-lighting re health care); plus he seems to have his eye on privatizing Medicare -- all of which should make the insurance companies quite happy]
• Monsanto and the entire food and diet industry [too bad Donald Trump and the Trump EPA seem to have a cozy relationship with Monsanto...
  January 2020: Trump EPA Once Again Greenlights Roundup
  February 2020: Why we should all be pissed off about Trump still having Monsanto's back
  As for the food industry, let's start with Big Ag, to whom the Trump administration has been much, much kinder than to the small family farmer, despite Trump's big promises to the latter.
  This is hardly surprising, since Trump's pick for Ag Sec, Sonny Perdue, has big ties to Big Ag and Big Food.
  And overall, the Trump administration favors the meat industry, as indicated by the 2020 Dietary Guidelines for America. This is part of a larger pattern of the administration making an across-the-board effort to suppress scientific information about diet and health and sustainability.]

For me, several items on this list once again raise that big question I've been bouncing around throughout this post: How does someone who passionately supports Kevin Trudeau and Donald Trump reconcile Trump's unwillingness or inability to stand up to, and in some cases his apparent alliance with, the very "enemies" that Trudeau has been fighting for so long? Or do these fans and supporters simply shrug it off as not important, because Trump is their kind of tyrant, and Trudeau is their kind of huckster, and both Trump and Trudeau make them feel good? I'd really like to know.
 
Now here's the "love" list... 

Trudeau is generally "loved" by:

• millions of his loyal supporters, readers, radio show listeners, and most importantly, his customers [notwithstanding the hundreds of consumer complaints against him over the years -- and please don't be fooled by the clusters of "five-star" reviews, most of which occurred during very brief time periods and suggest an effort by supporters to "stack" the reviews]
• Christian conservatives [pander, pander, pander. It's understandable, though, since many of these folks possess a combination of gullibility and disposable or semi-disposable income that makes them a scammer's wet dream]
• spiritual seekers [more pandering, this time to the new-agey/McSpirituality types (see above, re gullibility and disposable income)]
• people who believe in God or a higher power [just so all the bases are covered]
• entrepreneurs [especially scammers or wannabe scammers]
• free enterprisers [again, scammers or wannabe scammers, as well as pretty much everyone for whom doing business would be so much easier if all consumer protection laws, environmental regulations, and other constraints on greedy businesses were to just go away]
• self-reliant citizens [is this code for "sovereign citizens," I wonder? Kevin attracts these types, as well as survivalists and conspiranoids]
• libertarians [we don't need no stinkin' protective laws or regulations! Of note, the Koch-funded libertarian think tank, The Cato Institute, did try to intervene in Katie's court dramas back in 2012, but they ultimately failed.]
• those interested in natural health alternatives [and for decades, Kevin Trudeau has been a big promoter of all manner of alt-health frauducts and the scammers who sell them. Like Katie's former b.f.f. Not-Doktor Leonard Coldwell. And this joker.]
• free-speech advocates [free speech for those who support Kevin and his pet causes, that is... everyone else (particularly Katie's critics), not so much. Back in GIN's heyday Kevin warned GIN members to ignore the "rats in their heads," which was code for the "negative" voices discouraging them from immersing themselves in GIN. Even today Trudeau's followers use the term "rats in your head" to describe critics and "naysayers." For the most part they don't like hearing from critics at all; I can't count the number of pro-Katie forums where I've been banned from participating. I guess I'm a "suppressive person," as they say in Scientology. I realize that these are private forums so this isn't technically a First Amendment issue, but still, you'd think that "free-speech advocates' would tolerate a little dissent.]
• Second Amendment advocates [another obligatory conservative talking point, and while many if not most Katie fans may also be gun-rights advocates, I haven't actually seen an NRA endorsement of Kevin Trudeau.]
• the "middle class", the "forgotten men and women", and "working men and women" [a cynical echoing of Donald Trump's hollow promises during the 2016 campaign, despite the fact that neither Trump nor Trudeau gives a flip about the actual lives of these "forgotten" folk. Trump wants their votes, Katie wants their money, but apart from that, the "forgotten" ones are disposable. Trump has shown that he is no friend to the middle class, and Kevin Trudeau enjoyed a lavish lifestyle for years on the backs of thousands of working men and women. If those "forgotten" legions really looked honestly at either Trump's or Trudeau's records, maybe they wouldn't love these guys so much.]
• people who want to "drain the Washington, D.C. swamp" [flagrant pandering to Trump supporters, who overlook all the evidence that Trump has simply made the swamp swampier -- including the above-mentioned recent clemency spree where he pardoned the swamp]
• those who believe in "Making America Great Again" [more flagrant pandering to Trump supporters and to Trump himself, should he be reading this document (or having someone read it to him)]

Trudeau has always been a proponent of, and personally embraced, the values of free enterprise, capitalism, and entrepreneurship. Kevin is a true patriot who loves our flag, our Constitution, and the United States of America.

Cue The Star-Spangled Banner. Or better yet, O Trumpistan -- to which, unfortunately, I'm probably going to have to add a few new verses, just to keep current with all of the atrocities.

Love is blind, and blinding
In Trump's America, "accountability" is becoming an increasingly meaningless concept, "justice" is only relative, and the rights and privileges that most Americans claim to hold so dear apply to "just us" -- the "us" in this case being Trump and his cronies and supporters, and everyone else be damned. I will concede that tribalism seems to have reached an unprecedented intensity all across America, and it's not just a thing among Trump supporters. But Trumpism has morphed into a cult in which tribalism and the attendant "just us" double standards are particularly powerful, both driven and reinforced by a chronic unwillingness or inability among cultists to perceive anything negative in Trump's actions and rhetoric.

And those same characteristics -- intense tribalism, double standards, willful blindness -- are seen in Scamworld as well, particularly with charismatic figures such as Kevin Trudeau who rely so heavily on the cult of personality. Like the Scientology-inspired cult leader he is, Trudeau has pushed his "who do you listen to?" shtick for years in the service of persuading his followers that they should listen to him above all else, and that critics and outsiders and all mainstream media constitute "rats in your head." 

In a sense, then, I've answered some of the big questions I raised above. I think it is a safe bet that most Trudeau fans who are also Trump supporters will have no problem with the inconsistencies and incongruities, no matter how blatant they may be. Trump and Trudeau may be liars, but they're "our kind of liars."

The sad reality is that Trumpdeau loyalists, against all reason and logic, apparently still view both men as rebels fighting against a corrupt "establishment." This is despite the fact that Trump himself has been very much a part of that establishment all of his life, and as a businessman he benefited for years from America's broken political system. And it's despite the fact that Trudeau has also benefited greatly from an "established" system/society that (1) all too often looks the other way when scam artists ply their trade -- and is even complicit in various ways; (2) has inadequate resources to fight every scam and con; and (3) on one level, actually admires the ingenuity and brazenness of con artists. (Fraud has arguably been an integral part of American enterprise since the early days of the republic, a matter explored at length in a 2017 book by Edward J. Balleisen, Fraud: An American History from Barnum to Madoff.)
 
Love really is blind, and blinding.

A big question that remains unanswered is whether or not Donald Trump will finally hear, and heed, the desperate pleas of Kevin Trudeau's fans to spring their hero from the hoosegow. No matter what happens, it is abundantly clear to me that some folks really need to choose better heroes --- but when I read near-worshipful comments to and about Kevin Trudeau on Facebook forums, or when I watch the cheering, chanting, red-capped throngs at Trump's fascist MAGA rallies, that prospect doesn't look very promising.

But I'm still not giving up hope.