Kevin Trudeau's Birthday Present: He Gets to Stay in Prison

Since it's still February 6 on my part of the planet I want to take this opportunity to give a big Happy Birthday shout-out to one of this blog's favorite serial scammers, infomercial huckster Kevin Trudeau. He turned 53 today and is currently languishing in "Camp Cupcake," which is his fond nickname for the blissful retreat where he's now confined and serving a ten-year sentence for criminal contempt. Its real-world name is Federal Prison Camp (FPC) Montgomery, Alabama. 

And now, thanks to a recent decision by an appellate court, he gets to stay right where he is.

The decision [U.S. v. Trudeau, 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 14-1869] was actually handed down on February 5, so I guess it could be considered to be an early birthday present. Here's a link to the decision. It gives some good background and context on this long, drawn-out case.

But here's even more -- and better -- context from a former GIN member and my good friend and blogging colleague, Bernie O'Mahony at GINtruth. I'll have much more to say about this soon but I'm kind of on the run right now (no, not on the run from the law -- it's just that I have real-life things to do, and Ron is just about to put supper on the table).

So enjoy Bernie's take on things, and I'll see you back here soon. Maybe even as early as tomorrow.

PS: If you want more insider views from a former Trudeau fan and former member of Trudeau's biggest scam of all, the Global Information Network (GIN), read my friend John Foster's book. 


Addendum, February 11, 2016
It took a few days, but Katie and/or his proxy finally spoke up on his Facebook fan page regarding the failed appeal. In case you can't get to that link, here's the complete text of his post, which was published on February 10, 2016 and has more than 200 "likes" at the time I'm writing this, as well as scads of gushing comments from devotees the world over, who insist that Katie is their hero.

As you all know, I am being held in a US Federal Prison Camp for "contempt of court". This is not a felony and not even a misdemeanor. I was charged with "contempt" by a single judge. As part of the "punishment", the US government has confiscated all of my personal, business and family money and assets worldwide. They took all the money and assets of other family members as well. They even confiscated all current and future "income", forbidding me to earn any money for the rest of my life, as all money I earn forever must go to the government.

In addition, I was given the longest contempt of court prison sentence in US history: 10 years. I appealed both the conviction and sentence. The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals has just ruled against my appeal. This has shocked every legal scholar I talked with.

That means I will be serving approximately 7 more years before I will be released. I will be appealing this decision to the US Supreme Court. The costs of the US Supreme Court appeal are huge. A "good" lawyer can charge over $300,000 for this case. I need your help to get a lawyer to file and argue my appeal to the US Supreme Court. I need to get the funds to pay for the legal bills. There are still outstanding legal bills that also need to be paid.

If you can give some financial assistance for my lawyers the time is now to do so. Please go to KTLegalDefense.com and make a contribution of any amount. All proceeds go to my Attorneys. If you can help financially please do so today. Please tell others to help as well. Remember also, if you want the Nuggets of Gold monthly Newsletter and The Science of Personal Mastery Course that comes with the newsletter each month, you can get that as a gift for a contribution of just $19.95 per month or a one time annual contribution of $210 is also available. I sincerely appreciate your help.

As for me, I am taking the surprising news as simply news. There is no good or bad news. There is only news. YOU make it good or bad with your thinking. Most people would feel depressed, sad, or shocked. Many would have anxiety attacks, cry, or feel overwhelmed with fear. I know, however, that this news is good, because I can choose it to be good with my thinking.

First, I can give you many rational logical reasons why this is good. I get another 7 years of rest, relaxation and the opportunity to rejuvenate and refresh by body, and mind. I have the unique perfect stress free environment to read, study, meditate, exercise, do yoga, learn German and most importantly write the best training materials I have ever put together. This is the perfect opportunity for me to master my own ability to control, still, and quiet my mind, and burn off all my remaining "karma".

I actually sat down and made a list of all the wonderful benefits that I am thankful, grateful, and appreciate for that I will receive by staying here for another 7 years. The list was many pages long! Doing the list was fun and made me feel wonderful! When you focus on all the things you are thankful, grateful and appreciative for, you feel great! Then, I meditated on the fact that the best things I will personally gain from this adventure are off my radar screen. I do not even know what the best things that are coming to me from this news are yet. I cannot even image them yet. But I KNOW that there are so many amazing wonderful glorious things off the radar screen that ARE coming to me because of me losing this appeal!

When you think about that fact, you feel even better! You know you have been given a priceless gift! You can always overcome any adversity in your life. You can always feel good no matter what the conditions and circumstances in your life. I am teaching all this in The Science of Personal Mastery Course that you get free when you contribute to the KTLegalDefense.com This is the perfect time to contribute (as I need the help right now!) and the perfect time for you to get the Newsletter and Course. The Course comes to you each month. Each month you get the current Newsletter and a Lesson in the Course. Everyone starts with Lesson 1. The Course came out last year. Students who started right at the beginning are doing Lesson 13 now. They are enjoying it immensely…

Go to KTLegalDefense.com and contribute now. I need the financial help for the legal Team… Thank you all for you love and support. Come back here often for more updates. The adventure continues!

Yup. Katie has been pooping out those golden nuggets for more than a year now. It's all for a good cause, of course, apart from your personal growth, and that cause is springing Katie from the clink and liberating him from his big "adventure."


One fan wrote, in response to the above:

Mr Trudeau I thank you for the sacrifice you have made and are still making. The fact that you have been incarcerated for contempt of court longer than anyone in the history of the United States judicial systems bears witness to the truth of your writings and your workshops. Your sacrifice have brought out the arrogance of this government. And no matter what you will come out on top.

But the thing is, "Mr. Trudeau" is fibbing about his sentence being the longest one ever for contempt of court. An easy Google search revealed this 2009 ABC news bit about a 73-year-old Philadelphia lawyer who served 14 years for contempt. And here's a 2011 article about a guy in Illinois who got a 20-year contempt sentence. His lawyers even mentioned that sentence in the appeals argument, so you can't say that Trudeau is speaking from ignorance. He is flat-out lying to make people feel sorry for him and inspire them to give money to his cause. (What else is new?)

It makes me sad to see so many people still buying into Kevin Trudeau's hero/martyr story. One person, also responding to the above-quoted Facebook post, wrote, "I am deaf and live in London. You are my hero. Now I am going to transfer $19.95 per month." Later the same individual wrote, "I did it [smiley face icon]/ KT legal team, please let me know that my PayPal pays for KT from today..." Someone else wrote, "You're innocent. It's 1984. Thought crime is the only thing you did." Another person wrote, "OmGod how aweful [sic] of these people! I will pray, they must release u and ur finances in Jesus name!! Amen!"
Still another fan wrote:

Don't you think it's actually the "Brotherhood" (as he calls them), or what Peter Dale Scott calls "deep government", which has decided to punish KT for revealing their secrets? And/or the pharmaceutical industry getting back at him for exposing their corruption, along with the FDA by the way, in KT's 2004 bestseller "Natural Cures They Don't Want You to Know About?" And that therefore, as long as these crooks are holding the real power, behind the scenes, they won't be letting him out? Sorry for these thoughts, I think the Law of Attraction doesn't dispense us from being lucid and clear-minded about what's really going on, otherwise we can waste a lot of energy trying to solve things legally, when in fact, the issue has nothing to do with legality, in a country (the US) that's really turned into a banana republic, a dictatorship of the worst kind? Whatever the case, may the best come out of it!

And another deluded soul wrote:

K.T I'll say this again you are a saint and an angel. Seems like the closer one is to the truth that is love and light, the longer the sentence in jail. But I know jail is your ultimate freedom. Gods ready for you to evolve even further and now go within yourself to access that inner bliss and paradise that we know as god. You are infact the most luckiest and blessed being in the universe. I'd give anything to be in your shoes right now. You gave certainly achieved self mastery and ultimate bliss and enlightenment. Clever lucky and wise kevin trudeau. You are a true genius in every sense of the word. God is hugely immensely pleased upon you that's why you are infact protected in jail so you can have the ultimate freedom. You earned yourself to enlightenment! You lucky prodigy! Much love to you k.t!!

I'm sure Katie would gladly trade places with that person who would "give anything" to be in Katie's prison-issue footwear right now, but that's not the way the justice system works. Anyway, the kissing-up goes on and on and on like that. I'm not allowed to participate in the conversation on that page, but I'm not sure I would at this point. Trying to argue someone out of their devotion to phony heroes -- not to mention their fondness for conspiracy theories -- is pretty much a waste of energy.

Context is everything
As I've said numerous times on this blog and other forums, reasonable people can disagree over the justice, or lack thereof, of Katie's prison sentence. Most (though not all) of the disillusioned ex-GIN members I've heard from, and pretty much all of the critical bloggers I know, say he is right where he belongs, but I've taken the rather unpopular position that the sentence was a bit too harsh since he is a nonviolent offender. (Yet of course there is the question of how he could legally be kept from playing full-on in Scamworld if he weren't locked up. After all, he's still scamming, though marginally less effectively, from behind bars.) Reasonable people can also disagree over the legal issues surrounding civil and criminal contempt, and the fairness or unfairness of the fact that judges can pretty much jail people indefinitely for these offenses.
 
As is the case with most controversial figures or issues, people on both sides who have passionate feelings have a tendency to oversimplify and overlook nuances. The anti-Katie contingent, particularly those who lost money or felt they were screwed by Trudeau in some other way, may be less apt to consider the nuanced legal and ethical issues about contempt, for example, and most seem glad that he is in prison. The pro-Katie contingent, on the other hand, seem inclined to buy his dramatic tale that he was jailed for being a whistleblower, and that the government prosecutors cooked up a big phony case against him because he was threatening the establishment or Big Pharma or the food industry or the medical profession or the New World Order or what have you. Some Katie fans continue to insist that he was jailed merely for writing a book and/or for expressing his opinion that the diet described in that book is easy.

But context matters: legal, historical and ethical/moral context. And it appears to me that the pro-Katies are less willing to consider context than the anti-Katies.

Consider the legal context. Though I am no lawyer, I have been following Trudeau's civil and criminal cases pretty closely for years and have downloaded and read many hundreds of pages of legal documents pertaining to the cases. It appears to me that from a legal standpoint the government had a solid case against Trudeau. Historical context is important as well, and in those court documents the prosecutors carefully outlined Trudeau's history of pulling scams. For those who don't want to go back and pour through thousands of pages of legal docs (I don't blame you), a good capsule summary of the legal cases was provided in Aaron Gell's fine piece about Trudeau, published by Business Insider in January 2015. (Here's my post about Gell's article, if you haven't already read it and have some time to waste.) And if you would like to read the document that explains the reason for the denial of Trudeau's appeal, here again is a direct link.

Moral context is important too. And once again I'll cite Bernie's recent GINtruth post, as it has a good summary of the ways that people were hurt by Trudeau's scams. Although Trudeau was not tried, convicted or sentenced for his huge Global Information Network (GIN) scam, I have little doubt that that scam played a part in the prosecution's case and helped form a basis for the ultimate court decision.

Salty Droid understands the context too, perhaps much better than many, and explained it in a 2014 blog post (and yes, I know I've cited this before, but it belongs here as well):

It wouldn’t be surprising to learn that the total revenues from Trudeau’s life of scamjobery had topped a billion dollars. This book :: that book … whatever … the books don’t matter. It’s about cartels of badguys buying {preselected for sadness} people in bulk from media/info companies :: and then trading those people around until they become empty vessels … robbed of their money … and often of their sense of self.
The media :: the government :: and the courts … will all tell you a different story though. A much less complicated story :: disconnected from the hard problems of reality …

“He is a habitual liar and a fraudster,” Assistant U.S. Attorney April Perry said.

As a result of the size of the fraud and Trudeau’s two previous felony convictions, federal sentencing guidelines called for 20 to 25 years in prison, a range that Guzman said he thought was “appropriate.” However, he eventually agreed with prosecutors who said a 10-year term was sufficient since — unlike in many fraud cases — no one who bought Trudeau’s book was financially ruined.

Just a little bit :: totally …wrong.

And if the opinions stated on the appellate decision are any indication, it seems that some judges "get it" as well:

Based on the size of Trudeau's fraud and the flagrant and repetitive nature of his contumacious conduct, the ten-year sentence -- about half the bottom of the guidelines -- was not unreasonable.

So, really, Katie fans: it's not just about a damn diet book.

Legal, schmegal: the house that Troy built
On a recent Facebook discussion my friend Kenneth pointed out something of which I'd not previously been aware. The domain for the KT Legal Defense Fund does not belong, as one might expect, to Katie's lawyers at Winston & Strawn LLP. Rather it is owned by Troy McClain, current head of GIN and owner of the AXS Investment Group that bought GIN. You've met Troy on this Whirled a few times, such as this post, written in 2014 when the GIN sale was still pending.

Now, I'm not saying that all moneys contributed to the Legal Defense Fund will go into Troy's pockets. But I will point out that the terms disclaimer on the KT Legal Defense Fund page says that all contributions are nonrefundable and will go towards Katie's "management and legal fees" -- and I can't help but notice that "management" gets top billing here. It seems to me that in theory, Troy could justify taking any amount of the pot because he is performing "management." The physical address for sending payments does direct to Winston & Strawn, so old-school types who want to send a check can probably be assured that the lawyers will get their contribution. But for those who opt for the convenience of online contributions, recurring or not...um... I'm not so sure.

Moreover, as I may have mentioned before, GINsiders have told me that Troy really doesn't like Katie all that much and never did (which indicates to me that Troy is both a hypocrite and an ingrate, since Katie gave him so much free exposure back in the day), and that Troy has been making noise about shuttering the Illinois office entirely and moving the whole shebang to Troy's home state of Idaho. And in light of the fact that it looks like Katie may indeed be imprisoned for the duration, this seems more likely to happen. Given the whole no-honor-among-thieves phenomenon, I wouldn't be surprised by anything Troy does.

But no matter how long Katie is left to languish at Camp Cupcake, and no matter if Troy (and Katie's other former GIN cronies) desert him altogether and head for the hills with their own scams, leaving him twisting in the wind, Katie still has a fiercely devoted fan base who continue to insist that he is a hero, wrongfully imprisoned. For years his ego has been propped up by people who were willing to accept his story of being a martyr fighting for the First Amendment. And in 2012 the Koch-funded Libertarian think tank the Cato Institute even tried to take his cause to the Supreme Court, filing this amicus brief, which in the words of Salty Droid, supported "Kevin Trudeau's right to do whatever Kevin Trudeau's heart-of-a-car-salesman-lion-champion-patriot tells him to do..." (The efforts, as reported on this very Whirled, were ultimately unsuccessful.) 

On the arguably less intelligent front we have the fans who, rather than filing amicus briefs on behalf of their hero, write bad poetry about him or, even worse, produce appallingly bad videos.

So the songs and videos will continue to be made, and the people will continue to believe and spread Kevin Trudeau's narrative about being the put-upon hero, and new scams will be built upon old scams, and there will be no neat and tidy endings. Though the extent to which he'll be able to capitalize on adulation is debatable, I think it's safe to say that Kevin will, at the very least, always find people who are willing to believe him and make naively indignant proclamations about his unjust suffering. As I said in the context of writing about one of the loathsome scammers that Trudeau unleashed, first through his Natural Cures scampire and then through GIN, "the facts don't matter if the story is good." That really comes as no surprise to me.

Nor is it surprising that Trudeau is bound and determined to take his case to the highest court in the land, and to spend hundreds of thousands more of your dollars in order to do so. At the same time he pleas for your help in getting out, he continues to express gratitude for the blessings bestowed upon him in Camp Cupcake, as if this were the best thing ever to happen to him. He's using his down time to burn off the rest of his karma, after all, and is apparently using the fire from that karma-burning to cook up more scams. (And to learn German. Interesting choice of languages, but I digress.) So my advice is to keep your money, or send it to me if it's burning a hole in your pocket.

The bottom line is that whether you believe he deserves ten years in a relatively privileged prison camp, or a harsher sentence, or no prison time at all, Kevin Trudeau does not deserve your tears or your cash. As my pal Tim wrote, "Remember when kt felt bad for all the people in GIN who lost huge sums of money and did something to help them out? Yeah, neither do I."

Looking a grift horse in the mouth: Kevin Trudeau protege Coach Coral lands in hot water

NOTE: There is a very important update on this story (dated 30 November 2016) at the very end of this post.
~CC

It's time to finally shake myself free of my holidaze -- the most recent celebration being Cosmic Connie Day, aka my birthday, the celebration of which is actually still going on. But let's get down to Whirled business. Continuing this blog's prevailing theme of No Neat and Tidy Endings, or NNATE as my dear friend Julie Daniel puts it, we turn our attention to one of the lesser known cohorts of now-imprisoned serial scammer Kevin Trudeau, aka KT, aka Katie on this Whirled. That would be one Coral Rose Grant, a "Life Coach" formerly known as Coral Thomas before she got hitched to a fellow grifter, Mac Grant. Two can scam as cheaply as one, and it seems these two have now landed themselves in a bit of legal trouble.

As first reported by Ryan Kocian on Courthouse News Service on January 25, 2016 -- and again, thanks to Julie Daniel for pointing this out to me -- there seems to be a class action suit brewing against Coral's life coaching scampire, the accusation being that she and her hubby were running a Ponzi scheme. The essentials:

Named plaintiffs Cheri Lucas and April Fisher sued Coaching by Coral LLC dba The Secret to Life Coaching and three of its affiliates or shells; their CEOs Coral Rose Grant fka Coral Rose Thomas and Gary McGonagle Grant II aka Mac Grant; and their associate Heather Suzanne Perdue, in Travis County Court.

The defendant companies include The Release LLC, Infinity Manifestation LLC, and Superdue Inc., all of Colorado.

Lucas and Fisher seek to represent a class of "all persons who have entered into 'coaching contracts' or 'investor contracts' with any of the defendants."

Earlier today (January 26), the news was picked up by the Daily Beast, with an eye-rolling lede -- that is, eye-rolling regarding the Paris event being described, not the writer's choice to use that as a lede.

It’s early 2015 in a Paris conference room and nerdy men in suits are shouting: “I’m sassy, I’m sexy, I’m sensational!” The words, indecipherable if not for the video’s caption, are a part of a warm-up game during a life-coaching retreat—one aimed at shaping the world's best life coaches.

A company called The Secret to Life Coaching (TSTLC)—one that’s now under government investigation—hosted the retreat. Founded in 2008 by Coral Rose Grant, TSTLC’s stated mission is to help people “live their best lives” and, ultimately, make a career out of teaching others the same.

This week, it is the subject of a major class-action lawsuit led by two former clients, Cheri Lucas and April Fisher—the latter of whom taught classes for TSTLC. Together, the two allege that the company was part of a Ponzi scheme devised by Coral and her husband, Mac, in which they pocketed investor money totaling anywhere from $8 million to $20 million, using it to “live like royalty.”
Charging people hundreds of dollars to help them find the “life of their dreams,” they instead used it to live out their own. The mastermind behind the scheme, the two claim, was a “career fraudster and federal felon” Kevin Trudeau, the “infomercial king” who is serving time in prison for diet books. Coral, they say, not only visited Trudeau in prison, but spent money trying to get him released.

The plaintiffs are represented by Camden Chancellor in Odessa, Texas and Arnaldo Pereira in Austin. So far I haven't been able to track down any actual court documents.
[Update: I finally obtained the court docs on February 16; see link at the end of this post.]

Now. I hate to say "I told you so." No, I don't. But I won't, not in so many words. Instead I will take my usual annoying approach of rubbing your nose in the fact that I've mentioned Coral a few times on this blog over the past couple of years.

It's not that I'm some scoopy investigative journalist. I am actually pretty lazy. But I got a few heads-ups about Coral from a former Trudeau/Global Information Network (GIN) insider a few years ago, and I've been watching her ever since, more or less. Okay, I've been sleeping on the job lately. But still. 

This November 2014 piece is one of my posts where I mentioned Coral's scams, including a mention of the Paris bash featured in the Daily Beast lede, and it has links to previous mentions. The post is long and is not entirely about Coral, so skip down to the pink subhead, "We'll always have Paris..."

Be sure to take note of another player in this little drama, Nancy Ashley, long-time GIN member and Trudeau loyalist. I share a screen shot of one of her posts about another coaching retreat hosted by Coral and gang, and it appears from that screen shot that Chris "Voldemort" McGarahan, another Katie cohort and also a co-owner of the "new" GIN, is/was quite involved with Coral's coaching scampire.

The current reports about the pending class action frame Coach Coral's association with Kevin Trudeau as "information and belief," but as far as I am concerned the matter goes beyond informed speculation. Coral proudly promoted herself as being one of the few life coaches in the universe who was personally mentored by Trudeau. You can read about it in this May 2014 Whirled post. And as for the allegation that she helped pay for Kevin's legal defense, the writing has been all over the wall on that one, including the walls of this blog. To quote me in that May 2014 piece:

A couple of C.I.s have told me to watch out for [Coral] and her pals, because they're still actively involved in enterprises that will benefit Katie. Coral and gang reportedly have an agreement with Katie to raise a certain amount of money -- $100k or so, according to some sources -- for his legal defense in exchange for rights to market some of his frauducts and flopportunities and/or other benefits.

And the Paris to-do in early 2015 was actually promoted as a fund raiser for Kevin's legal defense. Interestingly enough, the Courthouse News Service piece quotes the complaint as saying, "Coral's criminal activities seem to have been too much even for Trudeau, since plaintiffs have been informed that Trudeau told her to stop." Whether or not that is true, it does appear that the cat is now officially out of the bag regarding Coral's schemes.

It appears that this was a long time coming. Here's a Ripoff Report from a dissatisfied customer in Colorado, dated October 2014.

If the plaintiffs or other vics had read my earlier blog posts, perhaps they wouldn't have lost so many hundreds of thousands of dollars. Oh, I am only kidding. I may be a narcissist, but I am not that full of myself. More than likely those who had to learn the hard way would have dismissed me as a hater or a dream stealer, like so many GIN members did for years -- and like so many other true believers still do.

This case is only in its very early stages and may end up fizzling out, or being settled out of court, or it may actually become a really big thing. With court cases you just never know. And I am not sure about jurisdiction since the plaintiffs are in Texas and the defendants in Colorado, though with a class action suit that may be moot, provided the case was properly filed in the right court. Sometimes lawyers make really big mistakes in that regard. Any of you legal brains out there, feel free to enlighten me. In any case I'll keep you posted and will add any updates, including court documents, if they become available to me.

Meanwhile if anyone reading this has any additional insights I'm all ears (or eyes). I'd like to hear from people who have experiences with Coral's coaching companies, good or bad. I'll respect anonymity as requested. Plaintiffs: I'd definitely love to hear from you, and if I do, I won't tell you, "I told you so." Coral and Mac, y'all are welcome to weigh in as well, though I rather suspect you won't since you haven't responded to other journos' attempts to get a comment.

The lesson here, besides the whole NNATE thing, is caveat emptor. Especially when it comes to "life coaching." That is as true now as it was nearly nine years ago when I wrote this.


UPDATE, January 28, 2016: 
I'm still trying to round up some court documents. Meanwhile, it seems that Coral has been rather silent on her Facebook page. Some mischievous soul (not I) posted a link to the Daily Beast article about the lawsuit on her timeline, but that seems to be gone now. And her Facebook profile seems to be devoid of information about her companies and accomplishments...


...though her "Intro" blurb on the landing page still describes her as a "Real Estate Investor...Venture Capitalist...TV Show Host...Mentor...Author...Speaker & Trainer."

But the snow must go on. A friend of mine got this email yesterday...

 
And as noted above, Infinity Manifestation is one of the named defendants in this developing case.

And in the Turds of a Feather category...

 

Coral and Mac do love to hobnob with the Rich(ard) and famous. But Branson, like most celebs, will probably pose with anyone who asks, so I wouldn't put too much stock in this photo.



Anyway. I'll have more about the court case as soon as I know more. While you're waiting, here are some recent-ish posts from Coral's Facebook page. Those of you who have lost thousands of dollars to this grifting couple, try not to gag. 

  



UPDATE, February 6, 2016:
Here is some more lamestream media coverage of Coach Coral's troubles. It is basic reporting of the facts of the case -- nothing really new there -- and the rest is a cautionary note about the necessity of checking out the credentials of any "life coach" you are thinking of hiring. The article kind of misses the point that the basis of Coral's scampire was NOT providing actual "coaching" to gullible individuals; instead she made her fortune teaching others to be scammers. She also apparently had some shady investment deals going and was able to extract money that way as well; I've heard from a few folks who were screwed by her out of astonishing amounts of money but who really are not ready to come forward with their stories yet. I hope to have actual updates, including the actual court documents, soon.

UPDATE, February 16, 2016:
Thanks to the tireless efforts of an invaluable friend and ally I finally got the Complaint documents. It was far more of an ordeal to get it than it should have been. But here you go. Of note, the complaint does address the jurisdiction issue I raised at the beginning of this post.

IMPORTANT UPDATE, November 30, 2016:
Coral says there never was a lawsuit, that the whole thing has been resolved, and that everyone is happy.

Although I invited Coral and/or Mac Grant to publicly comment on this post way back in January of this year when I first published it -- and they could have easily done so via the comments section -- I heard nothing from them for months and months and months. I did hear from a couple of anonymous commenters: one who claimed to have a relative who'd been scammed by Coral's coaching schemes; and another person claimed to have been financially hurt by her but still believes Coral was an amazing leader and mentor, and has made a positive difference in a lot of people's lives.

But I heard nothing from Coral herself until today -- more than ten months later -- and it was via Facebook rather than my blog or email (she says she couldn't find my email address).

Today I visited Coral's Facebook page for the first time in a long time, and on a whim I responded to one of her anti-Clinton/pro-Trump political posts, which she wrote earlier this month. The post was about a Newt Gingrich video regarding Clinton's alleged "conflicts of interest," and I simply responded with a link to an Atlantic piece on Donald Trump's numerous and dramatic conflicts of interest. And that's when I finally heard from Coral. Here are screen shots of the conversation (click to enlarge):

 

 

 

 

But because search engines look for words and not pictures, and because I want to be fair to Coral, I will post the conversation here:

Coral Grant: Don't comment on my page! By the way you might want to do some fact checking because everything you wrote about me on your blog is wrong! You're lucky I don't sue you because news outlets picked up on your crap.
Connie Schmidt: Tell me exactly what I got wrong and I will make corrections.
Coral Grant: Connie Schmidt take it all down because none of it is accurate. I never had a Ponzi scheme and I've never been sued for anything.
Coral Grant: I had a very legitimate coaching certification company and I've changed thousands of lives. I currently still do even though I had to shut the company down because I had huge issues with our financial team stealing money.
Coral Grant: Ask any of my clients and you will get a completely different picture of who I am and the impact that I've made.
Connie Schmidt: But you were sued. Was the case dismissed? If so I will add that to my blog. I want to be fair.
Coral Grant: No I was never sued there is no 30 million or 20 million Dollar lawsuit filed against me.
Coral Grant: If I was sued I would have been forced into bankruptcy which I was not
Coral Grant: And I'm still giving out refunds like I have over the last year to the people that believed in the company. I'm doing everything I can to make it right however everything that you printed about me was wrong
Coral Grant: There was never any case at all. I've had people send emails threatening but nothing has ever been filed and definitely nothing about a Ponzi scheme.
Coral Grant: Everything had to do with business debts and everything has already been resolved and people are happy with the agreements that I have made with them.
Connie Schmidt: But there was a complaint filed in court. Have you settled with plaintiffs Cheri Lucas and April Fisher?
Coral Grant: No there wasn't a file and they threatened to sue me for $100,000 for wages she thought she earned it had nothing to do with $20 million Ponzi scheme
Connie Schmidt: Regarding the Ponzi scheme accusation: if you read my blog post you will see that I was reporting about a case that had been filed in court, and I cited a Courthouse News Service article that said you had been ACCUSED of running a Ponzi scheme. This is that article:
http://www.courthousenews.com/2016/01/25/life-coaches-called-ponzi-operators.htm
Coral Grant: I had to hire a company to completely redo my online reputation still isn't done because of what you did! I would hope in the future you would ask questions and get all the facts before you put something so terrible about somebody. I have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars because of your blog. Please do better in the future! Also I don't owe you an exclamation you should be apologizing to me!
Coral Grant: This is not accurate! Like every other news outlet out there including yours!
Coral Grant: Please do everything you can to take down what you wrote and get it off the Internet! I'm hopping on a plane and I'm done with this conversation.
Connie Schmidt: Almost nobody reads my blog so you can't blame me for your reputation being compromised. People wrote to me about you and how you had scammed them. I had never even heard of you before I heard from these folks.
Coral Grant: Connie Schmidt I am not blaming you exclusively! I have contacted every other news outlet and said the same thing to them. You did not have any way to contact you on your blog so now I'm letting you know just like I let them know to take this crap down if it's not true!
Connie Schmidt: Um... my email addresses -- BOTH of them -- are on my blog and have been for years.
Coral Grant: I don't subscribe to your blog! When I google my name your blog about me comes up and I could not find your contact info.
Coral Grant: Either way! Please get this taken care of as soon as possible. Thank you!
Connie Schmidt: You don't have to subscribe to my blog to read the email addresses on it. I know they are clearly viewable on the Web edition and I think you can get to them from the mobile edition as well.
Connie Schmidt: I will make appropriate addenda to my blog post about the case.
Coral Grant: Thank you!
###

So there you have it. And let me clarify some points.

1. Coral wrote to me: "There was never any case at all. I've had people send emails threatening but nothing has ever been filed and definitely nothing about a Ponzi scheme."
   a. First off, Coral seems to be telling me that the case never existed. But SOMETHING was filed back in January of this year). Though I was and am opinionated, I was quite tentative in my actual reportage about this case. I speculated that the outcome of the case was anyone's guess. I wrote: "This case is only in its very early stages and may end up fizzling out, or being settled out of court, or it may actually become a really big thing. With court cases you just never know." And that's true. If there are followup documents -- if the case was dismissed or withdrawn by the plaintiffs or there was a settlement -- I would like to see relevant documents and I will report and share as appropriate. For now what I have is Coral's claim that one complainant (she didn't specify which one -- Cheri Lucas or April Fisher?) only threatened to sue her for $100,000 for money she thought that Coral owed her, but it had nothing to do with a Ponzi scheme and, in Coral's words, "there wasn't a file." Now, I am not a lawyer. And it is very possible that I just do not understand the definition of "filing" and that the document I shared (Cause no. D-1-GN-16-000281, 1/18/2016 in Travis County, Texas) was never actually filed. Perhaps it was just a draft or even a clever forgery. But a lawyer friend of mine had to pay the Travis County 98th Judicial District Court nearly $60 to obtain a copy of the document, so I'm thinking that it went beyond the draft stage and that it was genuine, even if the case all came to naught.
   b. It is possible that Coral was never properly served, due to attorney error or the inability of the process servers to locate her, for whatever reason. If she was never served -- for whatever reason -- it would be technically correct to state that she was not actually sued. But if that is what happened I had no way of knowing it, and I assume that none of the other people who reported it knew it either.
   c. I personally never directly accused Coral and her hubby of running a Ponzi scheme; as anyone can see if they read my blog post, I merely reported what my source article said about complaints that had apparently been filed in court against Coral. It was the complainants who alleged that she was running a Ponzi scheme, not I. Granted, the Daily Beast article about it should have added "alleged" to their headline, but that was their headline, not mine. I am very well aware that there is a legal definition of a Ponzi scheme and that not every scam, dodgy scheme or even legitimate but money-losing enterprise is a Ponzi scheme. Technically, in fact, Kevin Trudeau's huge scam, the Global Information Network (GIN) was never actually determined by the courts to be a Ponzi scheme or even an illegal pyramid scheme (though it undoubtedly was a pyramid scheme, and the Federal Trade Commission's experts agreed on that), and I have always been quite careful to make those distinctions in my own writing. Moreover, while allegations in a legal document are not actually proof of the truth of those allegations -- since people are pretty much free to say anything they want in a legal complaint -- the complainants did indeed accuse Coral and Mac of running a Ponzi scheme, and that's what the media reported. Here are screen shots of two pages of the complaint:
   
   
   
2.  As you can see for yourself by reading the dialogue above, Coral claims that she had and has a "very legitimate coaching certification company" and that she changed thousands of lives, and she only had to shut the previous company down because she had "huge issues with our financial team stealing money." If that is true, shame on the "financial team." Perhaps she should be suing them. If she does I will be glad to report that.
3. I should emphasize -- and again, just for the sake of bending over backwards to be fair -- that Coral claims the whole to-do was a misunderstanding that had to do with business debts and whatnot. Or maybe it had to do with the financial team stealing money. I'm a little confused. But anyway, according to Coral it has all been resolved, and everyone is happy, and she is giving out refunds to anyone who wants them. "I'm doing everything I can to make it right however everything that you printed about me was wrong," said she, to me.
4. Coral implied a threat to sue me because "news outlets" picked up on my "crap," and she claims that she lost hundreds of thousands of dollars because of what I wrote about this case. I will have to call b.s. on that. As I pointed out to her, almost nobody reads this little blog. I have the stats to prove it. As of the time I'm writing this, only 277 pairs of eyeballs have gazed upon this particular post since I first published it in January. Whirled Musings is an almost embarrassingly unvisited outpost of the blogosphere. But I still strive to be accurate. I have standards. And I got my original information about the case from content that had already been published on a couple of other legitimate sites that rank much higher on the search engines than I ever have. These content providers did not get their information from me; the reverse was true. Apparently, however, my blog pops up when Coral Google-searches herself.
5. Most of my blog content consists of opinions, though I make every effort to get the facts on which I base those opinions correct. As of now, all I have on which to base corrections and additions and clarifications are Coral's own statements. So I have published these. Regarding my opinions, I stand firmly by my opinions about life coaching schemes and about anyone who is closely associated with serial scammer Kevin Trudeau, or even simply claims to be closely associated with him. (And by the way, I also stand by my rather unpopular-among-scambusters opinion that nonviolent scammers don't belong behind bars.)

Anyone who has any questions, comments, or clarifications can either comment on this blog directly (comments will not appear immediately, because I moderate), or you can write to me at one of these email addresses:
cosmic.connie@juno.com
cosmic.connie@gmail.com

On love and hate and blogging

A belated Happy New Year to all of you. Since my Christmas decorations, such as they are, are still up -- I'll keep them up at least until my birthday, aka Cosmic Connie Day, which is next week-- I consider that the holidaze are still ongoing. But it is high time that I break in 2016 with a new blog post.

As usual, I didn't make any New Years resolutions because I think they're a waste of time. However, a frequent topic of this blog certainly made one, and posted it on January 3 for the waiting world.

If this is any sort of reference to his critics, you have to wonder what he has in mind. Will it be something legal but ill-thought-out and stupid like another lame lawsuit against certain hobby bloggers? (See here and here for examples, particularly if you are an attorney considering taking on a defamation case on his behalf.)

Will it be something not really legal and totally unethical, but not terribly actionable either, like another defamation campaign against his critics? He's nothing if not the poor man's Elron Hubbard, with his own inept version of Operation Fair Game that he has been utilizing at least since the 1990s.

Or does he have in mind something illegal, like using that "revenge insurance" he boasted about some time back?

Or maybe, despite his constant whining that he has been hacked, he is thinking of employing a hacker to destroy the blogs and web sites that call him out.

On the other hand he could simply be making a reference to a $10 billion class action suit he had recently claimed to be filing against Facebook for "criminally" deleting his posts (so he says) and censoring him (so he says), and suspending him when people complain about his clear abuse of Facebook's Terms of Service.

Or maybe it's just the bourbon talking again.

* * * * *

In July -- July 27 to be exact -- this Whirled will be one decade old. When I commenced blogging back in July 2006, I never dreamed I would keep it up for ten years, or even for two years. I just decided to start writing and see how it went. As time went by I gained a modest following, though as I've mentioned before I don't spend too much time keeping track of my stats. I'm still just a minor planet in the blogosphere and for the most part I am cool with that, although I would be lying by omission were I not to confess that sometimes I wonder why I bother blogging at all. After all, it's not making me any money (not that I've actually tried that hard to monetize), and the most noteworthy thing it has earned me so far was a (failed) defamation lawsuit.

But whenever I get an email or comment from someone who read an old post that helped them, or that resonated in some way, it kind of makes me want to keep on blogging. A friend of mine alerted me to this blog post by Jennifer Garam, that 'splains it pretty well.

When you write something, you never know who it is going to affect, or how it could help someone who’s struggling and feeling alone, or how in a low moment in their life, desperately searching on Google for answers, they will come upon your words when they need them most. And despite what our culture will have us believe—that metrics and stats matter above all else, that the number of clicks tells the whole story—somehow, in some calculation, impacting one human being has got to be worth more than all the unique page views and Shares and Likes in the world.

Yeah. What Jennifer said. At least I will keep telling myself that.

I should note that I don't suffer the why-even-bother blues with my paid writing jobs, which are mostly for-hire and don't have my name on them. (And no, "Big Pharma" is not one of my clients, contrary to the claims of a few idiots.) But I do occasionally have motivational freezes where this blog is concerned. And hearing from fans helps unfreeze me.

I have to admit too that hate mail galvanizes me as much and sometimes even more than fan mail. F'rinstance, in late December 2015 a guy named Andrew Livingston sent me an email telling me I am a dumb c-nt with no integrity, simply because I have indicated that I like the debunking site Snopes. Perhaps he was writing in response to this August 2015 post about some idiots who believed a hoax article stating that Snopes co-founder David Mikkelson had been arrested, or maybe he saw some of my Facebook posts where I cited a Snopes article in an effort deflate some conspiracy nut's balloon. But his contempt for me, as well as for Snopes, was clear, as was his sense of intellectual and moral superiority -- not to mention his general misogyny and anti-Semitism. I asked his permission to quote him on my blog and he refused; accordingly I am not quoting him, just paraphrasing him. Here is his Facebook page.

More recently I received a private Facebook message from a little troll using a girly avatar, "Sarah Quick," who seems to be in on some sour-grapes Scamworld plot to discredit former Glancingweb blogger Omri Shabat and frame him for extortion. Sarah began our conversation, such as it is, by calling me a "little social justice warrior," but before the exchange had proceeded very far I was a "libtard c-nt." Those little hater boys do love that c-word, but perhaps that is understandable since saying or writing the word is probably the closest most of them ever get to a vagina. In the course of the exchange, little "Sarah" slammed me for linking to a Mother Jones piece by Kevin Drum, explaining that despite Donald Trump supporters' frequent citing of The Donald's much-lauded business acumen, Trump is in fact a mediocre businessman. "Sarah" taunted me for being a poor broke loser who begs for money on my blog, ignoring the fact that I have never claimed to be rich or "successful," nor do I make a living telling people how to be rich or "successful," so the point is moot. Besides, I don't beg. The donation button is there for those who want to use it, but it -- and I -- am not in-your-face about it.

At any rate it's little hater boys like that who help fuel this blog and give me a reason to keep on blogging. So -- though I know I've said this before -- thank you, hater monkeys!


I'll be back soon with something more substantial. Promise.

PS added 19 January 2016 ~ Bernie at GINtruth welcomes the New Year in with a meaty post about real humanitarians versus selfish-help parasites... plus more about Facebook's attempts to clip the haters' wings, at least in Europe. Among other links he shares this one from the Jerusalem Post. (And if you're confused about the date on this PS versus the date on Bernie's post, remember that Bernie is in Japan, which is many hours ahead of my time.)

Twenty-Fifteen: Over and Out

Fast away the Old Year passes
But the scammers still are a$$es*...

* * * * *

Should evil hucksters be forgot
And never brought to trial?**...

Oh, dear me. My mind is so scrambled that I can't even whip out a good song parody. But hey, I got you started; you can finish one or both of them if you're so inclined. Make a music video and send me the YouTube link.

This has been a whirlwind of a year, with good things happening but -- I won't lie -- a few sucky things as well. One sucky thing that happened turned out good for me but not so good for the filthy little sack of unmitigated evil that unsuccessfully sued me (and a few other parties, both real and imaginary). But you're probably already quite familiar with that story. If not, start here... and then go to here... and don't despair if you see that the Salty Droid links don't work right now. His blog has apparently been attacked yet again but he's working on getting it back up. You can't keep a good fake robot down. And while you're waiting for @SD to come back up, hop on over to Longdog's blog, if you've not already done so, and read his short, pithy but always spot-on posts about the stupidest and most evil man in Scamworld. (Here's Longdog's take on the flawsuit of the year.)

Now, all evil and suckiness aside, I did have quite a good and busy November/December and a wonderful clump of holidaze (Thanksgiving/Winter Solstice/Christmas)... and the wonderfulness is still ongoing. What got my brain so scrambled were work deadlines (now safely met) and a stubborn case of bronchitis/flu-ishness that is getting better (a few more days of rest, some Emergen-C and some hot Broncaid tea should do the trick). But I didn't want to let the whole month slip by without stopping in and making another promise to start blogging something substantial again. I know you've heard that before, but you'll just have to trust me. I'm good for it.

What I really want to say, once again, is this: Thank you as always for your support through this year and all the years preceding. And I really will be back next year with more.

In the meantime, in an effort to offer something a little more substantial, so you won't go out partying on an empty brain, I'll grab this opportunity to dredge up some Ghosts of New Years' Eve/New Years past:

• New Years Day 2008 -- The deep personal loss mentioned at the beginning of the post was the death of my mom (I still haven't really been able to write about her); she died three days after Christmas 2007. But in an attempt to quash my sadness I turned, as I often do, to silliness.
• New Years Eve 2009 -- Some of the battles in the "Whirled Wars" have all but been forgotten by now, but many of the issues are still relevant. BTW, "Major Snarget" is Joe "Mr. Fire" Vitale, and "Minor Snarget" is his former b.f.f. Pat O'Bryan. The two haven't been joined at the hip for a while now. I still do not care to mention the real name of Angry Blogger because... anger.
• New Years Eve 2011 -- Something to celebrate: Death Ray in jail. Unfortunately that didn't last.
• New Years Day 2014 -- I really did hit the ground running on that New Year... so much Katie news was whirling around at the time.
• Shortly after New Years Day 2015 -- Our Katie is still pooping out those nuggets in a desperate effort to get you to donate to his legal fund (and I promise to have more about THAT soon, if not sooner).

Have a safe and happy New Year's Eve, a hangover-free New Year's Day... and always, always keep your boots and protective gear on, because there are "nuggets" everywhere, and very few of them are in fact made of gold.


* As usual, no offense intended to actual jackasses. I love donkeys, as it happens.
** Unfortunately most of the hucksters never WILL be brought to trial, and even those who are -- and are convicted -- won't get nearly the punishment they deserve. See: James Arthur Ray.

Tomorrowland, Scamworld, my Whirled

November is waning, and time is running out for me to keep the commitment I've kept for nearly nine and a half years, which is to never let an entire calendar month go by without blogging. I've been more than a tad negligent yet again this month, but please don't interpret that as a lack of interest in the matters that have kept this Whirled spinning since July 2006. My interest hasn't abated and neither has my commitment. If anything there have been too many matters to write about -- so many that I scarcely know where to begin.

Where to begin, indeed? There is no dearth of choices. There's the usual low-hanging fruit such as serial scammer Kevin Trudeau (aka KT, aka Katie), who continues to manipulate the masses to the best of his ability via a public Facebook fan page, though he remains locked up. I would so love to participate on some of those Facebook threads, but I'm still banned from doing so. I do need to get on to PACER and poke around for new Katie court docs, if any. I promise to do that soon and get back to you.

And in other low-hanging-fruit news (or maybe low-hanging-nut news, though I really don't want to know), the stupidest and most evil man in Scamworld, Leonard Coldwell (aka Lenny, aka LoonyC), who unsuccessfully sued me (and a few others, including Salty Droid) earlier this year, is still stupid and evil, though these days most of his public stupid/evil energy is spent spewing hatred about things other than bloggers. He's blathering a lot about "the Negro"/Muslim/communist/Kenyan Obama; the rapist Muslim immigrants who are taking over Europe and are headed towards Murica (because of "the Negro," of course); the "false flag"/hoax shootings that he insists are a New World Order plot to take our guns away; and his passionate and almost certainly one-sided bromance with Vlad Putin, whom he considers a hero for trying to bomb Syria out of existence. And let's not forget the characteristic Loony Lenny misogyny, this little gem from today (30 November, 2015) being but one example among many.



That screed was in response to a piece by conspiracy-monger Alex Jones' misogynistic little sidekick Paul Joseph Watson.

LoonyC just gets stupider and more evil as time goes by, and I truly think that little Amy should do a better job of hiding the bourbon, but at least the little Teutonic twerp provides lots of cheap entertainment. Since he blocks so many folks on Facebook you might find it difficult to see his inanities firsthand, but UK wag Longdog -- whose real identity I still don't know and don't want to know -- is someone who seems to have full access, and entertainingly sums them up for the rest of us.

And Bernie just weighed in on GINtruth with his own comments about Lenny's disgusting misogyny and participation in "rape culture."

But I've written so much about Katie and LoonyC, so... no. Not them, not now. Well, at least not much. (Although my pal Salty did finally get Part 2 of his Coldwell Case Files trilogy up. The link to Part 1 is in paragraph 3 above, but here it is again.). Several recent happenings -- call it synchronicity, call it meaningless coincidence, it's all the same to me -- helped me narrow the focus somewhat for this post. I got tiny jolts of inspiration from seeing that blogs I've admired but that were on hiatus are coming back to life... and by reading an article that a longtime supporter of this blog recently alerted me to and that sums up some of the themes on my blog and some of these others... and by watching a Disney movie that unexpectedly touched me despite its "uneven storytelling" and a slightly heavy-handed message of the type that is all too easily co-opted by the sleazebags of Scamworld.

Somehow it all seemed blogworthy, though I won't guarantee coherence. And maybe you'll roll your eyes about the Disney movie. But I'll plow right on, since I started this thing, and since the last sun of November is setting even as I write this.

Mystic B is back
Early in my blogging days I happened upon a blog called Mystic Bourgeoisie by the brilliant Chris Locke. I found it inspiring, and ever so much more cerebral than my own efforts. I didn't always agree with the way Chris connected the dots between New-Wage culture and more nefarious forces such as the Third Reich, but he made a very convincing argument. I have mentioned Mystic B a few times here over the years (here, f'rinstance), and have hounded Chris over the years to turn his blog into a book, which he may or may not have plans to do. But in recent years he was awfully quiet on that blog, though active on Facebook, and I wondered if he would ever begin blogging again.

The good news is that yes, he has. In fact he has just launched a whole new Mystic B, though the old one remains up for posterity. On his inaugural post he 'splains the reasoning behind the new blog with its simpler template, and he clarifies his chosen target, which remains...

...those aspirational bourgeois who perceive some form of worshipful pseudo-spiritually as their ticket to ride into the ranks of the upper middle class - or at least what they yearningly imagine that class to comprise.

That leaves only the difficulty at this new beginning, the challenge of which will be to stop puttering about with the tech and spend the saved time instead attempting to denigrate and deconstruct the so-called "Cultural Creatives" and suchlike ilk that - living as I do in Boulder, Colorado - it has been my great misfortune to have so intimately known.

Yes, and I look forward to reading the new Mystic B. And that brings us to...

Yoga whores and such
My pal Duff McDuffee posted a link to this 2014 article the other day on his Facebook page. I believe it was the aforementioned Chris Locke from whom I first heard the term "spiritual-industrial complex" (and I mentioned as much on this October 2006 blog post, under "Other places to hang out"). Anyway, this piece is from the Guerrilla Buddha blog, and even though at this time I'm not into personal growth or spiritual practice, I think this guy nailed it regarding the ways in which the spiritual industrial complex (or SIC) creates and perpetuates a vicious circle of suck. And not the good kind of suck.

In a sense this piece is both a fierce cry against New-Wage/selfish-help/McSpirituality elitism and a soft call for another sort of elitism involving a litmus test of who is actually worthy of true wisdom. It was that latter part that gave me pause, though I understood the writer's point. As well, the whole concept of being a spiritual warrior or indeed any kind of warrior is pretty alien to me. I just sling words; I don't wage war. But even so, there's some pretty good food for thought here.

Salty went to sea
After another couple of months of silence, Salty Droid seems to be active on his blog again, and I couldn't be happier. Shortly before publishing the Coldwell Files Part 2 installment, he re-emerged from his hiatus with a tale of a very special sea cruise he took, and though thousands of folks might have envied him the opportunity, it sounds as if he was really taking one for the team on this one. The cruise was Summit at Sea 2015, a congregation of the best and the brightest and best-and-brightest wannabes and hangers-on of the (mostly) millennial generation -- or at least those whom the media have declared to be the best and the brightest.

More than one media source describes the Summit gatherings as a combination of TED and Burning Man. That should give you an idea of what they're about. Business Insider gushed and gushed.

But one goal of the summit was to unplug from technology — the only place on the boat you could get WiFi service was the Internet Lounge. Many participants did yoga on the deck in the morning, while others tried out a ropes course and a 3D figure painting class.

And everybody was Kung-Fu fighting. And it was just a little bit frightening. And so on, and so forth. Mostly, it appears, they spent the time on board and afterwards congratulating themselves on being masters of the universe, as Kate Winslet famously said to Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic.

In case the above-linked Bus-Insider piece wasn't enough for you, here's some more stellar writing from an "insider."

What it all comes back down to -- at least from my own profoundly shallow perspective -- is that no matter how noble the intentions may be at the beginning, it's all about elitism and pretension, even when it's wrapped in a cloak of "changing the world" for the better. Chris Locke always got that, particularly in regard to the baby boomers and Gen-X'ers. The guy who wrote the Guerrilla Buddha piece gets it. Salty gets it too, from a slightly different angle and in regard to the millennials as well as the preceding generations.

And the problem goes well beyond the "conspicuous altruism" that I've poked fun of on my own blog and that Salty has written about as well on his. He emerged from Summit at Sea 2015 with his well-directed cynicism intact.

Changing the world through the divine power of repeatedly repeating the words … “changing the world.”

Be the change you want to see in the world!

Or maybe just say the change you want others to believe you want to see in the world :: that’s prolly just as good … what with all the global cross platform social synergies that have been going around like venereal diseases on a cruise ship. More talk … less action.

Let’s just flap our mouths about change :: and then go ahead and do whatever the fuck we were gonna do anyway … it’s a win win {for everyone but the vast majority of humanity}.

But it was Salty's endgame spoiler that seemed to sum it up:

Scamworld isn’t creeping upward toward the real world in an effort to increase its reach/credibility. Scamworld is just the trickle down of the devastating devotion to lies and corruption that form the basis of the real world.

Salty indicated that the above epiphany was a game changer for him. He has yet to reveal whether that means a new direction for his blog, or a new direction for his "real world" activism, or both. But he's back, and feistier than ever.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow...
I will shamelessly admit that despite my own cynicism, which I've come by honestly and which has been further reinforced by much of what I've mentioned above, I was both entertained and touched by the Disney movie Tomorrowland. Granted, I'm not as tough on movies as I am on books (Joe Versus the Volcano remains one of my favorite movies of all times, so that should give you an idea of what a softy I am). And I get what the critics said about uneven storytelling and less than subtle messaging in Tomorrowland.

I get too that the base premise of Tomorrowland -- the abiding value of dreams for a better future and the people who nurture that dream -- is one that has been co-opted and abused by some of Scamworld's finest. The premise was certainly misappropriated by Kevin Trudeau when founding his biggest scam of all, the Global Information Network (GIN). How many thousands of GIN members believed, because of Katie's relentless marketing, that they were part of something truly grand, and that they were on the brink of changing the world? Six years ago I was laughing at those people, feeling more than a bit smug and self-righteous that I was smart enough not to be conned by a notorious con artist. But later I got to know some of those GIN members, particularly the disillusioned ones, and I felt their deep disappointment and sadness and anger, and I came to realize that some of them really had joined GIN with a higher purpose in mind than Trudeau's implied promises of nearly effortless material wealth.

And in truth I love the notion of dreamers and people who won't give up, which is one reason I so adored Tomorrowland. Even as I understand that in the real world, when dreamers attempt to cordon themselves off to create a new world, they become GIN or the worst of TED or Burning Man or Summit at Sea (with perhaps a bit of Bilderberg and Renaissance thrown in there somewhere), I also understand that there still are people who have a genuine wish to make a difference in good ways, both large and small. I remain as touched by that wish as I am by the longings for redemption and new beginnings that are expressed every year at Christmastime. It may never happen, but the dream lives on.

Anyhow, check out Tomorrowland for yourself. At the very least you'll enjoy the special effects, and if you like George Clooney, here is a chance to see him at his brooding best. Here's an Amazon link.

Scamworld is the real world, but it's still a thing unto itself as well.
There's a lot to be said for the notion, expressed in the Salty-at-sea post I linked to above, that Scamworld and the larger "real world" are all part of the same big ugly thing (the "big sick machine," as Salty famously called it), with the borders between the two being not just increasingly porous but, I am beginning to believe, mostly illusory.

The Scamworld/real world merger has come to light in ways I find particularly interesting (in the blogworthy sense) as the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign has heated up. Take the current GOP front runner Donald Trump (please!), whom I've mentioned a few times on this blog, such as here. As noted on that post, and provided links, Salty Droid did a good job of exposing Trump's notorious MLM (multi-level marketing) connections, years before the current crop of pundits jumped on it.

But good for the pundits for giving it more than passing attention anyway, as well as exposing the other top GOP candidate, Ben Carson, for having a few fingers in the Scamworld pie himself. In fact numerous GOP politicians are or have been hucksters on the side. Here are a couple of links:

• New York Times: Springtime for Grifters (October 30, 2015)
• Slate.com: The Get-Rich-Quick Schemers Who Love the GOP
• And Pyschology Today, among other mainstream sources, has pondered over the question of whether Donald Trump has narcissistic personality disorder (offhand I'd say yes).

Oh, and my favorite doc blogger Orac also weighed in on Ben Carson's lack of critical thinking skills. Orac is not really what I'd call mainstream, though I wish more folks would read him, but I had to get this link in somehow.

I think it's a really encouraging note that Scamworld is getting more mainstream media attention now, largely because of Carson's and Trump's involvement with scammy MLMs, but I can't help wondering if the media will even care about the Scamworld aspect after the current election cycle is over and most of the individual candidates have faded into history.

You would be justified in asking me why I think this question even matters, given that I have been entertaining the premise that Scamworld and the real world are one and the same. Well, it does still matter to me because I think we still have to pick our battles. Moreover I think that if we stop emphasizing the Scamworld aspect, the scams will become increasingly acceptable. In fact you might argue that that ship has already sailed. The NY Times article I cited above concludes:

The point is that we shouldn’t ask whether the G.O.P. will eventually nominate someone in the habit of saying things that are demonstrably untrue, and counting on political loyalists not to notice. The only question is what kind of scam it will be.

(This isn't to let the Dems/liberals off the hook; after all, many of the conspicuously enlightened whom I've made fun of over the years have leaned towards "liberalism." But when money calls, it seems that most folks begin veering towards the more "conservative" side of the aisle.)

Even so I'm not willing to concede to Big Scam and call it a day. I think there's still hope and that pointing out scams and scammers still matters, even if only a little. You probably won't see me popping out of a golden wheatfield and gazing in awe at a shining silver city in the distance any time soon... but in my own small way, I too am one of those people who has not given up.

And I'm glad to see that several of my favorite bloggers have not given up either, despite the hiatuses and resets and game-changers that sometimes disrupt their efforts along the way.

James Arthur Ray Death Lodge Sixth Anniversary: Never Forget

I always love October. I love the way it presents itself, more often than not, in such bright and perfect blue and gold -- yes, even down here where we don't have the stunning autumn colors that are seen further north. I love the way October always feels, even more than September does, like a beginning rather than the herald of any kind of ending. Granted, at least one group of Apocalyptomaniac "Christians" had been predicting that yesterday, October 7, would be The End. They were unfazed by the world's utter failure to end on September 27 with the lunar eclipse/blood moon/super moon, as predicted by various idiots. One Chris McCann, head loony at the eBible Fellowship, an online affiliation headquartered in the Philly area, said that on October 7, the world will be "gone forever. Annihilated." According to McCann's interpretation, the world would be obliterated "with fire."

As we all know now, the world did not end. Here we are, well into October 8. And the world goes on, for most of us.

But as much as I love October, there is an undercurrent of sadness in these pristine fall days. Most of the hummingbirds are gone by now, though a scant few stragglers remain, but that's not the core of my sadness. It's more of a general melancholy, rather subtle, perhaps best expressed by Rilke's poem, "Autumn," which is no doubt even more lovely in the original German, though the version in this blog post is the English translation that touches me the most (yes, despite my agnosticism).

This October day in particular is a sad one, for today is the sixth anniversary of the date that the world did end for Kirby Brown and James Shore, two participants in New-Wage/selfish-help/McSpirituality guru James Arthur Ray's phony "sweat lodge" in Sedona, Arizona. Nine days later a third participant, Liz Neuman, passed away as well, without ever awakening from a coma.

And after that, the world was never the same for untold numbers of family members and friends of these three lovely people.

I knew none of them, though some of the family members are now my Facebook friends, but I think of them every year at this time. Mostly it is with sadness but also with anger, because the man whose recklnessness was responsible for these three deaths (four, if you count Colleen Conaway's death at another Ray event in July 2009), served a prison sentence of less than two years for the Sedona deaths. (He served no time at all for Colleen's death, and wasn't even charged, much less tried or convicted, although my understanding is that there was a civil settlement of some kind, eventually.)

And these days, James Ray is exploiting the Sedona tragedy and his time in prison for his own purposes, still parading as a success guru but with a new hook: he uses the pain and loss of others to portray himself as the hero who has walked through fire.

He may have walked through fire, figuratively speaking, but he did not die by fire, literally, as did James Shore, Kirby Brown and Liz Neuman.

He may have lost a lot, but he is still alive and capable of writing unmitigated crap such as, "In the process of losing everything...I actually found myself."

That theme -- redemption through profound loss -- is the one that Death Ray is flogging these days. And at this time, as previously reported here, he is preparing to be the keynote speaker at the Global Information Network (GIN) Family Reunion at a Disney World resort in Florida on October 16-18. GIN, as you almost certainly know if you've been following this blog or others with similar subject matter, was the scammy brainchild of now-imprisoned serial scammer Kevin Trudeau (aka KT, aka Katie). The club is still being run by a group of Trudeau's close buddies and business partners (though if you don't mind my slipping in a little bit of gratuitous gossip, a GINsider recently whispered to me that GIN/AXS CEO Troy McClain actually can't stand Kevin. Shhh! Don't tell anyone.).

People lost hundreds of thousands of dollars through the GIN scam, money they will almost certainly never get back. Yet the con rolls on; even the "affiliate" (MLM) program has been renewed, and various wannabes (like this joker) are still enthusiastically and aggressively pushing GIN as a "success club" -- and, in the case of the linked post above, they're also promoting James Ray as someone to look up to. And Trudeau? Still languishing in Camp Cupcake (his fake-fond nickname for FPC (Federal Prison Camp) in Montgomery, Alabama), awaiting the outcome of the appeal of his ten-year prison sentence, and pushing his own scams in order to raise money for his legal defense fund.

I should note that some disgruntled Trudeau customers will get their money back: after the U.S. government spent more than twelve years and many millions of dollars to pursue Trudeau for claims made on an infomercial for his diet book, Judge Robert Gettleman finally approved refunds for buyers of the book. But there's a catch.

Consumers won’t be getting a full refund on the book. The government agency’s lawyers have said the refunds could arrive in multiple checks to readers, and it’s “reasonable” for consumers to expect $11 total from the first two checks they get. Some variables are at play, including the number of consumers the FTC can track down and the percentage who actually cash their checks. The checks will be valid only for 60 days.

The FTC said more than 820,000 people bought Trudeau’s book, which has a list price of $24.95.

But you GIN members who maxed out your credit cards, squandered your life savings or even lost your homes as a result of constantly being bombarded with attractive lies, Scientology-like manipulation, sales pitches, upsells and oversells... pffft. You're on your own. This case was never about y'all anyway. In fact it wasn't even consumer fraud re the diet book that actually landed Katie in prison. Technically it was criminal contempt; essentially, Katie pissed off the courts and the judges. Granted, it was all related to Katie's egregious consumer fraud. And Katie still has to answer for many of his lies (most notably, where he's hiding all of his money) when he gets out of prison. But meanwhile... he's still scamming and still has legions of fans.

Although it may seem that I've digressed a bit from my original topic on this post, I haven't, really, because both Katie and Death Ray are part of Scamworld, and in fact they have publicly endorsed and promoted each other numerous times over the past few years (see here and here for instance).

One of the constant themes on this blog over the past few years has been that there are no neat and tidy endings in Scamworld. "The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on." Kevin Trudeau is in prison, but still scamming, and still looked on as a hero by many. James Arthur Ray was in prison, but out now, and still scamming, and still looked upon as a leader of some sort, at least by a few.

Meanwhile, many of the people Katie scammed are still picking up the pieces of their crumbled finances and lives. And as October inevitably gives way to November and December, there will still be empty places at the holiday tables of the families whose loved ones were killed by the arrogant recklessness of James Arthur Ray.

Regarding the latter, there are bright spots of joy with the sadness; in the years since Death Lodge, beautiful babies have been born to some of the family members of those who were lost. Life goes on, and for some, October is truly a time of beginnings.

And maybe, just maybe, no one is ever truly lost. Rilke:

...And yet there's One whose gently-holding hands
this universal falling can't fall through.

Kirby Brown's family, trying to create something good from the awfulness wrought by James Ray, is still promoting their non-profit, Seek Safely, whose purpose is to educate people about how to safely participate in the self-help industry. I will note once again, as I always do when I mention this organization, that none of the industry giants invited to sign the Seek Safely Promise has signed. Here are the people who have signed -- and as I've also said before, I am sure they are good folks, but they are not the most prominent in the industry. Still, it's a worthy cause, and I applaud Kirby's family for their efforts.

And me? I'll continue to do my part to make sure that people never forget what happened six years ago today, October 8.

For insights into the arrogance that led up to Death Lodge, and the arrogance Ray has displayed since then, see this post, written on the first anniversary of Sedona. Also read Connie Joy's book, Tragedy in Sedona. There's also a new public Facebook group, James Arthur Ray is a Felon.