"You fool of a Drumpf!"

Laying hands on a Palantir isn't going to make those tiny paws any bigger, Herr Drumpf. All it is going to do is create sinkholes in front of your garish palace, and sap your strength. And you of all people should know that being president requires stamina -- the kind of stamina that Madam Secretary (she who should have become Madam President) had in abundance.

Truly, worrying about the fate of the nation under Mad King Donald is sapping my strength, and I fear that even Gandalf won't be able to save us. Drumpf's loony-tunes shenanigans in Saudi Arabia haven't helped matters any. But I haven't given up on this Whirled. So bear with me.

Meanwhile, from SHAMblog earlier this month, here's my pal Steve Salerno connecting the dots between our narcissistic selfish-help culture and the SCROTUS we're suffering now.

The Whirled's still turning: snippets for a Sunday afternoon

So another month almost got away from me while I was occupied with for-pay work and other real-life matters. But just in the nick of time, here are a few snippets to snark us out of April and right into May Day, aka International Workers' Day, aka Loyalty Day. (And simmer down: while Herr Twitler is disturbingly, disgustingly authoritarian and seems hell-bent on destroying the Constitution, he didn't make up Loyalty Day. It was actually first observed in the U.S. back in 1921, during the first Red Scare, and became a legally designated holiday in 1958.)

Almost-May-Day or not, it's just another day in Scamworld...

Kind of like Donald Trump writing a book about humility
Convicted killer James Arthur "Death" Ray, aka The Scumback Kid on this Whirled, is apparently trying to regain his status as a Number 1 New York Times Bestselling Author with his upcoming book, Redemption: The Price of Leadership.

In Redemption James Arthur Ray brings his nearly 30 years of experience in business, entrepreneurship, meteoric rises and epic falls to suggest that leadership is about “paying the price.”

In some cases, followership is also about "paying the price," and in some cases that price is your life.

I don't think Death Ray quite understands the meaning of the word, "redemption."

Ramtha Hearts Drumpf
I used to write fairly frequently about the imaginary-friends sector of the New-Wage/selfish-help/McSpirituality industry. In other words, I used to be a lot more fun than I am now. But never mind that. One of the elder stateswomen of the imaginary-pals biz is crazy J.Z., who has a 35,000-year-old made-up mate named Ramtha. Recently I found out that Ramtha is quite the Donald Trump fan, despite the fact that his inventor has a history of being a donor to the Democratic party. That must make for some interesting convos at the dinner table and family gatherings.

Ramtha cheers the new president: “That man is trumping deceit. He doesn’t smoke, he doesn’t do drugs, he does business!”

As a kicker, Ramtha predicts Trump will receive the protection of UFOs while flying in his jet: “And the first time he looks out the window … when he sees two silver disks as escort, he is going to know it all — and this is a man who is not afraid — he is going to know it all.”

Mike Wright, a [J.Z.] Knight spokesman, said in an emailed statement that Knight continues to support Democratic candidates and causes in local and state elections.

“She did not vote for candidate Trump but she sees what Ramtha describes as ‘purposeful good’ in his election,” the statement said.

And...

The Ramtha controversy that dogged local Democrats erupted in 2012 after videos were leaked by a conservative group of Knight, as Ramtha, making racist and offensive comments. That included referring to “the invasion of the Mexicans who just breed like rabbits” and saying Jews had “earned enough cash to have paid their way out of the (expletive) gas chambers by now.”

Knight’s defenders argued the videos were heavily edited and that her comments were taken out of context.

Uh-huh.

The Law of Extraction, eleven years later
I've flung thousands of words onto this blog (and some other forums) in the eleven years since the infamous New-Wage moviemercial, The Secret, came out. The Secret promoted a simplistic, pseudoscientific, magical-thinking philosophy called the Law of Attraction, but what it was really promoting was the Law of Extraction, as in extracting money from gullible people's wallets.

Besides criticizing the basic premises of The Secret, and slamming its shameless pandering to narcissism, greed, and envy, I've written a lot about the various talking heads for whom The Secret was a cash cow, including creator Rhonda Byrne. Around the time of the five-year anniversary of the release of The Secret I posted about the misfortunes of some of the Secret "stars."

Back in March of this year, one of The Secret's most boastful "stars" (and a once-frequent star of this blog, until I grew bored with him), Joe "Mr. Fire" Vitale, commemorated the ten-plus year anniversary of The Secret. As he'd done hundreds of times previously over the years, he spent the entire blog post Joe-splaining that The Secret (despite originally being heavily promoted by its creators as the only seekrit a person would ever need) was only an introduction to a concept, and that if The Secret doesn't "work" for you, it's your fault for not understanding it properly or not doing the work or whatever. As is the case with nearly all of his blog posts, the real purpose of this post post was to give Joe a forum to boast about his success and try to funnel people into his overpriced "Miracles Coaching" scam.

Some things never change.

But here's what's kind of scary, to the point that I even wonder if this comment is even real. It appears after Joe's post:

from "Donald" March 5, 2017 at 10:06 pm
Hi Joe!! I recently signed up for your Miracles Coaching. I am excited! I was recently diagnosed with cancer, which they said could be cured with surgery. But, I have decided to put my faith in you and spend the money on coaching instead. I think the universe will cure me through you! My doctors were totally negative about my decision, telling me I was “choosing certain death.” Can you believe that? Anyway, I would rather give my money to you than some negative doctors! Wish me well, my friend!

Captain Kirk goes berserk
Earlier this month actor William Shatner got into a big twitter fight over vaccinations. When my favorite physician blogger David Gorski, aka Orac (Respectful Insolence) interevened in the conversation, the former Captain Kirk/Denny Crane turned on the good doctor and spit out accusations that were parroted from Mike "The Health Ranger" Adams' fierce defamation campaign against Dr. Gorski. Among other sources, Shatner cited Adams' ill-named "Truth Wiki" entry on David Gorski.

Orac wrote about it on this April 6 blog post.

...if you want to know why people like Mike Adams write dozens of lie-filled articles attacking me and adding attacks on my cancer institute for good measure, this is about the best example I’ve ever seen. It’s to poison my Google reputation forever, and it’s largely succeeded, my Wikipedia page and other entries on me that show up on the first page notwithstanding. Last night’s experience reminded me of this in a manner that I never would have predicted in a million years. There’s no way I could ever have predicted that, one day in 2017 (or any other time), a celebrity as big as William Shatner would Google me and use Mike Adams’ attacks on me against me, even though all I did was to try to explain, quite respectfully and uncharacteristically not insolently, a bit about why he was being criticized. One wonders how he would have reacted if he hadn’t found all that misinformation on me. True, I have since learned that Shatner has a history of behavior like this on Twitter and that it’s likely that he would have found some other reason to attack me, but maybe, just maybe, he might have listened a little.

In the Slate piece I linked to in the first sentence of this section, Alan Levinovitz wrote that Shatner's tweets are instructive as a classic case of the way misinformation is spread. As far as I'm concerned, the Shatner v Gorski tweet-fight is also instructive as proof that despite Mike Adams' constant annoying whining about being "censored" by Google et al., he seems to do just fine in the search engines.

Little Loony Lenny: back in the Fatherland?
We in the US can only hope that my UK pal Longdog is right when he speculates that the stupidest and most evil man in Scamworld, cancer quack and former Kevin Trudeau b.f.f. Leonard Coldwell, has left the U.S. and is now hiding out in his native Germany. Too bad for Germany, though.

And speaking of Little LoonyC, it appears that you can register for his IMBS-ing U "coaching" training in Germany -- which takes a year to complete and consists of four blocks of "training" at 2,500 Euros for each block, PLUS a 2,000 Euro fee to actually take the "final."

But be warned, prospective student:

All applications are binding and irrevocable! There are no cancellations or repayments! ONLY American law (Court of jurisdiction: Charlotte, North Carolina, USA) German law is not applicable. If you incur any costs for IBMS® and dependents, you are fully responsible and must bear the legal and legal costs for IBMS® and all dependents in full!

So he's ripping 'em off in the Fatherland too (no big surprise there), and it's only a matter of time before they get wise to him. And as usual, his German-language sites proclaim that everything is subject to U.S. law, while his dwindling U.S. platforms cite German law. It's all a ruse to try to keep people from suing him, because you can't just rip people off nonstop for years and years without the thought of a lawsuit at least crossing the minds of the folks you're screwing.

Meanwhile...

Katie and pals are still begging Drumpf for mercy
The aforementioned imprisoned serial scammer Kevin Trudeau, aka K.T., aka Katie, is still begging SCROTUS to pardon and free him from Camp Cupcake (his faux-fond nickname for the relatively cushy Montgomery, Alabama prison camp where he's serving his ten-year sentence). I blogged about this back in February. Katie is also begging his followers to plea his case to SCROTUS and whomever else will listen. On March 19 on Facebook, for instance, one of Katie's surrogates, "E.G.," wrote a long-ish screed, complete with Trudeau-ish histrionics.

Imagine, if you would, being sentenced to spend a decade in prison without being convicted of a "crime". No fraud, no felony, and not even a misdemeanor (like your garden variety DUI rap). Picture this draconian sentence imposed on you, not by a "jury of your peers", but by a singularly mortal and fallible federal judge.

Ponder what it would be like to be emphatically and cynically denied every opportunity to defend yourself against ridiculous "charges" leveled against you, not by ANY law enforcement agency, and not by any "complaint" filed against you by any "injured party", but rather by ONE virtually omnipotent and pettily vindictive federal judge. To be forbidden to so much as utter the phrases "first amendment" and "free speech" in "HIS" courtroom, as if these were personal affronts to the judge rather than fundamental rights granted to every citizen of this country vis-a-vis its supposedly respected and revered founding document.

Put yourself in the shoes of a completely innocent person as he is handcuffed and shackled, with bail denied, and thrown into MCC (Metropolitan Correctional Center) Chicago, one of America's toughest jails, to defend himself amongst "real criminals": convicted murderers; armed bank robbers; human traffickers; drug kingpins; mafia hit men; violent and ruthless gang members; and pedophiles. Having the "courtesy" of being offered solitary confinement extended to you by your jailers "for your own protection" (naturally), as you stare down the prospect of ten more years in the federal penitentiary system....

"E.G." went on to describe Katie as "one of the most honorable people I have ever met," adding, "I'm proud to know a person of such rare vintage. They just don't make 'em like that anymore."

Well, yes, they do, E.G. Scamworld is pretty regularly producing con artists, scammers, and flim-flammers.

More recently, Trudeau waxed poetic about his blissful experiences in Camp Cupcake:

I woke this morning. Meditated for an hour...read for 20 minutes...made some fresh coffee...wrote for 30 minutes. And then sat reflecting...smiling...feeling amazing.

What a wonderful gift I have been given to be here. I am so thankful and grateful. Bliss bubbled up inside. I sat just "being"...feeling soooo good!

I looked around me and then thought about all the sad people getting off a train… sitting in traffic… rushing to work...stressed. Miserable...unfulfilled...searching for life’s meaning...struggling with debt.... I smiled again...how lucky am I!?

YOU can feel good in ANY situation. YOU have the power to CHOOSE your thoughts and point of focus...use your power wisely.
Much love…KT
#FreeKevinTrudeau

Free Kevin Trudeau? Why bother? Sounds like you're already free, Katie!

As I said above, some things just never change.

That's it for now... see you next month.

Herr Twitler and the wrecking crew proceed with the rape of Amerika

Oh, dear. Here we are on the very the last day of March, and I'm just under the wire again. For the nearly eleven years of this blog's life -- since July 2006 -- I've blogged at least once every calendar month, and often much more than that. I've been preoccupied once again with real work and real life and falling in love with my husband all over again and other engaging things, not to mention that I've been busy railing on social media, and that takes a lot of energy. But now it's high time to return to the Whirled. And though this is still not a political blog, except when it needs to be, I'm feeling like it needs to be again today. I know some of you don't like that, so you'll just have to turn the other way for a while.

Despite the roiling Trussia scandal and all of his other worries, our esteemed SCROTUS Herr Drumpf is still engaging in his petty wars with the critical media, and shaking his tiny little fist at the First Amendment. I first wrote about his threats against the First Amendment over a year ago, shortly after he had bloviated about "opening up libel laws" to make it easier for him to sue journalists and media outlets that hurt his feelings.

Now here we go again, as Herr Twitler takes to his favorite forum on 30 March, 2017, to make noise about "libel laws" once again. Tweeted he:

The failing @nytimes has disgraced the media world. Gotten me wrong for two solid years. Change libel laws?

I'm sure the New York Times is quaking in its boots over that threat. Fortunately he's getting a lot of #Resistance to his dumb tweet. Follow the link to the tweet, and enjoy the responses. Detractors spared no effort with their snark, cartoons, and general smackdowns.

Of course I haven't forgotten the Drumpf/Scamworld connection, which makes SCROTUS more relevant to my regular beat. Not that it's even such a reach any more: unfortunately Scamworld and politix have merged in unpleasant new ways that are shaking the foundation of America.

At any rate, in a post this past January, Salty Droid mentioned billionaire investor/corporate raider Carl Icahn:

Carl Icahn :: President Trump’s new special advisor on regulatory reform … owns the biggest chunk of cult-Herbalife.

That Herbalife/Icahn connection is eminently worthy of further exploration (though already explored at length by Salty Droid), and I suspect that our little fake robot has been engaged in such exploration for the past couple of months, which may help 'splain why his blog has been mostly quiet since that January post.

But other media are on now Icahn's case too, including the "failing" New York Times. This is from 26 March, 2017:

[[Mr. Trump appointed Mr. Icahn] to help the nation “break free of excessive regulation.” But there is an additional detail that is raising eyebrows in Washington: Mr. Icahn is a majority investor in CVR Energy, an oil refiner based in Sugar Land, Tex., that would have saved $205.9 million last year had the regulatory fix he is pushing been in place...

...The blitz has already generated at least one clear outcome: Since Mr. Trump was elected president with Mr. Icahn’s very vocal support and nearly $200,000 in political contributions to Republican causes — the stock price of CVR Energy has soared. By late December, it had doubled. It is still up 50 percent from the pre-election level, generating a windfall, at least on paper, of $455 million as of Friday.

The merging of private business interest with government affairs — aspects of which have previously been reported by Bloomberg, but which The New York Times has found further evidence of — has generated protests from ethics experts in Washington, as well as certain Senate Democrats. They consider Mr. Icahn’s dual roles perhaps the most troubling conflict of interest to emerge so far in the new administration.

The larger problem is that the Drumpf wrecking crew seems hell-bent on waging an all-out war on science, and in addition to decimating safety regulations, they are apparently attempting to erase all mention of "climate change" and related matters from official communications issued by any of the government agencies that are involved with environmental issues. In the new "political correctness" under Donald J. Trump, the term "climate change" has become very, very politically incorrect indeed.

And that's every bit as scary as the Scammer in Chief's war on the First Amendment... and possibly even scarier than the Drumpf/GOP parliament of whores' war on Internet privacy... but maybe the privacy thing is a whole 'nother blog post. Or maybe I'll get back to simpler fare, such as imprisoned serial scammer Kevin Trudeau and his continuing whiny campaign to have Herr Drumpf set him free.

Anyway, tomorrow's another month, and let's make it as good a month as we can. Under the circumstances, you know.

Another tempest in a teapot: Google delists and relists whiny Health Ranger

A fiery screed from the rabid right
A cloud of lies and a piercing, "I've been censored!"
...The Health Ranger whines again!
[Cue William Tell Overture]

I've been noticing that lately there is a lot of intensely whiny snowflakery in Scamworld, and some of these whimpering snowflakes happen to be alt-right nuts as well as scammers. They do love their persecution narratives, it seems, even more than they love their Cheeto Jesus and their guns. One such alt-right scammer (and friend of scammers) is Mike "The Health Ranger" Adams, long-time frauduct peddler, histrionic promoter of conspiracy narratives, and passionate Donald Trump supporter.

For quite some time now Adams has been beating his chest about being a heroic voice of truth, standing bravely on the front lines of the fight against the "lying mainstream media." More recently he volunteered himself as a soldier defending the "legitimacy" of Trump's "presidency." I wrote about that just this past December:

In an "open letter" to His Unholy Orangeness, Adams urges Trump to refuse to let the mainstream press corps into his (ultra)White House at all. After all, declares Adams (repeating by rote what every faithful Trumpian knows), the mainstream media are Drumpf's enemy and "they will do anything and everything to destroy you."

Though Adams' faux-fight against the legitimate press has been an overwrought attempt to get the #NotMyPresident's attention, so far I've seen no evidence that Drumpf has even acknowledged the existence of Mike Adams. This is in contrast to Trump's bromance with top-of-the-steaming-heap conspiracy monger, Alex Jones.

But being ignored has not kept Adams from sticking his nose as far up Drumpf's aperture as he can possibly get it, rooting around up there and then smearing the results all over his pro-Trump platforms. Apparently he thinks that if he keeps on doing that, his efforts will be rewarded eventually. In that regard Mike Adams is like many other loudmouths on the alt-right, as noted by the Washington Post last November, immediately following the election.

So let's get to the whiny part already. Adams' latest online drama, which plays right into his "brave warrior for truth" shtick, occurred last week when his main site, Natural News, got penalized -- "delisted" -- by Google. For several days he whined and whined and whined about it, beginning with a "Red Alert" on February 23, which bore this headline (accompanied by a picture of a nuclear bomb detonating):

RED ALERT: Fascist Google begins PURGE of pro-Trump websites as prelude to massive false flag or coup attempt

On that same day, a White House petition was initiated to "Ban Google's Blatant Suppression of Free Speech." At the time I'm writing this, the petition has 64,851 of the 100,000 sigs needed in order for the White House to at least acknowledge it.

By February 26 Adams was in full shrill conspiracy mode:

Mike Adams, Alex Jones attacked… is it a prelude to a false flag event targeting Trump?

As most of you are aware, last week we witnessed massive attacks on independent media. Alex Jones, who is by far the leading voice in the war against tyranny, was stripped of $3 million in ad revenue after being banned from AdRoll. We saw Milo, one of the loudest Trump supporters, be ripped apart after making irresponsible statements that the media was able to manipulate into pro-molestation remarks, causing him to lose his $250,000 book deal and step down from Breitbart. And now NaturalNews.com, which has been a pioneer in exposing the lies of big pharma, vaccine makers, and dirty food pushers, has had all of its 140,000 articles scrubbed from Google, even while Google refuses to provide any evidence justifying the blacklisting. We see this for what it is; a massive conspiracy to silence the truth.

Before all of these events unfolded, Mike Adams, a.k.a. The Health Ranger, had a suspicion that something was about to happen when an anonymous person offered Adams $50000 to destroy Alex Jones. On his February 17th podcast Adams explained that after he had refused to take the money or lie about Jones, the person threatened that the media would retaliate and destroy Adams. Just five days later we witnessed this come to fruition.

Are these attacks on such high profile independent media members a result of being Pro-Trump? Jones has a direct connection to Donald Trump and had a significant influence on him being elected. Milo has been an avid cheerleader for Trump and his executive orders on immigration. Adams owns the popular Trump.News website, which provides real news about what is happening in the Trump administration, and threatens the fake news spewed out by mainstream media.

The mention of Milo above was, of course, a reference to Milo Yiannopoulos, whose book deal was recently canceled by Threshold Books, a division of publisher Simon and Schuster. Here's Vox:

Shortly after Threshold’s deal with Yiannopoulos was announced, prominent liberal intellectuals announced that they would be boycotting Simon & Schuster. The Chicago Review of Books announced that it would not review any Simon & Schuster books in 2017. Literary superstar Roxane Gay pulled her upcoming book from Simon & Schuster’s list.

And that’s because Yiannopoulos is not a garden-variety conservative author. He is a professional troll who weaponized Twitter as a tool for (racist, sexist, transphobic) harassment so effectively that Twitter was forced to permanently ban him. On his ongoing college speaking tour, he has doxed trans students, putting their lives in danger. He routinely makes hyperbolically offensive statements like “feminism is cancer,” designed to rile up liberals, and then when liberals get angry, he winks and says he didn’t really mean it: He was just being provocative.

But none of that — not Yiannopoulos’s history of harassment and bigotry, not the widespread outcry and the loss of major authors — was enough for Threshold Books to think twice about acquiring his book in the first place, let alone cancel his contract. It took the resurfacing of a video in which Yiannopoulos explicitly defends pedophilia for Threshold to pull the plug.

For many on the left, including writers like Gay, the timing of Threshold’s decision demonstrates that the publisher doesn’t really care about Yiannopoulos’s right to free speech so much as it liked what he was saying before he got to the part about pedophiles — and, more importantly, that it believed its customers would like what he was saying. Threshold thought it could make money from his book, and now it doesn’t think it will.

...In other words, Threshold has sent a clear message: Explicit bigotry, harassment, and hatred are tolerable among conservative thinkers. Defense of child molestation is where we draw the line in the sand.

Don't shed any tears for Milo, though; I have no doubt he'll take his book elsewhere and find acceptance. I suspect he still has a large platform and a dedicated fan base. It's all about free speech, you know.

Anyway. In a separate post on February 26, Adams groused that Google had refused to 'splain its "blacklisting" of Natural News.


Conspiracy-fan-in-disguise Erin Elizabeth, the Health Nut (previously mentioned on this Whirled) got in on the hysteria and histrionics early on with this brief post. Her conspiracy-minded fans joined in the conversation; you can read their thoughts about "censorship" and various devious plots thereof in the comments to the post.

And my favorite blogging doctor David Gorski, aka Orac, whom Adams has viciously defamed, enjoyed a brief moment of schadenfreude.

Google did speak up about the matter shortly after the whinefest began. Apparently a webmaster guidelines violation was the real reason for the "banning," which, it should be noted, wasn't an outright ban but just a penalty. And as for the delisting occurring without warning, the Search Engine Land article noted this:

Natural News said in its post that “Google sent no warning whatsoever to our ‘webmaster tools’ email address on file with them,” but not all penalties will receive a notification via Google Search Console. More extreme and deceptive violations will not receive such notifications.

But Adams insisted that Google was lying about their reasons, and he insisted that several "liberal" sites such as CNN, HuffPost and BuzzFeed were guilty of the same violations he'd been accused of, and they hadn't been penalized.

Whine, whine, whine.

In any case, as of today (February 28) Natural News is safely back on Google's index.
Naturally Adams claimed credit, insinuating that the petition he had started had done the trick and that "your voices have been heard." Basically his "official statement" about the relisting was yet another extended whine...

As Natural News was being censored by Google, we were also being assaulted and called liars by the same left-wing media that routinely attacks Donald Trump. By censoring Natural News, Google empowered a massive wave of defamation articles that deliberately sought to exploit the absence of Natural News in the rankings to spread knowingly false lies and hatred about Natural News and myself in particular.

In essence, Google just enabled one of the most vile hate campaigns ever witnessed on the ‘net, all while denying Natural News any ability to defend itself against such hate-based smears and malicious lies. It is the electronic equivalent of binding your hands, slapping duct tape over your mouth, and throwing you to the lions. All this from a company that once claimed to “do no evil.”

In effect, Google censored us, then allowed others to smear us, then hosted a webmaster forum which attacked us and called us liars, then refused to provide us with any evidence of wrongdoing, all while silencing our ability to defend ourselves in the public space.

There’s no question in my mind that none of this would have ever happened if Natural News had been a Clinton-supporting website. There’s no question in my mind that Natural News was discriminated against because we were a convenient political target that could be silenced as part of an elaborate smear campaign to drag our reputation through the mud, scare away future visitors and harm our revenue-generating traffic as a form of economic sabotage...

Somebody call the waaahhhhhmbulance.  

Speaking of vile hate campaigns, Google has also enabled Natural News' vile hate campaigns against people such as David Gorski/Orac, and for that matter, against Hillary Clinton and everyone who voted for her... but I digress.

None of this is to suggest that Google is a completely benign force or that its penalization of websites is always logical or consistent. We all know that's not the case, and website owners and bloggers have been bitching about this for years and years. But in this case the reason for Natural News' delisting seemed fairly straightforward, and with the problem fixed... there's no problem, right? Wrong. Adams felt compelled to inject his overwrought conspiracy narrative and political ranting into the matter, even bringing Herr Drumpf and Adams' customary nattering about "false flags" into the drama. But hey, it added to Adams' martyr creds and probably didn't hurt his revenue stream.

And don't forget that Adams has his own search engine, GoodGopher. GoodGopher filters out what they consider "disinformation" and government/Big Pharma propaganda, instead stacking their search results with alt-nutty and rightwing sites (euphemistically dubbed "independent news media") such as NaturalNews (of course!) as well as Breitbart, The Blaze, Washington Times (which is owned and run by Moonies), Drudge Report, Western Journalism and more.

On GoodGopher you can choose "mainstream media" for your results, but you'll mostly get FOX News results, and if you get an outlet such as the Washington Post you'll see it has been "flagged by the user community for malicious or misleading content." Clearly, "misleading" and "malicious" are in the eye of the beholder. (This blog doesn't show up in the listings under either independent or mainstream media. It's as if it simply doesn't exist on the Internet at all. Maybe this going-on-eleven-years experiment was just a dream...) 

Adams also has his own "alternative" to Wikipedia, the ludicrously misnamed "TruthWiki," which is chock-full of fluff/promo copy for predatory fraudsters and right-wing nutcake political ranting. 

In any case Adams is still fighting the good fight and continuing to wax histrionic about the "vile assaults" that he and Natural News are "enduring" from "lunatics" and people whose minds have been poisoned by fluoride and mercury and whatnot.

Adams' whining reminds me of the whining of the stupidest and most evil man in Scamworld, Not-Doktor Lenny Coldwell, whenever Lenny gets suspended from Facebook, which is fairly frequently. Lenny generally whines that he got "banned" because he supports Trump and/or because he tells the "truth" about cancer cures. But in truth he gets thrown in Facebook jail because people report him for hate speech. Both Lenny and Adams play the martyr card to the max, falsely claiming they're being censored for truth-telling.

In a more general sense the Health Ranger's laments also remind me of serial scammer Kevin Trudeau's vintage whines (and current gripes) about being oppressed by the government for telling the "truth" and fighting for your and my First Amendment Rights.

Meanwhile, the true threat to the First Amendment (and much of the rest of the Constitution) is sitting in the Oval Office with his wrecking crew, plotting out ways to destroy America and re-mold it according to their plutocratic, theocratic agenda.

By the way, there is another Natural News article that has been making the social media rounds lately, bearing the headline:

In the 1930s, Adolf Hitler arrested and executed ‘fake news’ journalists who rightfully claimed that Jews were being exterminated

Adams didn't write that piece; it was authored by prolific right-wing propagandist and Natural News contributor Don Wrightman, but it is prominently featured on the Natural News site, and as I write this it is at the top of the list of "Most Viewed Article" on the site. And even though it was published in December 2016, it is currently being shared on numerous right wing sites. Some folks who are emphatically not right-wingers are sharing it as well on social media, not considering the source and the real reason for the article.

Given the context, including the links within the article (particularly the link to Adams' "truth-telling" site liberty.news), it is abundantly clear that this piece was a protest against critics of Mike Adams and his fellow "independent journalists" rather than a statement about Herr Drumpf's war against the legitimate media. So all of you Trump critics who have been sharing this article should probably reconsider your choice. Clearly this piece is little more than another blatantly transparent effort to make Trump's and Adams' critics, including the media, look like the real "Nazis"/threats to freedom, while portraying Adams, Alex Jones, Breitbart and the rest of the fact-free "press" as the true First Amendment defenders/martyrs.

And c'mon people. Y'all are too smart to believe that.

Kevin Trudeau & cronies beg Trump to pardon & free serial scammer

I've added a few links and pics since this post was first published.
~ CC, 11 February 2017

In the turds-of-a-feather category...  
I suppose it was inevitable. Ed Foreman, former Republican Congressman and loyal long-time pal of imprisoned serial scammer Kevin Trudeau (aka KT, aka Katie), has apparently written a letter to Not-My-President Donald J. Trump, begging him to pardon Katie for the criminal contempt of court charges for which Katie is currently serving a ten-year prison sentence in a relatively cushy Federal Prison Camp (FPC Montgomery, Alabama). Or, lacking a full pardon, Ed implores Trump to release Katie from prison, as he has, according to Ed, "been punished enough."

The letter, posted to a new blog, "Stand With KT," repeats all of the distortions, rationalizations, excuses and outright lies that Katie, his legal team and his legions of fans and followers have been repeating for years. (Here's a February 2016 Whirled blog post that calls out some of those lies and addresses some of the legal and moral contexts.)

Essentially -- and this will come as absolutely no surprise to anyone who has been following the Trudeau saga -- Ed's plea frames Katie's struggle as a heroic one and Katie as a martyr to an overreaching, tyrannical government and an unjust legal system. It also cites a "biased Judge," playing right into Trump's own disdain for judges who have ruled against Trump. As well, it indicts the evil mainstream media who are constantly distorting things, which again panders to Trump's own mediaphobia. It heavily plays the sympathy card too, and of course wouldn't have been complete without a hearty dose of sycophancy towards the Orange Emperor.

Kevin loves America, and has been a tireless champion for Free Speech and the US Constitution. He has been one of your biggest supporters and fans. When you announced your candidacy for President he immediately said you would win and did many things behind the scenes to promote your victory...

...During his more than 3 years of imprisonment both his mother and father passed away. And he was not even allowed to attend their funerals! He has been punished enough.

I am asking you, in fact I am pleading with you for your consideration, compassion and understanding to Pardon Kevin Trudeau or at least commute his sentence to time served and have him released immediately.

Having worked closely with 5 US Presidents, I can say with compete confidence, that you will be one of, if not THE, greatest Presidents of all time.

You have my complete support in every way, and I know you will always have Kevin's complete loyalty and support forever.

Kevin himself has also petitioned Drumpf directly, as documented on another post on the Stand With KT blog. And here is a direct link to his letter, which is more of the same old same-old and includes the obligatory brown-nosing of Drumpf.

You are a brilliant business person and a marketing genius. You have dealt with state AG's, government regulators, and lawsuits. You know what it is like to have false allegations and misleading statements made about you in the media, in court papers, and on the internet.

You were wrongfully attacked about Trump University, and had to deal with a "biased judge", untrue media reports, and lies about you and Trump U. You will "get this" better than anyone.

But again... who didn't see this coming? Since Trump himself is such a major scammer (one whom Salty Droid began nailing years ago), and since Katie has on numerous occasions expressed admiration for Trump (as have several of Katie's fans and followers, such as notorious "coach" Coral Grant), it's only natural that some of Katie's cronies would actively petition Trump to free their hero. And it's no big surprise that Katie himself would do some petitioning on his own behalf.

After all, Trudeau lost his appeals in the lower courts, and in December 2016 the Supreme Court of the United States made the choice not to hear his case. (Here's them, thumbing their collective noses at him, or more accurately, having one of their clerks do it.) Over the years, Katie and some of the principals of his numerous shell companies have spent millions and millions and millions of dollars (of Trudeau's as well as other people's money) beating what amounts to a legal dead horse, in recent years trying desperately to buy Katie's freedom. And they've done this despite Katie's numerous Facebook posts about how blissfully happy he is in Camp Cupcake (his nickname for the prison camp in which he is languishing).

And so, having failed in his attempts with the judiciary, he is now appealing to the executive branch. But he's not doing so as a "wronged" citizen appealing to the pretend leader of the free world, so much as a lifelong swindler appealing to a fellow swindler. At its essence Kevin Trudeau's missive to Donald Trump is a desperate plea for professional courtesy.

The Stand With KT blog isn't moderated, yet, though I suspect it soon will be, in light of the fact that I chose to join the conversation.

[Update 11 February, 2017: So far my comment remains, and a few others have been added since then.]

There's also a new web site (which I found out about from Bernie O'Mahony of GINtruth fame -- thanks, Bernie!), which is a call to action for Katie's dimwitted fans to inundate Herr Drumpf with pleas.

We are going to use a very successful military strategy called

SHOCK AND AWE.

During the next 30 days we are going to SHOCK the White House with

Millions of tweets, millions of email and tons and tons of physical letters.

Nothing has an impact like dozens of trucks dropping off tons of mail.

It will make a huge splash.

This will be a movement like nobody has ever seen before.

Done properly it will save our Freedom of speech rights

Here’s what we can do to help

#1 Read the following letters

Letter to President Trump from Kevin (Click to Download)

Letter from Ed Foreman (Click to Download)

Read the reason for Kevin’s incarceration in his own words (Click to Read)

Starting today and for the next 30 days do as much of the following
as you can and do it multiple times per day.

#2 Using all types of media, send this website address,

www.kevintrudeau.com to as many people as you possibly can

#3 Go to www.Whitehouse.gov/contact Write a letter in your own words

Advocating for Kevin Trudeau’s release and submit it via their online form

#4 Mail as many copies per day as you possibly can for 30 days, to the addresses below. For every letter the Government gets they calculate that 100 other people believe the same thing but just did not take the time to write. So every letter is important. It has a very powerful impact...

There are several other recommended tactics, including sending Instagram messages to Drumpf, sending daily messages on Drumpf's Facebook page, calling the White House daily and leaving "a message for the president to free Kevin Trudeau," and so forth, and doing all of the above as often as you possibly can during the next 30 days -- and, of course, sending money to Katie's Legal Defense Fund. It's all in the service of saving "our right to Free Speech."

Katie's old cohort and scam partner Lee Kenny, who is safely in the UK away from all US government harassment, wrote a post on the Kevin Trudeau Facebook fan page on 9 February, urging people to get involved in Project Free Katie. (I have removed all of the embedded links from Lee's message and added one of my own: a link to the Kevin Trudeau '"facts" section, which once again is a repetition of the same old misrepresentations, distortions and bald-faced lies.)

Kevin has asked if we can help him in a 30-day massive action push to have his sentence pardoned, or at least reduced to time served.
I have been working with the wonderful Ed Foreman and key behind the scenes people to create a 30-day massive action plan to highlight Kevin's cause to President Trump, the most obvious person who has the power to get Kevin released.
Social media has the ability to play a huge role in taking this all the way and will be done in concert with offline methods too.
We will be encouraging you to use the #FreeKevinTrudeau message in this 30 day push on Twitter and Facebook to raise awareness.
Kevin has also created an official website that just launched at KevinTrudeau.com
It is certainly not the finished article, and will have information added daily. Make sure you read the Kevin Trudeau facts section which goes in to granular detail about why Kevin is currently taking an all-expenses paid break in Alabama! This has already been sent to President Trump.
For many, many reasons now is the time to focus the energy on this and help Kevin. When I tell you we were a hair's breadth away from being on Obama's final pardon's [sic] list, you should be encouraged. If you can play your part, in any small way, it will be appreciated and acknowledged
If you have any questions, please feel free to reply or message me. But most of all go to KevinTrudeau.com and tag any friends or colleagues who may be able to join us in this 30-day push!
Many Thanks
Lee

"All-expenses paid break in Alabama"... heh. Also, I'd take that claim about Trudeau being a "hair's breadth away" from Obama's final pardons list with a huge grain of salt too. By the way, here's Bernie O, responding to a misguided soul on Facebook who shared the new KT web site link. 

 
Apparently the minions are obeying the directive and are trying to communicate directly with Drumpf. I don't know which is more pathetic: their requests to the Scammer in Chief to free a fellow scammer, or their belief that Trump is actually an advocate of free speech.

But whether or not Trump will respond favorably to Katie and his fans, or will even acknowledge their harassment, is another matter entirely. After all, we have no evidence (yet) that Katie's passion for Drumpf is at all requited. Unlike the situation with Trudeau and convicted killer James Arthur "Death" Ray, who gleefully promoted Katie's scams while Katie defended Ray (and Katie's scammy brainchild GIN even featured Ray as a keynote speaker in 2015), I've yet to see any indication that Donald Trump is an admirer of Kevin Trudeau or that he has even heard of him.

Certainly Drumpf has many other important things on his mind, such as tweeting, pissing off other nations, signing our rights away, and so forth. Who's to say when or if he will turn his attention to a Scamworld colleague who got caught and actually punished for scamming? Maybe he'll dismiss Trudeau as a "loser." Winners don't get caught. In any case I'll keep you posted on any developments in the Trumpdeau saga, and of course you're free to do your own research too, and give me a heads-up if you see anything. We all help each other here.

Related on this Whirled:

• March 2016: Donald Trump and Kevin Trudeau: Turds of a Feather?
• March 2016: The devils at the crossroads of politix and Scamworld
• May 2016: Trump and his Trumpsters: like attracts like
• May 2016: Donald Trump's Scamworld playbook isn't unique
• July 2016: Trumpdeau redux: Kevin Trudeau is excited about Donald Trump's vibes
• November 2016: Politix and Scamworld on an extended honeymoon

PS ~ Trudeau isn't the only scummy scammer whose dimwitted fans seem to think that Herr Drumpf will exercise his superpowers on behalf of their dubious hero. Not-Doctor Leonard Coldwell, ex-b.f.f. of Kevin Trudeau, once again landed in Facebook jail for 30 days after being reported for hate speech (again). After he was released from jail he once again claimed that the blocking happened because he was "fighting for Trump." As you'll see in the second screen grab below, one fan suggested that now that Drumpf is in power, Facebook (which the fan doesn't seem to realize is a privately owned company that has every legal right to set its own "community standards" of what is and is not allowable speech) will no longer be allowed to block LoonyC. Um, that's not the way it works.

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Signin' Your Rights Away: Not-My-President Trump's poison pen

It has been a busy week for Cheeto Jesus, notes Mother Jones:

Friday marks the end of President Donald Trump's first week in office. In just that short time, the new commander in chief and his administration have managed to produce an extraordinary amount of alarm in the United States and abroad. Concerns have ranged from a series of executive actions and efforts to gag federal agencies to Trump's penchant for promoting bewildering falsehoods and his obsession with his own popularity. It's been a lot to take in...

Now, I realize that Herr Drumpf's loyal fan base -- to whom he continues to cater, and damn the rest of us -- will dismiss the above as leftist partisan spin. The "truth," in their eyes, is that Trump is simply keeping his campaign promises, and has accomplished more in less than a week than his predecessor accomplished in eight years. Never mind that his spate of executive orders are ill thought out, ill advised, and perhaps even illegal or unenforceable -- and that many of them are reportedly the products of inexperienced bigots who have been writing the orders without any input from the agencies they would affect.
 
While it's true that to an extent all of our brains are functioning, or failing to function as the case may be, under the influence of politix, it seems that the brains of the Trump loyalists are having to work overtime to rationalize for their lunatic hero.

Be that as it may, a song had been going on in my head since Trump first sat down, to great fanfare, at that hallowed desk in the Oval Office, so I finally sat down and hammered out some lyrics. Below is a slightly modified version of the lyrics I posted on Facebook a few days ago. Granted, the meter and the rhyme patterns aren't identical to the 1980 country hit song that inspired my efforts, but I think the message gets across. 

For those of you who are not familiar with the inspiration, here it is.



So now you can sing along.

Signin' Your Rights Away
~ Cosmic Connie

With a big glare and lotsa flair it's "So long, healthcare!"
Killin’ reproductive rights, pickin’ fights, wastin’ no time,
And I got to keep signin’
My press hacks, pro flacks slappin’ out those alt-facts,
Keepin’ perfect rhythm with the lies that are comin’ from my yap,
But I keep signin’
Ooh, I'm signin’ your rights away
Killin’ freedoms day by day for you
Ooh, I'm signin’ your rights away
Tearin' down the USA!

Got Steve Bannon, he's a loose cannon
Constantly fannin' the flames that are burnin' down the State
And Kellyanne's so grating
Then there's Spicer, he's a little nicer
May have to fire him 'cause he looks weak on TV
Bringin' down my ratings
Ooh, I'm signin' your rights away
Killin’ freedoms day by day for you
Ooh, I'm signin’ your rights away
Tearin' down the USA!

I saved those pipelines, screw the Sioux they’ll be fine,
Tried to gag some agencies too but they're all goin' rogue now,
Science is a menace!
Hail law and order, seal off the border,
Build the Wall, build me up, beat the press, gonna do it my way,
I don’t care what you say
Ooh, I'm signin' your rights away
Killin’ freedoms day by day for you
Ooh, I'm signin’ your rights away
Tearin' down the USA!

Killin’ regulations, pissin’ off some nations
Trade wars up ahead, I don’t care, wastin' no time,
And I got to keep signin’
Fightin’ over crowd size, stickin’ to my big lies,
Keepin’ just enough of the promises I made to the rubes,
And I got to keep signin’
But ooh, I'm signin' your rights away
Killin’ freedoms day by day for you
Ooh, I'm signin’ your rights away
Tearin' down  the USA!
Ooh, I'm signin' your rights away
Overhaul the USA for me
Ooh, I'm signin’ your rights away
Killin’ freedoms day by day

 © Connie L. Schmidt 2017PS ~ For the growing number of people who are now regretting that they voted for Trump, here's a spot of cheer: I have another song. Y'all really should have listened to me back in November.

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Vive la Résistance

I did not and will not watch any of the inauguration and post-inaug hoopla. I most certainly did not listen to Herr Drumpf's "American carnage" inauguration speech, which was apparently little more than a rehash of the same old pseudo-populist wrath that helped push the world's nakedest emperor into power. Maybe I'm being a bit of a hear-no-evil see-no-evil monkey, which is quite unlike me, but I just haven't been able to stomach the spectacle. (And speaking of American carnage, there's evidence of it right now on the WhiteHouse.gov web site.)

That said, there were actually good reasons for anti-Drumpfs to watch it all if they were in a position to do so, as Kathryn VanArendonk explained in a piece that originally appeared in Vulture and was posted on Salon.com earlier today.

You should watch it because watching the whole of it, rather than clips filtered through other media, will give you a stronger, more visceral, more immediate sense of the reality of what’s going on. You should watch it actively, skeptically, thoughtfully, critically, and as just one part of a bigger plan of action and resistance. You should watch it because it’s really happening, and we need to learn how to look directly at the thing we don’t like or don’t understand. Refusing to watch Trump will not make him less the president. We need to learn to watch the president we have, and use that knowledge so that we never let this kind of presidency happen again.

I get that, but I still didn't watch. Which doesn't mean that I'm going to continue not watching Drumpf on TV and other media, moving forward. It's just that I really, really needed a bit of a break.

Let the record show...
Except for the parts relating to being a person of faith -- since I'm not, really -- I could have written this post, which was actually written by North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz. And so, I think, could at least 65 million other Americans.

Let the record show that I did not consent to this.

Let it show that I did not vote for this man, that he did not represent me, that I did not believe he was deserving of being here, that I grieved his ascension....

...And if I prove to be wrong, it will be one of the most joyful errors of my life. I will own these words and if necessary, willingly and gladly admit my misjudgment because it will mean that America is a better and stronger nation, and the world a more peaceful place.

But right now I don’t see that happening.

Right now I am worried for my country, concerned for our planet, scared for the future of my children, and greatly saddened that 62 million Americans seem okay with all of this.

Let the record show that I was not okay with it.

Not at all.

U.S. voters who protest Trump's ascendancy to the throne are not alone. Our friends across the pond are expressing their views as well; for instance, a banner reading "Build bridges not walls" was draped across London's Tower Bridge earlier today. And that's just one of many protests planned across Britain. My friend Tammy Samede, whose thoughts on activism and unity I shared here shortly after the election, is right in the thick of it.

And the protests are and will be going on around the globe. Most heartening of all, the Women's March on Washington, taking place in D.C. on January 21, has gone global, with even Antarctica getting in on the act, meaning that the movement now covers all seven continents. You can find a map of the planned protests, as well as additional information about demonstrations in various cities around the world, in this CommonDreams.org piece.

Let the record show that millions and millions and millions of people across the globe are not happy with the profoundly narcissistic, thin-skinned, grievously unqualified and egregiously unprepared man-child who has just become the most powerful man in the world. And he'll have a historically unqualified Cabinet to help him try to wreck the republic.

"I'm still holding up this little wild bouquet..."
Damn, I miss Leonard Cohen, from whose song, "Democracy," the above sub-head was snatched, and I grabbed it because, despite all of the above, there may be reasons even now for hope. And like comic relief, I will take reasons for hope where I can find them. Tech company founder, author and speaker Peter Leyden speculates that Drumpf's rise to power heralds not the beginning of a new era of hatred and retrogressive policies, but the end.

It’s easy for politicians to whip up public fears against [progressive] changes and rally people to go back to the old ways, to make America great again. This is the standard playbook for right-wing nationalism. In the 1930s... that era’s right wing took those fears and drove a good chunk of the world into fascism and a world war. Today Trump is heading down that path — but he won’t get far.

I think Trump ultimately is going to do America and the world a service by becoming the vehicle that will finally take down right-wing conservative politics for a generation or two. He is getting the entire Republican conservative establishment to buy into his regime. He is creating an administration that is blatantly all about rule by — and for — billionaires, sold out to the oil and carbon industries, and celebrating an out-of-control corporate capitalism. It will be a caricature of conservative policies. In short order he will completely and irrevocably alienate all the growing political constituencies of the 21st century: the Millennial Generation, people of color, educated professionals, women. He’ll eventually do the same for a significant number of more moderate Republicans. And does anyone out there really think Trump will do anything for the white working class that got him elected? Watch as repealing Obamacare blows up in his face.

I hope to Goddess that Leyden is correct. Pablo Picasso famously said that "every act of creation is first an act of destruction." I hope that in the process of creation, the most precious parts of the American experiment are not completely destroyed.

Vive la Résistance.


More than one way to skin a dragon 
The really, REALLY good news -- and now I can say it publicly -- is that Jason Michael Jones, aka Salty Droid, is a fully licensed lawyer once again (he'd voluntarily dropped out of the legal profession about ten years ago). Jason was one of the first to document the Scamworld creds of our new Scammer-in-Chief. And he has already gone to work battling some of the other scum of Scamworld.

...why can’t I be a lawyer and a SaltyDroid? Because it may cause “a certain amount of emotional distress” among Scientologists and their attorneys?

I’m pretty sure I just answered my own question.

I’m fuckin’ doin’ it.

And he seems to have hit the ground running.

Where should we start? {#alreadystarted}

How about maybe multi-billion dollar snake-oil hydra head Herbalife?

Carl Icahn :: President Trump’s new special advisor on regulatory reform … owns the biggest chunk of cult-Herbalife. Edith Ramirez :: who is not not a foe of the company :: is stepping down as chairwoman of the FTC … leaving three of the five commissioner slots open for The Donald to fill. I’m sure HotCarl will have some super duper great ideas about how to ‘reform’ the agency.

Go, Jason and Salty. We're going to need both of you, now more than ever.