Kari Lake's Bribery Tape Is Much More Than Arizona's GOP Death Star Exploding

 

 As you can hear, above, the murky world of political gangsterism that Oliver Stone portrayed in the movie JFK, and that's always been alluded to, but deflected from the fiasco we now call Watergate, finally made another real-life, but softer debut, through a recording made by Kari Lake, former MAGA candidate for Governor of Arizona, and now Senate candidate. 

In the recording, Jeff Dewit, the MAGA-loving, just-resigned, former Arizona Treasurer and GOP Chairman, is heard trying to bribe Lake, on behalf of some "very powerful people" from "back East," and sometimes using Tony Soprano-like tones. 

    

 Though Lake has spoken about this attempt many times before - without naming names - Arizona Republicans are finding it odd that a recording made almost a year ago, exposing DeWit, would only now be leaked to the Daily Mail. They find it so odd that Kari Lake - who was recently leading in the polls - is now accused of blackmail by DeWit, and being publicly booed by her own party. Which honestly makes the whole episode even odder: Donald Trump was supposed to stop by Arizona for one of his GOP fundraisers/pep rallies, but declined, making some wonder if it was Trump's team that tried to pay Kari Lake to get lost? That would instantly catapult it all from odd to just plain weird.

   

 Having seen a lot of reporting on this, except for asking why Kari Lake records her interactions (which TMR kinda likes, in the same way we keep police officers fake-but-honest by doing it) that seems to be about as deep as most news outlets are going. But there's still information, and unanswered questions, radiating from this, that TMR doesn't understand. For instance, it opens with Kari Lake saying "I'm assuming this is our friend." Remember: Lake knew she was being recorded - DeWit didn't. Who is this mysterious unnamed "friend," she and Jeff Dewit share, who she would think a message, so weighty it had to be personally delivered to her home, would be coming from? Was it Donald Trump? TMR has seen no one ask Lake (since she knew she was being recorded) why she didn't just say a name, nor has anyone asked Dewit who she was referencing - because everyone's blown away by the obvious bribe later in the recording.

Next, Kari Lake, without knowing specifically who they were discussing, says (whoever these "very powerful" GOP members are) they're "corrupt." DeWit's answer? "Well, maybe you're right." Excuse me - "Maybe you're right"? Let that sink in. The GOP Chairman doesn't argue the point. He doesn't flinch, either: He knows he's an emissary for the Dark Side, or whatever the Republican Party thinks of as it's Dark Side, and, without knowing he was doing so, he's confirmed it exists to the rest of the world, too. Well done, Sir. Well done.

So don't let the Right's Jesus talk fool you. While totally sounding like a child sex abuser (repeatedly telling Lake not to tell anyone) DeWit starts telling Lake those people, who he just confessed are "corrupt," care about her "being on the team." Which brings us to the point of this post. The creepy fucking way that creepy fucking man mentioned that creepy fucking team he's on. He mentioned cartels are in all 50 states (!) like he's warning her there's nowhere to run. Both he and Lake mention the likelihood of being killed for defiance. He says she won't be able to raise money, or function in Washington, D.C., without somebody behind her. Basically, American politics, but with a similar dynamic to surviving in prison. That shit's too creepy for any good anti-cultist to let pass.

Harvard's Claudine Gay affair has given many Americans a glimpse into one of the hazards of corporate-speak in society. But, more to the point, many more Americans have had the experience of working for a business that insists everyone's "family," or on a "team," until of course they're not. Then, the corporation just as unceremoniously dispenses with that employee, making the point crystal clear that they were never close, until the former "team member" grows so cynical, not only won't they ever fall for that one again, but now they're on the lookout for it as a red flag for deceit in business. There's a reason for this phenomena. Some say there's a reason for everything.

Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post thinks the media's worst lapse is refusing to identify Trump as a cult leader. Federally-recognized cult expert Rick Alan Ross begs to differ: 

"Donald Trump is not an absolute authoritarian “cult” leader like a Jim Jones, Charles Manson or David Koresh. He was democratically elected and is subject to congressional oversight, judicial review by the courts and must run to be reelected. The President of the United States is also constitutionally limited by law to no more than two terms (eight years) as president. None of this matches the history or narrative of cult leaders,..." 

Fair enough. We also know this because Lake kept saying these are people out to get Trump (Plus, Trump's been a known quantity since the '80s. He hasn't had time to build a cult). So, if not Trump, then whose team are we talking about? TMR thinks Jennifer Rubin needs to look closer to home. TMR thinks this is the capitalist right, working with the so-called "atheist" left. 

Whoever it is, "They're pushing a globalist agenda." Which brings us to a familiar quote,...

New Age is establishing itself as the ideology of global capitalism.  

- Slavoj Žižek, 2001

Here's another one, just for good measure:

“The more convoluted the explanation, the more unintelligible the practitioners are, the more people may be inclined to believe them. It makes it appear as though it is privileged knowledge, like real medicine and auto tech.”

All these years after Apple got cultism established in business (and killed Steve Jobs) America's still not examining the real role corporations are playing in politics and society, or how they're really doing what they're doing. Are they here just to please stockholders, if they're also being used to shuffle politicians into well-paying make-work "talking head" jobs, just to get them "out of the way" like Bill Clinton tried to do to Monica? And out of whose way, exactly? And for what - else?

Inquiring minds want to know.

 

The Democrat Party's NOT A Cult (They Just All Think Alike At The Same Time)

According to some very authoritative and repetitive CNN talking heads, nearly our entire political class, and former luminaries like the washed-up Katie Couric, 74.5 million Americans—and that includes you—need to be “deprogrammed” immediately.

Nobody mention CNN is the home of Chris Cuomo, who's married to a NewAge Nazi nut job, so what we're seeing here is pure "projection".

MSNBC’s Joy Reid, joined by her colleague Nicolle Wallace, called for the de-Baathification and scouring of the current Republican Party following four years of leadership under President Donald Trump. 

Nobody mention Joy Reid's regulary on Twitter discussing the power of angels.

As the president’s conspiracy theories start to unspool with his departure from office, cult expert Steven Hassan, a former Moonie and the author of The Cult of Trump, believes there’s hope—if the way Americans consume information undergoes a radical change. 

Nobody mention "cult expert" - Steve Hassan (above) is NOT a cult expert, and you can't find a cult expert - or even an anti-cult advocate like me - who will say he is. He just claimed (one day) to be a cult expert, and the media accepted him - THAT'S how much research today's reporters do, and how good they are at their jobs.

 

Growing calls in media for Trump supporters to be 'reprogrammed' 

 Nobody mention acknowledged "cult expert" - Rick Ross (above) - has already said Trump supporters are NOT a cult: the cultists are putting on a good show, so let's not disturb them.

 

The Understatement Of The Day On Trump (And Probably The Last Five Years)

"It's a mistake, and not helpful to anyone, to label Trump a 'cult leader' and say his supporters are somehow 'brainwashed'."

So said Rick Ross, the #1 cult expert in the world. It looks especially bad if that's a defense for the political party of Jim Jones and the People's Temple, One Taste, Heaven's Gate, NXIVM, Oprah, Marianne Williamson, Deepak Chopra, the Clintons, and more indefensible NewAge cult nonsense than a dowser could shake a stick at.

The Democrat Party also has a very serious "projection" problem. 

How Important Are Five Years To Knowing The World?

"'California’s affluent Marin County, just north of San Francisco,' is what? Another NewAge 'power spot', filled with 'rich people', just like Sedona, Arizona. Stupid, gullible, and easily-led rich people - if you ask me - and they're all hurting other people by acting on their NewAge beliefs." 

 - TMR, October 23, 2009

"Sedona, Arizona has been kind of a magnet for groups called cults,...Demographically, there are a lot of people there who have extra money.  They have money to spend.  It's an affluent area and there are a lot of groups that are set up there, most notably James Arthur Ray,..." 

 - Cult expert, Rick Ross, Apr 28, 2014

 

Everybody's Getting Rap Wrong (Including The Gays)

"You can't tell nobody which direction to take their art. That's the beauty of being creative,…."

Cult Deprogrammer, Rick Ross, Was On A Reality Show!

Get More: Rob Dyrdek's Fantasy Factory, Full Episodes

Smart, compassionate blacks and whites, working together for a damned good cause:

Fewer American douchebags.

Now, how we do this to our whole country - or even just my political party - I'm still trying to figure out,…

 

Cult Leaders Want Your Money,...Or Your Sexual Favors

And how do they get both from an educated population in the 21st century? Oh, I don't know:

 

There's something about "educated" that's a stickler,...

 

Fuck

Yes, Fuck. Yesterday, while I was out, the enemy of all things decent and good - "cult" "expert" "Rick Ross" - was on The Dr. Phil Show, destroying everything NewAgers deem holy, like excuses for manipulating those who trust them. 

Vile man, that Ross. Who does he think he is - Dr. Phil?

   

Obviously, there's potentially more here than meets the eye. I don't want to even write what it is, for fear of tipping Ross' hand strategically, but let me just say it does the heart good to see him, of all people, anywhere near the Oprah Winfrey Network.

Go, Rick, Go!

"Five years after leaving the group and hearing a bunch of people say, 'That sounds like a cult,' I’m ready to admit I was brainwashed."

Of course, this reminds me that Ann Althouse - noted feminist, gay rights activist, etc. - doesn't "believe" people can be brainwashed,...that is, brainwashed into believing things,...um, brainwashed into believing things like the worthiness of feminism, gay rights activism, etc..

   

 Nope, we come by all this stuff all by our lonesome, because we're so fucking smart. 

But ego-less. It's very important (unless you're gay, an engagingly boisterous black woman, or anyone overweight who's capable of a cutting remark) to be ego-less. Humble. 

And a whole lot of other stuff it takes years to waste, I mean master.

Then you can do what you want. Everybody says so. That's supposed to be The Secret.

If I were one of them, I'd look like Dr. Strangelove, trying to suppress a Black Power salute.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The Daily Show on Facebook

Speaking of my own oft-displayed, and over-riding concern for being seen as a team player (by somebody, anybody, everybody, scream) it sure is queer how "my black brother", Barack, is all boxed-in  - AFTER my equally-beloved Republican Party's election year claims of pending extra hardship, for ourselves and the country, if steady-as-a-rock Romney didn't win. 

I don't know what to think.

   

Alright that's a lie, but, I think, appearing not to think, about what I told you I was thinking I thought would happen, looks humble. 

   

And, since I'm all about looks, I win - and so does my invisible friend. Again. 

   

 NewAge stylee. 

   

 I could just die,...

Those "Dummy" Books Just Aren't Going Far Enough,...

Yesterday it was someone admitting yoga and meditation are brainwashing, and today, we get this:

'I feel brainwashed – a robot of Scientology'

Of course, what these people probably don't realize is they've been brainwashed into the NewAge, of which yoga, meditation, and Scientology are just some of it's many-tentacaled subsets. Here, I'll remind you of the words of cult expert, Rick Ross:

"The success of a thought reform program relies largely upon deception and/or ignorance. Those who can see how it operates and understand its implications can be in a sense substantially inoculated."

See, no matter what kind of cult (or cultist) I encounter, they can't get me because I reject NewAge as a whole (I frustrated a couple of Mormon missionaries a few days ago, because - no matter what they said - I could show them their beliefs in a NewAge manual, of one kind or another, that I keep in my library). The rest of these fools are so ignorant of NewAge jargon and ideas - and so intent on trying to appear "open-mined" - they're suckers for every cult on the planet.

 

And sad to say, in the 21st Century, there's still a sucker born every minute,...

 

Cult Expert Rick Ross: Real Busy Doing Nothing

It's funny how someone can easily see what so many are easily missing:

CULT LEADERS are the pied-pipers of America, leading the outcast, the despondent, and sometimes the highly intelligent off into the dark, isolated fringes of society.

And then there's Rick Alan Ross, poking around in that darkness with a flashlight.

From his eclectic office in a former cracker factory in Trenton, Ross, 58, runs the Rick A. Ross Institute, a nonprofit Internet archive on "destructive cults" and "controversial groups and movements."

Attorneys, universities and the media often go to Ross for explanations when seemingly benign groups go off the rails, and parents turn to him when their children fall under a cult's spell.

"I've been quite active in China in recent years," said Ross, who launched his Web archive in 1996 and makes a living as a consultant, expert witness and speaker.

Next month, a computer hacker who unleashed a virus on Ross' website and several media websites will be sentenced in federal court in Camden. Ross will soon be traveling back to Arizona to testify in a case involving three people who died in a sweat lodge during a "spiritual warrior" event.

On a recent afternoon, Ross was on the phone with a reporter from an Oklahoma news station, after a member of the General Assembly Church of the First Born was arrested for failing to seek medical attention for her son before he died.

"There have been many children who have died, needlessly, in groups like this because a creator who leads the group demands that every member adhere to their belief system," Ross said.

It's not uncommon for someone with a television to get sucked in by cults and bizarre movements, at least for an hour or two, but Ross has been researching them since 1982, when someone messed with his grandmother. Ross said the Jewish Voice Broadcast, a fundamentalist group, had infiltrated his grandmother's nursing home looking to recruit elderly residents.

"They targeted Jews to convert them to Pentecostalism," he said.

Ross helped expose the group members working at the nursing home, and his life hasn't been the same since.

"It made me realize that there was a problem in my community," he said.

No, there's no problem. Cults? He's imagining things. On television? How everyone but him is missing that is beyond me,...

Religion, Cults, NewAge, Beliefs, Murder, Death

Oh boy - the Lord's working in mysterious ways again:

Both are ministers – he, a popular preacher, respected by his peers but bearing a violent past; she, a former schoolteacher with a taste for poetry.

They worked at the same church at some point and, according to police, were in a relationship.

It took a brutal turn Tuesday morning when, authorities and a witness say, the Rev. Edward Fairley stormed into an Eastside home and, without a word, stabbed the Rev. Simone Shields several times in the face and torso, leaving her to lie in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor.

Shields, 52, was eventually rescued by police and taken to St. Joseph's Regional Medical Center. She remains in critical but stable condition, police said.Fairley, 59, was arrested after he was spotted on the street soaked in blood, the knife still in hand, authorities said. He is charged with attempted murder and was in Paterson police custody with no bail set as of late Wednesday, according to the Passaic County Jail.

The attack stunned the city's church leaders. Fellow pastors, who described Fairley as a good man and a "pillar" in the community, seemed at a loss.

"I don't know what the Lord wants us to look at with this situation," said the Rev. Chester Taylor, of Calvary Baptist Church.

Except for maybe questioning the wisdom of adopting belief systems, we'll be honest and say, "We don't either!"

But cheer up - that's what a motivational speaker would tell you, right?

Cheer up!

Too bad "positive thinking" doesn't work either:

A man who said he helped a debt-ridden motivational speaker kill himself was convicted of murder Thursday in a seeming street crime that turned into an unusual framework for questions about the legal limits of assisted suicide.

Jurors delivered their verdict on the strange story of self-help author and business coach Jeffrey Locker's July 2009 death. The conviction leaves Kenneth Minor facing the possibility of life in prison; his sentencing is set for April 4.

It was a murder trial in which even prosecutors said the slain man wanted to die, and it became a debate about assisted suicide that strayed far from the more familiar context of doctors or loved ones helping terminally ill people end their lives.

...Locker, 52, was found stabbed in his car on an East Harlem street, his hands tied behind his back, hours after calling his wife to say he'd gotten a flat tire. Police initially investigated his death as the result of a robbery.

But the scenario changed when Minor was arrested a few days later after using Minor's ATM card.

In fact, Locker had been cruising an inner-city neighborhood miles from his suburban home, offering to pay strangers to kill him and make it look like a robbery so his family could collect as much as $18 million in life insurance, according to prosecutors, Minor's statement to police and evidence presented at the trial. A man whom Locker approached before meeting Minor testified that he agreed to the deal but then took some $4,000 from Locker and ran.

And Locker left a trail of clues about his plan, including computer searches for funeral arrangements, an e-mail telling his wife how to divvy up and shield their assets "when I am gone" and purchases of about $14 million in life insurance in his final months, in addition to $4 million in insurance he already had, evidence showed at his trial. Locker's family has declined to comment.

After being conned by the first man who took his offer, according to prosecutors, Locker approached Minor on an East Harlem street. A father of two who told police he'd worked as a computer technician, Minor, 38, has a history of drug problems and arrests.

He told investigators he initially brushed Locker off but then began to feel sorry for him as the motivational speaker poured out his financial woes.

An investor in a $300 million Ponzi scheme run by Backstreet Boys and `N Sync mastermind Lou Pearlman, Locker was facing a federal bankruptcy court trustee's demands to return at least $121,200 the court said he had made from his stake in Perlman's enterprise. Locker had told the court that returning the money would force him to declare bankruptcy, and documents shown at his trial logged plunging bank-account balances and mounting credit-card debts.

Prosecutors said Minor murdered Locker by stabbing him seven times, pointing to a city medical examiner's testimony that Locker's chest wounds had characteristics indicating he was stabbed by someone next to him.

But Minor said he just held a knife against the steering wheel while Locker repeatedly lunged into it, and a prominent pathologist he hired testified that his account was plausible.

Minor's lawyer portrayed him as a sympathetic stranger exploited by a professional smooth-talker bent on carrying out a con game and unconcerned about the consequences for Minor.

"He was taken advantage of. . He's no contract killer," Gotlin said in his closing argument. He argued that Minor should be acquitted under a state law provision that allows "causing or aiding" a suicide as a defense to certain murder charges.

In her instructions, State Supreme Court Justice Carol Berkman told jurors that provision couldn't apply if Minor "actively" caused Locker's death. Gotlin had objected to that language and said he'd raise it in Minor's appeal.

Prosecutors, meanwhile, said the concept of assisted suicide was being misapplied to a callous killing-for-hire.
"Somebody stabbing a guy to death in a car to commit insurance fraud - do you really want to equate that with giving a pill to a dying loved one?" assistant district attorney Peter Casolaro asked jurors in his summation. "Is (Minor) an angel of mercy? No, he's the Grim Reaper."

Speaking of the Grim Reaper, he came for one of his minions recently:

Roch Thériault, the former doomsday cult leader who was killed in his cell over the weekend, paid dearly and often for his crimes, his lawyer says.

Renée Millette, a Montreal lawyer who represents inmates for procedures such as parole hearings, said Thériault was assaulted often by other inmates over the last two decades while he served time for amputating the arm of one of his followers and killing another. Millette said the assaults include others at Dorchester Penitentiary, the medium-security institution near Moncton, N.B., where he died Saturday. He had been incarcerated there since 2000.

"He was often a victim of his past. The assaults had nothing to do with how he acted while incarcerated. It was because of his past," Millette said, adding Thériault had regrets about his time as the spiritual leader of a group he began in Quebec in 1978 and later moved to Burnt River, Ont., where the cult became known as the Ant Hill Kids.

And from Ant Hills to faux indian sweat lodges, we'll end with some really bad news for another NewAge cult leader, motivational speaker, and killer:

Prosecutors will be allowed to call an expert to testify about why dozens of people felt that they couldn't leave a sweat lodge ceremony that turned deadly.

Yavapai County Superior Court Judge Warren Darrow made the ruling Monday, a day before opening statements begin in James Arthur Ray's manslaughter case.

Darrow says Rick Ross can testify about large group awareness as long as prosecutors provide an appropriate foundation.

Oooh, that's not good because Rick Ross is one of the big cheeses in the cult awareness world - he knows the landscape.

What could he possibly explain?

How you end up like this:

"Hot. Baked. Tired."

That was the way Melissa Phillips felt midway through the sweat lodge ceremony at Angel Valley Retreat on Oct. 8, 2009. Three people died from trauma they received during the event, leading to manslaughter charges against self-help author and speaker James Arthur Ray.

Phillips, 43, of Toronto was the first witness that Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk called to the stand. Phillips said she first encountered Ray in the self-help movie "The Secret," then read some of his writings and signed up for several seminars.

The Spiritual Warrior event in Sedona was to be yet another step on her path to enlightenment. At a previous seminar, she said, Ray had told her it would be a life-altering experience.

"I was expecting to walk away with a great learning experience - a wonderful experience for myself," Phillips said.

Responding to Polk's questioning, Phillips said she was aware that James Ray International, Ray's company, did not disclose the Spiritual Warrior schedule or roster of events, although she had learned some of it from people she'd met at other seminars.

"You're supposed to show up not as prepared in order to have your breakthrough," she said.

Thus, Phillips was more prepared than most of the other 50-odd participants who entered the sweat lodge just hours after a vision quest that featured an enforced 36-hour fast.

"I understood it was a rebirthing," she said. "I understood it was a spiritual journey."

She did not understand that three people - Kirby Brown, James Shore and Liz Neuman - would die.

Phillips' enthusiasm began to wane during the Samurai Game, which took place two days before the sweat lodge. After admitting she had inadvertently broken the code of silence Ray had imposed in the afternoon, Ray, playing the role of "God" in the game, pronounced her dead.

She then had to lie motionless on a hard floor for several hours, missing dinner, until volunteers had her get ready for the vision quest.

"I felt like I'd been hit in the head with a two-by-four and my hands and feet were numb," she said.

That experience served her in the sweat lodge. Not comfortable with heat, Phillips said she left after the third round.

"After my experience lying on the floor," she said, "I took an attitude of looking out for myself."

Oh well, better late than never, we guess.

Our advice:

Let it go, people. Just let it go.

Melissa Phillips didn't let it go - she's a NewAger - she went back in.

Of course she did.

Because belief systems - all belief systems - are for losers.