Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.

This really is a full service blog.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

This blog will pay for itself.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

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Reader Interactions

55Comments

  2. 2.

    The Bearded Blogger

    capitalism’s current form rewards assholishness.

    On the other hand, some of the causation goes the other way: having a zillion dollars can make people crazy.

  5. 5.

    TenguPhule

    How do so many obviously unstable crazy people manage to get so filthy rich?

    Souls are cheaper then sanity.

  7. 7.

    pat lewis

    The copyright issue is a good reminder of how SOPA would allow abuse.

    And doesn’t the company name, Melaleuca, sound like something that had been santorumed?

  10. 10.

    Chris

    One: how many of them actually got rich? If Mitt Romney’s any example, a lot of them simply made their money the old fashioned way and inherited it.

    Two, maybe it’s not that assholes become rich. Maybe it’s just that extreme wealth allows you to liberate your petulant inner asshole without fear of the consequences.

  11. 11.

    gumbo

    Moesha is spot on. Normal people don’t feel comfortable lying to others in order to steal their money – yet that seems to be SOP for this company and the claims they make about their dietary supplements. Normal people wouldn’t offshore tens of thousands of jobs just to increase the value of their stock options a couple of cents a share. But that’s the way Wall Street rolls these days. Other people and their needs, desires, dreams aren’t real in any sense at all to these “Masters of the Universe,” and that is the definition of sociopathy. Why we choose to reward these behaviors rather than lock these creeps up is the mystery.

  13. 13.

    David in NY

    At the risk of sparking controversy, I’d say that’s a damned good Greenwald column. Sticking neck way out.

  17. 17.

    Holden Pattern

    @Moesha: Agreed. Our current system is a perfect environment for sociopath success; they are rewarded for being completely without empathy, while the rest of us assume the system is fair and it’s our fault that they’re killing us.

  18. 18.

    WaynersT

    I couldn’t resist the blog ad today

    “The 4 dangers destroying men”

    it’s apparently all about sperm.

  21. 21.

    Culture of Truth

    Willard Mitt Romney earned his money the old fashioned way!

    Also he was named after Willard Marriott. I’m sure it’s a coincidence that when he grew up he helped the hotel chain cheat on their taxes.

  22. 22.

    cmorenc

    Have Vandersloot’s fleet of lawyers threatened Glen Greenwald yet over the linked article? Might John Cole expect to hear from them threatening him for linking to Glen Greenwald’s article, ending with: “BTW: that’s a nice cat and cute couple of dogs you got there John, we hope nothing bad happens to any of them.”

  24. 24.

    Arm The Homeless

    Frank VanderSloot is an Idaho billionaire and the CEO of Melaleuca, Inc., a controversial billion-dollar-a-year company which peddles dietary supplements and cleaning products;

    New Romney is both a floor wax AND a dessert topping!

  26. 26.

    R-Jud

    @WaynersT: I get a chat ad with a brunette kicking her feet on a bed. Her name is “Summercusp”.

    I’m the wrong audience for that ad for a number of reasons, but mostly because I’m trying to remember whether or not there was someone called “Summercusp” in a Dickens novel.

  27. 27.

    brettvk

    Multi-level marketing schemes are legal Ponzis, unfortunately. The people who allow themselves to be victimized by them are the same reality-challenged types who vote GOP. A former partner of mine gave me an up-close study of the pathology.

  28. 28.

    AnotherBruce

    When you pick the right parents, you tend to be spoiled rotten. These people need to be slapped down, figuratively of course.

  29. 29.

    Mouse Tolliver

    He looks and sounds like he might be a character from a Cohen Brothers movie. I wonder if he has quintuplets or a wife that he paid somebody to kidnap.

  30. 30.

    BruceFromOhio

    @Arm The Homeless: The first ‘graf of the linky spells it out – the guy is a sleazy fuck with no soul. That’s all you gotta do to get rich anymore!

    O/T the sperm chick is doing a nice Angelina Jolie channelling. I’m BruceFromOhio, and I approve of this ad.

  31. 31.

    opie_jeanne

    @brettvk: The fact that most of his victims are Mormons should have come as no surprise to me, since MLMs seem to be particularly attractive to Mormons for some reason, and Mormons used to be pretty trusting, naive even.

  34. 34.

    grape_crush

    Sociopaths are about 1% of the general population, 4% of top corporate execs/businessmen. Same lack of empathy present, only channeled into profitmaking rather than running around with a machete and a hockey mask.

  35. 35.

    red dog

    Congressmen become rich because of pay-offs and those who pay them off become richer by influencing the laws that benefit them. Then they have kids so the cycle goes on and on.

  37. 37.

    Short Bus Bully

    John, you’re still conflating PERSONAL WEALTH with SELF WORTH. It’s a common misconception and a cause of much of the world’s problems.

  38. 38.

    D0n Camillo

    @grape_crush:

    Sociopaths are about 1% of the general population, 4% of top corporate execs/businessmen.

    I’d have guessed much higher than 4%. It seems like the present system of corporate management and compensation actually seeks out and rewards sociopathic behavior.

  39. 39.

    JGabriel

    John Cole @ Top:

    How do so many obviously unstable crazy people manage to get so filthy rich?

    Because that’s what happens when you have unstable crazy incentives.

    Also, many crazy filthy rich people were born crazy and filthy rich. Cf., Koch Brothers.

    .

  40. 40.

    Holden Pattern

    @D0n Camillo:

    I’d have guessed much higher than 4%. It seems like the present system of corporate management and compensation actually seeks out and rewards sociopathic behavior.

    There’s a distinction between /being/ a sociopath, and /behaving/ like a sociopath. Sociopaths just aren’t wired to have any empathy, where people who are merely behaving like sociopaths have trained themselves to ignore it.

    So, yes, the proportions are much higher when you factor in people who merely behave like sociopaths professionally — the system is certainly structured to reward it.

  42. 42.

    Brachiator

    How do so many obviously unstable crazy people manage to get so filthy rich?

    Lots of unstable crazy people up and down the income class ladder. Generally, it’s easier to ignore crazy poor people.

  44. 44.

    jrg

    How do so many obviously unstable crazy people manage to get so filthy rich?

    There are more risk takers in the crazy population. Since there are more of them flipping coins, more of them wind up with 10 heads in a row.

  45. 45.

    Gex

    If you are decent and honest and care about others, assume that they are like you and they want more or less the same kinds of things, you will never have what it takes to get that rich. Only people with abnormal socialization patterns end up this wealthy. It always comes at the expense of someone else. Moreover, healthy people stop collecting money at a certain point and they move on to doing what they would really like to spend their lives doing: travel, hobbies, whatever. These people only care about money, they only want to make money, and there is always the possibility of having more money, so they are stuck on that path.

  46. 46.

    rea

    It’s not so much that they’re crazy–it’s that there is nothing to restrain them.

    The strong do what they will and the weak do what they must, like Thucydides said.

  49. 49.

    DW

    It’s what you might call the Caligula effect. A lot of the crazies were born to wealth and really have no clue how life is for normal people and no experience at being told “No!” It produces men who are used to always getting their way and freak out when they don’t. Remember Dubya’s continual state of resentment at having to compete with lesser born but more talented rivals. By contrast, note that Al Gore’s dad had him do farm chores so he’d have some sense what life was like for those not part of the lucky sperm club.

    In addition, remember it only takes a small percentage of the big rich to cause a lot of damage under Citizens United. You don’t hear from the sane billionaires because they aren’t so convinced they’re entitled to tell everyone else what to do.

  50. 50.

    AHH onna Droid

    If you read the article this is a typical Mormon story, fleecing the good sheep who line up to be sheared, then using the proceeds on defending their sacred cows: BSA & marriage discrimination.

    Extremely authoritarian and patriarchal. The kiddy diddler coverup is Catholic bishops in parallel.

    Or Penn State. Love child molesters, hate f—s. Yeah, that makes sense. Getting raped tuffins ya up, ya sissy.

    I wonder if MLM watch has a Melaleuca page.

  51. 51.

    300baud

    I think there are two sorts of billionaire.

    There are those with some freakish talent and a lot of drive to achieve something. For them, wealth is a side effect and a working medium. E.g., Gates, Buffett, Zuckerberg.

    Then there are those who are insatiable. They want MOAR and they will to whatever it takes to get it. Their insanity isn’t the barrier to their success; it’s the motivation.

    I’m pretty sure this asshole is an example of the latter. Meleluca is a big old MLM scam. He’s worth comparing with the Herbalife MLM scammer:

    http://articles.latimes.com/print/2001/feb/18/magazine/tm-26780

  52. 52.

    moderateindy

    @Moesha:
    Exactly. If you have no qualms about lying cheating stealing and screwing others and can justify anything you do by concluding “it’s just business” then it is much easier to get rich.

  55. 55.

    Berial

    If you are crazy and poor, there are all sorts of restraints on your behavior. If you are crazy and well off, there are still, all sorts of restraints on your behavior. If you are crazy and filthy rich there are hardly any restraints on your behavior.

    Why do celebrity’s behave the way they do? It’s because there aren’t any other people around them, that are able or willing to tell them to cut that shit out. If everyone in your circle is dependent on your good will and money, then you can count on them to agree, that whatever crazy ass thing you do is perfectly rational, and all those other people saying bad things about you are just ‘haters’. Same thing with the mega-wealthy.

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