In 2013, Herbalife, facing a full-on assault from a hedge fund manager still bitter about not rowing varsity crew at Harvard; a class action lawsuit inexplicably emanating from Salt Lake City; and several ominous Sword of Damocles style government inquires… added a mandatory arbitration and class waiver provision to its ridiculous consumer “contract”.
Here’s the first version of that provision. (Please make sure to read every word carefully because it’s desperately important to the story. I can’t overemphasize the importance of reading the provision, in its entirety, before continuing.)
SECTION 29 ARBITRATION AGREEMENT FOR DISPUTES BETWEEN MEMBERS AND HERBALIFE
Jessie Conners Tieva is a scammer who’s spent most of the last ten years fronting for various Utah fraud operations. She’s a grinder–always out on the road, talking about doing things she’s never done. Jessie is one of the few scammers who I’ve had the pleasure of heckling in person. When we met in a half empty hotel conference room in Chicago six years ago, she was fronting for the Robert Kiyosaki Rich Dad Poor Dad Utah-backed op.
This week Jessie and her husband Matt Tevia were busted by the FTC and the Minnesota Attorney General for operating a short-lived hustle called Sellers Playbook.
The Fake News should be running the headline:
Trump University “Professor” and Failed “Apprentice” Busted for Fraud
This is my most viewed video. It’s amazing. I won’t pretend that I don’t love it–the greed, the panting, the epic drama of secret audio recordings.
It’s been floating around the internet for eight years now, but it’s not allowed on YouTube. My heartbreaking work of staggering genius has been taken down from the big social media sites an absolutely uncomical amount of times.
This article is brought to you by the advertising that brings you Slate.
I started sometimes reading Slate when Slate started publishing stuff to read. Slate, an exclusively online news magazine, was one of the first of its kind. I thought it was going to change the world. Back then I naively thought that just about everything that was happening on the fledgling web was going to change the world.
Oh, M&M’s have their own website now? This is going to change the world!
Bloomberg reports that top YouTube stars can expect poverty level wages. That doesn’t surprise you because you’re sophisticated (and good looking, and smart, and conscientious) and you read a site taglined: “… you can’t make money online.” But other–lesser–people are surprised.
Straight to the guts:
Breaking into the top 3 percent of most-viewed channels could bring in advertising revenue of about $16,800 a year, Bärtl found in an analysis for Bloomberg News. That’s a bit more than the U.S. federal poverty line of $12,140 for a single person. (The guideline for a two-person household is $16,460.) The top 3 percent of video creators of all time in Bärtl’s sample attracted more than 1.4 million views per month.
That’s almost enough money to buy gas, drive to the library, and take a nap.
One in 3 British children age 6 to 17 told pollsters last year that they wanted to become a full-time YouTuber. That’s three times as many as those who wanted to become a doctor or a nurse.
You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney–and obviously you cannot–then screw you.
That’s how the law “works” for real people. The system is built for, and run by, powerful synthetic people. Corporations, cartels, partnerships, shells, professional associations, unions, and government agencies are “the people”–the people are the pawns.
When Herbalife needs lawyers to fight off fraud claims, they get to pick from the biggest and the bestest. It makes no difference that their business model is a blatant deception bringing about a humanitarian crisis. Members of the legal monopoly don’t have to care about petty triflings like morality. Herbalife’s got the cash to put up a huge retainer–and to pay legal bills larger than the operating budgets of most companies–so the “best” lawyers and law firms are immediately available to them… less than no questions asked.
“Our new name, Herbalife Nutrition, reflects our strategic transformation as a leader in the nutrition industry.”
They’ve strategically transformed into a leader in nutrition. But they don’t sell food; they sell food replacements isolated from commodity crops and industrialized into unnatural pills and powders. It’s the opposite of everything that science, and life, has to tell us about nutritiousness.
The shifty internet marketing outfit Cambridge Analytica, attached to the shifty editor of internet propaganda site Breitbart.com, attached to the shifty too-old-for-the-internet billionaire Robert Mercer; mined Facebook data and used it to target voters.
Also, if you need any Ukrainian prostitute type stuff… that’s a yes for Cambridge Analytica. They do it all - from spamming, to expounding on spamming, to pretending that they know a guy who knows a guy who does murders while spamming.
On September 18, 2017, myself (an online activist) and my longtime friend Etan Mark (an offline litigator) filed a federal class action lawsuit against Herbalife’s fraudulent Circle of Success event system.
The suit doesn’t accuse Herbalife of being a pyramid scheme, or make any claim for damages related to the purchase of Herbalife’s products. Instead, it focuses on a cartel of shady creeps who run a dirty side business mandating that victims spend small fortunes attending a never-ending sequence of expensive events.
Live events are the backbone of the Herbalife scam, and of the scam industry in general; the draw and the glue that makes all of the life ruining possible. It can’t be “too good to be true” when you can see other people believing that it is true. The best weapon against nice people is other nice people.
I said I wasn’t going to cut together the Luis Li lowlights … for the sake of my own sanity. But then I realized :: it’s not about me … so I did it anyway.
Thank you … me.
You’re welcome … me.
Me me me me … me.
And here’s some lawyer heckling tweets for you :: brought to you by {you guessed it!} … me.
Unfortunately :: Jeremy Johnson isn’t available to accept this arrest because of a previous non-arrest-type obligation in Costa Rica. His BFF :: Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff … will be accepting on his behalf.
No wait :: that was something else :: that was the “Humanitarian of the Year” award :: received for saving Haiti by spending just a tiny fraction of the amount {of other people’s money} that he was gambling away. Philanthropy!!
Fortunately :: Johnson actually was available for arresting two weeks ago in Phoenix. IRS agents grabbed him up at the airport while he was in route back to Costa Rica … where he has definitely not been hiding from the law. But when Jeremy Johnson does something {like fleeing jurisdiction} :: he does it wrong {making frequent return trips}.
Jeremy David Johnson has been charged with mail fraud and faces up to twenty years in prison. Except not really. What actually happened was that Johnson :: a supreme asshole whose arrogance is unbounded :: baited the government into arresting him before they were ready. According to the Salt Lake Tribune …
Sheila Polk is Yavapai’s first female County Attorney :: she’s currently serving her third term in that capacity. James Arthur Ray is Yavapai’s first guru of mass casualty causation :: and he might serve three terms himself.
Presented above is fourteen minutes of Ms. Polk’s terrific two-and-a-half hour closing argument.
If you’d like to see the highlights of Mr. Li’s arguments :: you can read the tweets below … or you can go and make your own stupid videos. It was bad enough I had to hear it the first time.
A second round of arguments today … and then the flap closes on James Arthur Ray.
Final days in the trying trial of semi-professional manipulator James Arthur Ray.
After many months of testimony :: many days of arguments :: and literally millions of Luis Li literallys :: Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk began closing arguments in the faux sweat lodge case. She started like this …
“Three families have lost loved ones who should not be gone,” Polk said, raising her voice in the crowded courtroom. “Three people are dead because of the conduct and the actions of this man, James Ray. They are dead because he intentionally used heat to create an altered state and he was criminally reckless about the consequences.”
After just two witnesses :: and excluding a few open evidentiary issues … James Arthur Ray’s Munger Tolles & Olson defense team has notified the judge of their intent to rest their case without calling further witnesses. James Arthur Ray waived his right to testify :: as he should considering that he’s a soulless sham and a highly unimpressive conman who can’t go off the “syntax” without sounding like a lump of genetically defective broccoli.
