A Kamala Story You Don't Know

And which the media will keep shoveling dirt over

So we all know the history being buried — Kamala’s stances on defunding, on the border, on bailing out violent felons. Any claims of her being supportive of law-and-order are laughable — full stop.

But here’s one you’re not hearing.

Back in 2015, when Kamala was California Attorney General, she received complaints regarding Herbalife — a pyramid scheme-type firm that calls itself “a global nutrition company whose purpose is to make the world healthier and happier.”

Herbalife business model targets, in particular, Hispanics. Kamala’s own staff in fact wrote a lengthy memo urging her to bring a case to stop Herbalife.

(image courtesy wikimedia commons)

Now, at the time, Herbalife was being recognized for engaging in fraudulent practices. The feds were after them, as was the Illinois AG. Not long after the memo sent to Kamala, in fact, the feds won a $200 million settlement against Herbalife, with the Illinois AG taking home $3 million of that.

But Kamala — uncharacteristically, if one accepts her contention of having “a long record of going after bad corporate actors engaging in fraudulent behavior” — demurred. There would be no California prosecution or civil action against Herbalife — despite Herbalife being headquartered in her jurisdiction.

Why?

Well, there’s this: Herbalife’s lawyers were the highly connected D.C. law firm Venable, LLC — the firm where Harris’s husband, Doug Emhoff, was a west coast partner at the time (Herbalife is headquartered in Los Angeles).

Former “First Gentleman of California” Doug Emhoff. Guess Herbalife makes self-tanner.

And then there’s this: You’ve heard of the Podestas, of course — a family of Washington insiders who were advisors and lobbyists for the Clintons and Obamas. They are rich, machiavellian — and deeply weird (their art collection alone…).

According to Yahoo News, around the time Harris declined to move forward on the Herbalife case, she received the first of four donations from Heather Podesta, ex-wife of Tony Podesta. Tony’s firm represented Herbalife at the time.

Then a year later, Heather Podesta herself was hired by Herbalife as a lobbyist. They paid her $250,000 for 2016 alone.

Wow. So many companies out there willing to hire highly connected D.C. lobbyists. A pyramidal company targeting low income (and low information) consumers that the FBI and FTC were actively investigating just happened to be where she went, huh?

Tony and Heather Podesta on the far right, with former N.C. Senator Kay Hagan, at Barack Obama’s inauguration. (Image courtesy wikimedia commons)

Now, this was not just a case-among-many that Kamala declined to pursue. This was a case firmly within the parameters of her ideology.

According to Fox News’s Bryan Llenas (and numerous other news outlets), LULAC — the League of United Latin American Citizens — held a press conference along with other minority groups urging Kamala to go after Herbalife “for targeting minority populations with ‘deceptive marketing and predatory business practices.’”

Estimates are that from 60 to 80% of Herbalife’s global distributor base is Hispanic.

So is Herbalife in fact a pyramid scheme? Well consider: according to LULAC, while the company promises quick riches, in 2012 alone, 99.5 percent of its distributors were paid less than a living wage and 88 percent were paid nothing.

It’s unclear if Herbalife actually has any end-use customers. The structure is all based on continually acquiring distributors.

Hence the $200 million federal settlement. Of which California saw… zilch.

Traditionally, California has prided itself on being at the forefront of consumer protection. Kamala herself often positioned herself that way — especially when going after fossil fuel companies.

She didn’t act at all this time — despite the urging of minority groups like LULAC and her own staff.

Why?

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You Didn’t Know That Story? Well, Bill Ackman Does

So while all of the above was playing out, an interesting battle was developing along the sidelines.

Pershing Square hedge-funder Bill Ackman (image courtesy wikimedia commons)

Hedge-fund titan Bill Ackman — who has come out strongly in support of a repeat Donald Trump presidency — was so convinced of Herbalife’s status as a pyramid scheme that he shorted their stock to the tune of $1 billion. In sum, he was betting the stock price would plummet due to the firm’s lack of viability as a genuine profit-making entity.

Ackman’s hedge fund even composed a 334-page PowerPoint deck to demonstrate that. Here’s what page 64 looked like:

And here is the opening of Ackman’s tweet about Herbalife, from earlier this year:

Ackman’s tweet — which is long — pretty much lays out the whole sordid tale. Here’s a later part, dealing with Kamala:

Ultimately, what developed regarding Ackman’s shorting of Herbalife was a battle between his bet on the company tanking and investor Carl Icahn, who poured money into the company and who became the firm’s largest shareholder. The two financial giants even began attacking each other on television at the time.

Ultimately, Ackman had to fold on his bet against Herbalife. God knows how much money he lost.

So if you thought Ackman was all-in on Trump vs. Biden…

Can you imagine how he feels about Trump vs. Kamala?

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A Story In Three Tweets

From a month ago…

And two from the last few days:

Just so we know what we’re potentially getting into here.

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New York Crime Snapshot

Per whitecollarfraud.com, the best crime numbers-cruncher out there:

And the bizarre gaslighting of NYC by the FBI statisticians continues:

FBI, how can this be so far off? Are these your special “election year” numbers?

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A Modest Question

Q: In a combined 130-years-plus on this earth, have either Joe Biden or Kamala Harris held an adult job outside government?

A: No.

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And finally…

If you have not seen this… well I’m sorry, you MUST:

Kids in Uganda re-enacting the Donald Trump assassination attempt!

Those kids now know more about the event than Mayorkas and Cheatle ever will.

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