Rush Limbaugh and Amway's Richard Devos: The Hypocracy of Professional Sports Team Ownership

Controversial radio talk show host and entertainer Rush Limbaugh should consider becoming the owner of an NBA team now that his name has been removed from a list of investors seeking to buy a National Football league franchise, the St. Louis Rams. Obviously the National Basketball Association would be a better fit for Limbaugh since they obviously do not set very high standards for membership in their club for which I will explain. Consider the Orlando Magic owner, Richard Devos.

Devos and the late Jay Van Andel are the cult initiators of the 'American Way,' now known collectively as 'Amway.' For half a century, 'Amway,' has operated a monopolistic 'closed market swindle' while 'preying' on their own children, the prosperity believing cult adherents in what amounts to a form of 'advanced fee fraud' very similar in nature of one operated by Jim and Tammy Bakker. These 'true believers' now make up what British born author and guide to the Amway Labyrinth David Brear describes as 'the financial holocaust' having been flim-flammed into what pyramid scheme expert Robert Fitzpatrick calls the 'American Scam'.

In a recent blog post on Quixtar Cult Intervention, Brear details how the present Amway world cult evolved from an earlier 'snake-oil' 'Nutrilite' vitamin swindle started by the late Carl Rehnborg and his business partners Mytinger and Casselberry. Devos and Van Andel co-opted Mytinger, Casselberry and Rehnborg's questionable 'Multilevel Marketing Strategy' and have once again made Nutrilite 'Double X' snake oil supplement the flagship product of their assault on the wallets of 'Independent Business Owners' who, in the end, are generally left holding the 'trick bag' once Devos, Van Andel and the Amway 'Kingpins' make off with their cash. Brear rightly describes the 'Double X' vitamins as a 'Double Cross' on those folish enough to believe the Amway 'reality inverting' 'land of will' myths. Cult adherents (IBOs) purchase these 'snake oil-like' tablets at an extortionately high price in the 'pay to play' Amway game of greed. Rehnborg's 'soups' formulated into compressed tablets had once been occulted to be a cure all for nearly all of man's ills and have always been offered up in classic 'huckster' fashion. Rehnborg, Mytinger and Casselberry have since disappeared from their 'confidence game,' but the game they invented continues now under the Devos, Van Andel 'Amway' Banner. In a past blog post, I described how 'Nutrilite' fathered Devos and Van Andel's 'American Way.'

Rush Limbaugh and Rich Devos are remarkably similar personages, both wealthy supporters of conservative right wing Republican ideologies and candidates they believe support their pro-big business conservative view of the world. Rich Devos heads up the Amway cult adherents, while Limbaugh heads up his drone like 'ditto-heads.' Both groups are bombarded with 'mind numbing' 'reality inverting' rhetoric. Many of Limbaugh's group purchase the Limbaugh Letter, while the Amway group is extolled on the virtue of purchasing their rhetoric in the form of 'tools' from the Amway 'Kingpins' who operate a secondary 'closed market swindle' known as the 'tool and function' business.

Significanly enough, both Devos and Limbaugh have criminal histories. Devos was involved in the defrauding of the Canadian government in a import tax evasion case for which Devos and the late Jay Van Andel agreed to pay Canada 25 million dollars to avoid spending time in Canadian jail cells. Limbaugh, an admitted oxycodone pain pill addict was involved in his own 'doctor shopping' scandal and agreed to a plea agreement to keep himself out of a jail cell as well.

Both Devos and Limbaugh can be described as controversial fellows whose right leaning rhetoric borders on the psychotic. Devos espouses a narrow 'dominionistic' view of the world and is an avowed homosexual hater. Limbaugh spews a rabid hatred of anything 'Democrat' and brands anyone supportive of the Democratic platform as a 'liberal kooks.' Devos loves to paint his Amway Scam as 'big business' and uses this as cover for his unjust enrichment. Limbaugh not surprisingly is also a supporter of big business and detests any move by the present administration towards effecting any type of social change like health care reform. Limbaugh has also been known to make what many people considered controversial statements against African Americans.

Devos's Amway, much like Bernie Madoff's former 'investment business' is always represented as 'legitimate business' although it actually is a Ponzi-like scheme which has miraculously been allowed to continue long after the truth of this affair has been revealed to the mainstream population. Devos has managed to keep Amway alive through a half century of scandal by carefully protecting his self interests with cash suckered from those foolish enough to believe in the swindle that began with Rehnborg. Political contributions and support of key Republican politicians, many of which have since been involved in their own scandals, have helped keep Amway operating and off of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission regulator's hit list of scam companies.

I, therefore, to be fair, propose that Rush Limbaugh (a veritable Saint compared to Rich Devos) be allowed to become the owner of whatever professional sports team that comes onto the market to include even Devos's NBA Orlando Magic. The good people of Orlando and NBA fans everywhere deserve better than a known 'criminogenic' swindler owning a team that nearly won the NBA championship last season. Although I am not a big fan of 'entertainer' Limbaugh, I believe his money came to him honestly, not the result of an enormous swindle, and he should indeed be allowed to buy into the NBA owners club!