Scientology’s hammy Grant Cardone and the political operator: A significant connection?

If motivational speaker Grant “10X” Cardone is Scientology’s “professional ham hock,” as we like to call him, then London Org’s Charlie Wakley is surely the movement’s aspirational pork product. Its British banger, as it were.

Their online summit this week felt like some sort of minor cosmic shift in the Scientology firmament, and so we have thoughts.

For years, readers have asked us to dig into Cardone’s business empire and we’ve resisted that suggestion. It’s enough, we figure, that we’ve had to pay attention to his sordid history as Scientology enforcer for David Miscavige, doing the church leader’s dirty work to make sure that the final years of legendary acting coach Milton Katselas’s life were anything but peaceful.

“Bring it on, ding dong,” Cardone responded when we publicized that unsavory part of his background in the church.

Since then, we’ve watched with some amusement as Cardone’s visibility as a Scientology bigwig grew, and he glommed onto the richest Scientology couple in the world, Bob and Trish Duggan, and then escorted Trish to Scientology events after the Duggans split. But Cardone is not a Duggan, and his own donations to the cause pale in comparison. However, even if he isn’t Scientology’s biggest moneybags, he makes up for it by being Scientology’s biggest spectacle. (Although, admittedly, Princess Joy Villa gives him a run for his money in that category, surely.)

And we’ve tried to give Cardone his due. We thought it marked a significant milestone when the career gladhander and social media maven filled the seats at Scientology’s Hollywood Celebrity Centre for a rare overflow recruiting event, something Scientology hasn’t seen in a long, long time. We wondered if David Miscavige was finally doing something that might actually bring in new meat by using Cardone to guide his legions of 10X adherents into Scientology. However, since then, we’ve seen no evidence that Cardone and Miscavige have followed up on that idea.

But like we said, keeping an eye on Cardone’s Scientology antics is taxing enough, and we’ve resisted digging into his business, which is so obviously built on flim-flam that we simply can’t be bothered to get into the depths of it. To give you some idea of how he operates, Cardone recently announced that because of the pandemic he was going bankrupt, that he was under investigation, and that he needed to dump his private jet within hours and he was probably going to prison. The next day, he laughed and said it was a marketing ploy that he dreamed up after getting advice from Kevin Hart that bad news gets more attention than good news.

It’s hard not to believe that the coronavirus crisis has had a big effect on Cardone’s business, but if so, it hasn’t diminished him in the eyes of his London “fanboy” (as Cardone himself called him), Charlie Wakley.

A born-in Scientologist, a lifer, Wakley has tried mightily to breathe some life into the Scientology London org, and we have been impressed with his energy, if nothing else. He’s tried any number of things to give the impression that London Org is hip and happening, and that British Scientology is still a thing, when every real piece of evidence we’ve seen suggests the opposite, that Scientology is barely hanging on at all in the British Isles.

But Wakley does try, we’ll give him that. And one of his new initiatives has been to produce more videos during the lockdown. This week, he announced that he would be going live with Cardone, and Wakley is nearly beside himself in the video, which we forced ourselves to watch, whatever the cost to our frontal cortex.

We’ll let you decide if you want to subject yourself to it as well. The mutual admiration here seems actually genuine, and we did learn a few things about Cardone that we didn’t know before. But mostly, we wanted to bring it up because once again Cardone has been completely open with his deep involvement in Scientology, and there’s a reason why that interests us.

Here’s the video…

 
As we said, Cardone has been pretty open with how much he considers Scientology a key ingredient to his success, and he’s not been shy about talking about it, even in interviews that are not conducted by fawning Scientologists.

So with that in mind, we thought we’d bring up a subject that a reader pointed out to us recently, to get your thoughts about whether we should read anything into it at all.

Like we said, Cardone has not been shy at all about his Scientology involvement, and has told his followers many times that he credits Scientology with much of his success. And so we imagine that the people who sign up for his “10X Growth Conferences” at least have the opportunity of discovering these facts about Cardone before they take part in his arena-sized confabs.

And that’s why we have to at least wonder about this…

 
That’s Brad Parscale with a couple of adoring fans, and the photo was taken in February at the Mandalay Bay resort in Las Vegas, at Grant Cardone’s last 10X Growth Conference before the pandemic shut him down.

Parscale has figured prominently in Cardone’s marketing for his 2020 and 2021 conferences, along with other featured speakers such as Magic Johnson, Kevin Hart, and Cardone’s fellow Scientology celeb, John Travolta.

In those marketing materials, Parscale has been described as an “advertising strategist.”

He’s also Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign manager.

It seems like ages ago that we first learned the news in 2017 that a close family aide to the Trumps, Lynne Patton, had told Leah Remini privately that she had praised Leah’s series to Donald and Melania, and that her boss had agreed with her that it was about time the government took another look at Scientology’s tax exempt status.

There was some confusion about whether Trump, if he actually felt that way, could directly get involved with a re-assessment of Scientology’s church status, but we pointed out that according to the law, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin was one of the very few people who could initiate an IRS review of Scientology, something Trump could ask him to do without crossing any legal boundaries.

But since then, we not only have never had any confirmation that Trump actually felt that way about Scientology, we’ve watched for three years as Scientologists, from Trish Duggan to Joy Villa to Scientology lobbyist Greg Mitchell, have worked to get themselves into the White House, with varying levels of success.

Is it another sign that Scientology is attempting to “safe point” the White House that the president’s campaign manager is taking part in the lucrative “growth conferences” of Scientology’s most visible clown prince?

We’re curious to hear your thoughts on it. And also your thoughts on the video, if you were able to bring yourself to sit through it. (We barely made it to the end.)

 
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Bonus items from our tipsters

Let’s get glamorous!

 
“Despite the bullbait”…

 
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Source Code

“Now, you’re a registrar and somebody is coming in, or you’re signing up PCs. (All of you have to wear a registrar’s hat at one time or another.) And you’re trying to get somebody to get some auditing, you’re a registrar, see? And there you are one fine day with a yow-yow-yow and a scream-scream-scream standing in front of your face: Seventy-five hours of auditing have been delivered — he feels terrible! He says, ‘Oh, I could kill everybody in the place,’ and he ought to go out and sue everybody, and he’s going to inform the government that so on and so on and so on and so on-yap, yap, yap, you never hear such a thing. Don’t worry too much about the threats, because the person totally lacks direction. Person will go halfway down the steps and change his mind and do something else, don’t you see? They’re incapable of carrying forward a program that has any cohesion or direction, see.” — L. Ron Hubbard, May 28, 1963

 
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Overheard in the FreeZone

“If there is no ethics in the field, then American indies will keep ending up in the wog justice system or ignored completely.”

 
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Random Howdy

“I’m from S.F. and the Jonestown massacre happened on November 18, 1978 and the Moscone/Milk assassinations happened on November 27, 1978. So yeah, it was definitely a very strange and stressful time to be living in Frisco. It seemed like Armageddon. My father worked with a guy named Fred Lewis who lost 27 relatives at Jonestown. As far as a Jonestown-like event happening at Gold Base, I find it doubtful, but if the ‘perfect storm’ of mishaps, misadventures, miscommunications took place, like at Waco, it’s possible. I think Miscavige is more the mob boss type than the fanatical cult leader type. That’s a major factor.”

 
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Full Court Press: What we’re watching at the Underground Bunker

Criminal prosecutions:
— Jay Spina: Sentencing was set for April 3 in White Plains
— Hanan and Rizza Islam and other family members: Trial set for October 7 in Los Angeles

Civil litigation:
— Luis and Rocio Garcia v. Scientology: Waiting for an appellate decision from the Eleventh Circuit
— Valerie Haney v. Scientology: Forced to ‘religious arbitration.’ Hearing on motion for reconsideration set for August 11
— Chrissie Bixler et al. v. Scientology and Danny Masterson: July 8 (plaintiff attorneys pro hac vice), August 31-Sept 1 (CSI/RTC demurrer against Riales, Masterson demurrer), Oct 7-19 (motions to compel arbitration)
— Jane Doe v. Scientology (in Miami): Jane Doe dismissed the lawsuit on May 15 after the Clearwater Police dropped their criminal investigation of her allegations.
— Matt and Kathy Feschbach bankruptcy appeal: Oral arguments were heard on March 11 in Jacksonville
— Brian Statler Sr v. City of Inglewood: Amended complaint filed.

 
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Scientology’s celebrities, ‘Ideal Orgs,’ and more!

We’ve been building landing pages about David Miscavige’s favorite playthings, including celebrities and ‘Ideal Orgs,’ and we’re hoping you’ll join in and help us gather as much information as we can about them. Head on over and help us with links and photos and comments.

Scientology’s celebrities, from A to Z! Find your favorite Hubbardite celeb at this index page — or suggest someone to add to the list!

Scientology’s ‘Ideal Orgs,’ from one end of the planet to the other! Help us build up pages about each these worldwide locations!

Scientology’s sneaky front groups, spreading the good news about L. Ron Hubbard while pretending to benefit society!

Scientology Lit: Books reviewed or excerpted in our weekly series. How many have you read?

 
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THE WHOLE TRACK

[ONE year ago] Scientology’s happy promotions can’t hide the cancer eating away at its core
[TWO years ago] Joy Villa makes it back to the White House, but on a sour note
[THREE years ago] Child deaths at a pop concert turn into the latest chance for Scientology to spread its propaganda
[FOUR years ago] Will Scientology’s celebrities heed the call and show up for today’s big media center opening?
[FIVE years ago] Former Scientologist found guilty of defrauding other exes — ALSO: 1998 film re-release[SIX years ago] Scientology’s drug rehab system hit with tenth federal fraud lawsuit by Las Vegas attorney
[SEVEN years ago] Garcias Answer Scientology’s Attempt to Disqualify Their Attorneys in Fraud Lawsuit

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on May 28, 2020 at 07:00

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