The question is, why aren’t a 24-count federal fraud and conspiracy conviction, a prison sentence and a hush-money sex scandal enough to convince people that televangelist ex-con Jim Bakker should be flushed down the toilet of public notice forever?

(Bakker’s bogus coronavirus “cure” spiel starts at 5:25 in this video above.)

It may finally be happening, according to news reports — credit card companies, to their credit, now won’t process Bakker’s invoice credits — but why in God’s name did it take this long? (See my prior post on Bakker, here.)

The reason is that a lot of people, especially Christian people, apparently, are exceedingly gullible and manifestly unwise.

I mean, what are the chances that a flim-flam man imprisoned in the early 1989 for selfishly and fraudulently misusing tens of millions of dollars of faithful followers’ donations will suddenly be doing it honorably as a jailbird when he returns to public life with the same scummy business model he used before?

Sure, Christians believe in personal redemption and all that, but in the real world it rarely — oh so rarely — happens. To keep expecting it from people because we find them charismatic and they tell us what we like to hear, however nonsensical, is dumb and dangerous. Indeed, child psychology experts tell us that our basic character and moral sensibility become clearly defined before we enter kindergarten.

Bakker was released from prison in 2001 and by 2003 was back on TV, this time broadcasting with his new wife, Lori, the daily Jim Bakker Show in Branson, Missouri. Most of his audience was reportedly on DirecTV and Dish Network.

In his show, which focuses on End Times and the purported coming Armageddon, he peddles a variety of questionable products, such as his “Silver Solution” (aka, “Silver Sol”) concoction he has claimed can cure coronavirus.

Fortunately, not everyone is as blindly credulous as his followers.

In March, the Missouri attorney general filed suit against Bakker for selling unproven remedies as proven, and sought a “cease and desist” order against him, and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also warned the televangelist to “cease and desist” sales of his Silver Sol product line.

In a letter to the Jim Bakker Show, the FDA asserted that the products it hawked are in violation of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.

“The Secretary of Health and Human Services … has determined that a public health emergency exists nationwide as a result of confirmed cases of COVID-19,” the FDA letter stated. “Therefore, FDA is taking urgent measures to protect consumers from certain products that, without approval or authorization by FDA, claim to mitigate, prevent, treat, diagnose or cure COVID 19 in people.”

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the science experts on the current U.S. administration’s COVID-19 task force continue to emphasize that no known FDA-approved medicine or vaccine yet exists that can prevent or treat the virus.

In its suit against Bakker, the Missouri attorney general’s office alleges he is violating the state’s Merchandising Practices Act by “falsely promising to consumers that Silver Solution can cure, eliminate, kill or deactivate coronavirus and/or boost elderly consumers’ immune system and help keep them healthy when there is, in fact, no vaccine, pill, potion or other product available to treat or cure coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).”

During the ensuing month, Bakker complained loudly that he was being “bled” by federal and state government agencies, and by the lawyers needed to hire to combat charges.

But, after credit card companies deserted him that he used to process revenue from his sales, he quietly pulled Silver Sol from his website and is currently begging supporters to pay by check and to buy his products and books to save his “ministry” from bankruptcy.

“We need money to say on the air. I am just saying it bluntly,” Bakker told the Miami Herald, which reported that he and his wife have asked for people to buy their books or send in donations. “They’re already bleeding us to death, and now we’re going to have to pay lawyers that will bleed you to death.”

It would be a valuable service to the nation if everyone would just allow Bakker’s scam business to go under, although he could presumably be exaggerating the economic risk he faces.

At his original trial, Bakker was convicted by a jury on all counts and sentenced by Judge Robert Daniel Potter to 45 years in prison and a $500,000 fine. In 1992, however, Bakker received a drastic sentence reduction to only eight years because an appeals court ruled, ironically, that Judge Potter injected his religious beliefs into the trial.

But that other Christians shared the views Potter exclaimed in exasperation while sentencing Bakker at his first trial.

Potter told Bakker that “those of us who do have a religion are sick of being saps for money-grubbing preachers and priests.”

Even those of us who don’t have a religion are sick of them being saps.

Video/YouTube

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