It sounds like a bad dream. You should up to listen to and perhaps ask questions of Mike Huckabee, a leading Republican candidate for President but first ... You have to sit through a speech about what a great opportunity Amway is. Pass the puke bucket.

But that's exactly what happened in West Des Moines, according to the Baltimore Sun: "For half an hour, two businessmen paced the stage where Huckabee would soon stump. They never said the name of the company during their talks, but afterward some members of the crowd shared with others the good news of a company called Quixtar Inc." Earlier this year, parent company Alticor said it was phasing out the Quixtar name and rebuilding its Amway brand which it had dropped in 2000.

Huckabee denies any formal association with the multi-level marketing hucksters, but said that they were a "great group of people."

It appears true that Alticor employees and executives haven't been giving to Huckabee. For whatever reason, company patriarch Richard DeVos has given money to Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney. But historically, Alticor has been a huge donor to the Republican Party.

Maybe Giuliani, Romney, and the GOP as a whole should do some research into the background of the company that has been one of the part's top donors for years. They could start with this excellent Dateline special.

On December 1, I wrote about Amway's defense of its conduct in the United Kingdom. John Hutton, Britain's Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise, and Regulatory Reform is attempting to shut down the company's operations there, charging that Amway is essentially an endless chain scheme.

The government has demonstrated that only 10% of Amway's multi-level marketing Independent Business Owners turn a profit, while only 6% ever actually sell a product to someone outside of the organization.

This is compelling evidence that Amway is a pyramid scheme. People buy products to qualify for commissions, and the business operates as a closed system: Money is made by recruiting new distributors, not selling products. This is not different from a chain letter in any meaningful way.

According to the Times, David Chivers, an attorney for Amway, said that Amway's own rules say that promotional material should state that income can only be achieved by the sale of products to end clients and that the company does not pay simply for recruiting further agents.

And yet the data would seem to suggest that the company is doing just that. Meanwhile, Amway continues to recruit "distributors" in the United States, unimpeded by government officials who have essentially been bribed.

To learn more about Amway, check out this Dateline special available on YouTube, or read Amway: The Cult of Free Enterprise.

Back in July, I wrote about network marketing giant Amway/Quixtar's self-imposed 120-day moratorium on recruiting in the United Kingdom, a response to a Department of Trade and Industry complaint against the company. Many critics charge that Amway is operating a thinly-veiled pyramid scheme, based on the same principles as the chain letter.

Well earlier in November, Amway blogged about its plans to return to the region, posting a memo that had been sent to directors and employees, and also forwarded to many of the company's United Kingdom distributors.

Here's where it gets interesting. Many people, myself included, have charged that the FTC is not doing enough to crack down on multi-level marketing companies using false and misleading recruiting tactics. based on the text of the memo, Amway seems to agree:

"The fact is, in the wake of this sobering experience, every one of us -- employees, IBOs, and others -- should renew our commitment to hold ourselves to the highest standards of behavior. The marketplace -- and in the UK, the government -- has made it clear that they expect no less. And when falling short of those standards exposes our company to such grave risk, there can no longer be any such thing as 'business as usual.'" (emphasis added)

In other words, the government of United Kingdom has made it clear that it will hold Amway to the highest standards of behavior -- but the United States has not followed the lead.

Perhaps Amway's massive political contributions have had something to do with that. it's a shame that our elected officials are putting the interests of special interest groups ahead of those of consumers. That's just business as usual in the land of the free, home of the brave.

According to a recent report from CBS News, "Direct-marketing firm Quixtar Inc., a sister company of Amway Corp., has sued 30 people who anonymously posted what it considers disparaging remarks about Quixtar in blogs and online forums and in YouTube.com videos."

The company is seeking subpoenas to compel internet sites, including Google (NASDAQ: GOOG)'s YouTube, to give the company information it needs to find out who is making the videos that it believes are defamatory. Amway/Quixtar believes some of the videos were made by former distributors who unsuccessfully sued the company and are under court order not to disparage the company.

For years, Amway has been battling allegations that the company is a pyramid scheme. In 1979, the FTC ruled that Amway was not a pyramid scheme, but ordered the company to change many of its sales and marketing practices.

Unfortunately, the media as a whole lacks a strong understanding of how Amway and other multi-level marketing companies work. For instance, take this line from the CBS piece:

Quixtar develops and manufactures nutrition, beauty and cleaning products that are marketed in the United States and Canada through a tiered selling system, hiring entrepreneurs to sell its products.

This is not even close to how Quixtar really works. Quixtar does not "hire entrepreneurs." "Independent business owners," as Amway euphemistically calls them, must buy products in order to qualify for commissions, and can earn by recruiting others to buy products as well. Sites like Pyramid Scheme Alert have documented how little "selling of products" actually happens.

In 1979, the FTC ruled that multi-level marketing giant Amway is not a pyramid scheme, after years of controversy surrounding the company. While Amway still has a shady reputation in many circles, it's managed to avoid that level of government scrutiny in the United States since the FTC ruling.

But things are not going so well in England. The country's Department of Trade and Industry has filed a sealed complaint against the company, but has declined to specify any details. Amway responded by announcing that it is conducting a review of its business practices, and posted on its corporate blog some of the things its doing to shape up. The company is placing a 120-day moratorium on recruiting in Britain has banned sales of motivational tapes and literature not produced by the company. The sale of motivational materials has been a hot-button issue among Amway's critics, who charge that high-level Amway distributors get rich by selling motivational materials to naive recruits.

It will be interesting to see what happens here. An unfavorable outcome for the company in England could re-open the issue stateside.

Amway was also recently sued in California, with former distributors charging that the company is operating a pyramid scheme.

Procter & Gamble Co. (NYSE:PG) opened at $62.34. So far today the stock has hit a low of $62.22 and a high of $62.41. As of 12:20 this morning, PG is trading at $62.20, down $0.08 (-0.1%).

After hitting a one year high of $66.30 in January, the stock stumbled in late February, but is showing support around $61. A jury yesterday awarded Procter & Gamble $19.25 million in a lawsuit against Amway distributors that alleged four individuals in the organization revived old rumors of a connection between Procter & Gamble and Satanism. Amway itself was dismissed as a defendant from the lawsuit some time ago. The technical indicators for PG have been bearish and steady, while S&P gives the stock its highest rating of 5 STARS (out of 5) strong buy.

Warren Buffett has made PG one of the core holdings in his portfolio. His 100 million shares make up over 12% of his total portfolio holdings. Buffett's buy and hold strategy of investing focuses on companies with great long term prospects, and with last month's sharp drop, PG could be a real bargain for long term investors.

For a bullish hedged play on this stock, I would consider a July bull-put credit spread below the $55 range. PG hasn't been below $55 since last June and has shown support around $61.50 recently. This trade could be risky if PG falls from its recent highs, but the stock looks like it has bounced off of support at its 200 day moving average at the $61 level twice in the past two weeks.

Brent Archer is an options analyst and writer at Investors Observer (Free Subscription). DISCLOSURE: Mr. Archer owns and/or controls diversified portfolios of long and short stock and option positions that may include holdings in companies he writes about.