Who Would Have Thunk It?

I just read the news that Warren Jeffs was just ousted as president of the FLDS church.  William E. Jessop was apparently formally tapped by Jeffs years ago as the real heir to the leadership mantle, and now he, Jessop (not former church spokes-thug, Willie Jessop), has assumed control of the church by asserting his (rightful?) standing today at the office of Salt Lake's Division of Corporations.  Who would have thunk it?  I'm a bit confused because it was just weeks ago that Wendell Nielsen was the president ???????????

You can read Jennifer Dobner's amazing article below (in your face, Burnt Hensnacker !!!).  I don't think I completely understand this, other than that Jeffs is in jail awaiting trial on a handful of charges related to sex with minors.  I have always insisted that we shouldn't indict someone unless we have proof that he or she really did the alleged crime.  I guess it remains to be seen if the girls in question were molested in any way.  To date, Utah and Arizona have been unable to pin anything on Jeffs.  Maybe we'll get more information at the Texas trial, but that is still months away.  Heaven help anyone who has to be tried by Barbaric Warthog (she has eaten several innocent people for breakfast).

It seems to me that Judge Dee Benson is heaven-bent on giving the UEP trust back to its rightful owners.  Perhaps with someone other than Jeffs at the helm, the transition can proceed efficiently.  Maybe the A.G.s can put away the swords.  Maybe the hater-nasties will have lost the primary target of their venom.

I guess the big question Enquiring minds want to know is, "Will the new president un-excommunicate all the faithful church-members and leaders whom Jeffs recently disciplined?

My prayer is that the wonderful people who are faithful members of the FLDS community will -

1.  Get their state-confiscated property back.
2.  Get a clarification of the truth and facts so they will not be misled by anyone.
3.  Be as united as ever.
4.  Continue to be faithful to the restored Gospel.
5.  Warmly embrace their Fundamentalist Mormon brothers and sisters everywhere (who love them!).

Oh, yeah, and I pray for the Jeffs family - that they will be blessed and comforted during this horribly trying time.
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APNewsBreak: Church elder moves to replace Jeffs

By JENNIFER DOBNER  2011 The Associated Press

March 28, 2011, 6:21PM

SALT LAKE CITY  Jailed polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs may no longer have control of his southern Utah-based church after a senior leader on Monday moved to replace him.

William E. Jessop filed papers with the Utah Department of Commerce to take over as president of the corporation that is the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Jessop, who served as bishop of the twin FLDS border towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., said Monday his rise to the presidency is not an attempt to take over the church, but rather the fulfillment of an earlier directive from Jeffs.

"It is an attempt to preserve ... the church," Jessop, 41, said in an interview with The Associated Press.

An attempt to reach Jeffs at the Texas jail where is being held was unsuccessful Monday, and a telephone call to his criminal attorney was not immediately returned. A message left for Rod Parker, a Salt Lake City attorney who represents the church in civil matters, also wasn't returned.

Jeffs, 55, was convicted in Utah in 2007 on two felony counts of rape as an accomplice and was ordered to serve life sentences, but the convictions were later overturned.

Earlier that year, while jailed and awaiting trial, Jeffs tried to cede authority of the church both as president and spiritual leader to Jessop in a series of recorded telephone calls to followers and to Jessop, himself.

"I know of your ordination, that you are the key holder, and I have sent a note with my signature so that there is no question," Jeffs told Jessop in a Jan. 24, 2007, telephone call from a Utah jail.

The tapes and a DVD of the conversation were released by the court as part of Jeffs' trial.

Jessop did not respond to the offer at the time, and Jeffs publicly remained spiritual head and president of the church. Other church members speculated the calls from Jeffs were merely a test of their faith.

Four days later, Jeffs attempted suicide by trying to hang himself in the jail.

Then in December 2007, after his Utah conviction, Jeffs resigned as president of the church corporation, believing he could no longer run its day-to-day business from behind bars. But he remained the group's spiritual leader.

Jeffs was later moved to a jail in Texas, where he is awaiting trial on bigamy and aggravated sexual assault charges. Last month, he retook control of the church following the abrupt resignation of his replacement, who was forced out of the church.

Jessop said he is only stepping forward now because he believes he can help provide the church with the leadership it needs while Jeffs is incarcerated.

"We take things at Heavenly Father's pace," said Jessop, who has been living on a church ranch in Pringle, S.D., since 2004.

Jeffs would not have to formally resign as the church's president for Jessop to be installed, Commerce Department spokeswoman Jennifer Bolton said Monday. However, it remained unclear whether Jeffs would immediately lose all power in the church or share it with Jessop, at least for now.

Jessop's assertion of leadership is largely unprecedented, and it wasn't immediately clear whether the move would fracture or unite the 10,000-strong church with members in Arizona, British Columbia, Colorado, South Dakota, Texas and Utah.

Asked if he is now considered the church's prophet and spiritual leader, Jessop said that will be up to individual church members. In the past, the church president has also been considered its prophet.

Meanwhile, a trial for Jeffs is set for later this year in Texas, where prosecutors allege he had sex with two girls, one under age 14 and one under age 17. A court has entered not guilty pleas on Jeffs' behalf.

Canadian authorities also are investigating allegations that in 2005 Jeffs married two 12-year-old sect girls who were brought from a church enclave in British Columbia to the U.S. It's not clear whether those girls are the same victims whose relationships with Jeffs are the basis for the Texas charges.

Jeffs assumed the role as FLDS prophet and president in September 2002 following the death of his father, Rulon Jeffs, who suffered a series of strokes.

His rise to power has been questioned by former church members who say there was no succession plan in place when the elder Jeffs died because he had preached that the second coming of Jesus Christ was imminent, and therefore no one would need to lead the church in the future.

Voice From The Dust

Somebody just sent me the link to an article about the final week of pleadings in Canada's polygamy reference case.  In it, apparently ex-B.C. A.G., Wally Offal, confesses to having prosecutor-shopped and also to having had a frank duel with his son, Josh, over whether any three Canadian adults should be allowed to enjoy freedom of association (Canada doesn't have our 1st Amendment, eh?).  See my earlier post on this topic.

I don't mean to beat a dead horse (no pun intended), but Wally Olfool regurgitates some of the same old hater insanity we have fallen asleep to before:

"That's what I was arguing with my son about, you have to look at this in a global sense, the harmful effects of polygamy," he [Oddball] said.

"And you've heard some evidence about that, the abuse of women and children, the fact that the underlying philosophy of a polygamous relationship is demeaning to women."

UNDERLYING PHILOSOPHY !!!!!  What the hell is that ???????? - -  I want to refer Warty Appall to my earlier post regarding Canada's recent knife ban, based primarily on the "harmful effects" of knives.  After all, they CUT PEOPLE, DON'T THEY ???

Knives are inherently and globally harmful.  The "underlying philosophy" of knives is that they cut and sever and kill.  Wally Awful needs someone to explain to him that monogamy (and knives for that matter) can be statistically shown to be a BILLION times more damaging and harmful than polygamy has EVER been.  If he wants to use that pathetic logic to indict an abstract CONCEPT, he will have to accept that the "underlying philosophy" of monogamy and its attendant human catastrophes are proof positive that Canada MUST ban it, too.  What kind of thought-police law-enforcement doctrines were they teaching when Wally went to law school?  Wasn't it the Soviet and Maoist tyrants who wanted to prohibit religious thought and observances?

DUHH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How Hungry Are You?

If you travel to the wildest plains or jungles of Africa, you will discover that the conflicts and struggles of the indigenous creatures, animal and human, are focused primarily on nutrition.  Eat or be eaten.  The predators with the most power end up with the most food.

Today in London, England, there were violent protests and riots.  U.S. news media characterized the protests as "food riots".  Why? - because the British government has decided to make drastic cuts in entitlement programs in order to avert the financial ruin recently witnessed in Greece and Ireland.

The protesters (egged on by left-wing agitators) seem pretty bent out of shape.  Their "dole" benefits are about to be reduced.  They are angry because, presumably, they will soon be hungry.

When over seven million Christians died under Stalin's cruel regime in Soviet-controlled Ukraine in 1932 and 1933 it was the result of famine and starvation.

When things get tough, and tyrannical despots get too carried away with power, the fight usually turns on food.

Reports came in this week suggesting that world average food prices just reached their all-time high.  Our money is manipulated, oil prices are manipulated, real estate values are inflated and deflated, and the world's food supplies are manipulated.  If there is a shortage of food in several parts of the world, why does the federal government pay thousands of farmers simply to NOT GROW CROPS?  New and oppressive regulations are being implemented (by the executive branch) to oversee private local farms (and even shut some down).  There is so much food production capability in the world - more than enough for twice the world's current population.  Shortages are caused artificially by cruel tyrants like Qaddafi, Mubarak, Pol Pot and Stalin (and people like Nancy Pelosi and Woodrow Wilson).

The progressive, leftist, liberal, socialistic, collectivistic devils of this world have trained western Europeans (and millions of Americans) to mooch at the public trough for decades.  The government will provide.  From whence does the government get all its money and resources?  It gets them by bashing down the doors of the middle-class and breaking their backs and stealing their hard-earned paychecks.

Look at the recent public-employee-union protests in Wisconsin.  These ordinarily decent teachers and firefighters are basically howling at the state government to steal more money from the private sector in order to preserve their long-time lavish benefits.

Take a step back from my politico-ideological diatribe for a moment and imagine a time just after the stock market crashes.  Imagine the week after the (worthless) dollar (artificially propped up by the collusion of the other G-8 nations) crashes to zero. Bernanke and his New-World-Order cronies believe that they will be able to manage the chaos and quickly restore stability, implementing a new global monetary system, and a post-Constitutional world regime.  That might work in Europe, where socialism is in the people's blood.  Here I suspect not.

There is about three days worth of food in the grocery stores (depending on how quickly the looter/locust storm empties the shelves).  After that, what will you eat?

Clearly, some people will have stashed away some food storage.  Some people will still have the means to produce food.  Many people will coalesce and band together in an effort to survive.  Others will become desperate.  In the end, there will be two kinds of people -

1.  People who would rather die than watch another person starve.

2.  People who would rather murder someone else for food than starve.

How hungry are you?

They Punted

Okay, I'm not a lawyer, although I play one in my house.  It's time for me to weigh in on the urination contest between Utah's very Supreme Court and Federal Judge Dee Benson.

The Utah Supremes are miffed because, after they elected to ignore the merits of the FLDS church's claim against the State for reforming its trust, Judge Benson addressed the merits head-on and found egregious Constitutional violations (primarily from Diseased Lintbag).  The Supremes hinged their decision (to effectively "punt" the matter) on a legal doctrine known as "Laches".  The idea of Laches is that, if you feel you have been wronged, you have a duty to make any valid protests within a reasonable time period (or else too much water will flow under the bridge, and people will have moved on with their lives and placed faith in the new status quo).  This is not necessarily a bad principle but, the way Judge Benson looked at it, if what the State (and Limprag) did was a Constitutional violation ab initio, then irrespective of the (late) timing of the complaint, the trust beneficiaries had been being abused from the very start, and on a continual, ongoing basis.

If I am comfortable with Benson's argument for any reason, it is at least because Brute Wisass conducted a spiteful, selfish, disdainful campaign of disregard against the FLDS leadership and membership from day one.  It might well be argued that, if Warren Jeffs was telling the folks to "Answer them nothing!", they were risking having everything taken from them by the Fooles and the Hischers.  Judge Benson sagely noted that, if that was what the beneficiaries really wanted, it was NOBODY's business to charge in and compel them to do otherwise.  Attorney Rod Parker suggested that the period of inaction was framed as a "test of faith" for the membership.  Let's not also forget that, whenever an FLDS member showed his or her face in a Utah courtroom, he or she was immediately slapped with a subpoena to cough up the whereabouts of Warren Jeffs or else face detention in Arizona's Florence dungeon till the start of the next millennium.  The persecution of the people became intolerable.

So what are the key principles in this situation?

1.  The Fooles and the Hischers had conflicts of interest in the trust reformation in that they were suing the trust for gain and then colluded in the rewriting of the UEP trust language.

2.   Jugg Desleaze Lintrag showed extraordinary prejudice at every turn and should have been removed from the start.

3.  Brutal Wisass was a disgrace to the LDS Church and to the accounting profession in that he waged a personal and self-serving war against a generally innocent community.

4.  The Utah Supreme Court waxed spineless (as it did in State v. Holm) and did not want to get to "the merits", so it punted the case, finding comfort in the convenience of the "Laches" excuse.

5.  Judge Benson watched the case from a distance and agreed (in 2008[?]) to get involved in the event that the Utah Supreme Court failed to take appropriate action.  The Supremes punted the case, so Benson thought long and hard about the merits and his own eligibility to decide the matter.  He concluded that he does have jurisdiction, that the reformation of the trust was fraudulent at the start, and that, since the Supremes had punted the matter of the merits, he must step in and remedy the error.

The Supremes are irritated because Benson disagreed with the Laches excuse and insisted that a State can never invade a private trust and alter it at will in violation of its original intents.  The Supremes are now toying with motions from both sides regarding whether they can or should disregard the federal court's ruling (plus there are two other FLDS matters still pending in their court).

The hardest part of this is that this is relatively uncharted legal territory.  The last (and perhaps only) instance of such an egregious trust invasion was the one perpetrated against the LDS Church in the 1880's.  Either way, the entire siege was disingenuous, deceitful, collusive, and criminal from the beginning.  It was reminiscent of Missouri Governor Boggs' extermination (of Mormons) order - - public officials twisting the legal process in an effort to achieve devious political ends.  Such gross official license and creativity has no place in honorable government.  Even the LDS Church must be having second thoughts about the wisdom of confiscating church trusts for mere gits and shiggles.

I think that despite Justice Christine Durham's sincere desire to hear reasonable new pleadings from both sides, it is (ironically) too little - too late.  They had their chance to explore the merits before, and they punted. Now, everybody involved can see the writing on the wall. This is another tar baby.  Whisetrash is about to be convicted of felony trespass.  Snortlips doesn't need any more public embarrassments.  The 10th Circuit is bound to stand behind Benson, and, if Spent Bunshaker is onto something more than a rumor (for the first time in his weasely career), there could well be a season of healing and renaissance in the community. In large part, Fundamentalist Mormons are extraordinarily loyal and committed people.  Public officials prefer the "divide and conquer" program, since they fear that united we will be strong.  It's one thing to boast of having tackled the "polygamy problem", but entirely another to trample on the property and free agency of an entire culture.  It backfired in 1953 and 2008, and backfire it will again.

Well Wishes

If you haven't noticed, my commentary in this blog has been cynical and harsh at best. When I see bigotry, hubris or silliness, I can't resist the temptation to criticize it. When political officers do oppressive things, I need to protest. I have been especially critical of Utah's Attorney General, if only because of his statements and actions which appear to directly threaten or harm Fundamentalist Mormons (he recently vowed to appeal Judge Benson's decision to return the UEP Trust to the FLDS). Whether those gestures were driven by personal or official motivations, I cannot know. I do know that public officials who are members of the LDS Church face a special challenge when trying to distinguish their official objectives from their Church's agenda.

All this notwithstanding, I have learned from news reports that AG Mark Shurtleff is battling health issues associated with his colon (not long after suffering the torment of a long recovery from a serious leg injury). I would not wish such suffering on anyone, and I pray that Mark's treatments will be successful and that he and his family will enjoy good health and a long life.

. . . . . and all the King's Men,

I'll be brief.  I watched the Joy Behar show on HLN tonight.  Though not a fan of Ms. Behar, I have to admit that she was relaxed, amicable and intelligent in her questioning of Kody Brown and his four "wives".

What jumped out at me more than anything else was this question and answer exchange:
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JOY BEHAR:  Kody, in this long police investigation of your family for felony bigamy, were you ever contacted in any way by the police?

KODY BROWN:  No.

JOY BEHAR:  So what do you know about the progress of the investigation so far?

KODY BROWN:  Nothing. 
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Some investigation!

I think that the problem was either that Lehi's Keystone Kops could not figure out where the Browns' house was (in the six months before the family moved to Nevada), or they were too mesmerized by the weekly videotaped confessions on TLC to be able to figure out whom to question.

Lab Rats

Aren't these little darlings cute?  Don't they just make you want to grab a stick and poke them to see if they snarl or bite.  Or maybe you are the type who desperately wants to save them from their confused and beleaguered condition - to take them home and assimilate them into your own sweet family - to set them on the path to safety, salvation and happiness.

I have finally figured it out.  In the Romer v. Evans decision, Justice Antonin Scalia alluded to the fact that Fundamentalist Mormons were being singled out for "disfavorable treatment".  Why is that?

Fundamentalist Mormons are second-class citizens because they are automatically assumed to be felons, even though they are not really prosecuted.  It's as if they have an ugly "P" stitched to their chests, so that normal, regular, ordinary folk can know that the polyg's are outcasts or unclean.

In the recent news frenzy over ecclesiastical leadership changes in the FLDS church, the private and public social service entities are rushing out of the woodwork to step in and rescue.  Rescue whom?  They are forming strategic collaborations, even with entities that have victimized Fundamentalist Mormons in the past.

There are reports that, in Nazi (Socialist) Germany and concentration camps, experiments were conducted on helpless minorities.  There were acts of cruelty that would make Abu Ghraib look like a luxury spa.  I don't doubt that the perpetrators were utterly convinced of the goodness and wisdom of their activities.  They knew best.  They were smarter than the camp detainees.  They had lofty, long-term goals to which the subject victims were arguably oblivious and subordinate.  The ends clearly justified the means (and the secret meetings and deliberations).  Sometimes the goal is just to justify the controlling entity's continued existence (individual needs be damned).

That is the very quintessence of socialism.  The goal of making everyone "equal" (of assuring social "justice" for all) is a lie - a "bait and switch".  Think about it - in socialism, the government is utterly in charge of the distribution of resources.  The guys in power dictate to the folks who are not in power.  They decide what's best for you, and you had better not complain or you will disappear or be imprisoned or shot. I always wonder why so many people are enticed by that kind of tyranny.  I guess the liberals privately believe they will get to be the ones in the driver's seat - telling you where to work and what to eat.

Some local universities face considerable controversy for their medical experiments conducted with laboratory animals.  Some of the animals can experience frustration and resentment when their comfort and privacy are compromised.  New efforts are underway to interfere and intervene in the lives of Fundamentalist Mormons.  After all, the Mother Church and law enforcement entities all across the land have over-arching, imperative needs to investigate us, examine us, probe us, and intervene when the ulterior motives get strong enough.  Then throw "equality" out the window.

I think that, once you can look upon peculiar, different people with a supercilious, condescending attitude; and you decide that, by virtue of their class disability they are like lab rats, you can really do whatever you want to them with impunity and a clear conscience.

Throw Away The Key!

I have been watching the results of my poll (to the left of the recent post) on this blog.  I am grateful to all of you who have expressed your opinion.  I will maintain the poll to see if the yes/no balance remains constant.

It appears that a sizeable portion of the respondents are convinced that polygamous men and women need to be incarcerated.  No one knows exactly how many polygamists live in the U.S. but it could be hundreds of thousands.  What is a polygamist?  We know that there are several thousand Fundamentalist Mormon polygamists.  Then there are many Protestant Christian polygamists.  There are numerous Muslim polygamists.  Finally, there are probably hundreds of thousands of polygamous, recreational copulators - people who shack up serially or who are having affairs with the secretary or the neighbor's wife.  We shouldn't forget all the married men who are frequenting the Las Vegas whores who work in Harry Reid's state.  I guess we should also ask if the many gays and lesbians in Northern California are polygamous by nature or conduct.

If we borrow the bizarre reasoning of British Columbia's Attorney General, Craig Jones, all of the above classes of people are polygamists.  I want to ask the affirmative responders to my poll if they are willing to pay for the doubling of America's prison cells to house these offending polygamists.  I also would ask them if they themselves have been morally pure throughout their lives.

Before the Supreme Court's decision in Lawrence v. Texas (2003), some states required gays to register themselves as sex offenders.  Merely the orientation or inclination to homosexuality (generally a permanent condition) was sufficient to establish criminality.  You must all agree that this is SO disingenuous, that it is not a surprise that Texas and Oklahoma did not enforce this draconian rule.

Tom Green and Rodney Holm both recently served prison sentences in Utah for polyga-bigamy.  They are now back home with their wonderful wives.  I have asked this question before, but how long should a polygamous person's prison sentence last?  Most polygamists I know are polygamous for life.  They CANNOT limit themselves to the monogamous lifestyle.  Once released from prison, they go back and re-offend.  I cannot remember the last person who was returned to prison for repeat polygamy after parole.  It seems that the state lacks the lust for a sincere, widespread polygamy prosecution campaign.  During the Brown family's recent videotaped confessions, the State appeared to be watching a different channel - probably HBO (and Big Love).  The Browns fled to Nevada, and, as of this writing, I have not been made aware of any extradition proceedings.

Here's the bottom line.  You simply cannot have it both ways or have your cake and eat it too (or other cliches).  If you believe that polygamists belong in prison, you must also believe that they are unrehabilitatable (is that a word?) and that they must therefore remain behind bars until death.  Just throw away the key!

I have to think that not too many years back a large number of Americans and Canadians felt that gay people needed to be incarcerated for life or executed.  Fashion trends changed all that.

I am tempted to run a poll asking if anti-polygamy hate groups should be incarcerated for bigotry.