Was it all just a big lie?

LYLE JEFFS (polygamist)

PARKER DOUGLAS

SEAN REYES (UTAH A.G.)

Rep. MIKE NOEL (Rules Chair)

Was it all just a big lie?

Lyle Jeffs, Warren’s brother and stand-in leader of the FLDS, just pleaded guilty to the crime of Food Stamp (SNAP) fraud, and will serve years of prison time.  Like his brother Warren Jeffs, Lyle is a notorious polygamist with some 60 children (children who could not have been born to just one woman).  Warren was never charged with polyga-bigamy.

Utah has a law in place (at least since 1976) making polygamous cohabitation (bigamy) a third degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison.  Since 1976, two defendants, Thomas Green and Rodney Holm, have been convicted under the law and served time.  In 2003 (Lawrence v. Texas) the Supreme Court decriminalized all adult consensual (non-commercial) sexual cohabitation and intimacy.  

In 2013, Federal District Court Judge Clark Waddoups (in Brown v. Herbert) affirmed that polygamous cohabitation (in Utah) fell within the ambit of the Lawrence decision’s protections.  Despite the 10^th Circuit’s later overruling of Waddoups in 2016, Utah’s Attorney General, Sean Reyes, fought to protect the language of the now-reaffirmed bigamy statute by more tightly defining the elements of the crime of bigamy (falsely purporting to marry, and cohabitating).  He also convinced the Utah (2017) legislature to add an enhancement (second degree) to the crime, so that bad polygamous actors who ALSO commit abuse (upon wives or children) or tax- (or other types of financial) fraud can face up to 15 years in prison.

When asked by the Utah House Law Enforcement committee (on February 7, 2017) if, once the new statutory language were signed into law, the A.G. would proceed with immediate enforcement, the A.G.’s chief-of-staff, Parker Douglas, testified, “Yes”.  Douglas has since left his post at the Attorney General's office.

I have to wonder if during the years-long prosecution of the very-polygamous Lyle Jeffs, Utah's distinguished law enforcement community inadvertently forgot that Lyle practice(s)(d) polygamy (i.e. had/has multiple pretend wives) throughout the period of time when he appeared before Judge Ted Stewart and complied with Stewart’s order for him to be a Salt Lake County resident.

Did the A.G. overlook Jeffs’s continued bigamy, or did Reyes elect to break his promise to the Utah legislature because he is afraid of yet another polygamy law test case (see Green, Holm, Bronson,and Brown)?  

Did Representative Mike Noel and Parker Douglas argue so passionately for the preservation of the felony penalties for “good” AND “bad” polygamists out of a sincere commitment to begin prosecuting them, OR - was it because representatives of the LDS Church were breathing hotly down their necks to keep the felony penalty in place so that the Church can continue its frantic P.R. repudiation of “criminal” fundamentalist Mormon polygamists?

Hundreds of sincere plural families and their children held a protest rally in the rain at the Utah Capitol on February 10, 2017, pleading with their legislators to see through the disingenuousness of the Attorney General and his surrogates in the House.  On the last night of the session, A.G. Reyes held an urgent, dinner-time meeting with the State Senators to urge them to pass Mike Noel’s bigamy enhancement bill (HB-99).  He argued that he was pursuing a group of polygamous human traffickers, and that this amendment would give him the tools he needed to prosecute them.  At the midnight hour, the bill passed by one reluctant vote.  

Utah has tens of thousands of polygamists practicing their deeply-held religious beliefs and lifestyles in the open.  One has to wonder if A.G. Sean Reyes has simply forgotten all of his pre- and post-election promises to prosecute all (or even ONE) of them.

Was it all just a big lie?  If you are unsure, watch these brief clips from the last legislative session:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewuaMMTMg3Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLx5oE0e7Xg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMNNu5ag5gY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sesOr5PO2vw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLu-5SLLFSw

Off With Their Heads

I am still scratching my head over the FLDS implosion.  In 2005, the State of Utah seized the FLDS UEP trust and ran up millions in inflated fiduciary fees.  The Hooles assisted with the rewording of the UEP trust statement, hoping to plunder the trust for their own gain.  Warren told his followers to "Answer them nothing."  Young men were illegally detained and imprisoned in an Arizona prison, simply because they had no idea of Warren's whereabouts and could not disclose something they didn't know.

Warren was captured in 2007, but his conviction in a Utah court was overturned.

In 2008, 439 children were confiscated from the FLDS ranch in west Texas.  The feds knew at the time that Warren was molesting little girls.  The little kids were returned thanks to Julie Balovich, but Warren was later convicted by a Texas court, and should remain in his Texas prison until the next millennium.

Probably dozens of the young teen girls (now adults) still remain under FLDS house arrest.  Only God knows how they can regain a normal life in the wake of the destruction of their perverse, fairy-tale culture.

Fiduciary Bruce Wisan eventually had to get his filthy lucrative fees from the Utah legislature.  Mark Shurtleff, then the A.G. who targeted the FLDS, found himself at cross purposes with Judge Denise Lindberg, who would make a ruling in favor of the FLDS if her life depended on it.

Federal Judge Dee Benson demanded that the State return the UEP trust to its trustee (Warren Jeffs), but that got thwarted, too.

A wise man once told me that one can liken the UEP trust to an egg.  The egg was once fresh and whole and desirable.  Then somebody scrambled it and cooked it.  Then someone else came along and burned it.  Try as you might, you cannot return that egg to its shell, and put things back to how they were before.

Willie Jessop sued the FLDS church to recoup the money he loaned Warren to pay for all the lawyers who defended him.  Answering "them nothing", Warren watched Willie win the suit by default and earn a $20 million award.  Since then, Willie has gained control of the spectacular mansions built for Warren by his followers since his incarceration.  The porn theaters have been removed. 

After a period of time under the leadership of John Wayman, the control of the FLDS people has been handed back to Warren's brother, Lyle.  Warren and Lyle have bled virtually every penny out of the remaining faithful.  The number of faithful is dwindling steadily as they are systematically ejected from the fold because of any number of petty violations or heresies.  Families and children are abandoned, then jumbled up at Warren's whim.  Warren is now certifiably insane, so one has to wonder why Lyle complies with every directive.  Perhaps it is because he likes not working and living for free off other people's labors.  No one has been allowed to marry since 2006, and rumors abound now that a select group of men has been selected to play the role of community impregnators.  One thing is for sure - hundreds of families have been ripped to shreds, and some exiles are still trying to gain back the infant children they handed over to the church police while they were still sucked in by Warren.

This is turning out to be one of the worst humanitarian disasters since the days of Stalin.  It is a true tar baby for the State.  The State may have had a vision of some sort to rehabilitate the twin towns, but it didn't come about.  My sense is that the degree of indoctrination in the FLDS was so extreme, that many of the excommuniqués barely understand what has happened to them.  Would you feel guilty if you had been born into an oppressive cult, and had surrendered your free agency to a lunatic, just because your church's theology so dictated?  Would it be your fault, or just the fault of the lunatic and his cronies?

I wrote a blogpost in 2011 - Critical Mass - in which I pondered the eventual dissolution of the community.  I guess we are there now.  If we accept the premise of a pre-existence, we allow that all of the participants in this adventure consented to come to earth at this time and be tested by it.  For us outsiders, our duty is to provide whatever kindness and support is desired by those who have become victims of the nightmare.  I hope that we remember that it was NOT POLYGAMY that caused all this.  It was stupid humans doing cruel, selfish stuff.  That's the lesson.

WOULD YOU TAKE HIM BACK?

Warren Jeffs (pedophile)

Jerry Sandusky (pedophile)

I recently read one of Whorrin' Jeffs’ Looney Tunes revelations.  In it he rambles on clumsily about North Korea and other geopolitical issues.  The writer also demands that Warren be freed - “ . .  if any on earth desire salvation”!  Funny – I thought salvation was guaranteed to all on earth!

I was struck again by Warren’s bizarre, almost indecipherable syntax - -

“Let all nations be of holy order of cleansing child, unborn youth order, murder from own nation; to survive conflict soon on world, . . ”

I pity anyone who might be called upon to translate this gibberish into a different language.

I know that FLDS leaders have gone to great lengths to keep the members from hearing news stories about Warren.  Frankly, I would be more concerned about them reading Warren’s recent nutball material, lest they discover that their “prophet” is rowing to the beat of a strange deck of bricks.

Is that what this has come to?  Is there a significant number of FLDS faithful who have been so pummeled into cowering obsequiousness, that they cannot tell the difference between reality and insanity?  Would they read this balderdash and fawn over its content as if it were divine?

I think about the dozens of young women who have been forcibly confined to “houses of hiding”.  Do their parents assume that all is well with them, simply because Warren decrees their continued imprisonment?

Brigham Young said the following:

“What a pity it would be if we were led by one man to utter destruction! Are you afraid of this? I am more afraid that this people have so much confidence in their leaders that they will not inquire for themselves of God whether they are led by Him. I am fearful they settle down in a state of blind self-security, trusting their eternal destiny in the hands of their leaders with a reckless confidence that in itself would thwart the purposes of God in their salvation, and weaken that influence they could give to their leaders, did they know for themselves, by the revelations of Jesus, that they are led in the right way.”

The current FLDS dilemma is a breathtaking fulfillment of Brigham’s fears.  I want to know when it started.  How was one president of this community able to hijack the free agency of an entire society?  I would say that this phenomenon is played out equally in the LDS Church, yet if President Monson instructed all the elders to take a plural wife, the entire membership would defect before sunset.  Not so in the FLDS.

Do not be fooled into thinking that this is strictly a case of Warren-worship.  Had a different man – say brother Lyle – been the one to succeed Rulon, HE then would have become the presumptive “prophet” and mouthpiece of God.  It matters not who sits in this role – the idolatry centers in the worship of the iconic station.  The people yearn for the cozy, comfy reassurance that the guy who presides over the church is the conductor of the train that is taking them straight to the Celestial Kingdom.  Nothing else matters.  Follow him and you will automatically be saved and exalted.

Bottom line – right now, the vast majority of the sheep in the fold are complying with every word which proceeded forth from the lips of Warren.  The media are even reporting that Warren recently selected a small group of men whose assignment will be to perform all of the copulation and impregnation tasks in the community.  Would you comply?

Warren is fixated on being sprung from his incarceration.  If, by some cosmic anomaly, Warren were to find himself back in Creekerville, would he be warmly received?  Would you take him back into your trust?  Would you hand over your 13-year-old daughters so that he can have midnight orgies with them?

I am saddened by the immense oppression being foisted on the community by state and federal government agencies.  Every department of the town’s local government is being investigated.  The townspeople must conclude that this is a case of the wicked persecuting the righteous.  Some might conclude that God is just trying to get their attention for having blindly trusted in the perverted arm of flesh.  You decide.

What will it take to get the honorable men and women of the community to wake up and realize that they have been led miserably astray?  This is the epitome of apostasy.  These are choice Israelite children of the Restoration, and now they are now fully steeped in idolatry.  Thankfully, it seems there is now a steady stream of defectors who are waking up and risking everything to come out into the sunlight of truth and freedom. God bless them!

Kool-Aid Time

Rumors are bubbling out of the Creek that things are devolving rapidly.  The nightly news is showing pictures of trampolines and tricycles stacked up ready for sale.  Warren or his brother must be exacting ever more oppressive demands of the beleaguered congregants.  No more toys, no more trampolines, no more 4-wheeling, and NO MORE SEX !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Young single girls must walk around with wedding bands to give off the pretense of being married.  Families are being squeezed to cough up thousands more dollars for the "Prophet", for printing and mailing those asinine doomsday proclamations filled with gerunds (to the tune of hundreds of thousands of wasted dollars).

Warren wants the married adults to cease and desist from all marital conjugating.  The Jeffs hench-elders are grilling the husbands and wives to see if they are of-a-consummating their relationships.  God help anyone who conceives a child in this apocalyptic climate.

Under Jim (Warren [yes, 'Warren' really is his middle name !!!]) Jones in tragic Jonestown, Guyana, the vast majority of the followers stayed sucked in till the bitter end, glugging the cyanide-laced Kool-Aid in a frenzied ritual of blind complying.  What is there about the current events in the twin towns that is any different?

 . . . . or will these fundamentally decent and intelligent people (who once had a benevolent king) wake up from the fog of obsequiousness and slavery, and remember that God's political structures always incorporated checks and balances, and separation of powers?

So, which will it be - hundreds of puffy bodies of men, women and children lying under the hot sun and swarms of flies, or a mass ideological epiphany?  Word is - this suffocating, tyrannical cult dictatorship is squeezing so hard that it is squeezing the Creek's best and brightest out into the clean, fresh cathartic air of truth and reality.  Warren is a deviant, crazed monster (with grammar of a new making).  Do you have to be deprived of all your human dignities and possessions in order to accept that?  Is it so hard to realize that you have been bamboozled by a cult (not colt) megalomaniac - to admit that your marriages were choreographed by a mad man?  That's why we have a Savior, an atonement, a chance to repent and make amends.  What? - it's not your fault, because you were born into this Matrix?  That's no excuse.

Remember, you were chosen to come to this land at this time.  You covenanted with your Heavenly Father to be born into the Everlasting Covenant, into the fullness of the Gospel at a time when there would be false prophets like Jeffs, Hinckley and Monson.  These trials were crafted specifically for you.  Are you going to stand on true principle or be tossed to and fro with every wind of dogma?

This Warren insanity is the exquisite test - a perfect gauge of your mettle - of your faithfulness to eternal truths and not to the corruptible arm of sick Jeffs flesh.  Which will you drink? - the dews of heaven or the Kool-Aid of poisoning?

Critical Mass

You know me - the cogs in my brain are ever whirring around, trying to make sense of a nonsensical world.  I have been wondering about the FLDS dilemma.  I know (from what I've read) that when someone in the FLDS world realizes that Warren is a deviant child-molester, then that someone must immediately be cut off from the 10,000-member congregation.  I understand also that that person's wives and kids must then be assigned to a different family - a family that is still under the ether.

A mathematician might be able to figure this out better than me, but it seems that this process of realization will follow a certain graph, most likely an exponential one.  At first, one girl will flee her church captors, and her family will have to deal with the mysteries and unanswered questions.  "Where were you, dear?  Why don't you want to wait for uncle Warren?  Why are you angry with him?  What did he do to you that is causing you so much trauma?"

Most likely at least one set of family members will recognize the signs and come face to face with the abuse and treachery.  If that family has the courage, it will face the music and accept the instant excommunication and ostracism.  Let's fast-forward a little into the future and see how, pretty soon, a bunch of families will wake up and accept the terrible reality.  Perhaps some will even stand up to Warren's brother and his goons and begin to propagate the awful discovery to their fellow faithful.  After all, how many families can you reassign before there is no one left to take them all in?

At what number is critical mass achieved? - 1,000,  - -  5,000?  The FLDS people are very obedient.  They prefer to operate as a collective.  When a goodly fraction of that collective is made aware of Warren's perversions and the degradation of their virtuous daughters, will they finally revolt and throw off the tyranny of the man behind the curtain?  Whither will he run, and will he get there before law enforcement gets to him?  I was never good at equations, especially when they entail a humanitarian crisis of such unthinkable proportions.

Your math is as good as mine.

On a similar note, this situation reminds me of a skit I saw recently from Monty Python's Flying Circus -  
The Funniest Joke In The World.


The idea was that when a person happened upon this particular joke, it contained such lethal material that the reader instantly died - BRILLIANT !!!!!!!!

Escape From What?

A few years ago, Carolyin Jessop co-wrote a book titled ESCAPE.  I think hers was more of a philosophical escape than anything else.  Jessop received a college education and ran a business away from the twin towns.  It would be more accurate to say that she left her religion and ran off with her kids.  In her book there is much information which would be better described as tabloid entertainment than factual narrative.

Last week, a young woman who is alleged to have been one of Warren Jeffs' wives, ran from her previous residence and sought refuge.  She reportedly sought protection with the family of one of the men who left the FLDS fold (under Lyle Jeffs) when he learned of Warren's molestation of his own 12-year-old girl partners.

So I have a question.  I know Warren had more wives than one. Who knows - maybe 100?  He was incarcerated over five years ago (August, 2006).  Presumably, those scores of wives (ranging from 12 to 92) must have been housed somewhere.  Recent photos show dozens of these very young wives all together in pastel prairie dresses.  I can imagine that Warren didn't want anybody else messing with them while he was away awaiting his miraculous liberation.  So where did they all get put?  Were they all together, or were they grouped in several locations?  Were they free to speak to the media?  NO.  Were they free to mingle with other community members and reveal their group sex party experiences?  I don't think so. 

This latest escapee appears to have had to go to extreme lengths to get free.  Why?  Was she being detained against her will - or, worse still - was she being compulsorily medicated to facilitate the restraint?  I don't know.  Where are the other young sister wives of hers?  Presumably, they are all still being concealed/confined in some way.  Maybe they get to sew and sing hymns, or even study the writings of Prophet Warren S. Jeffs.  Do they go to school?  NAHH!  Are they free to go into town or drive around, or even talk to their chums on the cell-phone?  I bet not.  Do they know what a computer is?  Would they even know what to think or do if they were to be liberated?

Has there been more than one who has fled this detention situation?  Do the other ninety-nine want to flee also, but cannot?  Can they escape and, if so, escape from what? 

If they do escape, what tales will they tell?  I can think of more than a few entities who are itching to get their hands on them.  How healthy would that be?

Is He Ready?

Warren is doing just about everything necessary to get himself over to the other side - and why not?  I would.  I mean -- when you commit adultery or pedophilia - or whatever the word is for the debauchery he has committed, why would you want to stay on this planet?  If you have a conscience, if you recognize the severity of these types of sins, you realize that the least you can do towards atonement is to die.  In earlier times, fellow church brethren could oblige and help you take the step.  Nowadays, in this pathetic, namby-pamby culture we live in, you are on your own.  If Warren keeps starving himself, and if the prison staff don't get in the way, we could be observing his early and timely passing very soon.  The drawback is that he may be cherished as a martyred prophet rather than as a disgraced pervert.

My question is this - if the Lord's prophet is dead and buried, will Lyle step in as the rightful heir?  Is he next in line? Is he the senior member of the 12 or the 7 or the 3 (or however many it is)?  Is he secretly aching for the chance to wrest control like Warren did?  Is he ready?  Is the Lord ready?  At the very moment when Warren takes his last gasp, will God resume this ostensibly unending stream of revelations by talking to Lyle ad infinitum?  Is it natural and normal for the thousands of faithful FLDS congregants to simply transfer their unstinting obeisance to the brother-in-waiting? 

I remember the passage in Moroni 10: 3-5, where we are admonished to test purported revelations.  If we are presented with the claim of prophecy or revelation from another party, we must study, ponder and pray, and ask God if these things are true.  Only after receiving direct personal confirmation from above that the alleged utterances are from Him are we to embrace them.  I pray that all my fellow saints in all the remnant communities will remember not to skip this critical step.

An Open Letter

Someone just sent me this.  Very interesting!

 This letter was signed by William E. Jessop and Willie R. Jessop

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Unraveling

The leadership configuration of the FLDS is currently unraveling.  As wretched behaviors have been uncovered, the questions are starting to arise.  Who participated with Jeffs in his lasciviousness?  Who had full knowledge of it (besides the FBI)?  Whom is law enforcement pursuing for further prosecutions, or are the cops just going to give all the other actors a free pass now that they have nabbed the kingpin?

To me it all seems very clear cut.  Certain people knew and participated (Willie named some of them on TV today), and the rest of the folks were as oblivious as I was. 

Time for decisions. Time to draw a line in the sand. Time to come down squarely on one side or the other.  Either you are with Warren and his pedophilia, or you are with true principle, righteousness and the welfare of your young'uns.  You have a little time still to work things through because, if you don't have the Internet, you aren't seeing the news or reading my cynical sermons yet.  I'm gonna trust that the Creekerville rumor-mill is more efficient than texting, that the critical mass of truth and reality is already cresting, and that Willie Jessop will soon be received as an Abinadi rather than a Judas.  Just don't kill him for having the courage to tell the truth.

On the topic of unraveling, I am reminded (by the media) that an alleged 300 families were dismantled by Warren for God-knows-what reason.  Many men were simply banished, never to be heard from again.  Their wives and children were taken in by other men.  This went on for years.  Presumably, by now, these transplanted wives have had additional children by their new husbands.  How do you unravel that?  If the ousted men were honorable, and were ejected merely because Warren wanted their wives or kids, can they now return and have their families restored?  Can all the re-configured, reassigned families be unraveled and put back to their correct arrangement?  Can the clock be turned back?  Can a community of sincere believers come to terms with the fact that it was swept up in a whirlwind of deceit and evil?  Can they reconcile the precious truths of the Gospel and the betrayal that sprang out of the idolatry and priestcraft that crept in unnoticed by most?

Cult Rumors

cult/kəlt/Noun

1. A system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object.

2. A relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister.

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"The word cult pejoratively refers to a group whose beliefs or practices are considered abnormal or bizarre. The word originally denoted a system of ritual practices. The narrower, derogatory sense of the word is a product of the 20th century, especially since the 1980s, and is considered subjective. It is also a result of the anti-cult movement which uses the word in reference to groups seen as authoritarian, exploitative and that are believed to use dangerous rituals or mind control. The word implies a group which is a minority in a given society." (Wikipedia)

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One of the news channels had Steve Hassan speaking about cults last night.  "Cult" is another one of those exquisite weapon words.  If you don't like another person's religion, just call it a cult.  Clearly there is disagreement over a strict definition of the word 'cult'.  Nevertheless, there seems to be consensus that it can rightly be applied to situations like Jim Jones' Jonestown People's Temple mass suicide event in 1978.  We have heard the word used regarding Sun Myung Moon (the Moonies) and also to the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh who set up an enormous cult commune in Oregon (only later to run into immense legal problems and deportation).

Yours Truly, Renn Oldsbuster, has few peers more committed to the ideal of religious freedom, so I am prompted to wonder if, in a reclusive cult, religious freedom can suffer its greatest restraint.  It has become ridiculously convenient for outside critics to call the FLDS community a cult, so does it really satisfy the definition?  There are rumors being circulated by ex-FLDS people that certain cult-like conditions are developing in the FLDS society.  Are they true?  Are the people free to come and go and associate freely with whomever they choose?

It is being rumored that Jeffs' brother has taken temporary control over the community, that he has demanded that followers sell everything they can and bring the cash to him to fund Warren's legal efforts.  Purportedly, members are now forbidden to use smartphones or the Internet, or to watch TV or read a newspaper.  WHY ???  If this is true, could it be an attempt to guarantee that members do not learn of the horrible (alleged) bad acts committed by their venerated leader?

Some have suggested that, with a complete media blackout, the pro tem FLDS leader can spin the news of his brother Warren's conviction as a terrible miscarriage of justice - the proof of gross religious persecution.  If a large number of the members can thus be fooled into continuing to follow deceitful direction and false information, does that not then constitute cult-like control?  Do they even have a clue that they are not being told the truth when all news and information is filtered or manipulated?

Surely this has not been the case under all FLDS leaders?  There have been periods of openness - Glasnost.  Not always have other, fellow Fundamentalist Mormons been derided as "APOSTATES".   Why now?  Is it a carefully orchestrated cover-up?  Can the cover-up go on much longer?

With inevitable leaks, is there now a schism brewing?  Are there some community members (aligned with William E. Jessop) who have repudiated Jeffs' idiosyncrasies (excuse the euphemism), and who want FLDS-ville to return to the kind of society envisioned by Joseph Smith?  Are their numbers growing, as more and more members discover the inescapable truth and draw a line in the sand, morally distancing themselves from priestcraft and mind-control, accepting that they were temporarily and innocently misled by dangerous one-man-infallibility deceptions?

Are the "cult" rumors true, or it is time to make sure that they at least STOP being true?