Crackpot Gallery

Since yesterday's reversal of Warren Jeffs' "rape as a fantasy-accomplice" conviction, the crackpots have been coming out of the woodpile. I just can't resist posting some of the absurd crap they have been spouting (their words are in italics).

FLORA JESSOP: "If Warren gets a new trial, I'm afraid that the FLDS are going to kill Elissa. They'll make it look like an accident, but they will kill her."
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JON KRAKAUER: “I, for one, do not doubt that there may have been a political basis for this decision, given the five members of the — the five justices on the Supreme Court’s close ties to the LDS church and the LDS Church’s own concerns with sexual abuse and what this says about, you know, how you can tie someone who compelled the abuse but didn’t actually commit the rape, how he can be held accountable. That’s — that’s a scary thing for some members high up in the LDS church.”
"The one — the one silver lining in this is if Texas — if Utah decides not to retry Warren, he will be more quickly extradited to Texas, where he faces very serious charges, much more serious, not as an accomplice to rape but an actual rapist.
And the evidence, in the raid of 2008, they uncovered a treasure trove of evidence, including a tape recording and a transcript of Warren raping a 12-year-old girl. Actually, she had been 11 until 24 days earlier.
She had been forced to marry Jeffs. She was raped in the temple on a special bed. Two of Jeffs’s older wives participated in the rape. It was tape recorded. Every grunt and perverted prayer and command to this girl."
"Things are getting — the people in Short Creek, the loyal followers of Warren, are getting all hinked up by this. They believe, you know, the propaganda about how this shows that Warren is innocent and the state is persecuting him and we should rise up."
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CAROLYN JESSOP: "As far as what information that we’re getting, that’s leaking out, apparently the reports are it’s still occurring. It’s a strong belief in the FLDS, that if the leadership authorizes an underage marriage that you are not to question this. It is a real tragedy." – ( . . and this after Fox 13's Ben Winslow reported yesterday that Mark Shurtleff has spies within the FLDS community who are reassuring him that new "underage marriages" have not been occurring any more [Renn]).
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JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: "This opinion, I find a disgrace. I had to read this opinion twice even to understand what they were saying was wrong with these jury instructions. It is the very definition of a technicality. It has nothing to do with his guilt or innocence."
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MARK SHURTLEFF told Rod Decker of channel 2 news that this was his worst loss before the Utah Supreme Court.
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So, my responses are:

TO FLORA:
Stop sniffing so much glue. You will become progressively dumber with each tube you sniff!

TO CRACKAUER:
Stop sniffing Flora's glue. The LDS Church hates the FLDS more than you do, so any connection between the Court and the Church would surely have impelled it to rule against Warren and not in his favor. You are another one of those liberal idiots who thinks the Constitution is like a father who won't give the keys of his Cadillac to his twelve-year-old son, so it should be abolished. Remember that the the vigilante justice you crave will eventually take your freedoms away, too.

Plus, you can yak all you want about a sex tape but, if it exists, it was illegally seized, and it will NEVER be allowed into evidence. What law-enforcement official leaked it to you, and how is it proof of a crime that cannot have occurred? All you are is a pathetic sensation-monger.

TO CAROLYN:
Get your facts straight. If you are so right about the ubiquitous rigidity of FLDS leadership, don't you think that no sane member would dare to contravene its rules and marry an underage girl anyway? Live by the sword - die by the sword (or the American legal system).

TO TOOBIN:
I had no idea that you were such an idiot, too. The jury instructions may have been what merited the reversal, but the charges themselves were just as unconstitutional. If the charges and the crime were truly valid all along, you will soon see Shurtleff agreeing to a swift retrial, and, if that happens, I'll give you one of my wives. If the Court could have found any grounds on which to uphold the conviction, its deep ties to the Utah establishment would have sealed the deal. Come and visit Utah, and you will learn that hatred of polygamists is hard-coded into the local DNA. Polygamists only win when all other avenues for bigotry and persecution have been exhausted.

TO SHURTLEFF:
Get a life! I don't believe that all the fuss you make about nailing Warren (and bungling his conviction) is sincere. I believe it is all politics and grandstanding. Elissa Wall has not been entirely truthful, and you know it. Go catch some real criminals.

I made a point of re-reading the Supreme Court's opinion and, in particular, its surprisingly cringing apology and disclaimer. You will notice that the Court makes reference to the "underlying crime". This is baffling because, if Warren Jeffs is now once again presumed to be innocent, and Allen Steed has not been convicted, what possible "CRIME" could they talking about? Amid the rest of their unanimous Constitutional brilliance, how could they have overlooked this major boo-boo?

"We regret the effect our opinion today may have on the victim of the underlying crime, to whom we do not wish to cause additional pain. However, we must ensure that the laws are applied evenly and appropriately, in this case as in every case, in order to protect the constitutional principles on which our legal system is based."

OOPS !!!!

Performing An Illegal Ceremony

I found this amazing quote from an article (see the link to the full article below):

" . . . Four more trials are scheduled for the end of the year, with charges including bigamy, performing an illegal ceremony and sexual assault of a child. - - - - "
FLDS trial jury pools dry up
GOSANANGELO - Saturday, June 26, 2010

I confess I did not know that Texas was going to pull this "performing an illegal ceremony" B.S. !!! I know that Utah played that game over a hundred years ago, charging LDS clerics with a crime for solemnizing plural marriages. In Utah, at least such crimes are now misdemeanors and are NEVER prosecuted. I really sincerely thought that our modern, diverse, politically-correct society had abandoned such insanity. Does Texas seriously think it can get a conviction to stick for the crime of performing a ceremony?

Next they will be incarcerating people for celebrating the Holy Eucharist or performing baptisms. What is a religious ceremony to government? Didn't that question get put to rest in the Lukumi case? ( . . you can't punish someone for sacrificing a chicken in a Santeria church ritual). Doesn't the First Amendment say that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion (like ecclesiastical CEREMONIES !!!)?

Let's look at this in the sober light of my brain. If I get three gay guys over to my house, and I position them in my living room, and I wave my hands in the air, and I pronounce some kind of abracadabra incantation over their heads (in order to imaginarily "marry" them into a three-way, polygamous, homosexual union), have I arrogated to myself a power normally reserved only to the state? Is my fantasy performance viewed as sufficiently impactful that it rises to the standard of an illegal ceremony? Have I usurped the marriage traditions of the pretty, great state in which I live? Are fantasy, void, informal rituals conducted in the privacy of my home now subject to state scrutiny and prosecution? I fear I could soon do five years for having married my dog to my cat last week in a beautifully touching, backyard ceremony.

I am DYING to watch that trial. If any prosecutor in this case has half a brain, he or she will wake up, smell some coffee and call up the FLDS and beg them to agree to the charges being dropped. Wait, no, I just remembered that Barbie Wartthug will find a way to guarantee a conviction regardless. Perhaps, when she gets roundly overturned again by a sane appeals court, she can be burned at the stake for heresy against the Lord's only true religion.

GO FIGURE, GOSANANGELO

What's In A Name?

I noticed that Eldorado Texas resident, Abram Harker JEFFS, was sentenced this week to a 17-year prison term for having "married" a fifteen-year-old. I bet a lot of our ancestors are glad they are not alive today. They would have been branded as child-molesters and charged with sexual assault. The esteemed Mormon prophet and church-founder, Joseph Smith, would likely have gotten 20 years or at least execution. He is fortunate that his last name wasn't something despicable like 'Jeffs' or 'Kingston'. It appears that much of the guilt imputed to Abram Jeffs came from the fact that his brother happens to be Warren Jeffs, the second-most hated man in America (behind BP's Tony "Oil-Spill" Hayward).

I am reminded of the events of a few years ago, when Philistine University of Utah president, Bernie (Hitler) Machen announced that he didn't want anyone whose last name was "Kingston" to attend the U of U.

I recently re-watched the rather didactic movie, District 9. As gruesome and downright offensive as this movie was, it really is one of the most brilliantly presented stories since The Matrix. In District 9, the recently arrived aliens are relegated to a reservation or ghetto. They are universally misunderstood, despised and mistreated. The show's leading character, Vikus Van Der Moewe, regularly refers to the aliens as "Prawns" (due to their unmistakably crustacean appearance). He willfully mocks and destroys their incubating offspring. In the end, he actually becomes one of the aliens, and we learn that the aliens are infinitely more technologically advanced than the humans who are abusing them. One message of the show is that the good white folk of South Africa have been unbelievably brutal toward a minority within their midst.

I am genuinely disgusted with the residents and public officials of Tom Green and Schleicher Counties of Texas. The frenzied hysteria of vilification and bullying has driven ordinarily-sane Americans to inflict vicious and spiteful prison terms on perfectly innocent neighbors and their young families. A single juror could have nullified these sentences - could have bridled the frenzied mob and stood up to Barbie and her SturmTruppen.

I have decided that we Americans are good at developing what I call "Weapon Words". If we dislike a person or a community, we say they live in a "compound"; that their religion is a "cult". These words are not inherently pejorative, but they become so through their use. "Nazi" (from national) and "Nigger" (from black) are good examples.

So now the word "Jeffs" has become a curse word. If you are a Jeffs, you had better change your name to something more tasteful, like "Jeffries". (George Burns changed his name from Birnbaum). Merely being a "Jeffs" could easily add a ten-year enhancement to your sentence (as it may well have done just this week).

The Bible speaks of a day when " . . the love of men shall wax cold" for each other. I think we are in that day now, if we can hand out 17 and 75 year sentences to people because we despise their religion - the religion of our recent, and not-so-recent, forefathers.

I pray that the illegal invasion of the YFZ Ranch and the unlawful search and seizure of FLDS property will soon be indicted in a court of appeal saner than Barbie's.

Free Merrianne!

Okay, I’ve had just about all I can take of this stupidity from Texas CPS. Face it, folks, the YFZ raid was a horribly botched invasion almost unprecedented in U.S. history (let’s not forget the 1953 Church/State cabal-raid of Short Creek). It wasted tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer money and is swiftly becoming a monumental humiliation for Texas government officials at every level. If law-enforcement and lawmakers wanted to make this unusual, FLDS religious community look bad, they have virtually achieved the opposite. The Texas Supreme Court affirmed the wrongfulness of the removal of over 400 children, and made Judge Barbara Walther look foolish and out-of-control.

As of this writing, now only three of the YFZ ranch’s children remain to be non-suited. Despite the frantic gyrations of Natalie Malonis in her efforts to keep control of Teresa Jeffs, CPS has accepted the obvious truth that Teresa is as “safe” as her siblings and needs no more government supervision than any other Texas citizen. It remains to be seen which attorney took the extraordinary license of leaking details of Teresa Jeffs’ case and the associated depositions. While CPS is abandoning the vast majority of the cases, some factions are clinging desperately to the thin remnants of a bad case.

Now all eyes are turned towards Merrianne Jessop, the girl from the Warren Jeffs wedding-kiss photo. The photo may well be disallowed as evidence improperly seized, perhaps eventually making Merrianne’s case moot. Yet, while that argument drags on, Merrianne sits glumly in forced foster care awaiting a distant September trial to learn her fate. I do not pretend to understand FLDS marriage traditions. I think people should marry as adults, NOT as children. The vast majority of Americans recoiled at the sight of a 50-year-old kissing a twelve-year-old. We do not understand this culture. A Utah jury felt sufficient contempt for Warren Jeffs that it convicted him for rape as an accomplice for condoning a young monogamous teenage marriage. Jeffs is likely to spend many more years in prison.

Despite CPS’s distaste for this misunderstood culture, it has acknowledged that the YFZ families are cooperative and capable of caring for their children. After all, Texas likely has infinitely more families with greater challenges and who are more worthy of government intervention and its precious resources. So why the dogged insistence on keeping Merrianne? Merrianne’s younger siblings have been non-suited. That means that CPS has concluded that Merrianne’s parent(s) is/are cooperative and have demonstrated the ability and propensity to keep their children physically and emotionally safe. Those siblings are not married yet, but apparently CPS is confident that they are not at risk of an “early” marriage or underage sex. So, what are we to believe about Merrianne? Her alleged abuser will be safely incarcerated until she is in her twenties. If, in FLDS religious terms, Merrianne is still betrothed (or “married”), then no other honorable FLDS male will venture near her in this lifetime. If the spirit of the legal moves has been to punish her parents, then why is the punishment being inflicted upon her? Why is she in forced detention with a second Texas foster family?

In a recent DCFS custody case, a Utah woman’s ten children were forcibly removed and placed in foster care (ostensibly because their father disapproved of earrings on teen girls). The oldest son, Kevin (15), was deemed too old for a foster-care family, so Judge Andrew Valdez ordered him into a juvenile detention facility (ARTEC) where he was emotionally, physically and sexually assaulted. After several months of torment, Kevin succeeded in escaping from detention, and he vanished for several days. After his escape, Kevin wrote lengthy letters to the press and to Judge Valdez, chronicling the abuses he had suffered in government custody. Evidently acknowledging the horror of the experience, the Judge agreed to allow Kevin to return home to his family, where he was undoubtedly safer than in any other place. Later, all but two of his siblings were also returned home, and the case was closed. I mention this simply because I see parallels.

CPS/DCFS has well-worn techniques it likes to use when it becomes an adversary of your family. It makes allegations based on rumors. It elevates those rumors to the status of “evidence” (through a practice known as “courtroom demonstration”). It demands that you admit to abuse before it will agree to consider capitulating. Then, if you admit to abuse or neglect, you may not get your children back. You MUST cooperate with the “service-plan”, or you will lose your children. Not cooperating with CPS means you are a “bad” parent. That would be akin to being found guilty simply for invoking the Fifth Amendment. That whole “best-interests-of-the-child” mumbo-jumbo is just a supercilious way of saying that CPS knows better than you do what is best for your child.

So now Barbara Jessop is in the spotlight again, this time for providing her daughter Merrianne with a cell phone and encouraging her to do everything possible to convince her “captors” that she needs to go home (no duhh !!). Merrianne has experienced deep depression while in foster care. The first foster family was ashamed to go out in public with Merrianne because of her unconventional clothing.

CPS will say that Merrianne should be permanently removed, because her mother is uncooperative and disobedient. Obey CPS or you are a bad parent! Perhaps we should all turn our children over to CPS as soon as they are born, because, after all, CPS is a far wiser parent than we can ever be. What percentage of American parents would not try to get a cell-phone in the hands of their daughters after they were kidnapped (regardless of whether or not their removal was at the hands of the State)? I know I would. I know that Utah mother was overjoyed when her 15-year-old found the courage and initiative to flee his confinement – obedience to DCFS be damned! DCFS rarely even obeyed the judge’s orders.

Why can Texas not see the writing on the wall? Barbara Walther and Natalie Malonis are both risking disgrace for their hubris and abuse of power, and several shamed agency heads have already slunk off into early “retirement” following this mushrooming P.R. nightmare. Let the poor girl go home! Look at her elder sister, Betty Jessop! She is yet another young teen girl who was removed against her will from her father. She loves her family. She loves her life at the ranch. She loves her community and her religion. She loves her relatives and her ecclesiastical leaders. Upon turning 18, in the face of intense opposition, Betty moved heaven and earth to rejoin her community. Does CPS truly think it can re-program her sister, Merrianne, and forcibly separate her from her lifelong culture? What type of culture is Texas CPS offering her as an alternative, when Texas’s private foster care system has been shown to be the worst in the nation, and where a child is four times more likely to die?

Admit it Texas! You blew it! You lost! Walk away! Drop these last three cases. Leave these people alone. Stop all the hypocritical sanctimoniousness. Send Merrianne home to her loving family, and quit quibbling over a mother texting her daughter when you can’t even get your own attorneys to stop leaking confidential legal pleadings.